Funeral for a Friend

25

Cat huddled in a window seat in the far corner of the great room in Stride’s cottage. She was invisible to everyone else. The police talked about her, but no one talked to her, and she hated that. She didn’t like listening to other people making decisions about her future as if she was just a bystander.

Stride and Serena were both there. So were Guppo, Brayden, and four other uniformed officers. Brayden had a wrapped bandage extending below the cuff of his T-shirt. He was in pain where the bullet had grazed him, and she could see his mouth grimace when he moved. She kept trying to catch his eye. He knew she was there, but he refused to look her way. Now that it was over, he was pretending as if the kiss had never happened.

There was an urgency among the people in the room. She could feel it. Shots had been fired, a police officer had been wounded, and suddenly, this was about more than a stalker sending anonymous notes. She heard Serena talking about attempted murder. She heard her saying that if it was Wyatt Miller, he was not going to stop with one attempt. Cat believed her. She already had a sixth sense about the future that she wouldn’t have admitted to anyone else.

People were going to get shot.

People were going to die.

Because of her.

“What did you find up on Hawk Ridge?” Stride asked.

Guppo shifted his girth in his chair. “We found where the shooter hid out on the hillside. There were lots of 9 mm shell casings. It looks like he unloaded the entire magazine at them. Brayden and Cat are lucky to be alive.”

Lucky, Cat thought bitterly. Oh, yeah. She felt lucky.

“What else?” Stride asked.

“He tore his shirt on some sharp branches and left behind a patch of fabric. Tie-dye.”

“Any DNA?”

“No, but I went over to Hoops, and two of the bartenders gave me affidavits that they remembered Wyatt Miller wearing tie-dye shirts. Brayden confirmed that Wyatt was wearing the same style the other night at the brewery. That was enough for Judge Edblad. He signed off on a warrant, and we went into Wyatt’s apartment an hour ago.”

Cat called from the corner. “Did you find the box under the bed? Did you find the photos he took?”

All the heads in the room snapped around to stare at her. It was as if they’d forgotten she was there.

“I’m sorry, Cat,” Guppo replied. “No, the box wasn’t there. Either he has it with him, or he moved it because he figured we might get in and do a search. But we did find something else. At the back of a kitchen drawer, we found an open package of green Sharpies that match what was used to write the notes to Cat. He was definitely lying when he told Brayden that he had no idea where the marker came from.”

Stride shook his head. “Where the hell is this son of a bitch?”

“We don’t know. We’ve got his photo out there and the license plate of his car. Everybody’s looking for him, boss. I left a uniform to watch his apartment building, and we’ve got somebody down at Hoops. Apparently, Wyatt also does fill-in shifts at Va Bene, so we’re watching there, too. As soon as we spot him, we’ll bring him in. I got Judge Edblad to do a specific order for a GSR test. If we can establish that he fired a weapon, that should be enough to hold him over while we look for more evidence.”

“That’s good work, Max,” Stride said. Then he called to Cat and jabbed a finger at her. “Until we find this guy, I don’t want you leaving the house.”

Cat shrugged. “Whatever.”

He was treating her like a child again. For a few minutes the previous day, he’d talked to her like a real person. A woman, an adult, who was smart and sensitive and sexual. But not anymore.

“I bought a security system,” Stride added. “We’ll have motion-sensitive cameras on the front and back doors.”

“Is that for him or for me?” Cat asked sullenly.

Her comment cast a pall of uncomfortable silence over the room. Stride didn’t answer, and his face showed no apology. Cat shot a look at Serena, asking her to stand up for her, but Serena was in mother mode now.

“It’s only until we have Wyatt in custody,” she said to Cat. “We’re trying to lock him up. Not you.”

“Right.”

Stride bulldozed over her unhappiness. “Is that everything, Max? Are we done?”

“Yes, sir. For now.”

The meeting broke up, and everyone began to disperse. A few of them looked over at Cat and then looked quickly away. She expected something from Brayden, a smile, a glance, anything to acknowledge that things had changed between them, but he turned his back and headed for the front door without a word.

Cat refused to let him walk away from her. Not like that.

“Brayden.”

The young cop stopped. He glanced at Stride, then headed across the room toward Cat. He made sure no one else was in earshot around them, but he also kept a safe distance, which matched the distance that she saw in his eyes.

“I can’t talk, Cat,” he said in a clipped voice. “I have to help Stride with the security cameras.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say to me?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, are you going to tell me if you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” Brayden replied. “You don’t need to be concerned. They patched me up and gave me an aspirin. That’s all I needed.”

Cat stood up from the window seat, and Brayden jumped backward as if she’d stepped out of the infectious disease ward. She kept her voice low. “I want to talk about what happened between us.”

“Not now.”

“Why, is this conversation going to take long, Brayden? I’m not an idiot. Obviously, you’re going to tell me it was a mistake, a moment of weakness, you never should have let it happen. Right? How hard is that to say?”

“Cat, please.”

“I know you liked it. I could feel it.”

“Later. We’ll talk about this later.”

“Does Stride know?” she asked. “Did you tell him?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m not going to tell him, either, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m not going to get you fired.”

“I’m not worried about that,” he replied.

“Are you still my babysitter? Or did you make up an excuse to get out of it?”

Brayden took a step closer. His strength gave out a kind of aura that wrapped itself around her. “Stride gave me a chance to bail on this assignment. I said no, I wanted to keep going.”

“Because you want to be with me?”

He ran his hands back through his hair and left it messy. He had the look of a man desperately searching for control. She’d seen that look on men’s faces before, and they never found what they wanted. “Because I want to keep you safe. But there have to be ground rules, Cat. What happened between us can’t happen again. If you can’t accept that, then I’ll ask someone else to take over. You’re right, the kiss was a mistake. A huge mistake. That’s just reality. My job is to protect you, and I can’t do that if I lose my focus.”

“Do I make you lose your focus, Brayden?”

He didn’t answer, but she stared into his eyes and saw what she was looking for. He wanted her. Then he shook himself and broke the spell.

“I have to go,” he said.

Colleen Hunt was so caught up in the sketch she was drawing that she didn’t hear the knocking on her apartment door. When it stopped, and then started again, she finally looked up. The knock wasn’t the big, confident pounding that Curt usually made when he came to pick her up. This was a nervous little scratching, like a stray dog begging to be let in out of the cold.

She put her sketch pad on the coffee table and went to the door, swaying a little as she did. Her feet were bare on the linoleum. She wore a knee length yellow wrap dress with a lily of the valley design. She was smoking her second joint, which gave her dreamy, staring eyes and a wicked little smile. Curt said she was at her prettiest when she had a post-weed glow. Colleen liked the confident feeling it gave her, as if she could get whatever she wanted. Her artwork was best when she was high, too.

“Who is it?” she asked.

A panicked, barely audible voice hissed back. “It’s Wyatt.”

Colleen hesitated, then opened the door a few inches. “What are you doing here?”

“Can I come in?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Please, Colleen.”

“I think you should go. I know you’re a perv, Wyatt.”

“Oh, man, not you, too. I’m not! I didn’t do anything! The police searched my apartment, and they’re trying to arrest me. A friend called from Va Bene. The cops are over there. Hoops, too. And there’s a squad car across the street from the building. I had to sneak in through the back. I don’t even want to go upstairs to my place, because someone might be inside. Just a few minutes? Please, Colleen, I need to think!”

She sighed and opened the door wider, and Wyatt came inside like a freight train careening off the tracks. He went to the blinds and peered outside, then backed away from the window. He sat down on the sofa but didn’t stay there for more than a few seconds before he stood up again. He slipped his orange bandanna off his head and twisted it nervously between his hands.

“Jeez, Wyatt, chill,” Colleen told him. She walked to the sofa and plucked her joint out of a heavy glass ashtray she’d sculpted in high school. “You want a puff? You need to relax.”

He sat down again. “No. I can’t do that now. I told you what’s going on! It’s nuts! I don’t know what to do!”

“Talk to the police,” Colleen replied.

“And tell them what? Do you know what they think I did? They think I shot a cop!”

“Did you?”

“No! I swear, no! I don’t understand why any of this is happening to me!”

Colleen sat down next to him on the sofa. Wyatt was a wreck. She handed him a tissue to wipe his eyes and blow the snot from his nose. He hadn’t showered, and he smelled. His sunburnt cheeks looked extra-pink, and she could see all of the tiny blood vessels. He tugged on his dreadlocks as if he were about to wrap the ropes around his throat. She smiled an airy, weedy smile at him, and her dark eyes sucked him in and calmed him down. She put a hand on his knee.

“Listen, Wyatt. There’s no use pretending. I saw your pervy pics.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Amazon box you keep you under your bed. Cat and I went into your apartment. She found the box where you keep your stash, the one with all the pics. The evidence was all there. All the times you followed her. All the times you hung around outside her window. All those pictures you took of her naked. It was really creepy. And the gun, too. It was in the box. Is that the gun you shot the cop with?”

“I didn’t do that! I don’t even own a gun!”

“Well, what do you want me to say? We saw it, Wyatt.”

“It’s not mine!” he insisted. “There’s no box! I don’t have any box under my bed. There are no pics, no gun. This is a nightmare. Jesus!”

Colleen sucked in smoke from the joint between her fingers, and closed her eyes. “You’re so tense. Come on, relax. Get high with me.”

“Are you crazy? Not now!”

“Get high with me, and then we can fuck.”

“What? What about Curt?”

“Oh, who cares about Curt? I broke it off with him.”

“You did? When? Why?”

She shrugged. “I don’t need him anymore. Come on, I’m horny, let’s do it. I know that’s what you want.”

“You. Are. Nuts. I swear. You’re out of your mind. I never should have listened to you. I wish you’d never told me about Cat.”

“Me?” Colleen asked, as the corner of her lips bent curiously upward. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“What am I—” Wyatt began, his face a mask of incomprehension. “Come on, Colleen. This was all you. You told me about this incredible girl who was on the cover of People and how I should try to meet her. You said you and Curt could work it out for me.”

Colleen blinked, and each blink felt slow in front of her eyes. “Wow, is that the story you’re going to tell the police? Because they really aren’t going to believe that.”

“It’s not a story. It’s the truth!”

She shook her head carefully back and forth. “That’s not how I remember it. I remember you had a copy of that magazine in your apartment, and you were going on and on to me about how amazing this girl was and how you absolutely had to meet her. Honestly, it was a little weird, Wyatt. It felt a little off.”

“What?”

Colleen leaned forward and whispered. She licked his ear while she did. “But you’re right, you know. You have good taste. Cat is the most beautiful girl ever.”

Wyatt sprang off the sofa. He yanked at his beard with one hand as he paced. “What the hell is wrong with you today?”

“Nothing is wrong with me. I’m happy. I’m getting everything I want.”

Colleen stared at Wyatt through a mellow haze. She got off the sofa and did a little pirouette on the floor, and then she picked up the heavy ashtray from the coffee table and held it up so that the colors shone. “I made this in high school. Isn’t it pretty? It was supposed to be a gift. I made it for someone in my math class that I had this huge crush on. But I was too shy in those days to give it to them. I’m much better now.”

“You’re out of control. You need to come down.” Then he stopped, as if a new thought had popped into his head. “Hey, wait a minute. How did you and Cat get into my apartment?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said you and Cat went into my apartment, and Cat found a box under my bed. How the heck did you get in?”

Colleen giggled. “I have a key, silly.”

“What? No, you don’t.”

“Sure, I do. You gave me one.”

“I gave you a key so you could wait for a delivery, but then you gave it back to me.”

She laughed dismissively and waved her hand through the air. “Oh, that! I made a copy of the key before I gave it back to you. I figured it would come in handy someday. And I was right, it sure did.”

She laughed again, watching Wyatt struggle to figure it all out. He was so stupid! So stupid and slow! But even dumb boys caught on eventually. Wyatt’s face got this wonderful, horrified look as he put the pieces together of what she was saying. He glanced down at the coffee table and saw her sketch pad lying there, and Colleen just laughed and laughed as Wyatt picked it up and saw the sketch she’d drawn, the erotic, beautiful sketch of Cat in the nude. Just a few lines and shadows capturing the love of Colleen’s life. The girl she’d been obsessed with for years.

Lines and shadows drawn with the fine tip of a lime-green marker.

Wyatt ran for the door, but she’d expected that. She was waiting for it. She swung the heavy ashtray right into the back of his head and dropped him where he stood. He crumpled face down on the linoleum and moaned. He was dazed but not unconscious. Blood oozed through his dreadlocks, as if all the snakes had just enjoyed a meal. Languidly, as if she were walking on a cloud, Colleen went into her bedroom and retrieved the Amazon box that she’d put back under her own bed. If she’d had time, she would have caressed the photos, the way she did every day. But that could wait. She got the gun. She’d reloaded it after the morning at Hawk Ridge. She took a pillow from her bed, too, white and soft, filled with goose feathers.

Wyatt had made it to his hands and knees and was trying to crawl away, but she put a foot on his ass and pushed, and he collapsed back to his stomach.

Colleen wandered to her apartment door, opened it, and looked outside. The hallway was empty and quiet. No one was around. She closed the door again and took her phone and cued a song to her speakers. “Stray Cat Strut.” The name made her laugh. She turned up the volume as high as it could go and began singing along. Then she knelt beside Wyatt and put the pillow over the back of his head and shoved the barrel of the gun deep into the goose down.

“Meow,” Colleen said.

She fired into Wyatt’s head.