Funeral for a Friend

42

Cat sat with Brayden on the clifftop overlooking the Deeps.

The recent storms had swelled the current, making it a maelstrom of whitewater and whirlpools surging toward the lake. Late afternoon shadows draped the rocks. The river looked angry, and Cat could see a reflection of the water in Brayden’s turbulent mood. His dark eyes had a sunken quality, like twin caves. Greasy cowlicks hung from his hair, and he hadn’t shaved in days. When she put an arm around his shoulder, she could feel his whole body tensed into knots.

“Stride had to kill someone this year,” Cat told him softly. “I saw what it did to him. I saw how it haunted him.”

Brayden shook his head, not wanting comfort. “That was a good shoot. This isn’t the same thing at all. I made a mistake. I killed my — I killed an innocent person. She should be alive right now.”

“You also saved me.”

“Stride did that, not me. And he nearly died in the process.”

“Colly would have kept shooting. Who knows how many others she might have killed? You stopped her.”

“I screwed up,” Brayden insisted.

“I understand that you’re upset. It’s natural.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think I can live with this.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“I’m sorry, but you have no idea what I’m feeling. You don’t understand. You don’t know what I did.”

“Try me.”

But Brayden said nothing. He looked lost in a maze, with no way forward. As they sat there, he got a text on his phone, which he read with an expression that somehow deepened the darkness he felt. He shoved his phone back in his pocket without telling Cat who it was, or what it was.

Only seconds later, her own phone rang. It was Serena.

“Is Stride okay?” Cat asked, without even saying hello.

“He’s fine, Cat. This isn’t about him. Where are you?”

“At the Deeps.”

“Is Brayden Pell with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Cat, I want you to leave right now,” Serena told her. “Don’t ask any questions, and don’t say anything. Just come back home.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain when you get here. Don’t tell Brayden about this call, please. Just leave the Deeps by yourself.”

“Sure. Okay.”

Cat hung up the phone, but she made no effort to get up or leave. Instead, she twisted her body around on the rocks and sat cross-legged next to Brayden. Calmly, she brushed back her chestnut hair. She knew he could feel her looking at him, but he stared at the waterfall without acknowledging her.

“So do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Cat asked. “That was Serena. She wants me to leave right away. It’s about you.”

He shrugged. “They know. That was the text I got. They know.”

“Know what?”

“Who I am. I figured they’d find out eventually. Honestly, I’ve thought about coming forward for years, but if I did that, I knew she’d be exposed, too. It wasn’t my secret to share. I knew she didn’t want anyone to know about me. I didn’t care about myself or what would happen to me. I was trying to protect her.”

“Protect who?” Cat asked.

“Andrea.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Andrea Forseth was my birth mother,” Brayden told her. “She had a baby, and no one knew about it. She had me.”

Cat’s eyes widened with shock. Her lips parted, and she covered her mouth with her hand. Then, as the dimensions of the tragedy settled over her, she reached out and put her arms around Brayden’s neck. “No.”

He nodded, his face like granite. “Now she’s dead because of me.”

“Brayden, that was a terrible accident.”

“Really? Because it doesn’t feel like an accident. It feels like fate. Like I’m being punished for what I did seven years ago.”

“What did you do?”

Brayden looked around at the Deeps, as if he could see things here that she couldn’t. “I guess it doesn’t matter who I tell anymore. Now that they know, they won’t have any trouble proving it. I kept everything. It’s all in a box in my attic. Ned’s laptop. His papers. His gun. I guess I thought one day I’d tell Andrea what I did, how I’d saved her. Avenged her. But I can’t tell her about it now, can I? It’s too late.”

“Tell me,” Cat said.

Brayden lay back, stretching out on the rocks. He put his hands behind his head and stared at the trees and sky. He spoke quietly, his voice barely louder than the thunder of the river.

“I didn’t know I was adopted until I was in high school,” he said. “Grace and Bob Pell kept it a secret. It only slipped out when I was a senior, and Bob and I were having one of our usual arguments. He made some comment about someone like me never coming from his blood, and then he told me the truth. That was the first time I knew that I had another mother somewhere else. A mother who’d given me up.”

Cat stayed silent and let him speak.

“Bob Pell didn’t know who she was, how old she was, why she gave me up, anything like that. It was a closed adoption. The only thing he knew was that my birth mother was from Duluth. The weird thing is, knowing all of this finally gave me a purpose in life that I’d never had before. After high school, I moved to Duluth. I loved the lake, and God knows I wanted to get away from my father, but somewhere in my head, I also thought I could track down my birth mother. I wanted answers about where I came from. About why she abandoned me.”

“And you found her?” Cat murmured.

“It took me a while, because I had so little to go on. I started dating a nurse, and she helped me get access to hospital records. The thing is, the Pells had always told me that my birthday was in the summer. That was when they adopted me. Later, I discovered that Andrea had kept me for more than two months before giving me up. I guess when she had to go back to school, her parents told her she couldn’t keep me. I was looking in the wrong time frame and didn’t even know it, so for a long time I was at a dead end. Anyway, it took me three years, but eventually, the search led me to Andrea. A thirty-nine-year-old woman, married to a cop. She would have been seventeen when she had me.”

“Like me,” Cat said, with a new sense of wonder. “She was just like me.”

“That’s right.”

Suddenly, Cat pulled away from him and sprang to her feet. “That’s why you felt a connection with me, isn’t it? That’s why there was never anything between us. I reminded you of her. A teenager who gave away her baby. Just like your mother.”

“I told you it was complicated.”

“I can’t believe I acted like such a fool,” Cat said.

“You didn’t. Believe me. This was my problem.”

Cat sat down next to him again. “What did you do when you found out who she was?”

“I watched her. That’s all. I got to know her from a distance. I’d sit outside her house on the weekends when I had time. Or I’d follow her to the high school where she worked. I just wanted to get a sense of who she was. I thought about introducing myself, but I wasn’t ready to do that. And I was pretty sure that she wasn’t ready, either. A part of me was angry, too. How could she have given me up?”

“Because she loved you,” Cat said. “Because she wanted a better life for you. That’s why I did it.”

“I know. But understanding it isn’t the same thing as forgiving it. I spent some time with a therapist, trying to figure out how to forgive my mother. She told me the same thing. That sometimes letting a child go is an act of love.”

“Don’t think the guilt ever goes away,” Cat told him. “It doesn’t.”

He said nothing. His face was dark with his memories.

“One day that summer, early in August, I saw a man show up at her door. After he left, Andrea went outside and sat on the front steps, and I could tell she was very upset. Crying. I didn’t like seeing her that way. I wanted to know this man and what he’d said to her. So I tracked him down by the car he was driving, and I located the motel where he was staying. He was a journalist. His name was Ned Baer.”

Brayden’s fists clenched, and then he released them. He sat in silence for a little while.

“I found out what Baer was doing in town — that he was researching the rape accusation against Devin Card. You can’t imagine what a thunder-

bolt that was for me. Suddenly, everything made sense. I realized that Andrea was the one behind the accusation. That she’d been raped. That was how she got pregnant. That was how I came into the world. I was born of violence. And Devin Card was my father. I didn’t know what to do. I was so furious. I needed to know more. I broke into Andrea’s house when she and Stride were away, so I could find out what happened. I found a box she’d hid, with pictures of her and me, and I realized she loved me. Despite what had been done to her, she loved me. I was going to pieces, Cat. My whole identity had been stripped away from me. And I felt so bad for my mother, for what she’d been through. I bought her something — a suncatcher — and left it for her anonymously with a note. Forgive every sin. I knew, somehow I just knew, that she blamed herself for letting me go. I didn’t want her to do that. But I also couldn’t come forward. Not when I knew she was so desperate to keep what had happened a secret.”

“What happened next?” Cat asked.

“I took out all my rage on Devin Card. I was obsessed with what he’d done to her. It killed me to see him stand up there and deny the accusation, when I knew it was true. When I could prove it! That drove me crazy. One night, I followed him, and when he was alone, I jumped him and beat the hell out of him. I almost told him who I was, too. But I already had what I really wanted. His blood. To confirm everything. I had this idea that I could force Card to drop out of the race, just like Andrea wanted, if he knew there was a way to prove what he’d done. But instead, I got the paternity test back, and it was negative. Devin wasn’t my father. I didn’t understand. It made no sense. Andrea was my mother, but if Devin didn’t assault her, who was my father? How could she have been wrong about that?”

“What did you do?”

“I broke into Ned Baer’s hotel room,” Devin said. “All I really wanted was to see what information he’d discovered about the party and the rape, because somehow he’d been able to find Andrea when no one else had. I thought I could find a clue to figure out what had really happened. So I began going through his papers, everything he’d collected. That’s when I realized he knew things he shouldn’t have known. Before he came to Duluth, on his very first page of notes, he’d written down the date when Andrea was raped. How could he possibly know that? No one did — not even Andrea. He had a yearbook, and he’d only circled girls who looked like her. How did he know what she looked like? But what really sealed it was a picture I found of him. I could see myself in his face. There was just enough resemblance that I knew. So I took a tissue from the motel wastebasket, and I ran another test. This time, it came back positive. Ned Baer was my father. He’s the one who raped my mother.”

“Oh, Brayden. I’m so sorry.”

“I needed to confront him. I couldn’t think about anything else. Imagine him doing what he did years ago — and then coming back to torment my mother all over again. I wasn’t going to let him get away with it. So I called him. I lied and said I had information about the party for his article. We arranged to meet that night.”

“Here at the Deeps,” Cat said.

Brayden nodded. “Yes. I got here first and waited for him in the woods. It was such a hot, hot night, absolutely broiling. I watched as he got here and drank beer and went diving in the creek. He kept checking his watch, wondering where I was, but somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to go out and talk to him. And then just when I finally decided I was ready, someone else showed up.”

“Stride.”

“Yes. I watched Stride confront him. Ned was such a son of a bitch. Arrogant. A vicious liar, a rapist, and he thought no one knew. Stride was trying to talk him out of exposing Andrea, but Ned didn’t care about that at all. It didn’t matter whose lives he destroyed. After Stride left, I came out of the woods. Ned was pretty drunk at that point. But when I told him who I was, when I told him what I knew, he sobered up fast. At first, he didn’t believe it, but I told him about the paternity test. It was a shock. He didn’t care that I was his son. That wasn’t important to him at all. He cared that I could prove what he’d done. I could ruin his whole life. And I was going to. I told him that. I was going to make sure everyone knew what kind of a man he was.”

“What did he do?” Cat asked.

“He pulled out a gun. Pointed it in my face. He was going to shoot me and dump my body somewhere. That was how much he cared about me.”

“What happened?”

“We struggled.” Brayden took a deep breath before going on. “We wrestled over the gun. In the fight, he got shot in the head.”

“So it was self-defense,” Cat said. “He was trying to kill you, and you killed him. Nobody can blame you for that.”

Brayden stood up on the rocks. He stared over the cliff’s edge at the roiling waters below them. “I don’t know, Cat. Was it really self-defense? I was bigger than he was. Stronger than he was. He was drunk. I should have been able to take the gun away from him without a fight. But I wanted him dead. I wanted revenge for my mother. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but when it was over, I stared at the body at my feet, and I didn’t feel a thing. Actually, no, that’s not true. I was glad. I felt like I’d finally done something to help Andrea. I’d kept her secret, and I’d made sure the man who raped her was gone.”

Cat got up from the rocks, too. “Then what?”

“I was going to take the body away, but I saw headlights. Someone else was coming. So I grabbed the gun and hid in the woods again. This man came over to the rocks — I had no idea who he was — and he found Ned’s body. I figured he’d call the police. But he didn’t. He took away the body. He dragged it back to his car and drove away. I didn’t understand why, but I didn’t care. All I knew was that he’d solved a problem for me. I found Ned’s car parked off Seven Bridges Road and broke inside; I took his laptop, his notes. Then I went over to his motel room that night and cleared it out. I didn’t want anyone to know what he’d discovered. I didn’t want anything that would point the police to Andrea. I figured they’d find the body soon enough, but they never did. Ned vanished. He was gone. The story went out a few days later that the police believed he’d drowned in the Deeps and his body was lost in the lake. Until a few days ago, that was what everyone thought. We were safe. Both of us, me and Andrea. But then it came back to life again.”

Cat touched his shoulder. “When Stride put out a call for someone to help me with my stalker, you volunteered. Why?”

“I wanted to keep tabs on the case. I thought you could help me find out what Stride knew and how close they were to the truth. But that was just the beginning, Cat. Believe me. Very quickly, I felt close to you.”

“You need to tell them what happened, Brayden. It was self-defense.”

“No, it’s too late for that. I killed Andrea. I killed my mother. There’s no going back.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“What difference does that make? Instead of protecting her, I killed her. How do you expect me to live with that?”

“With help,” Cat said.

Brayden shook his head firmly. He backed away from her and inched closer to the cliff, where the pound of the spray was so strong it rose up high enough to dampen their faces. “No, it’s better like this. Better for everyone.”

“What the hell are you saying?”

Then Cat understood.

“No!” she screamed. She ran up to him and grabbed both of his arms. “No, don’t you do it, don’t you jump. I won’t let you go. Do you hear me? If you jump, I’ll go over the edge, too. I swear it. Are you ready for that? Are you ready for both of us to die?”

“Cat, let go of me. Please.”

But she held on even tighter. She felt her feet slipping on the wet edge of the rocks, and she looked down into the beast of the rapids, which growled up at them so loudly she wanted to cover her ears. “I’m not going anywhere, Brayden. You fall, so do I. We leave here together, or we drown together. It’s your choice.”

“You have a son.”

“Yes, I do. Just like your mother had a son. Are you going to take me away from him? Is killing yourself worth that much to you?”

“Cat, stop.”

He tried to separate himself from her, but she squirmed and held on. Their bodies swayed on the cliff. A hurricane of water cascaded through the canyon, a vortex ready to suck them in.

“No, I won’t let you go,” Cat insisted. “I am not going to let you do this. Don’t you understand? I’m eighteen years old, and I’m sick of people dying around me. I’m sick of losing everyone. I lost my mother, too, do you remember that? I bring death with me everywhere I go, and it ends right now. No more. I’m done with it. You don’t get to die on me. You don’t get to leave me with that.”

She laced her damp fingers tightly with his. She pulled his hand and began to walk away toward the trail.

“Are you coming?” she asked him.

Cat didn’t allow any doubt in her voice, but she was filled with doubts about what would happen next. She knew, if he wanted, that he could break away from her and jump into the canyon. There was nothing she could do to stop him. She knew, too, that her threats were hollow. She wouldn’t follow him over the edge. Not now or ever. She wouldn’t leave Serena and Stride. She wouldn’t give up her life and leave her son behind.

“Are you coming?” she asked again. “Because I’m ready to go home.”

Brayden took her hand and brought it to his lips and kissed her fingers one at a time. She held her breath, waiting to see if he chose life or death. Her eyes pleaded with him. He cast a last look over his shoulder at the torrents of the river below them and hovered on the brink, a heartbeat from falling to the rocks.

Then he gave Cat a broken smile.

“Okay,” he said. “I can’t say no to you.”

He came away from the edge and let her lead him from the Deeps.