The Cold Nowhere

6

As Stride descended into the cargo holds, his boots made a hollow echo on the iron grid of the stairwell. Wire-encased lights strung along the hull of the ship illuminated the huge space. Gray riveted walls rose to the high ceilings above him, and moisture squeezed through the hatches overhead and dripped to the steel floor like music. He smelled closed-in dankness that had gathered over the winter months.

He’d been on ships like this throughout his life. Access to international waters through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway sometimes meant that smugglers tried to ferry illegal cargo via the giant freighters. Drugs. Weapons. Even people — usually desperate immigrants bought and sold by human traffickers. Over the years, investigations in tandem with the FBI and Homeland Security had taken him onto the water many times.

His own experience with the ore boats went back to his childhood. His father had worked as a seaman and had often taken Stride aboard with him when he was in port. Stride had been five years old the first time, awed by the boat’s vast size. The ships had never completely lost their magic for him. There were days when Stride thought he would have been happier here on the boats than he was with the police. Then again, there were also days when he remembered what the lake had taken from him. A December wave on Superior had snatched his father into the sea, leaving him and his mother alone. The loss had broken his mother’s spirit, and for himself, it had been the first loss of many to follow. That was one of the reasons he lived on the Point, to be closer to the ghosts of Superior.

From nowhere, a rat, alarmed by his presence, scampered into a pile of wooden beams. He had no idea how a rat could cross from the land to the ship, but rats were smart. They always found a way, and there were plenty of hiding places down here. He saw plywood walls throughout the massive hold that had been used to create a Halloween maze for children. Posters about Minnesota shipping and mining were covered in plastic and stacked in piles, ready to be unveiled for the tourist season. Tools and machines lay scattered like debris.

In the light, he could see to make his way, but for Cat, being here in total blackness would have been terrifying.

She’d been here. Just like she said.

Directly in his path, he saw the yellow forklift where she’d hidden. He stepped through standing water to get a closer look, and in one of the puddles he spotted a metallic glint reflecting off the light overhead. He squatted and used two fingers to extract a six-inch knife with an onyx handle from the water. He held it up by the hilt and examined it, then deposited it in a plastic evidence bag from his pocket.

Everything on the boat backed up Cat’s story, despite Conrad Carter’s denials. She’d struck the man who wanted to violate her. She’d dropped a knife in the cargo hold as she charged her pursuer, and then she’d fled into the water to escape.

He also thought: A knife.

This was the second time he’d found a knife connected to Cat. When he’d confronted her about taking a knife from his kitchen, she said it was for protection. In the places she went, in the things she did, her life was always at risk. That was true, but it still felt wrong to him. He didn’t like the idea of Cat obsessing over knives. She should have been terrified of knives; she should have associated them with blood and evil. She should never have wanted to hold one in her hands.

Ten years ago, her father had stabbed her mother to death while Cat hid in the frozen night outside.

*

‘So how are you?’ Dory asked.

Cat didn’t answer. Her mind was reeling. She smelled the acrid smoke of Dory’s cigarette. Her aunt smoked cheap Indian cigarettes from Arkansas. They were strong, like road tar. She hadn’t smoked in weeks, but she wanted one between her lips now. ‘Can you spare a cig?’

Dory looked at her strangely, but she thwacked the pack on her palm. The ivory tip of one of the cigarettes nudged out of the box. Cat slid it into her hand and rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger. She put the unlit cigarette in her mouth, and her fingers trembled. Dory offered her a match, but Cat shook her head.

‘What is it?’ Dory asked. ‘What’s going on?’

Cat didn’t want to say anything. Not now. Not to Dory. ‘Nothing.’

‘You know, you could have called me. I would have come to get you. I’m here for you, baby.’

‘I didn’t want to put you in the middle of this.’

‘The middle of what?’

Cat shrugged. ‘Whatever’s happening to me. If somebody keeps coming after me, who knows, maybe they go after you, too. I don’t want that.’

Dory looked away. Cat could see in her aunt’s face that she didn’t believe her. It was drugs. Or it was a lie. ‘You and me, we don’t need anybody’s help,’ Dory said. ‘I won’t let anyone hurt you. Didn’t I promise you that?’

‘Not this time.’

Dory bit her lip, annoyed. Cat didn’t mean to hurt her feelings, but she had open eyes about her aunt. Dory wasn’t strong. She was in over her head. She was like a figurine riddled with cracks, ready to break apart if the ground shook under her feet.

‘Who is this guy you’re afraid of?’ Dory asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you do something?’

‘Like what?’

‘Whatever. Steal something you shouldn’t. Fuck somebody you shouldn’t.’

‘I didn’t do anything!’ Cat insisted, eyes blazing.

‘Except you said you don’t know, right? So maybe you did. You should think about it.’

‘I have.’

‘I’m just saying. Everybody does things they regret, huh? Everybody makes mistakes they wish they could take back. I’d cut out my heart to go back and do things right.’

‘You think I wouldn’t? But not this time. This one’s not about me.’

‘Okay.’ Dory reached over and stroked Cat’s hair, the way a mother would. ‘The doctor, he checked you out? You’re okay?’

Cat eyed the street. She said nothing. She told herself she wouldn’t cry.

‘The doctor?’ Dory repeated.

‘Yeah, sure. I’m fine.’

‘You don’t look fine.’

‘I’m okay, can we drop it?’

‘Whatever you say.’

Dory tossed a butt into the frosty grass. Cat took the unlit cigarette out of her mouth and handed it back to her aunt, who slid it between her teeth and lit it.

‘You don’t have to stay here with me,’ Cat said.

‘I told Stride I would. He was afraid you’d run.’

‘I won’t.’

‘Yeah, well. I’ll stay anyway.’

Cat wished Dory would go. She wanted to be alone. Stride was right, though; she might run. Sometimes it wasn’t even a conscious thought. When she stayed in one place too long, she got claustrophobic, like she was in a box, and she had to get out before she ran out of air.

‘Why Stride?’ Dory asked. ‘Why’d you go to his place? You don’t know him.’

‘Mother liked him.’

‘That doesn’t mean anything. She liked your father, too. She didn’t see who he really was until it was too late. A fucking beast, that was Marty.’

Cat frowned. ‘Stop that. Don’t talk like that.’

‘Yeah, I know. Nothing bad about Marty. Jesus, Catalina.’ Dory grazed the chain on Cat’s neck with the back of her hand and Cat shrank from her. Her aunt’s face looked sunken, almost gray. ‘You think it’s so smart going to a cop?’

‘I trust him.’

‘Cops are trouble. I don’t care what he tells you. You always have to watch what you say, huh?’

‘He’s trying to help me.’

Dory shook her head. She looked like she wanted to say more, but she didn’t. Cat felt bad. She reached out and put a hand on her aunt’s leg. When she squeezed, she could feel bone, as if Dory were eroding under the weight of the world. I’d cut out my heart to go back and do things right.

‘I thought about killing a man last night,’ Cat told her. ‘I almost did it.’

Dory took the cigarette out of her mouth. Her eyes narrowed. ‘You?’

‘It would have been so easy. It scared me.’

Cat explained about the car salesman on the boat. What he wanted to do to her. How she hit him, how she held the knife and thought about plunging it into his body. Make him bleed. Make him die.

‘Sounds like he deserved it,’ Dory said.

Cat shook her head. ‘No, it was me.’

‘You still carry a knife, huh?’

Cat’s arm dropped to her calf, and her fingers slipped inside the leather of her boot. She’d found a knife inside a drawer when Dr. Steve left the room. The handle was stainless steel, cool against her skin. The blade was sharp and open, so she’d wrapped it in a piece of gauze.

‘Yeah. Always.’

‘You know what they say about knives and guns,’ her aunt said.

‘What?’

‘You keep them around, sooner or later you find a way to use them.’

Cat forced a hollow smile at Dory. She thought: Vincent.