The Cold Nowhere (23 page)

‘Relax. Fuck me again, and all is forgiven.’

Maggie spun around and slapped him hard. He reeled back in surprise, rubbing his face. His smile vanished, and he shook his head. ‘Guess that wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to say.’

‘Am I a good lay to you? Is that it?’

‘Hey, we both seem pretty happy with this arrangement.’

Maggie closed her eyes. She was suddenly furious. Furious at
Ken, at Stride, at Guppo, at Serena, but mostly at herself. She prided herself on never letting her emotions get in the way of her judgment, but she felt like a fool.

‘Let’s not do this now,’ she said.

‘Fine with me.’

‘Maybe we should talk about work.’

‘Maybe we should.’

‘Show me the tape,’ she told him.

‘Whatever you say.’

*

Ken slid the unlabeled DVD into the drawer of the Blu-Ray player on Maggie’s stereo tower. ‘I spent four hours going through Roslak’s files,’ he told her. ‘There were hundreds of videos. He taped everything. I don’t think it was for any clinical purpose. I think the son of a bitch was just a voyeur.’

‘You found Cat?’

‘Yeah, she was in the pile.’

‘Why’d they never bring her in for questioning?’

Ken shrugged. ‘You think the murder of an unlicensed shrink with a rep for screwing patients gets much priority? Around the same time, we had a ten-year-old boy killed in a school bullying incident and an immigrant store owner blown away behind the counter of his shop by two gang members. Guess where the manpower went? It wasn’t Vincent Roslak.’

‘Still, it’s been eight months,’ Maggie said.

‘The case has one lead investigator, and he’s swamped. We dicked around with a judge about getting access to Roslak’s materials at all. Patient privilege, you know? We got permission to do screen captures to sort the videos by face, and we identified a couple hundred people. We’ve got names for most of them now, but we can’t even watch the tapes without consent, which means tracking down each person one at a time. The whole thing is an evidence nightmare.’

‘What about Cat?’

‘With the consent Stride faxed this morning, I was able to pull her videos. Roslak saw her at least five times. I watched all of them. Most of it doesn’t tell us much, but the last one – wow. She was hypnotized. He took her on a flashback about the night her parents died.’

‘She was six then,’ Maggie said. ‘Would her memories be accurate?’

‘Who knows? He’s the shrink, not me.’

‘Where was this? Duluth or Minneapolis?’

‘No way to be sure,’ Ken told her. ‘He’s got a white sheet as a backdrop. I didn’t see anything to identify the location.’

‘Is it dated?’

‘No.’

‘So what did she say?’

‘Take a look,’ Ken said.

He pushed the Play button. The image of Cat Mateo filled the fifty-inch screen. Ken was right; it could have been filmed anywhere. The video showed her and a white backdrop and nothing more. Cat sat on a wooden stool, facing the camera. Her eyes were closed, and her hands were folded in her lap. Her legs were pressed demurely together, like a child in church. She looked serene.

Maggie heard a voice-over behind the camera. The voice dripped with honey and concern. It was Vincent Roslak.

Maggie waved her hand. ‘Fast-forward. Get to the part you want me to see.’

Ken advanced through several scenes. When he stopped, Maggie saw Cat again, but she looked transformed. The peace in her face had vanished. She sat open-eyed, staring into nothingness, her face slack with horror. She clutched the arms of the chair and rocked from side to side. Her voice was the scared voice of a little girl. She wailed at the lens, as if gripped by an unbearable pain, and then she leaped out of the chair and stormed the camera.

‘
STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP No no no no no no.’

Maggie jumped back. ‘Jesus.’

‘It gets worse,’ Ken said.

Cat’s voice turned guttural. It was deep and menacing – a man’s voice. She shouted at the top of her lungs.

‘
I’ll kill you I’ll kill you I’ll kill you I’ll kill you I’ll kill you!’

Maggie listened to the back-and-forth between Cat and Roslak. His relentless questions pushed the girl into the past. She could picture Cat under the porch, cold, scared, and confused. Inches away from her parents as they died. ‘Roslak was playing with fire,’ she said. ‘He could have pushed her over the edge. God knows what she would have done.’

‘There’s more,’ Ken said. ‘It’s not just that. Listen.’

‘To what?’

‘Listen.’

Ken stared at her. ‘You see?’

Maggie stopped the recording and stripped the disc out of the machine. ‘No, I don’t see. What the hell is that supposed to mean? She heard Stride?’

‘It’s not hard to figure out,’ Ken said.

‘Yeah? Tell me.’

‘I don’t think you want to hear it.’

‘Shit, Ken, just tell me what you think.’

‘Cat makes it sound like Stride was there
before
Marty died.’

‘Are you kidding? No way. She’s mixing things up. Or she was acting. That wasn’t real.’

‘It sure looked real to me,’ Ken said.

‘So what are you saying?’

‘I’m not saying anything. Cat’s the one who said it.’

‘Marty Gamble killed himself. It was a murder-suicide. Stride sure as hell did not kill him.’

‘Are you sure?’

Maggie shouted at him. ‘Of course, I am fucking sure! Are you crazy? We’re talking about
Stride
.’

‘Hey, I hear you, but everyone knew he was sweet on Michaela. If he showed up and found her dead? If Marty was drunk or passed out in her blood? What would he have done?’

‘No way. This little bitch is either faking it or she’s mixing up her memories. That is not what happened.’

‘You’re probably right, but it doesn’t look good.’

‘I don’t care how it looks.’

‘Was he there?’ Ken asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Was Stride on the scene?’

‘Of course, he was there! We were
all
there!’

‘When did he arrive?’

Maggie found herself almost hyperventilating. ‘What?’

‘When did Stride arrive at the crime scene?’

‘That doesn’t mean anything.’

‘Maggie,’ Ken murmured. ‘Come on.’

She stared at the dark television. This was wrong. This was a mistake. This wasn’t how it happened.

‘Okay, yes, Stride was the first responder,’ she told him. ‘Michaela called him when she saw Marty’s car. He was there before any of us arrived. Just him and the two bodies. And Cat.’

Stride awoke to the silence of the cottage at three in the morning. He put a hand on the other side of the bed, expecting to touch Serena’s skin, but he was alone. She hadn’t stayed. He glanced at his BlackBerry on the nightstand and saw the red message light flashing. When he checked his e-mail, he saw a text from Serena, time-stamped only minutes earlier.

The message read:
Did you sleep with Michaela?

He wasn’t ready to answer her. Not yet. Even so, he was comforted to know that she was lying awake, just like him. There had been nights all winter when he stared into the darkness and knew that Serena was doing the same thing in her bed in Grand Rapids. They could still feel each other.

So why was he shutting her out? Why couldn’t he face what he’d done?

He heard footsteps across the floor of the living room. A small, attractive silhouette appeared in the doorway of his bedroom. ‘Cat?’

‘Sorry,’ she murmured. ‘Did I wake you up?’

‘I wasn’t sleeping. Are you okay?’

‘I had a nightmare.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

Cat didn’t say anything, but she slipped across the slanted floor toward him. In the shadows, he could see that she was wearing only a tank top and panties. She stood beside the bed, her thumbs in the elastic waistband. She smelled of the lavender soap that Serena always used, which was still in the shower. Her bare thighs
twisted back and forth against the mattress, as if she were spinning on a lazy susan.

‘Do the nightmares happen a lot?’ he asked.

‘Most nights, yeah. I hate to go to sleep. I try to stay awake until I can’t hold my eyes open.’

‘That was how it was for me after I went off the bridge.’

‘Did it go away?’ she asked.

‘Not entirely, but it’s not as bad as it was.’

‘I don’t think mine will ever stop.’

‘What do you dream about?’

‘Mostly, it’s the same dream. The same night. You know? When it all happened.’

‘I know.’

‘Vincent said I keep reliving it because I’m hiding something from back then. He kept pushing me to find out what it was.’

‘Did you?’

‘No. Do you think I’m hiding something? Is there something I don’t want to remember?’

‘I think anyone who went through an experience like you did would struggle to get past it,’ Stride said. ‘It haunted me, too, Cat. It still does.’

She laid a hand on his bed. He worried that she would peel down the comforter and try to slide in beside him, and he would have to stop her. He was conscious of the fact that the line between innocence and sexuality had blurred in her mind a long time ago.

‘I lied to you,’ she told him. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘About what?’

‘Vincent.’

‘You slept with him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why lie? It wasn’t your fault.’

Cat was slow to respond.

‘Why are you so sure it’s not my fault?’ she said finally. ‘Maybe it was me. Maybe I seduced him.’

‘You didn’t.’

‘I could have. I’m not a child. Men always think they’re seducing women, but usually it’s the other way around.’

‘You still didn’t tell me why you lied,’ Stride said.

‘I don’t know. I sort of – let him do it to me. I wanted him to have me. I told him to do whatever he wanted.’

‘That doesn’t mean it’s your fault. Psychologists have tremendous emotional power over their patients. That’s why it’s a crime for them to have a sexual relationship with someone in their care. He manipulated you, Cat. It was wrong.’

‘I loved him,’ she murmured.

‘It felt like love, because he took an interest in you.’

‘I’d never loved anyone before. I thought he loved me, too. He said he did.’

‘He used you.’

‘When he said he was leaving town, and he couldn’t see me anymore, I was devastated. I would have done anything to get him back. Anything.’

Stride waited. He didn’t like what he heard in her voice.

‘I was so angry. I felt like he was abandoning me.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I wanted to kill him,’ she said.

He murmured, ‘Did you?’

‘No, but it’s my fault he’s dead.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Everyone I love dies,’ Cat said.

He didn’t know how to respond or make it better. When he said nothing, Cat went on. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about something Serena told me,’ she said.

‘What’s that?’

‘You slept with Maggie.’

Stride tensed. ‘Yes, that’s true.’

‘I was upset with you when she told me. I couldn’t believe you would do something like that.’

‘I was upset with myself, too.’

‘You hurt Serena.’

‘I know.’

‘Plus, it’s Maggie. Ick.’

‘That’s not fair, Cat. Maggie and I have been friends for years.’

‘I know. Anyway, I decided I was being too hard on you. You’re human. Everybody makes mistakes. It’s only sex.’

‘No, you were right the first time,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter what was going on in my life. I was wrong to let it happen.’

‘People get too hung up about sex. I don’t get it. It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘Yes, it does. I hope you’ll discover that someday.’

Cat rolled down one inch of her panties, exposing the bone of her hips. ‘I’d have sex with you if you wanted,’ she murmured softly.

Stride reached to the nightstand and turned on the light. He threw her a king-sized pillow, which she clutched against her chest, covering herself. Her eyes were wide; she knew she’d made a mistake. She could feel his anger and he made no effort to hide it.

‘Listen to me, Cat. I never want to hear you say anything like that to me ever again. Are we clear about that? Never. If it happens again, that’s the last night you spend in this house.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m such an idiot. I don’t why I said that. Now you’re going to hate me.’

‘I don’t hate you, but I need to trust you, and you just made it hard for me to do that.’

Cat dropped the pillow and ran for the doorway. She stopped there, her back to him, her shoulders rippling as she cried. She turned around and her pretty face was streaked with tears. She stared at the floor, not looking at him. ‘I won’t do it again. I promise.’

‘That’s good,’ he said.