The Cold Nowhere Read Online Free PDF Page A

her chest. Her arms and legs squeezed into a fetal position. He retrieved the blanket and slid it over her. She murmured into the mattress, but he didn’t recognize what she said.
    ‘Jesus,’ Maggie whispered.
    He left the bedroom door open as they left. Outside, he spoke softly.
    ‘Something’s happening to that girl,’ he said. ‘She needs help.’
    ‘She needs a shrink.’ Maggie’s face was grim.
    ‘After what she’s been through? Wouldn’t you?’
    ‘It’s not just that.’
    Maggie held up something in front of his eyes. It was a butcher’s knife, long and sharp, dangling from her fingers. He recognized it. It was
his
knife, taken from the wooden block in the kitchen.
    ‘Where did you get that?’ Stride asked.
    ‘It was under her pillow. It fell when she fought back.’
    ‘Cat had it?’ he asked.
    ‘That’s right. Did you know she took it?’
    ‘No, she must have gotten up during the night.’
    ‘She could have killed you with this.’
    Stride didn’t say anything. Maggie handed him the knife and he stared at the blade, which had a sharp edge as deadly as a machete. She was right. It would have cut him open and run him through nearly to his spine. If Cat had attacked him, he would be on the floor now, bleeding.
    Dying.
    ‘Be careful, boss,’ Maggie warned him. ‘I know you want to help, but you don’t know what’s going on in this girl’s head. She’s dangerous.’

4
    A battered silver Hyundai parked on Superior Street across from the clinic in Lakeside. Its tailpipe popped like a gunshot. A short woman with dark skin and bottle blonde hair crossed toward the building in short, quick steps. She wore a down coat, torn blue jeans and black boots with high heels. Her sunglasses shielded her eyes, and she kept her head down as she came inside the waiting room.
    Stride recognized her and met her at the door. ‘Dory?’
    Dory Mateo, Michaela’s little sister, stripped off her sunglasses. Her eyes were bloodshot and tired; her skin was as worn as leather on old shoes. He knew she couldn’t be much more than thirty, but she looked fifteen years older.
    ‘I’m Jonathan Stride,’ he added.
    ‘I remember you,’ she replied. ‘You look the same. More gray hair, though.’
    He smiled, because she was right, but he didn’t need the reminder. Her own hair was cut in a messy bob, and he saw black roots. Stride was lean and strong and over six feet tall, which made him nearly a foot taller than Dory. The Mateo women were all small.
    ‘Can we go outside?’ she asked. ‘I need a smoke.’
    ‘Sure.’
    He followed her into the cold morning air. There was no sun, only slate clouds. It was Saturday morning and there was little traffic on the shop-lined street. Lakeside was a neighborhood on the north side of Duluth, a few blocks from the shore of Superior.It was quiet, without even a bar in town for the after-work crowd. If you wanted a drink, you went elsewhere.
    Dory lit a cigarette and let out a raspy cough. ‘So is Cat in trouble?’
    ‘Why would you say that?’ he asked.
    ‘A cop calls me, I figure she’s in trouble.’ She eyed the clinic. ‘Is she okay? She’s not hurt, is she?’
    ‘She’s fine, but I’m having a doctor check her out.’
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘That’s what I’m trying to figure out,’ Stride said. ‘When did you last see her?’
    ‘I don’t know. A couple weeks? She stayed with me for a few days but then she took off. She didn’t say where she was going.’
    Dory’s face twitched. Stride could see that she was self-medicating. They picked up women like her off the downtown streets every night. Frostbitten. High. Often naked and beaten.
    ‘Cat says you rent a room at the Seaway,’ Stride said.
    ‘Yeah, so?’
    ‘Rough place.’
    ‘You think it’s by choice? I don’t want to be there. I had a house in the Hillside, but I lost it. Goddamn banks.’
    ‘You have a job?’ Stride asked.
    ‘Off and on. A girlfriend hooks me up for events in the