Catfishing on CatNet, Naomi Kritzer [best e ink reader for manga .txt] 📗

“The actual police? No, absolutely not,” I say.

The cop walks up alongside the car. In Rachel’s rearview, I see the black car pull out from a side street and pull up behind us. “Okay,” I say to CheshireCat. “The car’s still after us, and we just got pulled over by the police.”

My father meets the police officer as he’s walking, shakes his hand, and starts talking to him. He gestures at Rachel’s car. The officer is listening, nodding sympathetically, his arms folded. Whatever it is my father is telling him, he’s going to believe him, just like the school staff did.

And Rachel’s here. And Bryony.

“What happened when your mom got stopped here for supposedly running a red light?” I ask Bryony, since she hadn’t told us that part earlier.

“The police officer called her the N-word,” she says. “She filed a complaint, but no one did anything.”

I look at the cop and my father, who are having a jolly conversation, and think about what’s going to happen next. And how much I don’t want Rachel to get hurt, or Bryony, and how neither of them would be in this position if it weren’t for me. Especially Bryony. This person had my mother kidnapped out of her bedroom, and now he’s come all the way from California to find us, and the thing that is the most terrifying is the thought of what could happen if he’s allowed anywhere near the only real-life friends I have.

And suddenly it’s very clear what I can do.

“He only wants me,” I say.

“Wait,” Rachel says. “Wait, Steph!”

But I get out of the car and swing the door shut behind me. I don’t want him knowing about CheshireCat, so I hang up the phone.

I walk toward the cop and my father. “Steph, come back!” Rachel shouts out the window, but she doesn’t get out of the car to come after me. The police officer looks at me, and I can’t read his expression enough to know if it’s pity or contempt or irritation or something else.

“Okay, Stephania,” my father says. “Game’s over. Your friends can go on home; get in my car.”

I turn to the police officer. “This man is a violent stalker, and he’s driving a stolen car.”

He laughs and turns to my father. “You didn’t lie when you said she’d go straight for something big!”

“You should arrest me,” I say, suddenly inspired, and then I pause, trying to think of a crime that I could have done without implicating Bryony and Rachel. “I tried to burn down my house.”

“I’ll let your father handle that,” he says, and he walks away, waving Rachel on with an amiable “you can go now” gesture. Rachel pulls away—slowly—I can see her reluctance. The cop gets back into his car, makes a quick U-turn, and heads in the opposite direction.

And then we’re alone. Me and my father.

I try to force myself to look into his face. My relief that Rachel and Bryony are out of the way is ebbing, and fear is seeping in. I’ve spent my whole life running from this person, and now I’m out of ideas of where to run to.

“Stephania,” he says, and he hesitantly opens his arms, like he thinks I’m going to run to him with a hug. He stands there like that for a few seconds as I stare at him. Does he really think I’m going to run to him? Is this just a performance? Even if I thought he was telling the truth here, I wouldn’t want to hug him. He finally drops his arms awkwardly. “I don’t know what your mother told you, but all I want—all I have ever wanted—is to see you again.”

His voice is husky with emotion, and I think about how he manipulates everyone he meets and I don’t move.

“I’m not getting in your car,” I say.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says. “We’re going to get in the car, go back to my hotel in Eau Claire, where we will go out for a nice dinner and get reacquainted. I don’t care about your mother. I only care about having you back in my life.”

His voice is less husky now and more soothing, and for a moment, I imagine dinner at a restaurant. Looking at pictures on his phone of his life in California. No, I think. You may win over every adult you meet, but you will not convince me to trust you. My throat is closing up, thinking about my mother—why am I thinking about my mother?—and my hands clench into fists. “I’m not getting in your car,” I say.

“I can understand your fear,” he says. “You’ve been with a paranoid, angry woman for years, and she moved you, didn’t she? She constantly moved you. You never had a chance to settle in, find support that wasn’t your mother, hear anyone else’s version of whether your life made sense. Of course you’re afraid of me. I have never harmed your mother, and I will never hurt you.”

I want to believe it.

And CheshireCat was totally wrong about whether Michael was still in California. What if they’re wrong about the finger? What if that other person really did orchestrate the kidnapping? How much do I trust CheshireCat?

“I’m not getting in your car,” I say again.

“Do you remember me at all?” he asks. “Hold on, let me show you a picture.” He gets something out of his pocket and hands it out. I don’t move forward to take it, so he holds it up, so I can see it. It’s a picture of a chubby-cheeked baby in the lap of a man with a beard—him, I guess, and probably me. Presumably me. “You were four, when your mother took you, so you were old enough that you might remember me a little. I used to make you peach smoothies for breakfast every morning and call them milkshakes. Do you remember the milkshakes?”

I don’t. I don’t remember anything.

“Your doctor was worried that