Page 27 of Duplicity

“It’s beautiful.”

“It’s calming, even with you here. Romeo fidgets nonstop.” She chuckled just a little, pulling the cushion from under her elbow to hold it on her lap. “He never could sit still as a kid.”

“Peter and I were like that. Used to drive my mother crazy trying to do school with us. Freya would be in the corner, reading.”

“What happened?”

“My mother was killed when we were in middle school. My father brought us home to Benson, and we went to school. He continued his criminal empire here until Freya and Lucas took him down.”

Cat let the words dissipate in the air, giving him a moment with the comfort of silence. The peace that quiet could bring. “What happened?”

She heard a slurp, and a second later a long sigh. “I don’t like being weak.”

“Fear isn’t weakness.” Trauma didn’t always mean fear, and a lot of the time, it wasn’t something a person could control. “It’s about acknowledging there are things you can’t control. When it overwhelms me, I sit here. Where I remember I can find peace with the God who made the stars and the mountains. The One who is so much more powerful than my fear.”

“God is…well, He’s God, but that whole thing is twisted around in my head. Maybe there are a lot of things twisted around in there.”

If anyone understood that, it was Cat. “For a long time, I asked God why my partner died and I lived. Why did a man who was beloved—a father, a husband—lose his life and I survived?”

She heard him shift in the chair.

Cat said, “It was a convenience store robbery. The kid was clearly in over his head, but it could’ve turned into a hostage situation had we not gone in. We saved everyone inside.Hesaved them.” She cleared her throat. “He was my training officer, Sergeant Ellis. I was three weeks out of the academy, and I haven’t been back on a beat since.”

“You switched to being an SRO after the shooting?”

Cat nodded but he likely couldn’t see it with no light except what filtered in from outside. “I didn’t even try. I just quit that kind of policing and took another assignment. So, I understand thinking that your fear makes you weak. I thought that for a long time, but I like what I do now. I make a difference in the school.”

“You’re right about that.”

It warmed her to know he thought so. “I’ve come a long way. It hasn’t always been easy, but nothing worth it is supposed to be easy.”

“Well, burying my head in the sand and pretending it wasn’t a problem didn’t work for me.” He huffed out a breath that was probably supposed to be a laugh. “So, I decided to disconnect from everything and everyone and solve it myself.”

“Sounds familiar.” She sipped her drink. “I’ve been trying to settle on who it was that shot me ever since it happened.”

“But the shooter was convicted, wasn’t he?”

She said, “I don’t believe he was telling the truth. I think he was coerced into a confession.”

“I’ll help if I can.”

“Thanks.” She ran a hand over her knee. “Do you think Marianna’s disappearance is connected to the job you’re doing at the school?”

“I would’ve said no, but her phone received harassing messages from a phone on the communication network I’m trying to dismantle.”

And somehow, that tied to a traumatic experience for him? “That’s the job? Taking down a network?”

“It’s a communications platform. Any phone can be wiped and added to it, so I don’t know how big it is now. Everyone connects to it over Wi-Fi rather than a phone signal from a tower, but if there’s no Wi-Fi, they can connect to a satellite. If I can get to the central server where the program is running, I can shut it down. But I have to find out where it’s being hosted.”

“You really are good at this computer stuff, aren’t you?” She could get around on her laptop and do some things beyond just the basics. She’d set up the connection with her new printer all by herself after her last printer quit.

“I wrote the program for the network.” His voice thickened as he spoke.

That was it. There it was. The source of his stress reaction. “I’d like to know what happened to you, if you feel comfortable sharing.”

Silence filled the room for a time. Minutes. Then several minutes.

“We were seventeen. Freya was at work. It was a Thursday. I remember that. I had a math test the next day, and I ended up failing that class. Peter hadn’t finished his chores, and I wanted to go out. So I walked to the gas station for a soda.” He cleared his throat. “Halfway back, a car pulled over. I ran, but two guys tackled me. They shoved a hood over my head and tossed me in the car.”

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