Page 42 of The Catcher
Every conversation came back.
Every warning.
If he’d only listened to her.
Maybe she would have still been alive.
But no, he was stubborn like his father. He was hell-bent on sticking around even when the feedback system of life was telling him that would only end in misery.
As the water swirled down the drain, carrying away histears and pain, Noah couldn’t help but feel lost in the depths of despair. So many times, he’d been able to reel it in and rise above it, but one loss after another had compounded it.
First his brother, then his old friend Dax, then Lena, then Alicia.
He was tired of losing people in the what? The pursuit of justice?
In that moment, adrift in a sea of memories, he couldn’t find solace or escape from the ghosts of the past. He recalled a conversation with his father when he was seventeen. Rarely did he see him down, and he heard him speak of despair only once. Noah had entered his study to get permission to borrow the car and take Lena out. He’d found him with a bottle of bourbon in one hand and a gun in the other. It wasn’t against his head, but he knew the thought was there.
In a drunken stupor, his father spilled his innermost thoughts.
It was the one and only time his father warned him against becoming a cop. For a moment, he forgot he was a Sutherland. It was as if he had forgotten his lineage. And all he wanted was to be understood.
“I used to think I could change this county, that what I said and did mattered. I believed I could ride out an entire career, retire with honors, and do what my father couldn’t do. But I see now the error of that thinking. I see why my father fell under scrutiny. Are we really the heroes or the villains?”
“Dad?”
He turned his head; his speech was slurred. “What is thepoint of receiving the Medal of Valor if the chest they pin it on is a villain?”
At that time, he didn’t think much of it. But looking back now, he could see that the job had worn his father down, like it wore on many a cop. In other professions, people could experience the lows of something and never have to go through it again. Being a cop meant facing the same shit over and over again and often seeing criminals walk because of a broken justice system.
Noah emerged from the shower, a towel slung around his waist. He moved with numbness, his actions automatic and devoid of emotion. Opening the fridge, he grabbed a beer bottle, the cool glass offering a fleeting sense of relief from the turmoil within him. With a quick flick of his wrist, he cracked the top off and chugged it back, but the bitter taste of the alcohol did little to quell the internal fire burning within him.
Turning his gaze towards the window, Noah’s eyes fell upon the gray sky, heavy with the weight of the storm. A rumble of thunder echoed far in the distance, followed by a brilliant flash of lightning that illuminated the undulating landscape. Tall trees swayed precariously in the relentless wind, their branches bending and creaking under the storm’s force. The lake roared with fury and relentlessly lapped hard against the dock. Noah watched the tumultuous scene unfold before him, the chaotic energy of the storm mirroring the turmoil within his mind.
The lights flickered in the cabin, casting eerie shadows across the room before everything plunged into darkness. The silence was deafening for a moment, broken only bythe howling of the wind and the rumble of thunder. Then, just as suddenly as it had gone out, the power came back on, bathing the room in a flickering light.
But for Noah, the brief interruption served as a stark reminder of the fragility of his existence, a fleeting glimpse into the darkness that threatened to consume him. As the storm raged on outside, Noah stood alone.
His cell rang.
He glanced at it.
Savannah.He let it go to voicemail.
The shrill of the home landline rang out after a second attempt at reaching him.
She knew all too well that his mental state was held together by a thin sheet of ice that could crack at any moment. Long before Savannah took on the role of BCI lieutenant and his supervisor, they’d worked closely together on countless cases. She’d seen it all, every high and low, but this was something else — a coming apart at the seams, pulling at the very fabric of his foundations.
Once the landline stopped ringing, he took it off the hook and powered down his cell phone. McKenzie was handling the collection of evidence, Porter was delivering the death notification, and no one was expecting him back until Monday. With his kids gone for the remainder of the weekend, the twelve-pack in the fridge was calling his name.
He lifted a remote to close the blinds.
He collected a second beer and opened it before the first was finished.
He’d realized that he wouldn’t want it if he allowedenough time between the first and second. And right now, he wanted it, despite Callie’s voice in his head. The voice of reason was quickly drowned out by the black dog, the animal that wanted to pull him down into the pit and leave him there.
He slid down into a chair and flicked on the TV, keeping the volume low. He stared as images flashed before his mind, each one blurring into the next the more he drank.
At some point, he lost consciousness.
