Beyond the Mask Read online

  “Sit down,” Katie said.

  She helped him over to the bed, holding his arm as she led him there. He thought about telling her that he was fine, that he didn’t need her to walk him around like he was eighty, but he held his tongue. After their conversation earlier, that line of conversation could be fraught with landmines.

  He sat down on the bed and Katie sat next to him. Her hand moved from his elbow to his hand and she grasped it.

  “What do you mean, he wants you?”

  Frank sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I was talking to…you know,” Frank said.

  Katie nodded her acknowledgement of the name that neither of them wanted to speak out loud.

  “He thinks that this Ellison killed your Mother because he was a fan of his.”

  “A fan?” Disgust washed over her face.

  “Like he studied Bentley or something.”

  “You don’t believe him?”

  “I think he’s wrong. I think maybe this Ellison has something against me. I can’t imagine what, there’s nothing in his background that puts him anywhere close to me, but it’s what feels right.”

  “So you think he wants to kill you?”

  Frank shook his head. “He wants me to suffer first. He killed Rick, he wrote a message out in blood for me to see, he walked right into my station and talked to me. I think there’s something personal in this for him and it’s not with Bentley.”

  “What are you thinking about doing?”

  Frank didn’t say anything. He felt Katie’s hand tighten on his, but he just continued to look into her eyes. Those lovely eyes.

  “You think you’re going to find him?”

  “Maybe,” Frank said. “What I’m more afraid of is that he’s going to find me. Bentley,”

  He saw Katie’s wince and stopped.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, just keep going.”

  “He thinks that Ellison is going to kill twelve people. One for each number on a clock. I think he might be saving me for number twelve.”

  Katie hugged him. Hugging turned to kissing and then things progressed from there.

  This time, when it was over, they sat on the bed with their backs against the wall. Katie had ordered room service sometime before he got there and they nibbled on tiny sandwiches and shared silence.

  “Can’t you just hide?” Katie asked.

  “No,” Frank said.

  “I know, stupid question. I forgot who I was talking to.” She blew out a hot breath and put a mostly uneaten sandwich on her plate. “I hate this.”

  “I thought they tasted okay,” Frank said and took another bite.

  Katie smiled, but it was thin. “You know what I meant.”

  Frank’s face became serious. “I do. I’m not exactly thrilled with the thought of it, either. The important thing is that I find him first.”

  “What if you’re number nine, or ten?”

  Frank kissed her on the cheek. “I won’t be.”

  “Oh, okay. Now I feel all better.”

  “This is not what I came over to talk to you about.”

  Katie lowered her head. “I know.”

  “I am sorry for what I said. It was wrong.”

  “It’s not wrong if that’s how you feel,” Katie said.

  The pout had entered her voice again and it sent a lance of disgust through Frank’s brain. He didn’t want it there, but it just was.

  “It’s not how I feel,” Frank said. “I was trying to protect you, I think.”

  “From what?”

  “From me.”

  “Don’t give me that,” Katie said. “Some stupid cliché about how you’re not good enough for me.”

  “It’s not that,” Frank said. “It’s more…I don’t know. I wasn’t sure if I could do it. Be a you and me. There’s just so much going on right now. Always so much going on.”

  “I know,” Katie said. “I know that you’re busy. I know your work makes you busy.”

  “It’s not the job,” Frank said. “That’s the excuse I used to tell myself. It was the excuse I used in previous relationships.”

  Frank thought about Julie and the lies he had told himself to make him feel better. He was on the job too much to notice. Yet, hadn’t he seen the signs. Two weeks before she died he had commented to her about how much weight she was losing. There was the sallow look to her skin. Her eyes-her eyes were the worst of all. They began to look vacant and dead.

  He had seen all these things, but he had ignored them. Because he didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to deal with her problems. It was selfish, but that was how it was.

  “Saying it’s the job is a lie. I have plenty of time for a relationship. Even for a wife and children if I wanted them.”

  Katie raised her eyebrows. “Children? Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t mean it like that. I just mean that it’s an option. I held a baby today.”

  “You did?”

  Frank’s eyes focused on the far wall. In his mind he was seeing the little girl’s eyes.

  “Yeah. It was nice.”

  “So what are you saying now?”

  Frank kissed her on the lips. “Two things. I’m saying that I was wrong. That all those things that I told you before was just me being scared. You are the one that I think about all day. You are the one that I want to be with. I don’t care about our ages; I don’t care about anything other than being with you. And I’m sorry.”

  Katie smiled. “Thank you, Frank. Thank you for coming back to me.”

  She kissed him and then her brow wrinkled. “You said two things; what’s the second thing?”

  “That I’m ready again.”

  They began kissing.

  Twenty-Five

  The next morning, Frank woke up to the sun slanting in through the window and the smell of bacon.

  He opened his eyes and saw a plate sitting on a cart next to the bed. There were scrambled eggs, two pieces of toast, a pile of hash browns and the bacon. A cup of black coffee and a glass of orange juice were set next to the plate.

  Frank eschewed the coffee, but he took a long sip of the orange juice, relishing its acidic sting.

  Then he picked up a fork and dug into the eggs. He was ravenous.

  Katie walked in. She was naked and using her bath towel to pat her hair dry. Frank watched her breasts bob with the movement of her arms and he could feel stirring.

  Either she turned his dials the way no other woman had before or he was discovering some kind of sexual second life as he approached fifty.

  Maybe all the sex that I haven’t been having has built up somehow, he thought.

  “You know, I don’t want to push your marriage agenda, since I think it’s too early to talk about that, but you could find a worse wife,” Katie said.

  Her smile brightened her entire face and turned her from a woman who was merely beautiful into one that was breathtaking. A vision of Helen of Troy.

  “I satisfy your sexual desires and then serve you breakfast in bed.”

  Frank laughed. “I guess that’s true.”

  Katie looked down at the sheet. Frank followed her gaze and saw the tent pole that had started to make a teepee in the sheets.

  “Okay, maybe I need to keep working on the satisfying thing.”

  “You don’t need any work,” Frank said. He turned and looked at the clock. It was half past eight. He contemplated for a second.

  “But if you’re up for it.”

  “I can see you are.”

  Then she was in the bed and they were off again.

  Frank dressed quickly. All the sex had built up his stamina more than he thought and it was almost nine thirty. He had to hurry.

  “I wish you didn’t have to leave,” Katie said. She rolled over on the bed and her breasts lifted and separated. She stretched her arms above her head and her belly tightened. One of her legs was raised and bent at the knee, showing off her thigh
s and hips. There was a playful smile on her face and her eyes sparkled.

  “I know what you’re doing,” Frank said, but was unable to help returning her smile.

  “I’m not doing anything,” Katie said.

  She rolled over on the bed and put her hands on either side of her face. She scissored her legs back and forth, giving him a view of her tight, but round ass.

  “You’re bad,” Frank said. He bent down and planted a kiss on her lips.

  She grabbed his tie and pulled him in for a deeper one. “Only as bad as you want me to be.”

  “I’ll be back,” Frank said. “Just as soon as I can.”

  “Wait,” Katie said. Her face had turned serious.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I have to make a decision today.”

  Frank sat back down on the bed. She was still lying on her stomach with her head held in her hands.

  “What’s that?”

  “I have to decide if I’m going back to Michigan today or if I need to change my flight.”

  “You want to leave today?” Frank asked. His knee bounced up and down in jack hammering motion.

  Katie turned curved her lower body towards him and then used her momentum to get into a sitting position. He envied her youth and ability to still pull off a maneuver like that. He wondered if she knew that age didn’t just take away your hair or your hearing, it took away the little things. Everything became just a little harder to do year after year. She wouldn’t know about it, of course, but he couldn’t really blame her. He had known none of those things when he had been her age.

  “I don’t want to leave. That’s the point.”

  Frank patted her hand. “Good, then stay.” He stood up again.

  “It’s not that easy,” she said. Her voice had skipped the pout and progressed to a soft whine.

  He looked at the door. The one he was supposed to be walking out of. Then he turned his attention on her again.

  “I don’t understand. Is it the school? Do they need you back?”

  “No,” Katie said. “I’m clear for the rest of the month. They were very understanding.”

  “So why can’t you stay?”

  “For how long, Frank?”

  He sighed and looked to the ceiling. There were no answers there.

  “I don’t know, Katie.”

  “What do you want?”

  Expectant eyes focused on him. She was waiting for him to say something, but it was hard to think right now. Half of his brain was already in his car.

  “I don’t want you to leave,” Frank said. “I thought we were going to give this a try.”

  “So you want me to move here?”

  Now who was pushing a rapid agenda? Could she really be sitting on the bed, completely naked, asking him if he wanted her to uproot her entire life and move across the country?

  “I don’t think I can ask you to do that. I don’t think it’s my place to ask you to do that. If we dated and things didn’t work out, you’d probably hate me.”

  “If you dumped me, I’d probably hate you anyway.”

  Frank offered her a smile. “Okay. I want a chance with you, Katie. I want a chance to see where things go. I don’t know how long that will take. You have to decide how the best way to handle that is. Either you quit your job and move out here to California, or you take your month and we go on a trial run.”

  “A trial run?”

  “Yeah. Either way what I’m saying is that I don’t want you to go home today. Do we have to have all the answers right now?”

  “I guess not,” Katie said.

  Frank kissed her again. “Okay, so you’ll be here.” He moved for the door, but again she stopped him with her voice. He was beginning to imagine a chain shooting from her mouth every time she opened it.

  “That’s another issue.”

  His shoulders slumped and his head drooped. He turned around and she was giving him a look of annoyance.

  “You know what, if it’s not important to you then you can just leave.”

  “Katie, you know it is important to me.”

  “Well why are you getting so annoyed talking about it, then.”

  There was an easy chair next to the window. Frank sat down in it. “I’m here; I’m listening.”

  “I can’t afford to stay in this hotel forever. Certainly not for a month or longer.”

  “What about your Mom’s house?” He asked and regretted the question as soon as it was out of his mouth.

  “No. I’m not going to live in a place where my Mom was killed.” She crossed her arms over her breasts.

  “I’m sorry, that was stupid. Of course you aren’t.”

  “I mean, I’ll put it on the market, though who knows if it will even make back its mortgage in this economy.”

  “So you’re saying that you need a place to live?”

  “Well if you want me to stay in California for a month then yes I do.”

  Frank admired that. Women had such a way of twisting a conversation around. She had gotten him to admit that he wanted her in California, so now it became his idea and it also became his problem to solve.

  “You can stay at my house.”

  “With him there?”

  There it was, the crux of the problem that he hadn’t been able to see because he was preoccupied with leaving.

  “He’ll be gone,” Frank said. “I was only going to have him stay until the case was over anyway.”

  “You would do that?” Katie asked. “You’d get rid of him and let me stay there?”

  “Of course I would.”

  “Thank you Frank.” She jumped from the bed and ran over to him in the chair. She sat down on his lap and pelted his face with kisses.

  Frank felt like the world’s most perverted Santa Clause. He had just granted her a wish, after all, hadn’t he?

  “Today is my last day here, so I’ll just pack up my stuff and move my flight.”

  Frank blinked at her, taking in the totality of what she was saying.

  “You mean you want to move in tomorrow?”

  “Don’t you want me to?”

  “Of course I do. I have to get going, though.”

  Katie jumped off of him. “Sure, sure. Thanks again. I think this is gonna be great.”

  Frank kissed her and didn’t respond. He was too afraid of being caught in another conversation.

  Twenty-Six

  Bentley was waiting outside of the house when Frank pulled up. He raised his hands in the air in an “about time” gesture as Frank slid into the driveway.

  “I thought I was going to have to walk,” Bentley said.

  “I’m sorry,” Frank said. “I got caught up.”

  “Never mind that, let’s just get over there fast.”

  “What’s your hurry?” Frank asked as he nosed the car out of the driveway and back onto the road.

  “Just a feeling,” Bentley said. “I think we’d better move.”

  It was not a long drive to the apartment complex, so Frank didn’t have the luxury of time to think about what he was going to say.

  “Listen, kid, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Katie’s moving her flight back. She’s going to stay in town for awhile.”

  “That’s excellent,” Bentley said.

  Frank turned to him. There was real relief on the kid’s face. He didn’t notice Frank looking at him; his eyes were still aimed out the front windshield.

  “You think so?”

  “Sure. I thought you two were going to attempt being an item.”

  “An item? Has this slang made a comeback and I just haven’t heard about it?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Never mind. The point is she’s pushed her flight back and she’s staying in town.”

  “And you want to warn me to stay away from her again.”

  Frank bobbed his head back and forth in a kind-of gesture. “Well, in a way, ye
s.”

  “I’ll stay away from her.”

  “She wants to stay at my place. She can’t afford the hotel she’s in now and she wants to stay with me.”

  “Do you think that’s wise? Dating is one thing, but her moving in with you so soon.”

  “Wise, unwise, it doesn’t really matter in the context of our conversation. I’m not asking your opinion or your permission.”

  “Touchy.”

  “The point is, she doesn’t want to be around you.”

  “So you’re kicking me out. I already got the gist of that Frank, thank you.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “It’s fine. I can make it on the street. I’ve done it before.”

  “No,” Frank said. “I don’t want that.”

  “Not much option is there?”

  “I’ll find you a place. It will be okay.”

  “I believe the apartment we’re going to has a vacancy now.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “No, it’s not, it’s a fact.”

  “Bentley.”

  “Frank.”

  “Damn it, kid. I don’t want you back on the street because I don’t want you killing again. You’re doing so well; you’re actually getting better. Why would you want to jeopardize that?”

  “That’s not a worry.” Bentley bristled in his seat. “So what have I got? A week?”

  “She wants to move in tomorrow.”

  “Well, I don’t know what you’re worrying about. That’s plenty of time. Move out tonight. I’m sure I’ll find a Tudor mansion to rent out.”

  They were pulling up to the apartment complex. “Just let me worry about it, okay? I’ll find something for you.”

  “Let’s just talk to this bitch and find out what she knows.”

  Frank could think of no response to that.

  They parked the car and walked into the building. Again, they were greeted by the graffiti in which the artist admitted to being a creep.

  The lobby was as ratty and foul smelling as on the day they were last there. Paint and plaster had begun to chip away from the walls. Frank thought about putting in a call to the building inspector. Get the place shut down.

  There was only one door in the lobby. It wasn’t labeled with a number or letter. Gold letter stickers had been placed on the door. Office, it read.