Skin Deep

by Michelle Hanson

  The dull woosh from the curtains drawn apart broke the trance I had cast over the bed. Cait stood in front of the large window. The curtains no longer covered the city view, and she rolled the office chair in front of the glass. She sat down and peered out the window.

  “You can see everything from here,” she said. “Come look.”

  My feet felt glued to the ground as I slowly took a step toward her. I watched my reflection in the window as I approached Cait from behind. The fluorescent light cast a dark shadow over the right side of my face, as if I was wearing a mask. I leaned over Cait, and she pointed out the window.

  I looked at the alarm clock. 9:09 p.m.

  All the stores were closed now, except the restaurants and coffee shop. The parking lot was practically bare. It was good that we had moved locations. Less than a dozen cars were scattered in a parking lot that could easily hold two hundred. We definitely would have stuck out to anyone looking over his shoulder.

  The coffee shop was closest to the hotel. Green umbrellas covered the patio tables along the outside corner of the shop. A soft, amber light glowed from inside the building, and its wall-length windows made it easy to peer inside. Patrons sat at tables as they drank coffee and snacked on scones. One man, with a white baseball cap, hid in the front corner of the shop with his laptop on the table. He leaned his whole body into the corner as he furiously typed on his keyboard. We were too far away to see what was on the screen. Whatever it was, the man wanted his privacy.

  I reached my hand over Cait’s shoulder and down into her lap where the radio was and brought it close to my mouth.

  “Unit Three, this is Twenty,” I said. “Over.”

  “Go for Three, over.” White noise filled the background.

  “In the front corner, the man in a white hat. Do you see him? Over.”

  “I do. Over”

  “Can you see what’s on his screen? Over.”

  Within a few seconds, Unit Three, dressed in dark jeans and a black windbreaker, walked past the man in the white baseball cap. Unit Three dropped his wallet on the ground when he was behind the man and bent down to pick it up. As Unit Three pretended to put the wallet’s spilled contents back together, he eyed the man’s monitor. The man turned around and looked at Unit Three and quickly closed his laptop. I couldn’t see the man’s face, but I assumed the look he gave was not a friendly one. Unit Three quickly put his wallet in his back pocket and walked toward the back of the coffee shop, completely out of sight.

  “This is Three,” he said through the radio. “He’s looking at photos from what appears to be a camping trip. Over.”

  My head instinctually leaned forward as I let out a sigh of defeat. I knew it wasn’t going to be that simple to catch the person who sent the videos, but that didn’t mean I was looking forward to a night of wasted time. “Thanks. Over,” I said into the radio and tossed it onto the bed.

  “The night’s still early,” Cait said with a tone of disappointment in her voice that mirrored my own.

  “Two hours to go,” I said. “Two hours filled with potential suspects that will turn into a letdown.”

  “You knew this was a shot in the dark. Why are you getting your hopes up?”

  “I’m just tired.” Even if this was a shot in the dark, as she put it, that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth a try.

  “Tired of what?” Cait swiveled her chair to face me on the bed. We were very much sitting the same way as Dr. Tillman and I were this afternoon. All Cait was missing was a notepad—and the necessary degrees to be a psychologist.

  “Just tired,” I said. “I’m tired of feeling like we’re one step behind. Maybe we’re ten steps behind,” I muttered. “I’m tired of the bad guy winning.”

  “He isn’t winning.”

  “Well, we certainly aren’t. So who is?” I snapped.

  Cait turned back around and continued to look out the window. “He only wins if we let him,” she said quietly.

  I lied back on the bed, and my head sank into the middle of the mattress. The springs creaked under my weight. I didn’t want to reach for a pillow. If I did, I would fall asleep.

  Instead, I stared at the popcorn ceiling. The stippled points of paint hung like stalactites in a cave. It was the same type of ceiling I had in my bedroom as a teenager. I would lie awake at night and stare at the ceiling design, hypnotized by the thought that if there was an earthquake, the bits might fall off and stab me in the eye. It was an irrational fear, but one that had seemed so possible at the time.

  “Keep an eye on the cars,” I said. “It’s possible whoever’s sending the videos is doing it from their car.”

  “I am,” Cait said with her eyes on the parking lot below. “So far, nothing.”

  I continued to stare upward. My thoughts drifted from the popcorn ceiling to the possibility that we were playing right into a trap.

  The Casting Call Killer, for lack of a better name, was smart. He had to know that we could pinpoint his IP address—and that, when we did, we would wait for him. Why would he come back to the same location if he knew we would figure it out?

  He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t be here at all. A cat can’t catch a mouse if there are no mice in the house. So why did I expect to catch a killer when there was no killer here to be caught? Deep in my gut, I knew tonight was a futile effort. He wasn’t here. We were a week too late.

  “Talk to me,” I said. The silence in the room filled my head.

  “About what?” Cait didn’t take her eyes off the parking lot.

  “About anything.” I needed to hear something else other than the voice in my own head.

  “Anything?” Cait repeated. I looked at her reflection in the window. Her lips turned into a half-frown, half pucker as she raised one eyebrow. “Are you a fan of horror movies?”

  “No,” I scoffed. “I mean, maybe during Halloween. Why?”

  “I’m just trying to come up with a rational reason why someone would send those videos to your attention.”

  “Because they think I like horror movies?” The thought was absurd. “It’s obvious why they’re being sent to me.”

  “What if the obvious is what’s causing the confusion?” Cait said. “What if he wants you to think it’s because of Lathan Collins—but, really, it’s for a different reason?”

  “Like what?”

  Cait shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they want your fame.”

  I laughed aloud. “My fame?” I continued to laugh.

  “Don’t laugh. I’m serious.”

  “The fame I have in this town amounts to nothing. I have no pull within my job. Hell, I wasn’t even awarded Employee of the Month after catching Lathan,” I said, stomping all over her idea. “If it’s my fame they’re after, then not only are they crazy, but they’re also delusional.”

  “Okay, it was just a thought.” A wounded Cait went back to her surveillance.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have been so—”

  “Mean?” she cut me off.

  “Dismissive,” I corrected her as I lifted my head from the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress. I was less than three feet from the window that overlooked the plaza’s parking lot. Streetlights lit the busy street beyond the parking lot. The cars that coasted by blurred as they traveled down the road. “Where do you think he lives?”

  “Who?” Cait kept her back to me and her eyes on the parking lot.

  “Who do you think? The Casting Call Killer.”

  “He’s local.”

  “Why do you think that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I get the feeling he likes this area. Something is either keeping him here, or he’s just drawn to it.”

  “Maybe both. The videos take place in a warehouse.”

  “So?” Cait said. “Does that make you think he’s not local?”

  “No, no.” I shook my head. “I mean, he needs privacy for what he’s doing. If he had a house, then he would have the type of privacy he needed. But he’s using
a warehouse.”

  “Go on,” Cait said.

  “So, if he’s local, like you said, he probably doesn’t have a house. He has an apartment.”

  “Or maybe he lives with his parents?” Cait looked over her shoulder at me and smirked.

  “Maybe?” But that didn’t feel right. “The women he’s targeting are all local,” I added. “They’re in their late twenties and early thirties. He isn’t afraid of mature women. So that makes me think he’s older too. At least in his late twenties.”

  “Why do you think that?” Cait asked and turned her chair to face me.

  “Let’s say you’re an eighteen-year-old aspiring serial killer. Who would you target?”

  “I don’t know. Little kids and animals, probably.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re weak. And I don’t have the confidence to go after someone older… someone stronger.”

  “Exactly.” I sat up.

  Cait shifted her eyes to the floor as if she had to process her thoughts. “Okay, detective,” she laughed. “He’s in his late twenties.”

  “Sergeant,” I playfully corrected her.

  Cait grinned. “Okay. But if he’s older, like you say, he likely would have a house rather than an apartment.”

  “Not necessarily. If he’s a recent transplant, he wouldn’t buy a house right off the bat.”

  “You think he has an apartment,” she said, “and I think he has a house.” Cait whipped the chair around to look out the window.

  Typical Cait. Even if she had nothing concrete to support her argument, it would take mountains of contradicting evidence to change her mind.

  As I watched Cait look across the parking lot, a sudden calmness came over me. Talking about the case helped. Most of the lingering stress from my session with Dr. Tillman had eased to a manageable level. My headache and the irrationality that flowed through my veins were gone.

  “I’m going to read over the case files,” I said. “Let me know if you see anything?”

  “Of course.”

  I picked up Kristen Valeri’s case file. Even with a more relaxed mind, I knew I wasn’t actually going to read it. I had read over the same ten pages so many times that the letters and words had become nothing more than black smudges on the pages. They no longer made sense whenever I looked at them.

  After an hour of silence and pretending to read, Unit Three came across the radio. I looked at the clock. 10:58 p.m.

  “Unit Three, heading out. Over.”

  “Unit One. The night manager is leaving soon. I’m heading out too. Over.”

  “Unit Two. All clear here. Sorry, Sergeant. Over.”

  “Unit Four calling in. All clear here too. Over.”

  I picked up the radio and held in front of my mouth as the insurmountable feeling of defeat hovered over me. “Unit Twenty. Copy. Thank you. Have a good night. Over.” I tossed the radio onto the bed and looked at Cait.

  “Just because we didn’t see anything doesn’t mean he wasn’t here. You instructed Dispatch to call Fluellen if they receive a video. It’s just a matter of time,” Cait said.

  “Time we don’t have.”

  “Time is all we have,” she retorted. Regarding an investigation, she was right. Sooner or later, the perpetrator always messes up. Ninety percent of cases are solved because the perpetrator gets sloppy or brags to the wrong person. It was only a matter of time before this one got sloppy too.

  But the longer we waited, the higher the victim count would be. And that didn’t sit well with me. We couldn’t wait for him to solve the case for us. We needed to act, and we needed to act now.

  “Maybe that’s how you do it at BCI, but that’s not how we do it here,” I challenged.

  “Why do you keep snapping at me?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just now, and earlier with the horror movies. Yesterday at the warehouse too.” She paused. “You were never like this.”

  “I was never like this? We haven’t talked in twenty years. How do you know what I’m like?”

  “Because I know you, Lena. I’ve always known you. A hundred years could go by without us talking, and I would still know you.”

  My jaw locked as I glared at her. Who was she to say she knows me? I barely knew myself anymore—how could she know me?

  As I stared at her, my teeth ached from the tension of my clench. I couldn’t help but see the Cait I had always known. We met when we were just starting to find ourselves—we were young and impressionable. We were soft molds in need of sculpture. We found ourselves, together. She knew me during a time when I was lost. I was lost when I was twenty, and I was lost now.

  “I’m sorry,” I said softly. “You always did know when to call me out.” I chuckled and then paused. “I should go.” I stood from the bed.

  “You don’t have to go.” She gestured for me to sit back down. “You may be on to something with that apartment theory of yours,” she said.

  I knew the game she was playing. It was a favorite of hers.

  “I know what you’re doing,” I said as I reluctantly sat back on the bed.

  “And what’s that?” She tried to hide her smile.

  “Telling me what I want to hear so you’ll be back on my good side.” I laughed. “You don’t believe my apartment theory any more than I believe your house theory.”

  “You’re right.” She leaned into the chair and held up her hands in surrender. “Did you find anything else in the file?”

  I shook my head. “Can’t we just be regular people tonight? No Sergeant Evans. No Agent Porter. Can we just be us?” I slid the case files to the center of the bed. I feared my judgment was clouded from the letdown of this evening, and I didn’t want to force a profile detail just to feel better about the case.

  “Special,” Cait said as she let her hands drop to her lap. “Special Agent Porter.” She smirked and kicked off her shoes. “We can be whoever you want to be tonight, as long as it includes food. I’m starving.”

  “I’m hungry too. Where are we going to get food this late?”

  “I don’t know.” She turned the chair so it was facing the desk. “Too bad we didn’t think of this an hour ago when the restaurants were still open. We could have gotten coffee too,” she said, playfully joking about our unsuccessful stakeout. “There’s always room service?” She flipped open the leather-bound book and turned through the pages until she reached the menu. “Chicken tenders are only fifteen dollars.” She laughed.

  “Do they come with fries?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll have that.” It was my favorite comfort food. Some people couldn’t resist brownies—I couldn’t resist breaded chicken and a side of fries.

  “See. I know you.” She cocked a smile as she walked to the phone on the nightstand. She dialed the number to room service and twirled the cord in her fingers as she placed our order.

  There was a welcomed calm whenever I was around Cait. The more I thought about it, the more I remembered always feeling safe around her. It wasn’t the type of safe I felt with Abi though. Abi was someone I could hide behind. Cait was the shield I needed to slay my own dragons.

  In the thirty minutes it took for room service to deliver the food, Cait and I carefully walked down memory lane together. It wasn’t a leisurely stroll. It was more like the kind of pace a soldier takes when walking through a minefield. I was cautious not to ask if she was seeing anyone, and she didn’t ask me if I was seeing anyone either. I assumed she didn’t want to know. Sometimes knowing an ex has moved on, regardless of the amount of time that’s passed, can put a real damper on an otherwise enjoyable evening.

  “Do you remember my brother?” Cait asked as she ate the last bite of her turkey sandwich. She and I both sat on the bed. She was toward the bottom, sitting on the edge with her left leg dangled off the side and I was propped against the headboard.

  “I do. I met him just once—at your mom’s funeral,” I confirmed. Her mom had passed a
way when we had first started dating. At the time, I wasn’t sure if I should go to the wake, considering I had never met her family before then. But there had been a sorrow in Cait’s eyes that told me she couldn’t have survived the day on her own. “He went into the army, right?”

  “Right,” she said.

  “How is he?”

  “He’s good. He has kids now.”

  “Aunt Cait?” I mocked. “I can’t see you as an aunt.”

  “That’s a popular opinion.” She laughed.

  “With whom?”

  “My dad. My brother. Everyone I’ve ever dated.”

  “Are you dating anyone now?” She left the door wide open for that question. Or maybe I saw it as opportunity that had to be taken.

  “What do you think?”

  I studied her face as I thought about the answer. “No,” I said. I tried to make my guess sound like a verified fact. “You wouldn’t have taken such a long assignment if you were.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Wouldn’t you miss her?”

  “It’s not like I wouldn’t eventually see her again.” She smirked.

  A scoff escaped my lips as I shook my head. There was the Cait I knew, the one who was incapable of showing romantic emotion. Not because she didn’t know how to feel it, but because she didn’t know how to own it. To let the person she cared about most know just how much she cared for them in return was a weakness in her eyes. She was like this back when we had been together, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t find some pleasure in knowing she hadn’t changed. It wasn’t just me she refused to show emotion for. It was everyone.

  “Here,” she said. “I have photos of my nieces.” Cait picked up her phone from the bed. The comforter rustled underneath her as she scooted herself closer to where I sat.

  She leaned her shoulder against the pillows underneath me. Her head was level with my bicep as she stretched her legs down the length of the bed. She was close—physically closer than we’d been in twenty years. Her head was just below my nose, and I took a deep breath. Her coconut- and raspberry-scented shampoo filled my lungs.

  “Photos?” I asked as Cait held her phone above my lap. She tilted her phone so I could see the image on the screen. She swiped through a series of miscellaneous photos, mostly pictures of buildings and landscapes, until she reached a photo of two young girls. The youngest, no more than four, wore a pink shirt and cut-off denim shorts. She held two dandelions in her hand, her golden hair wrapped in a side ponytail, and she grinned as she looked into the camera. The oldest, another blond-haired girl around ten, stood next to her sister, and she beamed the same smile. “They’re adorable,” I said.