Skin Deep

by Michelle Hanson

  Cait could talk about her personal life. She said she wasn’t dating anyone, so there was no fear of hearing about another woman. A dull ache that felt a lot like jealousy crept through my veins as the thought of Cait with someone else entered my mind. It had been a long time since I had actually felt jealousy. How foolish of me to feel envious of a fictional woman. Cait was single. I was single. There was absolutely no reason for envy.

  Now that the case was on its way to being solved, I could actually feel. I could grieve over Abi—or, if I wanted to, I could pursue something with Cait. But why go down that road?

  “Do you mind if we don’t talk about the case?” I asked when Cait parked the car in the lot at her hotel, which was within walking distance of DiCello’s, an Italian restaurant with an impressive wine list.

  “Sure,” Cait said as she turned off the ignition.

  We both stepped out of her car and walked the three blocks to the front entrance of DiCello’s. A blanket of stars covered the sky as night set in. Soft candle light shone from the two picture windows on the front of the building, and the thick wooden door to the restaurant was propped open.

  The hostess, who was undoubtedly still in high school, greeted us with a warm smile.

  “How many?” she asked.

  “Two,” Cait said.

  “Right this way, please.” The teenager picked up two menus from behind the hostess stand and led us through a maze of tables. We followed her toward the back of the restaurant, where she placed the menus atop a small table set for two.

  We hadn’t requested a secluded area, but I’m glad we were here. It was next to the restroom but quiet enough that we could have a decent conversation. The glowing votive candle, the bud vase with a single pink rose, and the white linen tablecloth cast a romantic mood.

  “Your server will be right with you,” the hostess said before she walked away.

  Cait took a seat first. I scooted the wooden chair away from the table and sat down. I opened the menu and held it at chest level, as if I was using it as some sort of shield against Cait. It was ridiculous, really. I was treating Cait as if she was some type of perpetrator that I needed protection from. As if her stare could penetrate through my chest and capture my heart.

  I lowered my menu, chest and heart fully exposed to the woman across from me, and I perused the dinner options. The more I read, the more hungry I became. I looked at Cait, who had her eyes locked on the wine list. If I knew Cait as well as I knew wines, she would choose a bold Chianti. And after the day we’d had, she deserved it—regardless of the cost.

  “Anything look good?” Cait asked as she set the wine list down.

  “Either the chicken marsala or the chicken parm,” I replied. “You?”

  “The Antinori Chianti,” Cait answered.

  A sly smirk crept from the side of my face. Maybe it was just because I knew my wine, or maybe it was because I was really getting to know Cait again. The way she moved and the way she thought—it had become second nature to me. I was beginning to know her as well as I knew myself, and a huge part of me really liked it.

  “Are you ordering food?” I asked, my eyes landing on hers. They sparkled the same way crystal accents do from a chandelier.

  “Probably the eggplant parmesan,” she answered, and flirtation rose within her smile as our eyes remained locked on one another.

  Before the feeling could grow, we were interrupted by our server.

  “Good evening, I’m Brian,” he said as he arrived at our table. “I’ll be your server tonight. May I start you off with a glass of our house wine?”

  “I’ll have the Antinori Chianti please,” Cait said.

  “Excellent. Glass or bottle?” Brian asked.

  Cait paused as she seriously thought about her answer. I could see her mind trying to calculate how much she actually wanted to drink tonight.

  “Will you have some too?” she asked me.

  “Sure,” I replied. I was more in the mood for cabernet, but chianti would do just fine.

  “Bottle,” she finally answered.

  “Perfect. And are you ready to order, or would you like more time with the menu?” Brian asked.

  “I’m ready,” I said, more toward Cait than our server. “I’ll have the chicken marsala please.”

  “And I’ll have the eggplant parmesan,” Cait said when Brian turned to her.

  “Excellent,” he said as he collected our menus. “I’ll be right back with the Antinori.”

  I looked at Cait, disappointed that the moment between us had vanished. It was probably for the best. What could really become of us?

  As I sat there, fully open for the flirtation to return, I realized that what I’d felt only a few minutes ago was something I was used to feeling in this type of setting with Cait. The last time she and I were in a nice restaurant together, we were madly in love and in our twenties. What I felt was nostalgia for her—for us, all those years ago—and for that peaceful time in my life.

  I also felt relief.

  We had a suspect in custody, and most of the stress of the investigation had been lifted. The void that stress had left behind was ready to be filled with other emotions—such as gratitude. And I was well aware that gratitude could often be mistaken for love.

  As much as I wanted to spend this evening with someone I was in love with, I couldn’t force these emotions onto Cait. Nor could I lead her on. She had tried to create a personal relationship with me when she first arrived, and I had sternly reminded her that part of us was dead. Somehow, though, it felt resurrected.

  “If we can’t talk about the case, what would you like to talk about?” Cait asked. I hadn’t noticed that while I was compartmentalizing my feelings for Cait, an awkward silence had lingered above the table.

  “I don’t know.” I blushed. And that was the truth. I was perfectly content just being around Cait, even if we were silent. I didn’t necessarily have to fill our time with polite chatter. But Cait was a conversationalist—she needed to be actively engaged with someone. “Why don’t you tell me how you got the assignment?” I asked, putting the burden of speaking onto her. If she wanted to talk, then she could do all the work.

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about the case?” she teased, a glimpse of flirtation lifting her voice.

  “We aren’t.” I coyly smiled.

  Before Cait could come back with a quip, Brian appeared from the shadows with the chianti. He showed us the bottle then twirled the corkscrew in his hands as if he was a contestant on a talent show. The candlelight bounced off the chrome mechanism as he twisted it into the top of the bottle. The cork rose with an almost imperceptible pop. He tilted the bottle against Cait’s wine glass, and the crimson color reminded me of the tarnished blood that stained the basement floor. I closed my eyes.

  I had to keep the gory details of the case at bay. I couldn’t let them consume the night or me. I deserved to have one evening to myself. I needed a clear head if I was going to take on interrogating James Coffer tomorrow.

  “Thank you,” Cait said after she sampled the wine. Brian poured my glass and then moved back to fill hers. I opened my eyes and watched the liquid flow from the bottle. I no longer saw the blood from earlier today. It was just wine pouring from a bottle. The evening belonged to me again.

  “Your entrées should be ready soon,” Brian said as he set the bottle on the table and walked away.

  Cait picked up her glass and smelled the contents inside before taking another sip. She seemed rather pleased with her choice as she set the glass down. She looked across the table at me and smiled. I could tell the silence between us was screaming in her head.

  “Have you been here before?” Cait asked, dodging my question once again.

  “I have.”

  “I don’t remember this being here when I lived here. Is it new?”

  “New to you,” I answered. “It’s been here for about ten years.”

  Cait nodded before she took another sip. “I
t used to be an arcade?”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” I remembered. It had been a long time since I thought about the arcade that used to be here.

  “We went there a few times, didn’t we? To the arcade,” Cait clarified.

  “We did.” I paused, remembering the past. “You were really good at the shooting games.” I laughed. Cait could balance the plastic pistol in one hand and a drink in the other—and still hit the target with perfect precision every time.

  Cait laughed to herself. “I remember you being pretty good too.”

  The trip down memory lane was unexpected but actually enjoyable. I had forgotten what it was like to be on the receiving end of Cait’s attention. I had her undivided attention on the case, but this was different. This was us, stripped of our badges and sense of duty. There was nothing keeping us here except the fact that we both wanted to be. That’s the feeling I had forgotten during all these years—what it felt like to be wanted by Caitlyn Porter.

  “We had a lot of fun together,” I said with a soft smile. I picked up my wine glass and brought the rim to my lips. My breath echoed inside the glass.

  “We did,” Cait agreed as she and I both took a drink. “I wish we had longer together,” she added.

  “We could have,” I challenged and set the glass down.

  “At that age, it would have been too hard.” She shook her head. “I had my sights set on Lyons, and you had West Joseph.”

  Was she serious? She broke up with me. She couldn’t commit to me. And now, twenty years later, she’s going to act like our careers were the reason we grew apart? I would have followed her anywhere in the world just to be near her.

  “For what it’s worth,” she said, “I’m sorry for the way things ended.”

  And there it was. Her usual vague apology for being an ass. Maybe it was better not to point the finger of blame. I had zero regrets with my decision to stay in West Joseph. I was needed here; I belonged here. She had her path, and I had mine.

  It was best not to play the what-if game.

  As I looked at Cait, I kept my focus on the fact that we were here now, enjoying one another in a way that I didn’t think would ever be possible. I just didn’t know why she was here—or, better yet, why she chose to be here.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I reminded her. “How’d you get this assignment?”

  “How did I get the assignment?” she repeated, a stalling tactic guilty people often used during an interrogation. But what was she guilty of?

  “Yes,” I confirmed and took a sip of wine. I looked into the glass. It was good wine. So good that a second bottle was tempting.

  “It was presented to my section,” she said. “And it sounded interesting, so I volunteered to take it,” she added defensively. Cait’s armor weighed down her shrug. Her story was an abridged version of Flu’s, who had used the phrase “pulled rank” to describe her decision.

  As I watched her fiddle with the stem of her wine glass, I debated whether to pry for more information. I had a feeling she was hiding something, and I wanted to know what it was.

  “No one else wanted the assignment?” I asked, knowing all too well what the answer was.

  “I’m sure others did.” She squirmed. “We don’t get too many murder investigations across our desk—at least not one this complex.”

  It seemed like a logical answer. She took the case because it was filled with thrills and excitement. I doubt she fully knew what she was getting herself into though. Death isn’t as horrific when the details are merely written in ink.

  “Knowing what you know now… knowing that you would see what you saw today… would you still have taken the case?” I asked.

  “Honestly?”

  “Yes.” Of course I wanted honesty.

  “Yes and no.” She sank into her chair. “‘No’ because seeing those women… in person… who would volunteer to see that?” Cait paused. “And ‘yes’ because…” Cait looked up from the table.

  “The eggplant parmesan,” Brian said as he set her plate down, “and the chicken marsala.” He placed the plate of mushroom-covered chicken and a side of fettuccini in front of me.

  “Thank you,” Cait quickly said, almost as if she was thanking him for interrupting us. Did she not want to tell me the reason why she still would have said “yes” to the case?

  “Can I get you anything else?” Brian asked.

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  “Enjoy,” he said then walked away.

  As much as I wanted to find out Cait’s answer to my question, I was just as consumed by the aromas of our meals. That first glass of chianti had found a home in the bottom of my stomach, but that didn’t satisfy my appetite for actual food. And if I was going to keep my wits about me after a second glass—let alone a second bottle—I needed the noodles to soak up as much of the alcohol as possible.

  Cait alternated between small bites of eggplant and large gulps of wine as we ate in silence. The food was too good to pause for conversation. Brian came back to check on us and asked if we wanted another bottle. After some hesitancy, I shook my head, and he walked away. Two glasses each was more than enough to polish off the night.

  After dinner, Brian cleared our plates and seemed rather happy that we declined dessert. I assumed we were his last table and that staying an extra twenty minutes wasn’t something he was interested in, even if it meant a larger tip.

  He placed the check in the middle of the table. Just as I reached for the black leather booklet, Cait swooped in and picked up the check.

  She opened the booklet and read over the receipt before digging into her back pocket and pulling out her credit card. She set the card inside the booklet and placed it on the table.

  “What do I owe you?” I asked as she took her last sip of wine.

  “Nothing,” she said and set down her glass. A tiny drop of red wine slid down the inside of the glass and landed at the bottom.

  “Cait, I can pay for myself.”

  “I know,” she said, “but I got it. You can get it next time.”

  I knew better than to argue with her. Once Cait made up her mind, that was that.

  “Thank you,” I said, admitting defeat—though there was something victorious in the thought of “next time.” Did she want there to be a next time? And in what setting? Our one rule was not to talk about the case, and we could barely oblige. What would there be for us to talk about after we solved the case and Novak was locked away forever?

  “I’m glad we parked at the hotel,” Cait said.

  “Same here,” I added. We may not have been drunk, but neither of us would have passed a sobriety test.

  Brian picked up and returned Cait’s credit card within a matter of minutes. She signed the receipt, and we were quickly on our way back to the hotel.

  I was still a bit too wired to call it a night, but I wanted to be at my best tomorrow, and I needed as much sleep as I could get. I assumed she was too inebriated to drive me back to my car at the station. I could take a cab, but there really wasn’t a point to it. I already had fresh work clothes in her hotel room. I had slept there last night, and nothing had happened. Why would tonight be any different?

  Cait and I walked side by side through the restaurant’s parking lot. My body was at the perfect temperature to shield the chilly air that followed us across the busy street and through the hotel’s parking lot. It was a little after nine o’clock, and the lobby had quieted down for the day. We walked past the front desk clerk toward the elevator, and the abrupt odor of chlorinated pool water startled my senses.

  As we waited for the elevator, I studied Cait from the corner of my eye. Maybe the wine convinced me that I was more stealth than I actually was, but Cait didn’t seem to notice my stare. She stood patiently in front of the elevator doors, and a sophisticated demeanor fell upon her. She had been so confident when we first met—but who wasn’t at twenty-three? The world had yet to show us how cruel it could be. But now, as a veteran to th
e world’s viciousness, she still stood poised and dignified. She possessed the type of attitude I was wildly attracted to.

  The elevator doors slid open, and Cait and I stepped inside. Here we were, alone in an elevator, full of wine and lust. At least I was. But I knew once the wine wore off, so would this thirst to be with her. And one night wasn’t worth the chaos it would bring in the morning.

  “You never told me why you still would’ve taken this case knowing what you know now,” I said once we reached the door to her room. She slid the plastic card into the slot, and a mechanic melody echoed in the hallway before the door unlocked.

  “I didn’t?” She looked over shoulder at me and smirked as she walked into the room.

  “No, you didn’t,” I confirmed.

  The lamp on the nightstand was on when we walked into the room. The curtains were open to have let sunlight in during the day, but now, only the glare from the lampposts outside came through. Her window overlooked the shopping plaza that the Casting Call Killer had used to send those first two videos. The third video had come from another plaza, and I made a mental note to visit that location tomorrow if we had time.