Midnight Masquerade

by Nancy Gideon

  She continued to walk along the Wall as tears burned in the back of her throat, for these young men and woman who would never come home, and for Captain Frederick Borden who'd never left the violence behind. Twilight was thickening along the path making it hard to discern the inscriptions. A man in a Grateful Dead tee shirt was reading off the names under the year 1969 to his wheelchair-bound friend who listened and nodded with tracks of remembrance streaking down his poignant features. Respectfully, Rae skirted around them.

  "I was a hero."

  She turned to the man in the wheelchair. “Excuse me?"

  For one crazy moment, it was her father's face she looked upon.

  "I was a hero, and how did you repay me?"

  She sucked a loud breath and stumbled back on the uneven stones while the man at the Wall straightened to ask if she was all right.

  All right? The man in the chair had just spoken to her with her father's drink-roughened voice and looked up at her through her father's angry-at-the-world glare.

  Rubbing her temples, she turned away to walk quickly through the concentration of tourists who were starting toward the beginning of the Wall. Their conversations lapped over her, but under them all she heard was the whisper of a dreaded rhyme chasing after her the way it had at school.

  Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks and when she'd seen what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.

  Then the laughter, the taunting ugly laughter.

  She raced blindly from the shaded paths.

  Vendors lined one side of the walk, hawking everything from flags and sixties memorabilia to hat pins and company insignias from their makeshift booths. Many of them wore their uniforms and disabilities proudly. Others were simply out to make a buck off a painful moment in history they'd taken no part in.

  "Buy a flag to fly this Veteran's Day?"

  She thought of the neatly folded flag handed to her after a double funeral and shook her head. She tried to hurry past the way most tourists did, pretending not to see the man or remember the war, but the vendor reached out and caught her arm in a surprisingly firm grip. Startled, she glanced at the man and choked back her scream.

  Daddy!

  He pulled her up close, so close she could smell the heavy fumes of stale liquor on his breath. So close she could see the spidery red vessels that seemed to throb in the whites of his eyes.

  "Thought you could betray me and get away with it, did you, girl? See what you've made me do."

  She refused to lower her gaze, afraid she would see the big survival knife in his hand and the blood still soaking into his khakis.

  This isn't real. This isn't happening.

  "See what happens to betrayers? See what happens when naughty little girls don't keep their mouths shut? You haven't learned anything, have you, Rae? Not a thing."

  With a mewling cry, she jerked back and, as breaths panted from her, stared uncomprehendingly at the equally startled Vet, who resembled Elmer Fudd more than he did her hawkishly handsome father.

  "Ma'am, are you okay? I thought you were going to faint. Do you want me to call someone?"

  Yeah, Ghostbusters.

  "I'm fine. I just need to sit down. I thought I saw—"

  What? What did she think she'd seen? The past brought back by Bette Grover's harsh conclusions?

  She stumbled from the vendor's area, wobbling across the wide street to the foot of the majestic Lincoln Memorial. She staggered up the steps, not to visit the expectantly seated former president where he waited like Santa Claus to hear the country's wishes, but to get a higher perspective on what was happening to her. Halfway up the broad marble stairs, her shivering knees gave way. She sank to the traffic-worn white step and let the tremors engulf her as she hugged shaking knees to her chest.

  It was the ugliness of Bette's words that brought him back. Those horribly wrong accusations that she'd somehow been to blame. It hadn't been her fault. She'd done the right thing. She'd been trying to protect, not provoke. How could she have known the tragic turn things would take? How could she have known?

  "Let go, Rae. Let us go."

  Never in a million years could she mistake that voice. Never did she not believe that she wouldn't see Ginny Grover standing on the steps behind her, looking beautiful and benevolent against the glowing backdrop of white stone.

  "Ginny?"

  It wasn't a cry of denial but rather a plea that it be true.

  But of course it couldn't be. Ginny was dead.

  A mistake. Had it been an awful mistake? Had some other unfortunate been killed upon the tracks and wrongfully identified as her best friend because of the belongings scattered nearby?

  Her mind told her no, but her stubborn heart wanted to hang on desperately to the notion.

  "It's too late for you to make amends, Rae. You've got your own life to live. You had your chance to make it up to me. Four years, Rae."

  "But I never had a chance to say I was sorry,” she cried in her own defense. “I never had a chance to tell you I was wrong."

  "You just did. Go home. Let us rest."

  "I can't, Ginny. Not until I know what happened to you."

  "What difference does it make now?” came a sadly spoken truth. “You can't change what's happened. But if you don't leave things alone, you'll join us. Is that what you want? To be like us? Is that the price you want to pay for the mistakes you've made?"

  "No."

  Even as she said the word, Ginny's beloved features began to dissolve into the horrifying remains of a track accident. As she spoke, the flesh fell away from the crushed side of her face, leaving an unrecognizable mess of shattered bone.

  "Don't make us come after you, Rae. Mind your own business. Your pride and guilt are denying us the peace we deserve."

  "Let us rest,” came another agonizingly familiar voice, one Rae hadn't heard for decades ... except in restless dreams. Her mother—wearing the same polka-dot spring dress she'd had on when Rae had found her lying on the kitchen floor with blood splatters playing connect the dot—stood, impossibly, next to the mangled corpse of Ginny Grover. “Haven't you done enough? Haven't you ruined enough lives with your meddling?"

  The shock Rae felt was numbed by remembrance. Wasn't that what Bette Grover had said?

  "Listen to them, Rae.” Thomas Grover's demand, always the voice of reason. He joined the pair on the steps, the fact that the side of his head was blown out like a smashed melon didn't lessen the compassion in his gaze. “If you'd only listened, none of us would be here. This isn't about you. Let it go."

  "She won't listen. She never listens to anybody."

  Rae staggered to her feet at the sound of her father's condemning tone.

  Sporting a self-inflicted wound that mimicked the one destroying the symmetry of his best friend's skull, Frederick Borden started down the steps. Blood, brain and bone rained down onto the pristine white stairs behind him. His lips drew back from impact-shattered teeth in a frightening smile.

  "You can't tell my girl anything. She only learns through example. Hands on, right, Rae? Is that what you need? A little hands on?"

  "Mama?"

  Rae looked past the threatening advance to the figure of her mother. But now, as then, Anita Borden remained passively out of the way, looking at her through sad, dead eyes, smiling serenely as if to say she must resign to her fate.

  "No. No!"

  She wasn't Anita Borden, waiting complaisantly for the escalating violence to claim her life. She wasn't Ginny Grover who cast off caution in spite of consequence. She was a survivor. That's what had saved her sanity, and now would save her life.

  She bolted down the steps, away from the menacing apparition and the mournful trio behind him. She didn't look back. With the setting of the sun, humidity settled in, heavy and thick. Her skin was wet with it. Her lungs labored with the effort of wringing air out of each breath. Tour buses were loading their final call along the side street. She pushed her way through the lines, mutterin
g apologies but never slowing down. She had to get away. She had to think.

  They rose out of the darkness ahead of her, heroically oversized, determinedly focused on their goal beneath the glow of the moon. Nineteen poncho-clad ghosts from another past war intent upon their final advance. Rae dodged between the eerie figures left to their eternal patrol in a distant Korean rice paddy. Finding herself among the gleaming specters gave Rae a chill of foreboding. But none of them moved. None of them were real. Not as real as the memories pursuing her.

  Panting, she collapsed on the edge of the wishing pool. She could see her own reflection in the still water upon the scattering of coins littering the bottom. She looked disheveled and terrified, like one of the silent soldiers frozen in time. Over her shoulder, at any moment, she expected to see other faces tragically altered by less heroic events. But she was alone. With the tourists called back to their buses, the monument area grew quiet. A tranquil silence, not an unsettling one. Gradually, Rae's racing pulse slowed.

  With a shaking hand, she dipped water from the pool to cool the fires blazing in her face and neck. The horror she's experienced took on manageable proportions.

  Of course the ghosts from her past were crying out to her. But not for rest—for justice. But in order to mete that justice out, she'd have to deal with these long-denied memories and question her motives to be certain that they were pure. Only then could she affect a satisfactory retribution. Only then could she move on.

  To what? What did she have awaiting her? A crappy apartment in Detroit. A job that frustrated her. Loneliness that stretched out achingly through the months and years ahead. She didn't want to go back and, because of what she was doing here, probably couldn't go back. So what did that leave her besides the here and now? What was there to consume her beyond this quest for truth?

  Nick Flynn.

  Thoughts of him whispered through her mind like a warming breeze. Strange, because she'd never allowed herself to equate happiness or success to a relationship with a man. She'd never had any thoughts on the subject at all, until Nick Flynn with his devilish smile and soulful dark eyes she could drown in. The thought of being with him now, of curling up with him for the night, was an addicting dream. But that's all it was. She'd pushed those longings aside to pursue her goal and, by the time she attained it, she wasn't fool enough to think Nick would be waiting.

  She had nothing waiting and nothing to lose. Except her momentum if she remained where she was, paralyzed by the past.

  She had a job to do and it started tonight at the Noir.

  She'd reached her rental car and was unlocking the door when another call assailed her.

  "Detective Borden?"

  She whirled around, her hand instinctively diving for the gun that wasn't there. Upon recognizing the speaker, she released her breath savagely. “Good God, Palmer, you should know better than that. If I'd been carrying, you could be fitted for a navel ring about now."

  "A little testy, aren't you, Detective? Something got you jumping at shadows?"

  "No, just at careless policemen who've forgotten how to make a safe approach. What do you want, Palmer?"

  "I want my partner back, but he seems obsessed with that accident/suicide case of yours."

  "It's not my case, and I'm not McGraw's keeper."

  "Maybe not your case but it certainly is your crusade. I don't want the kid pulled into something he can't get out of."

  "McGraw can take care of himself. I didn't get the impression that he was stupid."

  "Well, he's doing some stupid things, like not checking in, like not letting his partner know what's going on.” Palmer sounded more irritated than concerned at being kept out of the loop.

  "Well, I don't know what's going on with him, either. Maybe it's a conflict of interest with his girlfriend at Meeker, Murray & Zanlos."

  Palmer's brows angled up like a drawbridge, and Rae instantly regretted her words. She was tired and shaky, but that was no excuse for being indiscreet with her suspicions. She opened her car door and gave the other detective an impatient look.

  "Do you have some information for me? Otherwise, I'd like to get the hell out of here."

  "Don't do anything stupid on your own, Borden. You're not officially on this, so don't expect official courtesy if you get yourself in trouble."

  "I wasn't aware you could be courteous.” She dropped down onto the sticky seat and cranked the engine. Hot air steamed out of the vents. She glanced up at Palmer who was leaning on the car door. “Thanks for your concern but I can handle myself, too."

  "Sure thing, Lizzie.” He shut the door and stepped back before she could react to the name he'd called her.

  The air came on, jetting a cold blast from the dash, but that wasn't what had Rae shivering.

  Lizzie.

  She started to react the way she always did to the unfortunate coincidence of name that brought such a mocking pain to her past tragedy from the cruel taunts of fellow classmates to the unfounded rumors whispered at the academy. She stiffened, frozen in gut-twisting denial.

  It isn't my fault! It isn't my fault that they're dead!

  From the sly smugness of the other officer's expression, she knew that was the reason he'd flung that old insinuation into her face. To put her on the defensive, to knock her off balance by using her own demons against her.

  Not this time.

  Her tone was as cold as the air conditioning seeping out of the partially opened window. “My father used a knife, not an ax, and he closed the case himself with his own .357. And that's what it is, Palmer, Case Closed. Old news. I'd have expected something a little more original from you."

  And Palmer leapt back as she trod down hard on the gas pedal, leaving him and his ugly innuendo behind in a cloud of exhaust.

  * * * *

  Rae's evening at the Noir was anticlimactic. Neither Anna nor Zanlos put in an appearance. Nor did Nick, though she refused to admit she'd been looking for him. Under the guidance of an icy blonde aptly named Crystal, she was introduced around as the new girl to both fellow employees and potential clients. She danced, she laughed at bad jokes and ignored some heavy-handed groping. The customers were horny and her fellow employees treated her with a remote mixture of curiosity and competition. Both she found unsettling and disagreeable to her mood.

  She'd worked vice for long enough to see what was going on. It was more than an escort service, but how much more and how to get the illegal doings tied to Zanlos in a direct hangman's noose was the challenge. Since she didn't intend to take her undercover work under the covers, she had to act fast and efficiently. The procuress, Anna Murray, of whom all the girls were afraid, wouldn't let her work the room as eye candy alone for very long, especially since she'd already entertained some startlingly large offers for extracurriculars.

  Then there was the overshadowing threat of Bette Grover. How long could she be trusted to say nothing to her dangerous new lover?

  She'd promised LaValois she'd get inside, and here she was. He'd been as good as his word and had erased the trail back to her real job in Detroit. She didn't ask how, but apparently her new background had survived some serious scrutiny. The only ones who knew her true identity were Gabriel, his rather disagreeable partner and Bette Grover. How long Bette would keep that news to herself, especially now that their relationship was strained, wasn't something she wanted to bet her life on.

  So she had to make the most of what time she had.

  The girls were no help. They weren't much for conversation. Her overtures about Anna and Zanlos were greeted with blank looks or lightly veiled hostility. The answers she did get were all maddeningly similar—the pay was great, Anna Murray was a generous but ruthless employer who didn't appreciate questions, and Kaz Zanlos was one delicious trick they'd all love to turn. But apparently, he never played in his own back yard. Not even with his glamorous partner. Rae wondered why.

  While the action below in the dance club intensified, the activity at the Noir slowed as dawn
approached. Most patrons had found what they were looking for and had paired off, either in the surrounding booths or off-premises. A few diehard revelers continued to drink and gamble and sample from the girls remaining—the on-call call girls, Rae supposed they'd be titled, the ones who worked the room for the entire evening. Taking advantage of the quiet, Rae slipped from the thinning crowd to do some exploring on her own.

  The first floor held no mysteries—main room, private party areas and gambling nooks, and the girls’ dressing room in the back. And a locked door at the rear of the building in the stairwell where Gabriel had dragged her out that first night. Behind it, she guessed the stairs went up. And that's where she would go.

  She withdrew her lock pick from her carefully coifed hairdo where it had been serving double duty holding the elaborate twists in place. After casting a cautious look around, she went to work on the lock. Tricky but not invincible. Stairs leading up. She took them as fast as her hooker shoes would carry her. She'd just reached the first landing when a low purring voice stopped her cold.

  "Where you going, sugar?"

  Rae turned to see the sleek and icy Crystal three steps below her. Finding her that close without her knowledge sent a shock of alarm through her system. How the woman had managed a stealthy climb in her five-inch stilettos was one of the great mysteries of the universe. Apparently, the woman hadn't been as distracted below as Rae assumed and took her shepherding position seriously. As serious as a heart attack.

  "You scared me,” Rae stated rather breathlessly to explain away any residue of guilt that might have crept into her expression. “I didn't know anyone else was here."

  "What are you doing here?"

  There was nothing in the chill blue stare that hinted at a sympathetic or easily fooled listener. Rae sized her up covertly, wondering if she could take the Nordic queen out quietly and make good an escape. If she ran, leaving Crystal behind without a good story to tell, the masquerade was over.