[Beneath 01.0] Beneath This Mask

by Meghan March

  Charlie stiffened. “Public festivities?” she asked.

  “Let’s talk about it later, yeah?” I said, hoping we could have this conversation without an audience. Thankfully, she nodded.

  “You mind waiting a few more minutes while Con finishes up?”

  I leaned down and kissed her shoulder again. “As long as it takes.” I shot her a pointed look. She bit her lip at my double meaning. I’d never claimed to be subtle.

  I stepped aside for Con to come back in and get settled on his stool. He picked up where he left off, and Charlie slipped back into her relaxed state as soon as the buzz of the tattoo gun filled the room.

  Her easy mood lasted about three steps outside Voodoo. “So tell me about Fourth of July.”

  “It’s a holiday celebrating American independence.”

  She shot me a sidelong look and waited for a serious answer as we walked in the direction of my car. Parking in New Orleans had never been irritating to me until I met Charlie. She lived and worked in some of the most unparkable places. I opened her door, and she climbed in. I rounded the hood and hopped in the driver’s seat.

  The silence in the car forced me to explain. “It’s an event called Fighting for Freedom that’s being held on the Steamboat Orleans. It’s put on by two nonprofits focused on serving veterans that I’m partnering with to get my own off the ground. There’s a dinner and silent auction before the fireworks.” I pulled away from the curb.

  “Your own?”

  I looked over, realizing I hadn’t yet shared it with her. She was quickly becoming the most important person in my life, but every time I saw her, my thoughts were filled with nothing but Charlie. So it was little wonder we hadn’t discussed it.

  I explained further as I drove. “I’m starting a nonprofit to offer PTSD counseling and alternative therapies to vets who’d prefer not to seek treatment at the VA for whatever reason. My lawyer has already formed the corporation, and we’re working on the application for tax-exempt status. There’s still a ton of work to be done, but it’s all starting to come together. That’s why this Fourth of July thing is so important, because there will be a lot of people there who support veteran’s causes who I’ll need on my side to make The Kingman Project a success.”

  “Wow. That’s … amazing. If you need help with pro forma financial statements, I’m your girl.”

  My gaze snapped to hers for a second before refocusing on the road. What the hell? Pro forma financial statements?

  “Why—” I started to ask her to explain, but she interrupted my question.

  “Wait, Kingman—was he the pilot who…?” Her change of subject derailed my thoughts as my stomach dropped, the same way it did every time I relived the explosion in my head. It should have been me.

  “Yeah. He’s the one. The one … who saved me. His widow will be there too. She’s remarried now, to a friend of mine. I’d like you to meet her.”

  I turned onto her street and snagged a spot not far from Harriet’s house. I put the SUV in park and turned to face Charlie. She was frowning and picking at the black nail polish on her thumb. Her body language was all wrong.

  She didn’t look up when she said, “I’m not sure I can do that.”

  A cold feeling crept into my chest. “What do you mean you’re not sure you can do that?”

  “The event. Meet his widow. There’ll be press, right? Cameras?”

  “Yeah, but it’s no big deal. A few photo ops and it’s done. It’s for a good cause, and it’s pretty painless.”

  “I’m not a photo op kind of girl, Simon. I told you before, and I wasn’t kidding.” She finally looked at me, and the stubborn set of her jaw pissed me off. I tried one more time to explain how much this event meant to me.

  “I need you with me for this, Charlie. It’s important to me. I want you there, next to me.”

  “I should go.” She reached for the door handle, and the grip I had on my temper snapped.

  “You’re not getting out of this car until you tell me what the hell you’re hiding from that you can’t risk a goddamn picture in the fucking paper. And pro forma financial statements? What the fuck, Charlie? You’ve gotta give me something here.”

  She stilled before slowly turning to face me. Her glare was ice, and her walls were up higher than I’d ever seen. “Don’t talk to me like that, and don’t tell me what to do. It’s not going to work out how you think.”

  I slammed my palms against the steering wheel, helpless to stop this conversation from spiraling out of control. “Goddammit. I just want to understand. I could help you if you’d let me. But you won’t give me anything. It’s driving me crazy. I’ve made it pretty fucking clear that I’m in love with you, and I think you love me.” I gestured between us. “This isn’t going to work unless you let me in. If you can’t do that, what’s the point in even trying?”

  I wanted to take my words back as soon as they escaped my lips, but I couldn’t. They needed to be said. The ice in her gaze melted into glossy tears. She blinked them back, not letting them spill. I knew what she was going to say before she spoke. Don’t, I thought. Don’t say it, Charlie. She opened her mouth, and I reinforced myself for the blow I knew was coming.

  “I guess … there really is no point. We both know I’m no good for you anyway.” She opened the door like she hadn’t just ripped my heart out of my chest. “Goodbye, Simon.”

  I swallowed, determined to hold it together. “You said you wouldn’t break my heart.” The words sounded like they’d been dragged over a gravel road before I ground them out.

  She turned back to face me, tears streaking down her face. “No, I didn’t. I said I wouldn’t do it without shattering mine.” She dashed away the tears with the side of her hand. Her voice shook as she said, “I didn’t lie about that.” She shut the door and crossed the street without looking back. I watched, unable to comprehend what the fuck just happened, as she fumbled with the lock and finally slipped inside the gate. She was gone.

  Twenty-Eight

  Charlie

  I buried my face in Huck’s fur and let my tears soak into his rough coat as I listened to the continuous buzzing coming from the intercom. I could have written the scene before it happened. It was inevitable. I should have been better prepared for it. But I hadn’t factored in just how much it would hurt to walk away from him

  When the buzzing finally stopped, I knew Simon was gone.

  I sniffled back a sob, and Huck’s big brown eyes rested on me. I could only imagine how pitiful I looked.

  The raw emotions were too much to handle. I didn’t want to think. Didn’t want to feel. I needed to be numb, or I might not be able to stop myself from going after him.

  I was only a few blocks from Bourbon Street. So I’d go with the obvious solution: get drunk and lose myself in the crowd. Lose myself period. I was good at that. I knew I should call Yve or Delilah, but then I’d have to rehash everything that had happened tonight. And I wasn’t ready for that. So I’d go by myself. Because at the end of the day, I was the only person I could rely on anyway.

  So, laissez les bon temps rouler.

  I slammed shot after shot, shaking my ass on the dance floor, shoving away every guy who attempted to get close. Just like I’d shoved Simon away.

  My actions were a sadly accurate metaphor for my life.

  The lights were hypnotic, and my buzz was rolling into straight up hammered. I stumbled to the bar and slapped down a twenty. “Two more shots. Tequila.” The bartender didn’t even blink before taking my money and pouring the liquor.

  “Lime?”

  “No need.” I tossed one back and smacked the glass down on the wooden bar before wiping my hand across my mouth. I looked down at my ink-covered skin and smiled sardonically. The good-girl-falling-for-the-bad-boy stories might have happily ever afters, but you never really heard about what happened when the good guy fell for the bad girl.

  Apparently this.

  I lifted the other shot in a silent toast to S
imon and tipped it back. He deserved better than me. If things had continued on between us, I would’ve eventually dragged him into the suspicion and contempt that surrounded the girl I was pretending not to be. I looked at the bartender and pulled out another twenty.

  “Two more, please.”

  Then I’d be done. I’d walk my ass home and pass out. I’d call in hung over tomorrow, and Yve would be knocking on my door and dragging me out of bed. Love that girl. The thought cued me in to the fact that I had indeed officially passed buzzed. I downed the last two shots and stumbled my way out of the bar into the mass of humanity on Bourbon. I caught glimpses of tits and ass as I made my way up the street. I spotted Jimmy on the corner. Surprisingly, a hot dog sounded delicious. I hadn’t been by to see Jimmy since shortly after Huck’s accident when I’d promised Simon I wouldn’t walk home alone anymore.

  “Jimmy!” I called out as I pushed through the crowd.

  “Ms. Charlie, I ain’t seen you in weeks.” Jimmy snapped his tongs in my direction. “Where you been? Where’s my boy Huck Finn? And what can I get for you this fine evenin’?”

  I tried to sort his questions out in my tequila-soaked brain. “Umm … Huck’s at home. He got hit by a car … so I haven’t been walking home for a while. This guy … he didn’t think it was safe for me … by myself.” I winced at my disjointed explanation.

  Jimmy narrowed his gaze at me. “You done tied one on.” It wasn’t a question. He looked around. “You by yourself tonight?”

  I nodded. “It’s cool. You know I’m not far from home.” I tried hard to avoid slurring my words. I was like a drunk teenager trying to fool her parents.

  “I still don’t like it.” He handed me my hotdog without me having to order. I handed him the rest of the money I had on me. He tried to refuse, but I stuffed the bills in the pocket of his apron.

  “See you tomorrow, Jimmy.”

  “It’s a date, Ms. Charlie.”

  I wandered a few more steps before I took a bite. I chewed and swallowed. And then gagged. Bad idea. Tequila and hotdog were not going to coexist peacefully. But I didn’t want to waste it. So I kept walking, on a drunken quest to find one of those homeless pups that wandered the street to pull in money for their owners. If it was good enough for Huck…

  I finally spotted one sitting on the corner beyond the barricade that blocked the cars from Bourbon Street. The end of his leash was knotted to a pipe. It looked like his owner had just tied him up and left him. He was brindle like Huck, which made me smile. I staggered forward and offered up the hotdog.

  “Here you go, baby. Eat up.” He swallowed it down in two head-tossing bites. Just like Huck.

  “What the fuck, bitch?”

  I spun around and registered a man striding out of the shadows. He wasn’t one of the hippy-looking homeless guys. He looked … mean.

  “Ummm … sorry. I’ll just be going.” I looked at the dog and started to turn back toward the crowd only a dozen or so yards away.

  “I don’t think so.” His fingers bit into my bare arm as he swung me around and dragged me down the dark street. I started to scream, but the back of his hand caught my cheek and my head snapped sideways. The air in my lungs evaporated as icy fear rushed in to take its place. Memories of my last close call assailed me. I had no Huck this time. No way to protect myself.

  He was patting down my pockets, looking for money, while I just stood there dumbly. “You gotta have something. Fuckin’ bitches always got something,” he muttered, still gripping my arm. He tossed my cell phone into the gutter.

  My drunken haze was ripped away as the reality of my situation solidified. I rammed my knee up into his groin and yanked against his grasp as he doubled over. But his grip was too tight. His dog growled, and I stayed just shy of the snapping teeth that had looked so harmless only moments before. I rotated my arm, trying to twist out of his hold. But he was faster, and I felt a slash of pain across my side. I looked down at the slice in my white tank top as it turned red. He froze, as if realizing what he’d just done, as if the action had been a reflex. In his shock, he dropped the knife, and it clattered to the sidewalk near the dog. I kneed him in the balls again. This time he stumbled and let go of my arm. I ran toward the crowd.

  “You better run, bitch,” he yelled after me.

  I staggered down Bourbon Street, clutching my arm to my side as hot, sticky blood seeped out of the wound. I spotted a cop and started toward him. But then common sense intruded. Cops meant a hospital and questions. I turned away, tripping over the curb and stumbling into a doorway next to a strip club. The doorman glanced over at me. Then did a double take.

  “Whoa, sweetheart. You’re bleeding. Fuck!” He fumbled for his phone. “I’ll call 911.”

  “No. Don’t.” I started to sweat and dizziness assailed me. “Could you call someone else for me?”

  He held the phone, poised to dial. “Number?”

  I rattled off one I knew by heart. The bouncer held the phone out, and I pressed it to my ear.

  He picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”

  “I need you.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Charlie

  I woke up wearing nothing but my bra and underwear in a bed that wasn’t my own. I stretched and winced at the pain in my side, the pounding in my head, and the throbbing of my cheek. I groaned.

  I was a total shit show.

  Fragmented memories of last night came flooding back as I surveyed the very familiar room and the man in bed beside me. His blue eyes flicked open, as if he’d just been lying there, waiting for me to wake. He stared at me for a long moment before speaking.

  “Scared the shit out of me last night, Lee.”

  I tried to recall exactly what the hell had happened. It was mostly a drunken blur laced with heart-stopping fear. “I don’t remember much after the phone call.”

  “That’s because you didn’t fucking make it through the phone call. You passed out, went into shock. Bouncer had to tell me where the fuck you were. I paid him four hundred bucks because you dropped his phone and shattered the screen. Well, that, and he was a stand up guy and used his shirt to stop the bleeding before I got there.”

  I chanced a glance down at my side. There were no stitches, only an angry red seam. I looked up at Con.

  “No hospital?”

  His snapping blue eyes turned serious. “Did you really want me to announce your whereabouts to the FBI, Charlotte?”

  All of the blood drained from my face. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Fear slithered up my spine.

  “How…? How long…?”

  “Jesus, give me some credit. You really think I’d hire a woman with no ID, clearly running from something, and just leave it at that?”

  “I … I guess not?” My voice faltered on the words. If he figured it out, that meant that anyone else could too. Fuck. Me. The illusion that I had any control over my situation died a tragic death.

  He shook his head. “Definitely not. I needed to know what kind of trouble might be following you.” He propped himself up on an elbow. “I don’t know why you’re so surprised. I mean, I was more than just some dumb grunt in the Army. I was Special Forces. I’ve still got buddies who work intel. All it took was sending a picture of you, calling in a few favors, and misappropriating some government resources.”

  “But…”

  Con interrupted me to continue his explanation. “Before you started in on the tats and found your attitude, you practically screamed ‘good girl on the run.’ I had to know why. And then there was the fact that I was planning on fucking you pretty much from the minute you walked through my door.”

  I gave him a dirty look in response to his very Con-like, blunt statement, but my fear started to dissipate. If Con had to pull strings with military intelligence, who’d presumably used sophisticated facial recognition software to identify me, then it was possible I wasn’t completely screwed.

  I pulled the sheet tighter against me, still trying to process
everything. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  “We’ve all got our secrets. Yours is just a hell of a lot bigger than most. I can respect the fact that you’re not looking to be found. That you wanted to leave it all behind. I’m also damn sure you weren’t in on the scheme dear old dad pulled.”

  My heart thumped against my ribs at his statement. “And how do you know that?”

  “You wouldn’t accept a raise after we’d slept together because it would make you feel like a whore. That’s not the kind of character I’d expect from a girl who helped her dad steal $125 billion.”

  “Maybe…” I started to speak, but the words stuck in my throat. I had to force them out. “Maybe I didn’t want that raise because I already had plenty of money from … you know.”

  “You look like you’re about to puke just saying that. Unless you straight up tell me you did it, there’s no way in hell I’ll believe it.”

  I waited for him to ask. To make me tell him conclusively. But he didn’t.

  “You’re not going to ask me?”

  “Told you already. Don’t need to.”

  “I don’t deserve friends like you.” Tears stung my eyes.

  He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “Baby, you deserve a hell of a lot better than you give yourself credit for. And that includes good friends.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered. I shifted and the pinch in my side reminded me of my injury. I pulled the sheet away again to study my first knife wound. Lovely. Hopefully it would be my one and only. “How did you … fix me?”

  He peered down. “Superglue. It does a good job under most circumstances. This isn’t the first knife wound I’ve dealt with. And it wasn’t all that deep. I was glad you were out when I cleaned it, though. Anyway, you’ll be fine.” He skimmed a finger across my throbbing cheek. “Gonna have a little shiner, though. I’d love to meet the guy who did this. They’d never find his body.”