Beneath the Mask

Chapter 20: The Interrogation

The relentless beep… beep… beep… was a fragile tether. Jace clung to it, his eyes fixed on the jagged green line tracing Kate’s stubborn heartbeat on the monitor. His thumb moved in slow, unconscious circles on the back of her hand, the one not encased in bandages or tubing. Her skin was still too cool, too pale under the harsh overhead light, the vibrant ink of her tattoos muted beneath the thin sheet. The ventilator hissed and sighed, inflating her lungs with mechanical precision, a sound that had replaced the flatline scream still echoing in his skull. Her eyes remained closed, lashes dark smudges against her cheeks, deep in a drug-induced twilight. Sedated, fighting, the nurse had said. He focused on the rise and fall of her chest, willing strength into her with every breath the machine gave her.

The door flew open. Not the careful click of a nurse, but a sharp, impatient thrust that slammed it against the wall. The sound cracked through the room’s fragile quiet.

Jace flinched, his head snapping up, every muscle tightening instinctively. His grip on Kate’s hand became protective, almost possessive.

Detective Mallory Quinn filled the doorway. Late forties, sharp suit jacket over a rumpled blouse, eyes like flint chips scanning the room – the machines, the bandages, Kate’s still form, Jace hunched in the plastic chair, covered in dried mud and river stink. Her gaze paused on Henry, leaning against the wall near the window, arms crossed over his bandaged bicep, his expression unreadable. She dismissed him quickly, focusing back on Jace.

"Mr. Hayes," she said. Her voice was low, controlled, but it scraped like dry ice. It held absolutely no warmth. "You have a lot of explaining to do."

Jace didn’t stand. He met her stare, the exhaustion in his own eyes warring with a dangerous spark. "Detective," he acknowledged, his voice rough from shouting, from fear, from hours of silence. "This ain't the time or place."

Quinn stepped fully into the room, letting the door swing mostly shut behind her. The flickering bulb overhead cast shifting, uneasy shadows across her angular face and the stark white walls. The scent of antiseptic suddenly mingled with the stale coffee clinging to her. "Funny," she said, her tone dry as dust. "Seems exactly the time and place. Woman nearly dies after a violent incident involving a corpse on private property, a gunshot wound, and a frantic river escape during a record flood." Her eyes flicked to Kate. Cunningham here can't talk right now. That leaves you." She pulled a small notebook from her jacket pocket. "Start with the dead man on Henry Fillmore's land."

Henry shifted. "Man broke in. Trespassed. Wasn't friendly. Had a gun. Things escalated." His voice was a gravelly rumble.

"Escalated to you shooting him point-blank in the chest with a twelve-gauge?" Quinn’s gaze snapped to Henry, sharp and assessing. "Your registered firearm, Mr. Fillmore. Found at the scene. Alongside a body with very little face left."

"Self-defense," Henry stated flatly. "He shot first." He gestured stiffly with his bandaged arm. "Doc patched the souvenir he gave me."

Quinn made a note, her expression skeptical. "Convenient." She turned her flinty eyes back to Jace. "And you were there, Mr. Hayes? Just happened to be visiting old Henry during a biblical flood?"

Jace kept his gaze steady. "Helping batten down the hatches before the storm hit. Heard the break-in. Went to see." He kept it simple, factual. Every instinct screamed to shield Kate from this, but Quinn was a predator scenting blood. "Found Henry down, the guy standing over him with a pistol. Henry got his shot off. Guy went down hard." He remembered the spray, the sound, the sudden, shocking stillness.

Quinn’s pen scratched in her notebook. "Did you recognize the deceased, Mr. Hayes?"

A beat of silence. Too long. Jace felt the weight of Kate’s hand in his. Heard the steady hiss-whir of the ventilator. "No," he said, the lie feeling thick on his tongue. "Never seen him before."

Quinn’s eyes narrowed. She didn't believe him. The skepticism was a physical presence. "Really?" She took a step closer to the bed, ignoring Jace’s immediate, protective stiffening. Her eyes weren't on Kate’s face, but on Jace. Specifically, on his hands where they clasped Kate’s, on the exposed skin of his lower arms below the rolled-up sleeves of Henry’s borrowed flannel shirt. "Looks like you got close. Got blood on you." She nodded towards the dark, crusted stains on his clothes. "His blood?"

Jace glanced down. The mud was streaked with rusty brown. "Probably. Or mine. Or Henry’s. It was messy." He kept his voice level.

"Messy," Quinn repeated, the word dripping with disdain. She moved slightly, her gaze sharpening, zeroing in on the intricate tattoo snaking up Jace’s left forearm, partially visible beneath the shirt cuff. It was an intricate design: interlocking geometric patterns surrounding a stylized, crowned skull. Not menacing, just… complex. Ancient. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, a flicker of recognition that she quickly masked, replaced by a colder, harder scrutiny. "That tattoo," she said, her voice losing none of its edge but gaining a new intensity. "Unique design. Where’d you get it?"

Jace’s guard slammed up. He pulled his sleeve down fractionally, a subtle defensive gesture. "Artist in New Orleans. Years ago." He kept his eyes on hers, challenging. "Why? Violating some obscure ink ordinance, Detective?"

Quinn didn’t flinch. She tapped her notebook with her pen. Her voice dropped lower, colder, cutting through the hum of the machines. "Because that exact design, Mr. Hayes… that specific crowned skull within the geometric pattern… was found carved into the wall above the bed of a Jane Doe we pulled out of the river six years back. A case that went cold. The carving was her killer’s signature." She paused, letting the implication hang like a blade in the antiseptic air. Her gaze locked onto his, unblinking. "And the last person seen arguing with her at a bar downtown that night? Was you."

The room seemed to tilt. The beep… beep… beep… of the heart monitor was suddenly the only sound. Henry’s breath hitched audibly. Jace felt the blood drain from his face, leaving him cold. The past, the thing he kept buried deep, the thing that followed like a shadow… it was here. Laid bare in this sterile room. Above Kate’s hospital bed.

He opened his mouth, denial forming, but no sound came out. His grip on Kate’s hand tightened convulsively.

A small, choked sound came from the bed.

Kate’s eyes had fluttered open. Not fully, just slits. Glazed, unfocused, swimming in the haze of sedation and pain. But they were open. And fixed, with terrifying clarity, on Jace’s face. Her lips moved, forming a single, silent word shaped by the tube in her throat. Her eyes, clouded with drugs and exhaustion, held a dawning horror that cut deeper than any accusation Quinn could voice.

The heart monitor’s beep accelerated. Beep-beep… beep-beep-beep… A frantic, panicked rhythm against the ventilator’s steady sigh. Her fingers twitched weakly in his crushing grip. Not a caress. A flinch. A recoil.

Her lips shaped the word again, soundless but unmistakable in the frozen tableau: Talbot?

Kate’s panicked heartbeat hammered against the monitor’s steady rhythm. Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep. Her wide, drugged eyes locked onto Jace’s face, the silent accusation—Talbot?—hanging between them like poisoned smoke. The ventilator hissed, forcing air into lungs that seemed frozen.

Detective Quinn didn’t flinch. Her flint-chip eyes stayed on Jace, sharp and unforgiving. "Recognize that name, Mr. Hayes?" Her pen hovered over the notebook. "Jane Doe was Lydia Talbot. Ring any bells now?"

Jace felt the sterile walls closing in. He looked down at Kate’s hand, cold and small in his. Her fingers trembled. That flinch. That recoil. The fragile thing they’d almost drowned for felt like it was shattering under the fluorescent glare. He saw his reflection in Quinn’s hardened gaze – the mud, the bloodstains, the intricate crowned skull peeking from beneath his sleeve. The past wasn't buried. It was right here, choking the air.

He met Quinn’s stare. His voice, when it came, was raw, stripped bare. "Alright." The word scraped his throat. "Yeah. I knew Lydia Talbot. Six years back."

Quinn’s pen hit the paper. "Explain the connection. And the carving."

"Met her at a dive bar off Canal," Jace said, his gaze drifting past Quinn to the flickering light bulb. Shadows danced on the wall. "She was… intense. Into the same dark corners I was. Occult symbolism. Old bones. Poetry that felt like broken glass." He swallowed hard. The monitor screamed Kate’s distress. "We argued that night. Loud. About… provenance. About a specific collection. But I walked away. Swear on whatever's left of my soul, I left her alive near Jackson Square."

Quinn’s expression didn’t soften. "Your tattoo was carved above her body."

"It wasn’t mine," Jace insisted, a spark of his old defiance flashing. "Not then. Got it after. A reminder. A… ward." He pushed his sleeve up further, exposing the crowned skull fully, the geometric patterns sharp under the light. "Copied it from a photograph of the crime scene. Kept it close. To remember what walked away that night. What I should’ve stopped."

Henry grunted from the corner, shifting his weight. Quinn ignored him. "Why? Why brand yourself with a killer’s mark?"

"Because I knew who did it," Jace said, the words thick with an old rage. "Not his name, not then. But his… signature. The arrogance. The way he left things. He was circling people like Lydia. Like…" His eyes flickered helplessly to Kate. Her terrified gaze was fixed on him, tears welling silently. The tube prevented her scream. "Like Kate."

Quinn leaned in slightly, a predator sensing weakness. "The dead man in Fillmore’s boathouse. Was it him? The Talbot killer?"

Jace closed his eyes for a second. The river’s roar filled his memory – the storm, the panic, the crack of Henry’s shotgun in the echoing boathouse. The man falling. "Yeah," he breathed out, the admission tasting like ash. "It was him."

He opened his eyes, locking onto Quinn’s. "He found Kate. Weeks ago. He knew her routines. Her fears." Jace’s knuckles were white where he held Kate’s hand. Hers was limp. "I saw him watching her. At the coffee shop outside the dental office. Near the bookstore."

"Why not come to us?" Quinn demanded, her voice low and dangerous.

Jace barked a harsh, humorless laugh. "With what? ‘Detective, a guy is creeping on my girlfriend’? You’d have laughed me out the door. And he’d have vanished. Or worse." He glanced at the bandage on Kate’s arm – the tear from the boathouse hook during their desperate escape. "He escalated fast. Broke into her place last week. Left one of Lydia’s old stone ravens on her floor."

Quinn’s pen stopped. Her eyes narrowed. "A raven. We found a silver raven pendant on the Jane Doe."

"He was claiming her," Jace said, the words ugly and final. "Like he claimed Lydia. He was done watching. The storm… it was chaos. He knew Henry’s place was isolated. Knew we’d be battening down. He came for her." His grip on Kate tightened, protective, desperate. "We heard the break-in. Found him standing over Henry. Pistol out. Henry was bleeding. It happened fast."

Silence crashed down, broken only by the frantic beeping of Kate’s heart monitor and the ventilator’s rhythmic sigh. Quinn stared at him, processing. The flickering bulb cast shifting doubt across her face. Kate’s tears traced hot paths down her temples.

"He’s dead?" Quinn asked, her voice flat.

"Henry’s shotgun, point-blank," Henry confirmed from the shadows, his voice gravelly. "Saw him pull the trigger on me first. Self-defense stands."

Quinn didn’t look at Henry. Her gaze pinned Jace. "You hunted him. Knew he was the Talbot killer. Knew he was targeting Cunningham. You played vigilante."

Jace didn’t deny it. His voice was stripped raw. "I protected her. Stopped him. Yeah." He looked down at Kate, her eyes wide with a storm of fear and confusion. "I saw him watching you, Kate. Weeks ago. Knew his pattern. Knew what he was. What he’d do." The beeping monitor screamed her panic. "I just… moved into the shadows near yours. Learned your routines too. Made sure I was there." He leaned closer, ignoring Quinn. "He left that raven. After he broke in. I found it." His thumb brushed her knuckles, a futile gesture. "The boathouse… it was him finishing it. We finished it first."

Quinn snapped her notebook shut with a sound like a gunshot. "Jace Hayes, you're under arrest for obstruction of justice, failure to report a crime, and potential accessory after the fact." Her hand went to the handcuffs clipped to her belt. "You don't get to play executioner."

Henry stepped forward, a solid wall of muscle blocking her path to Jace. "Hold on, Detective. He just gave you your ghost. Closed your cold case."

"He interfered in an active investigation!" Quinn snapped, her voice rising above the machines.

"He saved her life!" Henry roared back, gesturing at Kate’s still form, the frantic green line on the monitor. "Look at her! That bastard stabbed and tried to strangle her to death! Hayes stopped it!"

Jace didn't look at Quinn or Henry. He kept his eyes locked on Kate’s terrified face, his voice dropping to a low, urgent rasp meant only for her ears over the ventilator’s hiss. "He quoted Auden to Lydia. ‘The stars are not wanted now: put out every one.’" Kate flinched violently. Recognition flashed, deep and horrifying, in her drugged eyes.

Recognition flashed, deep and horrifying, in her drugged eyes. The ventilator hissed, forcing air past the tube taped to her mouth, silencing her scream. Her gaze locked onto Jace’s face, wide with terror and sudden understanding – the whispered Auden line wasn't just a memory; it was the killer’s signature, echoing in her own nightmares now.

Detective Quinn’s hand tightened on the cold steel of her handcuffs. "Hayes, stand up," she ordered, her voice sharp as shattered glass. "Hands where I can see them." Henry shifted his bulk, a solid barrier between her and the plastic chair. "Back off, Quinn. He ain't movin'."

Jace ignored them both. His entire world narrowed to Kate’s panicked eyes, the frantic beep-beep-beep-beep of the monitor screaming her fear. He leaned closer, his voice a raw scrape against the ventilator’s mechanical sigh. "He used it on you too, didn't he? When he broke in?" Kate’s head jerked in a tiny, terrified nod. Tears spilled over, tracing hot paths through the antiseptic chill on her cheeks. Her free hand, the one not trapped in his grip, twitched weakly on the thin hospital sheet.

Quinn’s gaze flickered between them, suspicion hardening. "What break-in? Cunningham, did Hayes report this?" Kate’s eyes darted to Quinn, pleading, desperate. Her lips moved behind the tube, forming silent words Quinn couldn’t decipher. "Can't understand you, honey," Quinn said, her tone clipped, impatient. "Just nod if Hayes knew about this attacker before tonight."

Kate’s head shook violently side-to-side, a clumsy, drugged motion. No. Her hand twitched again, fingers curling weakly. She strained against the sedation, against the tube stealing her voice. Her eyes burned into Jace’s, begging him to understand something more. She tried to lift her hand higher, a monumental effort against the drugs and weakness. It trembled violently, hovering inches above the sheet.

"Kate, stop," Jace murmured, his thumb stroking her knuckles. "Don't fight it." But she persisted, her gaze fierce, insistent. Her trembling fingers pointed shakily, not at Quinn, not at Henry, but directly at Jace himself. Then, with agonizing slowness, her hand turned palm-upwards, fingers curling slightly inward towards her own chest. A gesture of protection. Of shielding. Her eyes, wide and desperate, screamed the words the tube wouldn’t let her say: He saved me. Not him.

Quinn frowned, watching the trembling hand, the silent plea in Kate’s eyes. "What are you trying to say, Cunningham?" Kate’s hand dropped back to the sheet, exhausted. She sucked in a ragged breath against the ventilator’s rhythm, her chest hitching. Her gaze never left Quinn’s face. She lifted her hand again, just a fraction. Pointed one trembling finger back at Jace. Then, with immense effort, she slowly, deliberately shook her head. No. Not him. Not the threat.

Her lips moved again behind the plastic tube, shaping two distinct syllables with fierce, silent urgency: "Not… him." The heart monitor spiked wildly. Beep-beep-beep-BEEP! Her eyes rolled back slightly, the effort overwhelming her. But the message hung in the sterile, charged air, clear as the ventilator’s hiss: Jace Hayes wasn't the monster. He was the shield.

The ventilator hissed its artificial rhythm. Kate’s trembling hand fell back onto the sterile sheet, spent. Her tear-streaked face, pale against the pillow, remained turned towards Quinn, those wide, drugged eyes burning with silent insistence: Not him. The frantic beep-beep-beep-beep of the monitor underscored her wordless plea.

Detective Quinn stared. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the cold steel of the handcuffs clipped to her belt. The accusation she’d carried into the room – the crowned skull tattoo, the cold case connection, Hayes’s vigilante shadow-play – slammed against Kate’s desperate defense. It didn’t compute. Victims didn’t shield predators like this, not with that raw terror still vibrating in the air. Her sharp cop’s gaze flickered from Kate’s exhausted face to Jace’s mud-streaked, blood-crusted profile. He hadn’t moved an inch from the plastic chair, his focus entirely on Kate, his thumb tracing slow, unconscious circles on the back of her hand. His posture radiated exhaustion and a fierce, protective stillness.

QUINN HESITATES.

The flatline scream from earlier echoed in her memory, the frantic resuscitation, Hayes’s raw, animalistic denial. "KATE! BREATHE!" Henry Fillmore’s gravelly voice cut through the humming tension. "Told ya, Detective. Ain't the monster here." He shifted his bandaged arm. "Saw the whole damn thing in the boathouse. That bastard had a knife to her throat 'fore Hayes even got close. Shot me first." Quinn’s jaw tightened. Her eyes snapped back to Kate. "Cunningham," she said, her voice losing some of its ice, gaining a strained urgency. "This man who attacked you. Before tonight. When he broke in. Did he… did he say anything? Anything specific?"

Kate’s eyelids fluttered weakly. She sucked in a shuddering breath against the ventilator’s push. Her gaze drifted back to Jace, seeking an anchor. He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a low, rough murmur meant only for her. "The Auden, Kate. Remember? He said it to you too." A violent tremor ran through her. Her head jerked in a tiny, terrified nod. Her lips moved again behind the tube, silently forming the killer’s words: ‘The stars are not wanted now: put out every one.’

Recognition, cold and absolute, washed over Quinn’s face. That line. That exact, chilling quote. It hadn’t been released to the press in the Talbot case. Only the killer, the investigators… and Lydia Talbot herself would have known it. Found scribbled in her notebook, later carved near her body. Quinn’s grip on the handcuffs loosened slightly. Her gaze locked onto Jace, reassessing, the pieces shifting violently. "Hayes," she said, her voice tight but no longer accusatory. Demanding answers, not an arrest. "The dead man. In Fillmore’s boathouse. You’re sure it was him? The Talbot killer?"

Jace finally tore his gaze from Kate’s face. He looked up at Quinn, his eyes shadowed hollows in the flickering light. "Positive," he stated, the word flat and final. "Same eyes. Same… smell. Like old stones and wet earth." He remembered the predatory stillness as the man turned from Henry’s bleeding form in the boathouse, the glint of the knife near Kate’s throat. "He quoted Auden while he held her. Right before Fillmore blew a hole in his chest." Henry grunted confirmation. "Damn right he did. Smug bastard."

Quinn exhaled sharply, a plume of frost in the cold room air. She holstered the handcuffs with a decisive click. The suspicion hadn't vanished, but it had fractured, redirected. "Alright," she conceded, the word clipped. She pulled her notebook back out, flipping pages rapidly. "Descriptions. Both of you. Now. Everything you remember about him before he lost most of his face to a shotgun." Her pen hovered, poised. "Height, build, hair, scars, tattoos – anything. Especially tattoos." Her eyes flicked pointedly to Jace’s exposed forearm. "Did he have ink? Like yours?"

Jace frowned, dredging the memory. The storm’s chaos, the adrenaline, the man falling backwards… "Average height," he began slowly. "Lean, wiry. Dark hair, greying at the temples. Clean-shaven." He closed his eyes for a second, picturing the figure turning in the dim boathouse light. "Right hand. Knuckles. Something dark… knotted. Like an old brand." Henry nodded vigorously. "Yeah. Ugly thing. Looked like a burned rope."

Quinn scribbled furiously. "Right hand knuckles. Brand-like scar." She looked up, her gaze sharpening. "Anything else? Clothing? Accent?"

"Work boots," Henry offered. "Dark jacket. No accent I noticed. Voice was… quiet. Too damn quiet for the storm." Jace remembered the unnerving calm as the man spoke the Auden line, the knife pressing into Kate’s skin. "Controlled. Precise."

Quinn snapped her notebook shut again, but this time it wasn't an accusation. It was a pivot. "Fillmore, you stay put. Statements later." Her gaze landed back on Jace, lingering on the crowned skull tattoo, then shifting to Kate’s fragile form. The heart monitor’s beep was steadier now, but still too fast. "Hayes," she said, her tone losing its edge entirely, replaced by a grim professionalism. "You don't leave this room. Not for coffee, not for air, not if the damn building burns down. Understood?" She didn’t wait for an answer. She turned on her heel, the door swinging shut behind her with a soft click, leaving the hum of machines and the scent of fear hanging heavy.

Silence descended, thick and charged. Jace slumped back in the chair, the adrenaline crash hitting him like a physical blow. He felt drained, scraped raw. He lifted Kate’s hand, pressing his lips against her cold knuckles. Her eyelids fluttered open halfway, meeting his gaze. The terror was still there, deep and bruised, but beneath it, a flicker of something else. Exhaustion, yes. But also a fragile, questioning trust. He brushed a damp strand of hair from her forehead. "Sleep," he murmured, his voice rough with fatigue. "He’s gone. Really gone." The ventilator sighed. Her fingers tightened weakly around his, just once, before her eyes drifted shut. He watched the jagged green line on the monitor, each peak a fragile victory against the dark water, the flashing knife, the echoing gunshot. Outside, the sterile corridor buzzed with Quinn’s retreating footsteps, hunting the ghost of the dead man. Inside, Jace Hayes kept his vigil, a silent sentinel in the flickering light, his shadow falling across Kate like a shield.