The Match

Chapter Eighteen

When Katherine Frole comes to the door, I am dressed like a celebrity who pretends that they don’t want to be recognized.

What does that entail?

Simple. A baseball cap. And sunglasses.

Every celebrity — okay, let’s be fair and say Most instead of Every — does this, even though it’s such an obvious move. Whenever you see someone indoors or in a place that isn’t sunny and they are wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, well, are they doing so to make sure that you don’t recognize them — or are they signaling to the world in bright neon that they are important, that they are someone you should recognize?

Don’t listen to their protests: Celebrities want to be recognized. Always. They don’t exist without that.

I, however, have no interest in being recognized. Especially today.

Katherine is happy to see me. That is good. It means she doesn’t know about Henry McAndrews yet. Interestingly enough, she points to me — at my cap and sunglasses, to be more specific — and asks, “What’s with the disguise?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I say, ducking into her office. “You know how it is.”

“I’m surprised to see you again. It’s just that I already broke protocol for you—”

“And I’m grateful,” I add quickly, smiling as widely as I can.

Katherine says nothing for a moment. I worry a bit because she works in law enforcement, more specifically, the FBI. That comes with its own set of problems, but I can’t worry about it now. Katherine wears a fitted blouse and skinny jeans. In short, I can see she is not carrying.

I, on the other hand, sport an oversized yellow windbreaker. It hides my Glock 19 well.

I have only fired a gun once. Well, three times actually. But all three shots were fired back-to-back, bam, bam, bam, so I count it as once. I heard that aiming was difficult and tricky in real life, as opposed to what you see on television and in movies, that you need a lot of training and experience.

But in my case, all three shots hit the intended target.

Of course, I was at close range.

Katherine keeps smiling at me, almost giddy to be in my presence. This is what I find so remarkably odd about fame. Katherine Frole is an important woman. She works forensics for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She has two thriving boys and a husband who is the primary stay-at-home caregiver, freeing her up to pursue her career. The two have been dating since they met sophomore year at Dartmouth College some twenty years ago. In short, Katherine Frole is highly educated and well-adjusted and successful — and yet she is a mad, mad, mad Love Is a Battlefield fangirl.

We are all contradictions, aren’t we?

“I tried to stop by last week,” I tell her, “but you were away.”

“Yes.” She clears her throat. “Barbados with the family.”

“Nice.”

“I’m just back.”

Which, of course, is why I’m here now.

“So” — Katherine plops down at the desk chair — “what can I do for you?”

“When you were investigating my case,” I begin.

“Let me stop you there,” she says, raising her hand. “Like I said before, I violated protocol already because, well, you know why.”

I do.

“But that’s it. I can’t give you more.”

“I know.” I make sure the smile reaches my eyes. “And I appreciate all you’ve done. Really. I was just curious about what else you might have learned.”

For the first time, I see doubt color her face. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You do this type of thing a lot,” I say. “Don’t you?”

“That’s not relevant.” Katherine’s words come out now in nervous hitches. “I can’t say any more. I broke protocol. I shouldn’t have. But I can’t do it again.”

“I have a confession to make,” I say.

“Oh?”

“You have to understand,” I say. “I couldn’t just sit on the name.”

The smile drops from her face like an anvil. “What do you mean?”

“I had to go to him.”

“Oh Christ.”

“For answers. I mean, how could I not?”

“But you promised—”

“Just having the name — that wasn’t enough. You must understand that. I needed to confront him.”

Katherine’s voice is a low hush. “Oh no.” She closes her eyes, takes a second, clears her throat. “Did you talk to McAndrews?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“That he worked alone,” I reply.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. That’s why I need to know more, Katherine. As someone who has been so supportive and did so much research for me, I have to ask: Did you find more?”

Katherine stays silent.

“You have a nice house and an office at FBI headquarters,” I continue with the slightest head tilt. “And yet you keep this little dingy office that no one knows about. Why?”

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Do you keep the secrets here? Is that why? Are the secrets on that computer?”

Her mobile phone is on the desk. She reaches for it. At the same time, I unzip my yellow windbreaker and pull out the gun. I really haven’t practiced, but I make the move smoothly. I’ve always been a pretty good athlete with good hand-eye coordination. Perhaps that’s it.

“Put the phone down,” I say.

Katherine’s eyes are two dinner plates.

“Henry McAndrews is dead, Katherine.”

“Oh God. You...?”

“Killed him, yes. Don’t you think he deserved that?”

She is too smart to answer. “What do you want?”

“The rest of your names.”

“But he was the main culprit here.”

“Not just the ones involved in this.”

She looks confused.

“I want all the names that you deemed not worthy of punishment.”

“Why?”

I think it’s pretty obvious, but I don’t go there. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I tell her in my most soothing voice. “Have you heard of mutually assured destruction? That’s us, Katherine. That’s you and me. If you try to pin McAndrews’s murder on me, it will be bad for you. You gave me the name in the first place. You would be revealing yourself. So you see? You have something on me, I have something on you.”

“Okay,” she says with an overly dramatic nod. “Just go then. I promise I won’t say anything.”

She thinks I’m stupid. “I need the names first.”

“I don’t have them.”

“Please,” I say. “Lying to me is not in your best interest. Didn’t you agree that McAndrews should have been punished?”

“Punished, yes, but—”

I raise the gun. Katherine stops talking and stares at the weapon in my hand. That’s how it is. She barely has eyes for me. Her whole world has shrunk down to the size of the muzzle on my gun.

“Oh — okay,” she stammers, “you’re right. I’ll give you the names. Just please put the gun down.”

“If it’s all the same, I’ll hold on to it until we’re done.” I motion with the gun toward her computer screen. “Open up the files. I want to see what you have here.”

We humans are such a melting pot of behaviors, aren’t we? So I can’t help but wonder: If it wasn’t for Reality Ralph’s podcast and the horror of that exposure, where would I be right now? My guess is, I would be living my “normal” — I think of that word in air quotes — life instead of preparing to commit my second murder. If it weren’t for that podcast, I would never have sought the identity of the man who sent those awful messages and pictures. I would never have bought a gun. I never would have taken a life.

Of course, even so — and here is where it gets interesting — killing McAndrews could have been — should have been — the end of it. I’d gotten my revenge. His murder would never be linked back to me. It would all work out.

That had been my plan.

But then, when I was face-to-face with McAndrews, when I pulled that trigger the first time. Then a second time. Then a third...

Do you know what I discovered?

When I am completely honest with myself, do you know what I realized?

I liked it. A lot.

I liked killing him.

We’ve all read books and seen movies about psychotic killers, how they can’t stop themselves, how they grow addicted to the adrenaline rush, how they start as children with small animals. You hear about a neighbor’s cat going missing. Then a dog. That’s how they say it works. A slow build. I used to believe that.

I don’t anymore.

I believe that if I hadn’t been forced to kill, I would have never discovered this high. I would have just lived my life. Like you. Like most people. This need, this hunger, would have stayed dormant.

But once I pulled that trigger...

Is “bliss” the right word? Or is it more like a compulsion?

I don’t know.

Once I killed Henry McAndrews — once I got that taste — I knew that there was no going back.

It changed me. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. Not out of guilt. I didn’t care a lick about that. I was obsessed with thoughts of pulling the trigger and the way his head exploded in a mist of red. More than that, I was — I am — obsessed with when I can experience that again.

So I think to myself: If it wasn’t for the Reality Ralph podcast, if it wasn’t for the shame and abuse and betrayal, I would have lived my entire life not knowing this feeling, never experiencing this high — and low.

Would that have been a better or worse life? I’m not sure. For certain, it would have been an inauthentic life.

I’m smiling thinking about all this, and that is terrifying to Katherine. I’ve let go of the old ways, of life’s niceties, of the daily masks we wear. It’s so damn freeing — living life on its own terms.

I don’t really want to kill Katherine. My future goal — the way I plan to justify what I’m doing — is to only kill those who deserve it. That’s why I need the list of names. I will kill those who troll and get their jollies by anonymously hurting others.

That’s not Katherine Frole. She means well.

But I also recognize that my “I have something on you, you have something on me” argument is extraordinarily weak. Odds are that she would eventually tell the authorities, even if it meant mild trouble for her.

Ergo, there is no way I can let her live.

Katherine is eager to please me now. She types on her computer and spins the monitor my way.

“Here are all the names,” she says, her voice choking up. “I won’t say a word. I promise. Please, I have a family, I have children—”

I pull the trigger three times.

Just like last time.