So here she was, in a motel in West Virginia, with a man who had yet to make love to her in a complete way. All that talk about things being perfect, a honeymoon suite at the Ritz-Carlton, room service and white fluffy robes and Egyptian cotton sheets. Natalie didn't know how to tell him she had already been in the honeymoon suite at the Ritz-Carlton and, while it was all very nice, you didn't get to take the robe home unless you paid for it.
They weren't going to make it. She wasn't sure where they were going or what they were doing, but her heart told her they were doomed. She should have sent the children back with Lana tonight. Zeke had urged, cajoled, wheedled, and finally shouted, shaking her for her refusal to do what he said was best. So he was like her father, too. But she could not bear to give them up. She felt safer with them for some reason. As long as she had her children, she was still a good person, a mother. A woman who loved her children could never be in the wrong.
Disgusted with her, Zeke had gone to Hagerstown with Lana, determined to buy a car before the evening was out. Hagerstown was only an hour away, yet they had been gone five hours, with Zeke returning in the new car well after midnight. He and Lana were giggling, clearly buzzed from something. Probably Sex on the Beach cocktails, if Natalie remembered Lana's drinking preferences. Strange, she didn't even know what Zeke would drink in a bar, because she had never been in one with him. It seemed unfair that Lana would have an opportunity with Zeke that Natalie had never had, but she was too tired to work up a rage about it. Lana would leave tomorrow morning, after sleeping off her drunk on the floor of the motel room.
But if Zeke had cheated on her and she found out-she would cut it off. Why not? She had killed one man and destroyed another. For Natalie had no doubt that Mark's life was empty without her.
She sank to the toilet seat, cradling her head in her arms, longing to cry but worried that even muffled tears might be overheard. She wouldn't mind if Zeke came to comfort her-he owed her that much-but the children would be upset if they saw her crying for the second time in a day. Since they'd left home, she had been very conscious of being happy, of making everything seem as if it were a wonderful adventure. Even today, when that strange car began to follow them, she had not let the children see how nervous she was.
It was odd, almost a letdown, when she realized that the driver was a woman. Did she want it to be a police officer? Was there some part of her that simply longed for this to be over? No, she had been surprised because she'd expected to see Moshe at the wheel of that car. Every day since she left, Natalie realized, she had expected to see him.
She knew him so well, perhaps better than she would have if she had truly loved him. No one was allowed simply to walk away from Mark Rubin. She had listened to him on calls, haranguing people long past the point of winning an argument, insistent on being heard. His voice ground people beneath it the way Natalie might squash a bug under her shoe. Zeke didn't understand that part of Mark, but it was why Natalie had run, taking the children with her, instead of waiting for Zeke to send for her. She knew Mark Rubin-how thorough he was, how determined he could be about getting his way.
She knew him, she realized, better than she knew the man in the other room.
FRIDAY
Chapter Thirty-three
THE MANICURIST STILL HAD THE UPPER HAND. "She didn't come in this morning," the Velvet Frost informed Mark and Tess, frostier than ever after seeing Tess's PI license. "And she didn't call, which is not like Lana, especially with a full day of bookings. We've tried calling her home, and there is no answer. I'm terribly worried about her. Instead of making trouble for her, you might want to wonder if she is in trouble."
Tess decided not to argue about who the troublemaker was in this scenario. "Has she been acting strangely the past few days?"
"She was upset the day before yesterday. When I asked her why, she said someone she knew had died unexpectedly in an accident."
Tess and Mark exchanged a glance, but neither one said anything.
"But she continued to work," the Velvet Frost said. "Then today-no show. Completely out of character."
Mark looked more discouraged than ever, but Tess immediately saw an opportunity in a missing Lana who wasn't answering her home phone. She called the Owings Mills barracks for the Baltimore County Police Department from Mark's car, identifying herself as a frantic employee from Adrian's, concerned about a missing worker.
"She didn't come to work, and she has a full day of bookings, and she just never, ever does that," Tess told the dispatcher, helping herself to the Velvet Frost's words, if not her tonalities. "And she's been really down lately about the death of someone close to her. I'm worried she might have done something drastic."
"I'm not sure what we can do in this situation," the dispatcher said in the clipped manner of a government employee keen to cut off a request outside the normal parameters.
"Couldn't a patrolman meet us and authorize her landlord to open the apartment, just so we can make sure something hasn't happened?"
"I'm not sure we can do that."
"Why not, if the landlord agrees? Landlords have the right to enter the premises if they think something is amiss."
Tess had to keep laying it on thick, but it was a slow morning in the northwest district, and the dispatcher finally relented.
"Great. We're about two miles away, so we'll meet the patrol cop out there."
The cop was everything Tess could have asked for. First of all, he was young, so young that he insisted on calling her "ma'am." Normally, this would have sent her to a mirror, moisturizer in hand, but it was a godsend in this situation. He was even more deferential to Mark Rubin. Only the landlord seemed skeptical of them, and Tess inferred a touch of anti-Semitism in Mr. Hassan's attitude.
With Hassan leading the way, they entered Lana's apartment. It was neat, almost depressingly so, a place that spoke of a lonely existence with few real interests. No books, no art, not even posters. The only personal touches were two photographs of Natalie, including one with Isaac as a baby. Mark stopped for a moment, transfixed by the images, then shook his head as if reminding himself to keep his focus on the very particular mission he and Tess had devised.
"Hello?" the young cop called, heading deeper into the one-bedroom apartment, opening doors and peering into the bathroom. "There's no odor-" he began, then stopped, as if remembering just in time that his tour group was made up of a distraught coworker and Lana Wishnia's rabbi. For less had told him that little lie as well, deciding that it gave them even more credibility.
Tess and Mark played their parts well, tiptoeing around, stealing glances at the things they had agreed ahead of time they must absorb-notes on the kitchen counter, a flashing light on the phone. Using the sleight-of-hand trick Mark had shown Tess at their first meeting, he palmed a key lying in a shallow bowl on the kitchen counter. Perhaps it would open her box at the mail store. When Tess saw that the phone in the bedroom had a built-in answering machine and caller ID, she shot Rubin a look. She then walked out in the hall, dropped her knapsack, bent over to pick it up-and promptly let out a bloodcurdling scream.
"My back. Shit, I threw my back out again. I won't even be able to walk down the steps without someone's help."
The young cop was all sympathy, standing next to her and trying to help her straighten up, while the landlord looked away, indifferent. Tess continued to groan and whimper.
"Why don't I take one side and your friend can take the other, and we'll help you out," the cop suggested.
"Mark can't touch me-as an Orthodox Jew, he's not allowed to touch a woman who's not his wife. He was bending the rules just to be here with me today, unchaperoned. But you can help me, can't you, sir?" Tess appealed to the surly little Hassan, who didn't seem inclined to help anyone. "If you just get me down the steps, I can lie on the ground with my knees to my chest. Five minutes like that, and I should be good enough to get in the car and go home to bed."