I just sat and took in the summer scents and let them erase the other odors from my head. The sun burned in my eyes and almost obliterated the images that had been seared there.
Afterward we took a taxi to the hospital where Cleo had been taken the night before. Gil was there, holding vigil, and he told us that she was fine and the doctors thought she might be able to leave in another forty-eight hours.
“And then I want to get back into therapy with you,” she told me.
“Not with me. After what we’ve been through together, I can’t. I have no objectivity left.”
“You saved my life,” she said, and took my hand.
“I wish I had. But it’s really the reverse. You saved my life. You stabbed him.”
I couldn’t say the words without shaking. Without shutting my eyes against the sight of Elias falling back and pulling me with him, from the feeling of his fingers around my neck. My hand instinctively went there now. When would I stop wanting to touch my own neck? When would the black-and-blue necklace of bruises go away?
“We saved each other.” She smiled.
Nina and Gil went downstairs to get coffee and we were alone. Two sisters, related by blood, but not ours. A maniac’s blood, which together we had spilled.
“How did you do it, Cleo? You’d been bound and gagged in that closet for almost two weeks. How did you do it?”
“I wasn’t there. Not me. I played a part. The part of a prostitute being held by a madman. She’s the one who takes over when I’m with clients.”
I nodded. I knew about that. It was acting.
“I really want to get back into therapy,” she repeated.
I couldn’t help her with the scars she had left and the questions she would need to ask and answer. “You can see Nina. She’s the best therapist I know,” I told her.
“No, you are. You saved my life. I can’t do much better than that.”
“What saved our lives were those shoes. Weapons. You told me that the first time you came to see me.”
She took my hand and held it. I watched us from a distance. She was skinny and exhausted. Held captive by a man who was sure he could take a whore and turn her into a Madonna. Even if it killed her.
And it almost had.
59
Noah called me on my cell phone Tuesday night to tell me what he’d found out.
“Elias Beecher fooled us all. As a young man he’d gone to a Jesuit seminary and was preparing to become a priest when he raped a young woman. His father had it all hushed up. There was no arrest, no trial. He transferred to a secular college, graduated with honors and went on to law school. So you were right about that. We also traced the nun’s habits to Elias’s office in the Netherlands Antilles. You were right about that, too.”
“His office? I thought they had to be shipped to a church.”
“Well, the order was sent to Our Lady of Sorrows Church at 1212 Fairway Drive. But there is no church at that address. It’s an office building leased to Elias Beecher’s law firm.”
“And the diamond cross, did he buy that for her?”
“No. She bought that for herself.”
So Gil had guessed that one right.
“We were five minutes behind you. On our way to his apartment when you called 911.”
“You were? How come?”
“The prostitute who ran away from him in the hotel had just finished with our artist. I recognized Elias from the sketch right away.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
I nodded, forgetting again that he couldn’t see me, and then said yes.
“Are you?”
“No. Yes.” I offered a weak laugh. “I have no idea.”
“I’d like to see you,” he said.
“No. Not yet.”
“Will you call me?” he asked.
“I can’t figure that out now. Dulcie has an audition tomorrow. She wants me to be there.”
“That’s great.”
“No. It’s all wrong. I don’t know if I can go.”
“Morgan, I’d like to come over and talk to you.”
“No. I’m at Nina’s. I’m tired. I’m confused.”
He didn’t pressure me. He was probably as familiar with someone in shock as I would have been.
“Well, when you are ready, I’m here,” he said in his low, melodious voice.
When I got off the phone, Nina cast me a questioning glance but didn’t ask me about the call. Instead, she made me more tea and talked me into taking a nap. I listened to her, did everything she said. I needed her to make all the decisions for me. I was in no shape to make them for myself.
Later, after the nap and dinner, she asked me about my plans and I told her I thought I’d go home the next day. She didn’t think I was ready. We argued about it, finally coming to an agreement that she’d approve of my going home, as long as I promised to come back at the first sign that I might not be ready.
“And I’ll come with you when you go to Dulcie’s audition tomorrow,” she offered.
I was sitting in her living room, cross-legged on the floor, petting her standard poodle, Madeline, over and over, stroking her silky ears.
“I’m not sure I’m going.”
“She’s counting on you,” Nina said in her most motherly tone.
“No, she’s given up on me,” I said.
“She’s a twelve-year-old kid who has her heart set on being an actress. Right now you are the only one standing in her way.”
“Better for her to hate me than to go out there and start dealing with the brutality of the business. At least I can save her from that.”
Nina sighed.
“But your daughter isn’t another woman you have to save. She’s not Cleo. She’s not your mother. Dulcie isn’t lost.”
60
It was hot out. I took off my sweater and tied it around my waist, then continued walking downtown. It was a long walk from my apartment down to Broadway and Forty-fifth Street, but I’d left early. I wanted to give myself time.
I had called Mitch and told him that it was okay with me if he took Dulcie to the audition. That he should tell her that if she got the part, I’d agree to her taking it.
“You should come with us to the audition, Morgan,” he’d said. “She doesn’t need your acquiescence. She needs your support.”
The theater was in the middle of the block. I pulled open the glass door by its brass handle and stepped inside. This was harder than I’d thought it was going to be. Every instinct I had said I should run through the double doors, find Dulcie and carry her out of here, no matter what anyone said. I wanted to protect my baby from this thing that was so large and absorbing and tantalizing. I wanted to protect her from growing up. And I couldn’t. I knew that.
In my purse, my phone rang. I shut it off without even looking at it, took a breath and walked into the theater.
The informality of the rehearsal took away some of the magic. The house lights were on. Different people were scattered around the auditorium, talking, making notes, everyone doing something.
I didn’t see any of the kids and didn’t feel like asking anyone where they were.
As I slipped into a seat near the aisle toward the back, a tall, imperious man with heavy jowls, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, came out on stage.
“Okay. We’re ready to start. Bob, can you turn the stage lights up? And Janet?” He looked around.
“I’m here. I’m coming.” A heavyset woman with shortcropped red hair bustled up onto the stage carrying a sheaf of papers that she proceeded to put on the piano. She pulled out the seat, sat down, opened the first piece of sheet music, looked at it to make sure it was what she needed, and then put her hands on the keys.