Dina Santorelli (12 page)

Jamie
pressed her face against the large panes of glass, which looked out onto the
vibrant blue of the sky where healthy cumulus clouds were drifting eastward. At
this early hour, the sun cast long shadows of the area's surrounding tall trees,
forming long black bars across the lawn. A shovel lay idly on the ground near a
small shed.

The
water turned off in the shower, and within seconds the lock of the bathroom
door was unhinged, and Bailino's head emerged from the bathroom, wet, water
beading on his skin.

"Could
you bring me those clothes on the nightstand, please?" he asked her.

Jamie
hesitated and then handed him several articles of clothing, without meeting his
eyes. She turned around and returned to her spot near the windows.

Bailino
reemerged from the bathroom dressed in a black V-neck T-shirt and a pair of
gray khakis. His bare feet were making dewy footprints on the hardwood floor. He
sat on the bed and rubbed the towel on his head, which made his short hair
stick straight up in untidy spikes.

"Did
you sleep okay?" he asked.

Jamie
said nothing. She imagined he knew she was up most of the night.

"I
asked if you slept all right." Bailino turned toward her.

"Okay,
I guess," she said, looking at the baby.

"She
sleepin'?" Bailino asked.

Jamie
nodded.

"I
asked you a question," he said, his voice becoming disagreeable.

Her
eyes searched for answers in the dark, glossy knots of the hardwood flooring.
Jamie knew she had to find a way to stand her ground without inflaming Bailino,
while giving herself enough time to sort through her options, if she had any.

"Please
look at me when I talk to you." Bailino got up and tossed the wet towel into
the bathroom and walked toward her.

She
met his eyes this time and kept her feet planted even though every inch of her
body wanted to run and hide. He stopped just in front of her, his eyelashes wet
and clumped together in sections, an after-shower glow to his skin that offset
the darkness of his deep-set eyes. She could smell the Old Spice aftershave
she'd seen in the medicine cabinet. "Yes, she is still sleeping," Jamie said
bravely, just as Bailino reached his hand underneath the bottom of her shirt
and grabbed the front of her bra.

"What's
this?" he asked.

"My
bra," she said. The feeling of his wet hand on her chest no longer felt
foreign, and Jamie mourned the death of the girl she had been just the day
before.

Bailino
reached behind her and deftly unhooked the bra with two fingers, causing it to
hang beneath Jamie's torn blouse. "You don't need this when you're in here with
me. I don't want to see it on you anymore in this room. Understand?"

Jamie
nodded.

"Understand?"

"Yes,"
she answered.

"Now
take it off," he ordered.

Jamie
reached her left arm into her right sleeve and brought the strap of her bra
down over her hand and then pulled the bra out from her left sleeve. She placed
it on the nightstand.

Bailino
sat on the bed. He unraveled a pair of black socks and crossed his legs. "I see
you found Gina's play makeup bag in the bathroom. You like nail files?" He
reached into the drawer of the nightstand and pulled out a small clipper, which
he used to trim the nail of his big toe.

"I
was looking for a Band-Aid, something for my head."

"Stop
looking around so much." Bailino pulled his sock up toward his knee. "You'll be
better off."

"Are
you going to kill me?" The words came out before Jamie could stop them, and
Bailino stared, before letting out a laugh.

"You're
a no-nonsense kind of girl, huh?"

"Not
really. But I just want to know. Makes it easier... to know what you're up
against."

"Some
people would say it's better not to know."

"My
mom used to say that."

"Used
to?"

Jamie
thought of her mother lying in bed, wasting away to a third of her size, day
after day, never letting the doctors tell her or anyone how much time she had
left.
You don't always need a doctor, or people, to tell you what's going to
happen, sweetie
, she'd told her.
Some things you just know
. And
maybe her mother did know, and maybe she was saving Edward and her from waiting
around for the inevitable, but not knowing also left them unprepared for when
her mother didn't wake up three weeks before Jamie's wedding. Not knowing led
Jamie to convince herself that the diagnosis could be wrong, that her mother
could beat the odds, that being in the dark could stop something from
happening. It didn't.

"I
never understood that," Jamie said. She let out a slow breath and, suddenly
feeling vulnerable, crossed her arms to hide her exposed breasts.

Bailino
nodded. "Well, I don't know how to answer your question exactly," he said,
running his fingers along the waistband of his slacks, "although I tend to want
to know things myself." He studied her. "Do you have a boyfriend?"

Jamie
shook her head.

"I
asked you..."

"No,"
she said.

Bailino
smiled. "I don't believe you."

"I
don't. I was married for eight years. He left me. I don't have a boyfriend."

"Edward?"

"Edward?"
Jamie's thoughts drifted and then remembered that Bailino had her cell phone.
He must have been doing some snooping of his own.

"He
was your husband?" Bailino asked.

"Edward's
my brother." There was no use lying, she thought.

"Oh."
Bailino seemed satisfied and disappeared into the bathroom. "Why?" he yelled.

"Why
what?" She could hear him moving around and the soft clink of metal to
porcelain.

"Why
did your husband leave you?"

"I
don't know," she said. "I guess he didn't love me anymore."

"Did
you love him?"

"No."
It surprised Jamie how quickly, and adamantly, she said the word.

There
was a pause. "Did you ever love him?"

"No,"
she said again, without hesitation, although she had never admitted that to
anyone. Not even Edward.

"Then
why did you marry him?"

"I
don't know. I guess sometimes you get caught up in something and don't know how
to get out of it."

"That's
very true." Bailino emerged from the bathroom. His wet hair was parted just off
center and combed back on both sides. Jamie detected traces of baby powder in
the creases of his neck, from which the hanging gold cross gleamed atop a coat
of coarse black chest hairs, as if showcased upon a velvet-lined jewel box.
"You want to shower?"

Jamie
hesitated. She wanted nothing more than to take a hot shower, to wash the
previous day completely away, but in her
own
bathroom.

"You'll
find towels in the linen closet and an extra bathrobe behind the door," he
said, as if she were a guest in his bed-and-breakfast. "Now's the time. The
baby's sleeping. You know how it is." He settled back down on the bed and put
on his shoes. He used a shoehorn—she hadn't seen anyone use one of those since
she was a little girl and spent summers at her grandparents' house in Brooklyn. "Chop-chop," he said. "Time's a-wastin'."

As
if on command, Jamie walked into the bathroom and shut the door. It was still
steamy from Bailino's shower, and condensation covered the raised scrollwork of
the ceramic tiles, which conjured up images of ornate bathhouses in Rome. Avoiding the mirror, Jamie disrobed and stepped into the deep, old-fashioned bathtub
and pulled the shower curtain closed. She knew at any moment he could come in,
so she moved fast. She turned on the water and grabbed the only shampoo that
was there, one of those heavy-duty dandruff kinds, and poured the liquid onto
her head. She lathered and then stood under the water, feeling the bubbles
drift over her closed eyelids and down her body, imagining the suds carrying
away the events of the day before and funneling them down the drain. She took
scented soap and scrubbed her skin, when something dawned on her: Perhaps this
was some kind of trick, a way to get the baby alone, to take her away. Then
Jamie would really be alone; the thought terrified her. She washed off the
lather and turned off the faucet.

Wrapping
herself in the plush bathrobe, she leaned her ear against the bathroom door,
but didn't hear anything. She opened it a crack and peered out. No movement.
Jamie opened the door all the way and ran across the floor, drips marking her
path, to the nursery. The baby was asleep, just as she'd left her. There was no
one else in the bedroom, and the bedroom door was still closed. Bailino must
have gone. She glanced at the bed: In the few minutes she had been in the
shower, the bed had been pristinely made, the flat sheet over the fitted sheet
with military corners, the floral print duvet rolled neatly on top, all the
pillows picked up from the floor and tucked behind one another against the
headboard. A pair of boot-cut jeans, a plain white T-shirt, and a pair of
women's bikini underwear had been laid out on the bed, as well as the bra she'd
left on the night table. The clothing looked as if it had never been worn. She
held the tee and spied the label:
34/36
. It was a man's shirt. But the
jeans were women's. In her size.

The
last thing Jamie wanted to do was indulge Bailino in this game, whatever it
was, but there was no denying what she saw last night, and she knew that she
was but one blow to the head between life and death, at the mercy of a man who
was capable of quick and sudden violence on a whim. But she had somehow managed
to stay alive for the past twelve hours. Wounded physically and emotionally,
but alive. She knew it was better, smarter, to play along for now. Something
told her that Bailino—the man who kidnapped and raped her—was her best bet for
getting through this thing. She picked up her bra and tightened the straps. And
as she slipped on the unfamiliar underwear, a memory formed: It was the morning
following her wedding night, which she had spent in a tiny hotel on Long Island's north shore overlooking the Sound, and Bob had gone out for coffee, which she
didn't drink, so she had stayed behind. A wave of déjà vu swept through her—the
sunlight streaming through the large windows, the barely used furnishings, the
foreign detergent smells, the intense quiet, and that lingering sense of
incongruity that reminded her of that childhood riddle, "Which of the following
does not belong?" In both instances, the answer was the same.

Phillip's hands shook as he
buttoned his cotton shirt, his large fingers fumbling to get the tiny plastic
through the holes. He hadn't slept at all, and there were dark circles under
his eyes. The voice on the cell phone played over and over in his mind. It had
been years, but its cadence and tone were instantly recognizable.

"Where
are you going?" Katherine turned over in bed. Her voice was raspy.

Phillip
had been practicing his response all night in his head. He put on a weary
expression, which wasn't difficult. "For a drive. I need air."

"A
drive? To where?"

"I
need to get out of the house, Katherine. I need to think."

"I'll
go with you." She got out of bed.

"
No
."
The word came out brusquer than he had intended.

"Well,
you can't go alone," she said.

"I'm
not. Henry's driving me."

"Henry
doesn't count."

"Why,
Katherine? Because he's a driver and sits in the front seat?"

"Don't
start, Phillip," Katherine said. "Did you clear this with Nurberg?"

"Katherine,
I won't be long. Please. It's just a drive." He tucked his shirt into his
slacks.

"Have
you heard from Nurberg at all?"

"No,
but Detective Matrick said he would be stopping by this morning."

Katherine
reached for her cell phone. She pushed a few buttons as she walked toward her
computer, turned it on, and then brushed aside the long, heavy drapes to gaze
out the window where a few detectives were milling around. The drapes had
always reminded Phillip of a funeral home. He would have given anything to
replace them with something lightweight, like beige linen tab-top curtains, but
the historical society wouldn't go for it.

"What
do you think of that Nurberg?" Katherine asked.

"Oh,
I don't know, seems conscientious... and bright... and determined. Why?"

Katherine
wrinkled her nose. "I don't like him."

"You
don't like anyone."

Katherine
faced him and put her hands on her hips. In her flannel pajamas and her hair
flopping in her face, she looked like a young co-ed rather than the most
powerful woman in New York State. "Hey, I'm on your side, remember?" She stuck
her hands in the pockets of her pajama pants, her rows of knuckles appearing as
tiny ridges of red plaid.

"I'm
sorry." Phillip wrapped his arms around his wife, hoping that she couldn't feel
his heart racing. "I haven't slept, and I can't think straight. I just need to
get out."

"Let
me go with you."

"No,
stay here. One of us should, in case the detectives need something. Remember,
I'm just a phone call away." He held up his phone and put it into his pocket.

Katherine
sat back on the bed. "Why haven't we heard anything?" she asked. "What does
that mean, Phillip?"

"No
news is good news, Katherine," he said. He planted a kiss on the top of his
wife's head and walked out the bedroom door.

Katherine
watched her husband disappear down the hall. He was usually the first one out
of the bedroom on any given day, letting her sleep in or tending to Charlotte so that she could get work done if Rosalia had not yet arrived. In that respect,
this morning was like any other. But Katherine felt very different, and the
shame traveled up the skin of her arms as she realized that what she felt was
relief.