Now You See Me... (27 page)

“You don’t know that Hadassah is with Justin.”

“You’re right.” I nodded. “But we don’t know that she isn’t. I’m very concerned about what they might do. I’m concerned about both of them, Cheryl.”

“He takes medication, Molly. I make sure he does.”

“Where is he, Cheryl?”

“He wouldn’t hurt Dassie.” She bit her lip. “Are you going to call the police?”

“I have to. You know that.”

“Justin will panic. The last time, after he was in the hospital? They sent him somewhere for a few months. He told me then he would never let anyone do that to him again.”

“Where is he, Cheryl?”

“I don’t want him hurt. I can’t believe he did anything to Greg. You heard him, Molly. You heard how upset he was about what happened to Greg, about what those kids were doing.”

I didn’t answer. I could see her torment.

“He’s been making extra money painting apartments,” she said. “He finished a job yesterday, but he said he had to do some touch-ups.”

“Do you know the address?”

“I can find out. The apartment building belongs to one of my clients. That’s how Justin got the job.”

Chapter 50

Paint, Hadassah realized. That’s what she smelled.

She told him it made her feel ill. “Can we go somewhere else?” she said.

Outside, she could run. She could scream. She could draw attention to herself.

“There’s nowhere else,” he said. “But we won’t be disturbed.” He scowled. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Greg said he would be gone until Wednesday, and then he was going to Seattle, to be with Kaitlin. If he hadn’t come home earlier, everything would be different.”

Kaitlin, Hadassah said silently. Now she had a name for the blond-haired little girl. Tears stung her eyes.

“Why did you stab him, Dassie?” he said, mournful. “If you hadn’t stabbed him . . . Why would you try to kill him?”

She was amazed he hadn’t figured it out. How was that possible? She realized with a wave of relief that he didn’t know that she’d been hiding from him, that in the dark she had thought she was stabbing the person who had imprisoned her for a week.

“I was frightened,” she said. “It was dark. I thought he was a burglar.” Lying wasn’t so difficult, she found, and she was telling him what he wanted to hear.

“There was so much blood,” he said. “All over his shirt. There was a gash in his throat, Dassie. Here.”

He traced a line across her throat, pressed his thumb into the hollow of her neck, against her windpipe. She found it hard to breathe, but forced herself to relax.

He moved his thumb. “What did you stab him with, Dassie?”

She almost said a knife, but he would know she was lying. She decided he was testing her.

“A piece of glass. It was cold, and I wanted a blanket,” she told him. “The box fell, and a frame broke.”

He nodded. “You saw the photo. Why didn’t you trust me, Dassie? Why didn’t you wait and let me explain?”

“I was scared. I heard the key in the lock. I knew it was too soon for you to be back. I picked up a piece of glass from the floor, from the photo. He came into the apartment. He grabbed my hand. I was
terrified.”
She didn’t have to pretend about that.

“So you stabbed him.” He was watching her, nodding. “And you called your father for help, with my phone. Does your father have it?”

“I don’t know.”

She had phoned home, but had hung up without leaving a message. She had hung up on 911, too, because all she had was seconds, and what if they didn’t believe her? So she had phoned Dr. McIntyre. She knew his number by heart. But she didn’t know whether Dr. McIntyre had contacted her father. That had tormented her. And she didn’t know whether her father had been in the apartment.

“He fell,” she said. “I thought I’d killed him. There was so much blood, and his scream . . .” In the dark, before she fell asleep, she could still hear it.

“Greg said it was my fault. You were the one who stabbed him, Dassie, but he blamed me.” His voice trembled with indignation.

The significance of what he had said struck her. She almost wept.

“He didn’t recognize you in the dark, Dassie. He found your purse. He saw the
Shabbat
candles. ‘What’s going on, Justin?’ ”

He was rubbing his fingers together, starting to rock.

She had left him alive. Her heart was pounding. “It was my fault,” she said. “I should have stayed.”

“He saw your clothes in his closet. He yelled at me. ‘What have you done, Justin? Where are the phones, Justin? Are you crazy, Justin?’ ”

Two cordless phones and their stations had been in the box, along with the toys and the puzzles, and the letters from a woman named Melissa, the woman in the photos with the little girl. Kaitlin.

“I’m not crazy, Dassie.”

“No, of course not,” she said.

“His cell phone was in his hand. He was going to call my mother, or the police. I begged him not to, but he said I needed help, I was sick. He turned away from me. He wouldn’t
look
at me. So I took that stupid owl and hit him.” Tears were streaming down his cheeks. “I didn’t mean to hurt him, Dassie. I wanted him to
put down the phone.
If you hadn’t stabbed him, if you hadn’t run away . . .”

“It’s my fault,” she said when he paused, because it was her cue to sing the refrain to this sad, sad song. She wasn’t really listening. Her hands were bound, but she felt freer than she had in days.

“And my father?” She held her breath.

“I heard the door open and hid on the balcony. I didn’t see him, but I heard him walking through the apartment. He took all your things. He wanted the police to blame me for everything, Dassie.” His voice shook. “Even though it was your fault, and Greg’s. Greg was supposed to come back Wednesday, not Friday. So I had to move his body to the car. I had to crash the car. What else could I do?”

“I should have waited for you,” she said.

His rocking slowed.

“I shouldn’t have let you take the blame.”

“The important thing is that we’re together, that we love each other.” He stopped. “You were scared, so you tried to protect yourself. Is that how you cut your palm? With the glass?”

“Yes.”

“Poor Dassie.” He spread her hands apart and kissed her lacerated palm. He frowned. “What did you do with it? With the piece of glass? I didn’t find it.”

His elbow was pressing against her thigh. “I threw it away.”

“Good.” He wrapped a curl of her hair around his finger. “My mother said it wouldn’t work. ‘She’s not for you, Justin.’ Your father didn’t think my mother was good enough for him, either. Did you know that?”

“No.” She didn’t know whether this was one of his lies.

“He gave her a ring, the ring I gave you. You didn’t throw it away, did you?” he demanded, pulling the curl.

She winced at the pain. “It’s in my drawer.”

“He said the blessing, ‘Behold you are sanctified to me according to the laws of Moses and Israel.’ It was a promise in front of witnesses, Dassie. He broke his promise. He broke my mother’s heart. Do you know what becomes of the broken-hearted? Do you think that was right, Dassie?”

She shook her head.

“He broke Greg’s heart, too. He could have helped him, but he didn’t. So maybe, when I first e-mailed you, I was angry at your father. I tricked you, Dassie. I read your file. I knew all about you before we met. But I fell in love with you. Do you believe me?”

“Yes.”

“You understand why I did it? You’re not angry?”

“I understand. I’m not angry.”

“Tell me you love me, Dassie.”

“I love you,” she said, choking on the words.

“And we’ll be together forever?” he said. “Because I’m not like your father. I won’t break my promise. I gave you my mother’s ring.”

She nodded.

“Say it. Say we’ll be together forever.”

“We’ll be together forever.”

“You’re lying.”

She froze.

He traced her lips with his finger. “You know we can’t be together, Dassie. The police will find out we killed Greg. They won’t let us be together.”

Her heart hammered in her chest. She was surprised he couldn’t hear it.

“True love doesn’t end, Dassie. Romeo and Juliet. Othello and Desdemona. Tristan and Isolde. They die, but their love stays pure.”

She stifled a sob.

“I would never let you feel pain, Dassie.”

He stood abruptly, shaking the bed, and walked to a corner of the room. His back was to her, but she could see him reaching into his pants pocket.

“I went to the
mikvah,”
she said.

He crouched, then stood and turned around. He was holding a goblet.

“Last night, after I read the card you sent,” she said, “I knew you would come for me.”

He returned to her side.

“You bought a nightgown,” she said. “Don’t you want me to wear it, for you?”

“When it’s time.”

He raised her to a sitting position and brought the goblet to her lips.

“Drink,” he said.

She took a sip of the wine. It was ruby red, dry. It tasted bitter, but dry wines
were
bitter. Or maybe he had put something in it, something he’d taken from his pocket. She thought about the vial of pills she had found among his things.

“More,” he said.

She drank. Wine dribbled down her chin. He caught the drops with his finger and licked them. Then he drank from the goblet.

“I want to be with you, one time,” she said. “Don’t you want that, too?”

She raised her bound hands.

Chapter 51

We lost precious minutes while Cheryl looked for the phone number of the client who had hired Justin to paint the apartment. Another five minutes passed before she reached the client on his cell phone.

“Everything is fine,” Cheryl said, her voice amazingly calm. “I’m sure Justin did a beautiful job. I want to take him something to eat.”

“Ask him for directions,” I whispered to Cheryl.

“How do I get there?” she asked. She scribbled on the margin of a newspaper that lay on the table. “Okay. Thanks.” She hung up.

I tore off the segment of newspaper. The address was in Hollywood. Connors’s jurisdiction. “What’s the apartment number?”

“201.” Cheryl put a hand on my arm. “Let me talk to Justin first, Molly. He’ll listen to me. I know he will.”

I picked up my purse and ran out of the apartment, with Cheryl at my heels. I didn’t want to talk in front of her. I unlocked the car, told her to get in, and phoned Connors at home. His line was busy. I tried West L.A. and left an urgent message for Jessie.

From Cheryl’s, it was a fifteen-minute drive without traffic to the Hollywood apartment, double that in the rush hour we were in. I drove to Melrose, turned right, and headed east.

We didn’t talk, although every few minutes Cheryl said, “Justin will listen to me.”

She had a right to hope, but the repetition was making me antsy. “Read me the instructions again, Cheryl.”

“Take Highland to Sunset, Sunset past Vermont . . .”

I reached Highland in less than ten minutes, but it was a parking lot. When I neared Santa Monica, I made a sharp right. Cars were moving well at first, but blocks later, we slowed to fifteen miles an hour.

I made a left onto Cahuenga and took that to Sunset. More traffic. I turned right on Sunset. I tried not to think about Hadassah.

“Justin won’t hurt Hadassah,” Cheryl said, as if she were reading my mind.

I tried Connors again. This time he answered.

“What?” he said when he picked up. Connors has caller ID, so he knew it was me.

Not a warm reception. “Shankman wasn’t with the girl,” I said.

“Come on, Molly.”

“Just
listen.”
In a low voice, I told him what I’d learned.

“Where’s the mother?” he asked. “With you?”

“Yes. She says he’ll listen to her.”

“Let’s hope she’s right,” Connors said. “Her son has her car, right? What’s the make and license plate number?”

I asked Cheryl, and relayed the information to Connors.

“Can I talk to him?” Cheryl said. “What’s his name?”

“Detective Connors.” I passed her my phone.

“Detective Connors? This is Cheryl Wexner, Justin’s mother. Let me talk to him. I know what to say, to calm him.” She listened. “He would never hurt anyone, but if he’s frightened . . . He’s just a little confused. What?” She furrowed her brow. “All right. Yes. Thank you.”

Cheryl handed me the phone and leaned against the headrest. She shut her eyes. I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking.

“You’re sure about this guy, Molly?” Connors asked.

“Yes.” I gave him the address and apartment number. “His mother’s not sure he’s there. Can you tell Detective Drake? And give her my cell number, please?”

Minutes later my phone rang. I flipped it open.

“Two units are on the way,” Connors said. “Where are you?”

“Ten blocks away.”

“I should be there in two minutes. Detective Drake is on her way.”

“Okay.”

“We’re in radio contact with the units,” Connors said. “When they get there, if they think Hadassah is in immediate danger, they’re going in.”

“Got it.”

“Don’t tell the mother.”

“Right.”

“The cell phone they found at Dr. McIntyre’s isn’t Hadassah’s, by the way. It’s Justin Wexner’s.”

“Yes.”

“Detective Drake’s guess is that Wexner has Hadassah’s phone. You think he killed Shankman?”

“Yes.”

“And you think he plans to kill himself and the girl?”

“Right.”

“See you there.”

Connors hung up. I shut the phone and put it on my lap.

“What was he asking you?” Cheryl was wringing her hands.

“He wants to make sure I have the right directions.”

It seemed like an hour, but it was only minutes before we arrived. I parked the car down the block, near two black-and-whites.

“Wait in the car,” I told Cheryl, but she undid her seat belt and was standing on the sidewalk before I was.

“He’ll listen to me, Molly,” she said. “If they go in, they’ll frighten him.”

Connors walked toward us. I introduced him to Cheryl.

“My son will listen to me,” she told him.

“Someone’s in there,” Connors said. “We can hear music, but nothing else.”

I didn’t want to think about the possibilities. “Maybe Mrs. Wexner can phone her son,” I said.

“Justin lost his cell phone,” Cheryl said. “I told you that. I don’t know the number of the phone in the apartment, or if there is one.”

“Detective Drake has your son’s phone,” Connors said. “We think he has Hadassah Bailor’s, but we don’t know if it’s charged.”

“He used it Thursday night, when he phoned her parents,” I said. “Hadassah had it with her the Sunday she left home. So he must have charged it.”

“I don’t have her number,” Cheryl said.

“It’s programmed on his phone. I got the number from Detective Drake.” Connors handed Cheryl a slip of paper with the number.

“I don’t want to scare him,” Cheryl said. “What should I say?”

A minute ago she had been so confident, I thought.

“Tell him you’re concerned about him,” Connors said. “Keep him talking.”

Cheryl took her cell phone out of her purse and made the call.