Stealing Time (45 page)

"I thought you asked to come here," Jason said, taking a seat at the table.

"No, I told them everything I knew downtown. Look, I'm worried about my parents. What's happened to them?"

"They're okay. I'll check on them in a few minutes if you'd like." Jason cocked his head, considering Heather's appearance.

She hung her head. "I know it's horrible." She shuddered at how horrible it must be.

"No, you look different, younger, cute. That's all. Why'd you cut it?"

She kneaded a thumb nervously. "I guess it was pretty dumb. When I heard that Paul's mother had been—murdered, I just—I don't know—I just couldn't imagine anybody
doing
that, killing that poor girl— why? I felt so
bad.
I went into the bathroom to be alone for a minute." She closed her eyes as if to see herself from the inside at the moment when she'd heard the news. "All I saw in the mirror was the hair. . . . You know, he made me grow and grow it. He wouldn't let me cut it. It was the only thing he liked about me." She opened her eyes, appalled at herself for saying such a devastating thing. "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"I should have left things alone and kept the baby. None of this would have happened if I'd kept him." She caught her bottom lip between her teeth to keep from crying.

"Oh, you never know."

Her eyes filled with tears. "Where is he? Is he all right?"

Jason nodded without knowing if he was. "You want to tell me what happened this morning?"

Heather shrugged. "Nothing. I checked out of the hospital and went home to get my stuff. I was leaving him to go back to San Francisco. He came home and was really mean about my parents."

"I remember. He didn't sound too happy about their coming. How did he deal with finding you there?"

"Oh, he did what he always does. He has this way of acting really nice sometimes in front of some people, really horrible in front of other people, then insisting the nice him is the only him."

"It's called splitting," Jason told her. "He didn't like his bad side, so he didn't acknowledge it as part of himself."

Heather Rose didn't pick up on the past tense. "He was furious when he saw the cop had his pictures. They got into a fight. Then we left. What are you doing here?" she asked again.

Jason stared up at the ceiling, calling for help from above. He was nailed. "You keep asking me that."

"Maybe I'll keep asking until you give me a good answer."

No help came from on high. Jason made a decision. "Okay, I'll be straight with you. I'm not acting as your doctor. But I'm not a policeman whose only interest is the law, either."

"What do you mean?"

"It's an unusual situation," he murmured. He was on the hook, struggling.

"If you're not a policeman and not a doctor, then what's your role?"

"Um. Sergeant Woo sometimes asks me to help her with assessments," Jason said finally, although none of his talks with Heather or Anton had been formal assessments. He didn't think it would be useful to explain further. Oh, he was really twisting in the wind.

"But you just said you don't work for the police department."

"That's right," he admitted.

"Then why—"

"Why do it? You're asking me good questions, and since you're not my patient, I don't have to hide from you. I'm going to answer you as fully as I can. Sergeant Woo was the detective on the case when my wife was kidnapped. She saved my wife's life." He looked at the bag of lunch and wished he were in it.

"Your wife was kidnapped!" Heather was shocked.

"Yes." Okay, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing for her to know. Bad things had happened in his life, too. Maybe that would help her. Jason changed the subject. "In your case, there was a history of unexplained injuries and a missing baby. It wasn't clear who was hurting you—you or your husband. And it wasn't clear whether the baby was still alive. Sergeant Woo asked me to talk to you. As I said, she does that sometimes when people don't open up to her right away."

Heather gave him a grim smile. "What did you find out?"

"It was clear to me that you were not a killer and that you didn't want to nail your husband as a batterer."

"He's not responsible for this," she said fiercely.

"For what?"

"For killing anyone." Her face contorted with the agony of saying those words.

"But you cut off your gorgeous hair when you heard," he pointed out. "For you it was an act of revenge, wasn't it?"

"No."

"What then?"

"It was my line in the sand. The girl was dead. I drew a line in the sand." Her lip disappeared between her teeth again.

"A line in the sand." Jason looked puzzled.

"I always thought the worst had already happened."

"What was that?"

Heather was chewing on both lips, chewing, chewing. She was kneading her hands as if they'd lost circulation. Her breath was ragged. "Years ago when we were dating, he kept telling me how much he loved me, but he was very religious and didn't want to spoil our love with—you know." She glanced at Jason quickly, then away. "I don't know why I keep telling you these things. I've never told anyone this. It must sound crazy."

He shook his head. "Many people hide the things that make them miserable. Yesterday you told me your husband couldn't have children. You also told me he was impotent."

"We didn't have any kind of . . . physical . . ." She wrung her hands. "I feel so bad." She tried to sniff back her tears, but was caught by her sobs.

Jason gave her a few seconds. "You told me you had no sex life together."

"He was so mean—" She swallowed, gulped. "No. A lot of the time, he couldn't stand to let me sleep in the bed. He wouldn't touch me at all. Except when— after I . . ."

"When you were hurt."

She hung her head. "Yes. I felt so sorry for him."

"He hurt you, and yet you felt sorry for him. Why did he burn you, Heather?"

She tried to take a deep breath. It caught a few times. She looked away. "I didn't want to tell."

"It's okay. You can tell now. He can't hurt you anymore." Jason repeated it. "He can't hurt you."

"Oh, he can, you don't know him. My parents said they won't leave me alone with him. They promised.

But—he's very persistent. He always says if I'm really good it won't happen again."

"Heather, listen to me. Anton can't hurt you anymore. He's gone."

"Gone? What do you mean?" Heather was puzzled. She blew her nose on a badly shredded tissue.

Jason reached into his pocket and gave her his handkerchief.

She blew her nose and handed it back. He shook his head. "You can keep it."

"I'll have it washed—"

"Why did he burn you?"

"Oh, God." She gulped. "Oh, God. He got so angry. He just got so angry."

"What made him so angry?"

This was the question that opened the way for her. Physically, it was as if she were reliving the horror in front of Jason's eyes. She squirmed in the chair, almost writhed. Her bruised face suffused with blood. She pressed her knees together and gasped for air, like someone drowning. "He thought I was a—slut. I didn't want to be. I didn't want to be."

"He was jealous."

"His brother kept showing up all the time when Anton was at work. In the beginning he kept bringing me little wedding presents and telling me what to expect from the family. He said he'd take care of me and gave me advice on how to handle Anton and everybody else in the family. I hadn't known about Anton. I was so upset. I didn't know why he didn't want to—why he wouldn't touch me. And Marc was there all the time, being so nice about it. Saying it wouldn't do any harm. When I didn't want to, he got angry and told me I owed him for being good to me. He was so persistent. He just—Oh, my God. He kept touching me and hugging me and—I didn't even like him at first. But he kept saying I'd never have it my whole life and how I didn't know what I was missing and he'd, he'd—love me forever." She broke down and hid her face.

Jason sat very still, the anguished and helpless therapist, who always led people to the hurts they didn't want to face, always hoping to free them and take the burden of suffering on himself. And always aware how far away and tenuous that chance of freedom was. He let her cry for a few moments, trying to go there with her, imagining the terrible hold the two brothers had on her. He was waiting for the right moment to tell her that the reason Anton could not hurt her anymore was that he was gone from this earth.

She coughed back her tears, cleared her throat, and went on before he could say it. "I didn't know about Marc and the girl when I gave the baby back. I had spoken to Annie at the factory many times."

"Who's Annie?"

"Oh, she's the one who supervises the workers. Marc and Ivan don't speak Chinese." Heather sniffed. "When Marc told me one of the girls was pregnant and wanted a good home for her baby, I talked to Annie regularly about it. I didn't know the baby was Marc's."

"When did you find out?"

"He came over when he found out I gave the baby back to Lin. At first, I thought he just wanted to—" She closed her eyes. "When I said no, he started hitting me. He told me the baby was his. He said he'd gotten that girl pregnant for me, so I could have his baby. He was furious when I gave it back. Annie told him Lin took it and didn't come back. He didn't know where his baby was. He was so mad."

Jason felt the blood drain from his face. "So it was Marc who beat you."

"He almost killed me," she said softly, "because I didn't know where Lin had taken the baby. I didn't know until that moment it was his baby. Anton still doesn't know." She shook her head. "I hope to be very far away when he finds out."

Jason decided this was the time to tell her that Anton would never find out. First, he did something therapists weren't supposed to do: he took her hand. They were sitting in a grubby interview room in the police station. He didn't know then that April had gone to the hospital with Sanchez, who'd been shot in the chest but saved by the cell phone in his breast pocket. He didn't know that Marc's fingerprints had already been matched with those found in Heather's kitchen and had also been lifted from the very skin of the dead girl, where he'd gripped her carrying her down the stairs. He didn't know that the baby was fine. All Jason could tell Heather at that moment was that Anton was dead, and she was free.

She was puzzled, partly unbelieving, partly hopeful. And after all the tears she'd shed, she did not have a single tear in her eyes now. She and Jason sat silently for a long while, holding hands, and Jason had the feeling this was the beginning of the road for a strong woman, not the end of the road for a weak one.

EPILOGUE

F
our weeks later there was a confluence of three events in New York City that did not make the news but were nonetheless of great significance to April Woo. Weeks earlier, Marc Popescu had been arrested for the murder of Lin Tsing and the attempted murder of Heather Rose; now he was in jail, awaiting trial. But by June 15, Joey Malconi, whom April had shot in the chest, had sufficiently recovered from his injury to be indicted for the second-degree murder of Anton Popescu. On the same day Mike Sanchez, along with ten other sergeants, was promoted to lieutenant at a ceremony in the auditorium of One Police Plaza, otherwise known as the Puzzle Palace. And Jason's wife, Emma, gave birth to their baby.

April was not present for the indictment or the birth. At the time of Joey's appearance before the judge, she was sitting in the front row of Mike's promotion ceremony between Skinny Dragon and Maria Sanchez, Mike's mother, who was certain her son was receiving either the Purple Heart or the Congressional Medal of Honor. For the occasion, she was wearing magenta lipstick and a lime-green cocktail dress that showed off all her curves.

Skinny Dragon was attending the ceremony because Mike had personally invited her. On the phone he had told her that the police commissioner was presiding and especially wanted the honor of having her there. Skinny's rationale for appearing at Mike's promotion was that she did not want to offend April's top boss after she'd already caused April so much trouble. She maintained to April that Mike himself had nothing to do with her coming. Still, the Dragon wore an exquisite turquoise silk cheongsam with a matching quilted jacket, and nothing would convince her that "lieutenant" was not the same English word as "captain." It was the one thing on which she and Maria Sanchez were in complete agreement.

Also present at the ceremony were Nanci and Milton Hua, who were in the process of adopting Lin's baby, William. Since Mike had been wounded while attempting to save the infant, Milton had wanted to bring the baby to honor him. However, Nanci thought that little Will would be too much of a distraction from the heroes of the day—April and Mike—and vetoed the idea. Out of respect for April's boyfriend, Milton wore an expensive navy suit, as if he were going to a wedding. Nanci wore a blue-and-white polka-dot silk dress and a straw hat with blue ribbons hanging down her back.