The Venus Fix (25 page)

Nina left for the institute at eight and it didn’t take much urging on her part for me to agree to let her cancel my appointments and stay in bed. I slept most of the morning, woke up about noon, ate some of the soup and sandwich she’d made for me before she left, and then spent the afternoon watching old movies on television, avoiding the relentless news coverage of the confession from Judge Alan Leightman.

There was a lot I had to work out, but the pain, as gripping as it was, had given me a short reprieve.

W
ith Alan Leightman in jail, Jordain and Perez spent the morning catching up on paperwork. At lunchtime, Perez kept a long-overdue dentist appointment while Jordain stayed at his desk, and that’s where he was when Ken Fisher, one of the computer geeks, stopped by to tell him he finally had some new information.

“All the e-mail the women received from bob205 originated from a computer at NYU,” Fisher said.

“Makes sense. Leightman teaches at NYU. So now we know why there was nothing on his home computer.”

“Listen, Noah, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but there are some things that don’t match up now.”

“Tell me.”

“Okay, but you are not going to like it. Remember we said that at the same time the letter was sent to Debra Kamel, there was e-mail sent from Leightman’s computer that definitely went out through his own DSL line?”

“Humor me and explain what that means.”

“It means that if Alan Leightman was at NYU sending that mail, then he couldn’t also have been at home sending mail. I’m sorry, boss.”

“Don’t be. Not yet. Maybe his wife was using his computer at home and sending mail from her husband’s e-mail account. Isn’t that possible?”

“Sure.”

“So then it’s also possible that he was home and someone else—say, his wife—was at NYU using his e-mail account.”

Fisher nodded.

“Can you find out which computer at NYU the e-mail came from?”

“Sure, we can do that. Let me get back to you.” He turned and almost walked into Perez.

“Butler just grabbed me in the hall. It’s all over the news— Kira Rushkoff was just taken to Bellevue. Sounds like a nervous breakdown.”

O
fficers Davis and Lynds escorted Alan Leightman Uptown to Bellevue Hospital and took him upstairs to his wife’s room. They were about to take him in when he asked if he could go in alone.

Not much could happen in a hospital room, Davis figured. There was only one entrance. A nurse was there. Leightman was wearing handcuffs. They could watch Leightman through the glass in the door. Afterward, he or Lynds could ask the nurse what the judge had said.

“Sure, but we’ll be right here.”

Inside, Alan stood and stared at Kira, who was lying in the hospital bed, hooked up to an IV. She looked ravaged, as if she’d been deathly ill. As if most of the life force had left her. Was she sleeping? Awake? He couldn’t tell. Her eyes were open, but she hadn’t looked at him or said a word. There’d been no response when he’d said her name. He felt his knees go weak and held on to the foot of the bed. He waited until he felt a little stronger, and then asked the nurse if she would step outside for just a moment so he could speak to his wife alone.

She didn’t mind, shrugged and got up, stretching her legs
and walking slowly. He watched her leave. When the door was closed behind her, he watched one of the cops walk up to the door, station himself in front of the glass window, and look in. Alan didn’t care about being watched. It was being listened to that mattered to him.

Sitting beside Kira, Alan took her left hand, the one that wasn’t hooked up to the IV, dipped his head down and kissed her palm. How was it possible that this woman, his wife, had committed such twisted crimes?

“Kira?” he whispered.

Nothing.

It was possible because he had driven her to it with his addictions. With his lack of empathy for what she had suffered when he turned away from her and turned on the computer every night.

Reaching out, he smoothed down his wife’s hair as he whispered her name again, but there was still no response.

Who do you blame when a child commits a crime? Only the child? Or the parent also? No, he wasn’t her parent, but he was just as responsible. How many cases had he heard in his career? How many pleas? He knew how to weight both sides of every issue.

Even, and especially, this one.

His whole life was a matter of justice. And if there was going to be any justice here, it was going to have to be his to mete out. Here, now, he was sitting on the bench at their trial and while there was no question hers was the more heinous crime, his was the instigating crime. There was no way he’d ever right the wrongs he’d done to her or the wrongs she’d done to those poor women, but he could pay the penalty that he deserved.

He felt tears prick his eyes but blinked them away. What good would any of that do now?

“Kira, sweetheart, can you hear me?”

Nothing.

“Kira, please.” His voice was on the verge of breaking.

Finally, she turned her head and looked at him through a drug-induced haze.

“You’re in the hospital but you are going to be all right. Can you hear me?”

She had to be able to hear him. She had to be able to understand what he needed to tell her.

“Kira, you can hear me, right?”

She nodded.

“You don’t have to worry. I’ll never tell anyone. I love you too much. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Nothing you did will ever be discovered. I did do it, really, didn’t I? It
was
my fault. You only reacted. You shouldn’t be punished for reacting.”

Her eyes opened wider, in alarm. There were deep hollows under her cheekbones. Without the deep red lipstick that had been her trademark, her lips looked thin and dry.

“You can’t…” she said in a feeble voice.

He bent down, awkwardly because of the handcuffs, and kissed her forehead.

“You have to get better. And when you go home, you have to remember to destroy anything you have on paper, anything on your computer, anything at all that’s left. You have to make sure there’s nothing to tie you to all this. They won’t come looking for you. They won’t have any reason to. But you have to take care of every shred of evidence. Do you understand?”

Kira opened her mouth to say something but only a sob came out.

A
t four-thirty, instead of going to her favorite art class, Amanda left school early and got on the Fifth Avenue bus. No one cared if she skipped art. Hell, no one really cared what she skipped anymore. She was a senior and she’d already applied to colleges. This last semester was a joke.

She was nervous during the ride and almost got off twice. What if Dr. Snow broke her promise and went to her parents? What if she went to the principal? What if this fucked up her chances at getting into the school she wanted? Would the guidance counselor write to Brown and Cornell and tell them?

Anything was possible.

There was no way to know.

First she’d get Dr. Snow to promise not to tell anyone. But could she take her word for it? She didn’t know. Timothy had told her that some of the guys had told Dr. Snow some pretty heavy shit over the past few months and she hadn’t blabbed to anyone.

She should have called. She shouldn’t just show up. But she didn’t want the doctor to ask her anything over the phone.

The bus finally stopped at Sixty-fifth Street and Amanda
walked quickly from Fifth to Madison, then continued down the block until she found the wrought-iron doors and the small bronze plaque identifying the building as the Butterfield Institute.

She tried the door but it didn’t open.

Then she found the buzzer and pressed it.

What was she going to say if anyone asked who she was? Should she give them her real name? Her whole name? Or just her first name? Would Dr. Snow know who she was if she only used her first name?

She was starting to panic. Then she heard a click and a woman’s voice asking for her name.

“Amanda. I’m here to see Dr. Snow.”

“Come in.”

Inside, Amanda looked around at the high ceiling, the crystal chandelier sending soft light down on the peach walls and bronze leather chairs. Surprised, she kept searching for something that would identify the place as a sex therapy institute.

She was in the right place, wasn’t she?

“Can I help you?”

She walked over to the receptionist, holding on to her backpack so tightly the strap was biting into the flesh of her palm.

“I wanted to see Dr. Snow.”

“I don’t see you down for an appointment?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t have one.”

“Dr. Snow isn’t here today. She had an accident.”

Amanda hadn’t really heard anything after “isn’t here today.” It had taken so much to decide to come. She didn’t know if she could do it again. Tears started to fill her eyes. Fuck, she was not going to cry in front of this preppie chick.

“She’ll be back tomorrow. Do you want to make an appointment?”

Maybe she should just give her the damn CD and ask her
to give it to Dr. Snow. But what if she looked at it? What if she figured it out?

“When?”

“She has an hour free on Thursday at five-thirty. Would that work for you?”

Amanda nodded her head quickly. Yes.

But could she really wait? Should she say something? She was afraid—afraid to give herself a chance to say no, to chicken out, to screw up. She’d done enough of that already. Delivering this CD to Dr. Snow was something she had to do. Dr. Snow would know what to do. She had to. Enough people had died already. Nothing would happen between now and then. Nothing would.

Amanda shuddered.

“You okay?” the blonde asked.

“Not really,” Amanda said, but before the girl could ask her anything else, she ran out.

I
left Nina’s late that afternoon and took a cab home. Everything was slightly difficult to manage. And everything exhausted me. I dropped my bag on the floor and my coat on the back of a chair, then sat down on the couch.

The room was still and quiet and smelled slightly of the heated air coming up through the pipes. I went to light one of the many scented candles that I keep handy—not as an affectation or an aid to romance, but because they were necessary to get rid of the odor—but couldn’t manage the matches with only one hand.

When Mitch rang the doorbell forty minutes later, I was still sitting in the den, trying to ignore the throbbing in my wrist. It was strange to open the door with my left hand.

He kissed me, gently and softly, on the lips. I smelled the cold that he brought with him and shivered a little, surprised that the freezing temperatures would follow him upstairs and linger so long.

“Does it still hurt?” he asked, looking at the cast in the sling.

“Yeah, but I’m okay.”

“I bet you’re being stoic beyond logic and not taking anything stronger than aspirin.”

Instead of the comment sounding endearing, it was as if he’d flung an insult at me.

“I’m okay.”

He shrugged as if he’d heard this before. And he had. I took a big breath. Of course it would be like this at first. We had to work back into knowing each other. We had to find a new way to be together.

“Do you want a drink?” I asked.

“I’ll get it. You sit.”

I let Mitch make us both drinks—Scotch neat for him, a club soda for me. I was concerned about mixing alcohol with the residue of painkillers in my system. He brought them over to the couch, handed me mine and took a swallow of his.

“How is Dulcie?” I asked.

“Resolute.”

“So am I.”

“I know.” He smiled ruefully.

“You won’t try to get in the middle and convince me to give in, right? I won’t.”

Mitch was handsome in a way that should have been more attractive to me. But sitting in the den that used to be
our den,
watching him, it wasn’t. When he’d kissed me, I hadn’t felt anything. Of course not; I was in pain. I’d broken my wrist twenty-four hours earlier. What was I supposed to feel? But there had been no startled acceleration of my blood, no heat in my cheeks. I’d smelled his cologne and had stepped back, finding it slightly unpleasant, the way a memory can be.

“No, I won’t.”

“Mitch, she doesn’t have the tools yet to deflect the dangers out there.”

“You’re lecturing me, Morgan. I already told you I wasn’t going to try to change your mind.”

“Right. Sorry. I really am sorry. I just hate not having her here. I hate being the one to say no, being the bad guy again.”

“It’s going to be fine.” He smiled. “Do you want to go out and get something to eat?”

I didn’t.
I wanted to see Noah. I wanted to talk to him and tell him how I was feeling and sit in the kitchen with him and have him make us something to eat.
Damn. I needed to stop thinking about Noah. I had told Nina I could do this and that I needed to do this and it was what I wanted.

“Sure, let’s go.”

“Where?”

“It doesn’t matter, wherever you want.”

“Morgan, just pick someplace.” He sounded irritated. This was all too familiar. A pressure was holding me down, a tightness wound around my chest. I recognized the signs. I’d forgotten how we had been together.

My marriage to Mitch hadn’t ended because he wanted it to. I hadn’t been happy, either, even if I chose not to think about it, even if I chose to hide behind my daughter and my work.

“Mitch,” I said, “my hand hurts and I’m tired from all the painkillers. I think I need to stay here. I need to go to sleep.”

I got up and walked him to the front door, where he leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “Call me tomorrow. And please, Morgan, stop being so stubborn. Take something to help with the pain.”

But once he had left, once the door had shut behind him and I was alone again in my home, my wrist wasn’t that bad and I wasn’t so tired anymore.