Dina Santorelli (10 page)

Ring...
ring...

Phillip
looked toward the bedroom door. He couldn't chance letting it go to voice mail.
I know this number
, he thought, and pressed
call accept
, but it
was too late. He heard a dial tone.

Damn!
He called his voice mail, but there
were no new messages yet. Someone must be leaving a message.
Right now.
Phillip's palms were sweating, as Katherine and Det. Matrick ran into the
bedroom.

"Did
you get it?" Katherine asked.

"I
didn't... Not in..."

"For
God's sake, Phillip, what are you waiting for?"

Suddenly,
his phone dinged, signaling a phone message.

The
three of them stared at one another.

Phillip
dialed his voice mail as Katherine sat on the bed, and the officer placed a
call to Detective Nurberg. Katherine reached over and pressed
speaker
on
Phillip's phone: "
One new message."

Phillip
pressed
one
and braced himself as an automated message began to play:

"This
message is for (pause) Phillip Grand... We have important news about your Visa
credit card ending in 2543. Please call us at 800-832-2093."

"Jesus!"
Katherine said. "Fucking telemarketers. It's goddamn two o'clock in the morning. How did they get that number? I told you not to give it to anyone."

"I
have no idea," Phillip said.

Det.
Matrick flipped his phone closed. "No worries, Mrs. Grand. You did the right
thing. It was just a false alarm. I've made Detective Nurberg aware of the
situation, and he said he will be here first thing tomorrow morning."

"Thank
you," Katherine said as the detective left the bedroom and shut the door.

She
rehung her robe on the poster of the bed, climbed onto the mattress, and pulled
the blankets up to her neck. "Fucking telemarketers," she grumbled as she
turned onto her side.

Phillip
sat on the bed with the phone in his hand. Something was bothering him. That
telephone number. He knew it. He had an uncanny memory for numbers. In grade
school, he had dazzled his fourth-grade teacher by memorizing his
multiplication tables up to twenty, and when he was in the military, he had won
a bet from another private by reciting the serial numbers of all the men in his
unit. He looked at his call log and was studying the telephone number when his
phone vibrated again.

Katherine
turned toward her husband.

"It's
the same number," he said.

Katherine
turned back. "Answer it or decline the call already, Phillip." She pulled the
blankets up higher.

The
governor pressed his index finger on the
call accept
button and brought
the phone to his ear.

"Hello?"
he whispered, as the familiar voice spoke. The governor listened to every word
and then pressed the
end call
button and put the cell phone down on the
bed next to him.

"So?"
Katherine asked without turning over.

The
governor blinked. "Fucking telemarketer," he said and wiped his brow.

Blackness engulfed the master
bedroom where Jamie's eyes blinked nervously, the only body parts she allowed
to move at all; the rest of her remained still under the immobile, hairy arm of
Don Bailino. The static silence of the room would have been overwhelming had
she not been consumed with the violent, intense battles taking place within her
mind:
Why was she here? Whose baby was it? How long would it take Edward to
realize she was missing? Would Bailino rape her again? Why didn't she fight
harder? Who was the blonde girl? Why didn't she fight harder?
She used the
calming techniques that she'd practiced during the adult ed yoga class she'd
taken last summer to assuage the disjointed discourse in her mind, and, for
hours, while the monster slept beside her, she mentally segmented the events of
the previous day, putting them into neat columns. But it all came down to one
inevitable conclusion: Bailino was going to kill her.

That
was clear to her. She knew names, faces, and had witnessed the brutal death of
another human being—the thought of which once again jolted her nervous system
into panic, but Jamie willed her body to relax. She could feel the clouds of
her mind rearrange, and her breathing became so light she feared she might even
stop breathing at all. She ached for the familiarity of her apartment: the
nighttime ticking of the wall clock, the one her brother had given her for
Christmas so she would never be late; the beeping of her next-door neighbor's
car alarm as he left the house at 11:15 p.m. for his night shift at the
twenty-four-hour McDonald's in town; the way her pillowcase smelled when she
first rested her head on it.

Bailino's
warm breath crept up the nape of her neck and blew a steady stream of stale,
used air down her back. Was he awake? She didn't know, and her thoughts flashed
six months back to the night of October 15, the last night of her marriage: It
had been nearly as dark as it was now, the LED lights of her alarm clock
tingeing the lacquered nightstand red as she lay in her usual corner of the
king-size bed. Bob lay on the other side, a few feet of springs separating
them, but miles of distance. She could tell that Bob was awake. She'd learned
the patterns of his breathing while he slept, and as she stared off into the
nothingness, she'd heard him say it, clear as day: "I'm leaving you." How still
she lay there that night, as she was lying now, conscious of that stillness, of
making no reaction. Jamie remembered the wave of relief that swept over her
with those three little words, followed by the grip of disappointment that she
hadn't said them first.

Bailino
lifted his head and nuzzled his chin sleepily against her side, and Jamie held
her breath until he settled back down again. A little voice inside told her she
had this coming: How many times had she daydreamed about a tall, dark stranger
swooping in and carrying her away from her life? Or about Bob being hit by a
car and killed at the scene, rendering her free—all because she was too much of
a chicken to walk out the door? Why was she always looking for someone or
something to save her?

A
horrendous thought jolted Jamie back to the present: She needed to use the
bathroom. The urge came out of nowhere, and there was no way she could hold it
long. Bailino's arm felt like a weight on her side, but she rolled left. Instantly,
his right hand grabbed her waist. He
was
awake.

"Where
are you going?"

"The
bathroom," she whispered.

Bailino
thought for a moment. "Okay, go, but hurry." He released his grip, and Jamie
rose to a sitting position. The dizziness was immediate; she caught herself
from falling backward. She couldn't get up.

"Well?"
he asked.

Jamie
fumbled with her clothing, which hung from her like ripped streamers after a
lively party, and managed to get herself up and off the bed. Even in the dark,
Jamie could feel Bailino's steady eyes on her, and she became self-conscious
about her nakedness, something she wasn't totally comfortable with on any given
day, let alone that day. She stepped in the direction of the bathroom, stifling
a moan as a twinge of pain shot through her upper thighs as she separated her
legs. She took what felt like baby steps across the dark bedroom and finally
passed through the doorframe. The coolness of the ceramic floor tile soothed
the soles of her feet, and she closed the door before Bailino told her not to
and then ran her hand along the wall near the molding to find the light switch.
She flicked it on.

The
fluorescent brightness shocked her tired pupils, and she closed her eyes until
they adjusted, putting her hands against the wall for support. She locked the
door and then waited, but there were no protests from the other side. She
shuffled across the room to the toilet and, in a small moment of utter joy,
relieved her bladder, her eyes scanning the large bathroom, decorated in a
warm, yellow color palette, and resting on a small window that was above the
Jacuzzi bathtub. Was it big enough for her to climb through? Possibly, but
unlikely, she thought, and even if she tried, she was two flights up from the
ground. There were small heating and air-conditioning ducts next to the tub,
but they were hardly large enough for one leg. The truth was, the only reason
Bailino would probably let her go to the bathroom on her own was because he was
confident that there was nowhere she could go, and Jamie felt the anxiousness
return to her insides. She thought she heard footsteps outside the bathroom
door, and she sat still and listened, watching the doorknob, but nothing
happened. She knew he wouldn't let her stay in there for long.

She
reached for the toilet paper, pausing a moment in surprise to see that the ends
of the paper had been carefully creased on both sides into a neat point. She
flushed and reached across the shiny porcelain pedestal sink to wash her hands,
splattering water on the smooth curves of the gleaming chrome faucets. The hand
soap gave off a milk-and-honey fragrance. The entire bathroom had a springy
freshness about it, as if it had been scrubbed with daisies. While she washed
her hands, out of habit Jamie glanced into the vanity mirror and gasped at the
horror of her own reflection: A large, red bump burst through the skin just
above her hairline. Her tousled, matted hair looked glued to the sides of her
face, which had large, blood-speckled scrapes along them. Her coloring,
normally fair, was ashen, and her eyes were red and puffy, sagging at the
corners in sadness. Or was it shame? She looked away and pressed her back up
against the cool tiled wall, finding comfort in the geometrical order of the
tiled walls and floors surrounding her, as if she were in a protective cage. If
only she could stay in there. She again looked into the mirror, at her unrecognizable
self, and reached her hand out, her finger tracing the sides of her reflected
face and leaving smudge marks on the glass. NEVER LOOK BACK the headline had
read on
O
magazine. Jamie grabbed the corner of the mirror and pulled,
and the door to the medicine cabinet opened with a click.

The
cabinet shelves were rather empty, containing only three items: a half-used
bottle of Old Spice aftershave, an electric razor, and a clear, plastic makeup
bag, which Jamie picked up. Inside she found some hair clips, makeup in an
array of childish fluorescent colors, body lotions, and a nail clipper. She
took out the nail clipper and studied it, running her index finger along the
sharp edge. She folded out the attached nail file and held it up to the vanity
light.
How much damage could it inflict
? she wondered. Could it kill him?
Could it kill her? Could she kill anybody? She pressed the edge of the nail
file into the soft skin of her left wrist when loud, muted wails broke the
silence.

The
baby!

Jamie
replaced the nail file in the makeup bag, returned it into medicine cabinet,
and threw open the bathroom door.

The
light from the bathroom shone into the dark bedroom, revealing a pile of bed
linens but an otherwise empty bed, and Jamie ran over to the door of the nursery,
again suppressing the pain she felt between her thighs. Bailino stood in the
small room, facing her, the screaming baby held out in front of him by her
armpits, her legs kicking down.

"The
baby's crying," he said, pushing the child out toward her like a newborn's
weary father.

Jamie
reached for the little girl, who, upon seeing her, screeched louder and
extended her hands. When released into Jamie's arms, she clutched her neck and
rested her head on Jamie's shoulder.

"Feed
her, and get her back to sleep," Bailino said, leaving the room. "Then come
back to bed."

Rosalia was standing just
outside the front gates of the governor's mansion when Reynaldo pulled up. For
such a large, stately home, the mansion, with its wide, lavish grounds, was set
so far back from the iron gatework of its perimeter that you could almost miss
it while driving down Eagle Street, especially in the dark. The front gate was
still open, and his aunt was chatting with Henry, the night guard, and another
man, whom Reynaldo recognized to be a policeman as he drove closer. The entire
first floor of the mansion was dark, with only a few lights on upstairs.
Reynaldo heard his aunt utter a soft good-bye, and she hurried into the
passenger seat of Reynaldo's car, which he had cleared of paperwork and soda
cans. She held up her hand when she saw that Reynaldo wanted to talk and said,
"Drive." Without hesitation, he obeyed.

As
he drove, Reynaldo glanced at his aunt, who was looking straight ahead. Sitting
like that, quiet and introspective, she looked even more like his mother than
he remembered, and a feeling of tremendous loss came over him, but it was
Rosalia who began to cry.

"Aunt
Ro, what is it?" Reynaldo asked. He extended his arm across to her.

"The
baby..."

"Baby?
What baby?" Reynaldo asked. "You mean Charlotte?"

"Yes,"
Rosalia sobbed. "They took Carlota."

"Who
took her? Where?"

"I
don't know," Rosalia said. "The
policía
were here today asking me
questions. It's my fault."

"
Qué
?!"
Reynaldo pulled over to the side of the road, and the car jerked to a stop. He
faced his aunt. "What is your fault? Why are the police here?"

"I
put Charlotte down for her nap, and when I went to check on her, she was gone."

"What
do you mean 'gone'?"

"
Ay
,
Rey, she wasn't there anymore. She... disappeared." Rosalia reached into her
pocketbook, pulled out a tissue and blew her nose. She looked so tired,
Reynaldo thought.

"Could
she have climbed out?"

"No,
no... I would have heard. I heard nothing. I look at the baby monitor all the
time. You know how I am..."