Dina Santorelli (29 page)

Jamie slapped at Leo, forcing him to stop fiddling with
her jeans and to deal with her hands. There were intense, intermittent bangs
coming from both the bathroom and bedroom doors now. Leo managed to pin Jamie's
arms above her, the gun crushing the fingers of her right hand, and out of the
corner of her eye, Jamie saw Charlotte's blotchy face crawling over to them,
and terror seized her as Leo shoved the little girl back—hard—making her fall
onto her head.

"You son of a bitch," Jamie said, landing a punch under
Leo's left eye. "She's only a baby. Big fuckin' man, right? You fuckin'
bastard."

Leo slapped Jamie across the face again, and she lost her
bearings. When the pain subsided, she realized that Leo had gotten her jeans
down around her knees and that his were down as well.

"Noooo," she cried and tried to crawl away on her
stomach, but Leo pounced on top of her, knocking the wind out of her. She
gasped for air.

"You want it in the ass? Is that it?" he asked, pulling
Jamie's body toward his with one hand and pulling down her underwear with the
other.

Jamie was lightheaded and her chest burned, but she thought
she could manage an elbow in the groin when suddenly Leo was off her.

She turned over onto her back, her breathing now a
painful wheeze, and saw Bailino pressing Leo against the wall. He was soaking
wet, in a bathrobe, and Leo's pant legs had fallen around his ankles showing
his hairy, white legs. They were struggling over the gun, which Leo held
straight in the air.

"I'll fucking kill you," Leo said, spit flying from the
corners of his mouth.

Bailino forced Leo's hands back and as he held them
there, he turned, with an eerie calm, to Jamie. "You all right?" He banged
Leo's arm against the wall, and the gun fired, causing flakes of plaster to
shoot across the room, coating them all with a white dust. The gunshot had so
shocked Charlotte that she stopped crying and crawled like lightning over to
Jamie, who was scrambling to get dressed. "No," Jamie screamed. "I'm not."

The two men, pressed up against each other, fell onto the
baby grand piano.

"Take the kid, and bring her into the nursery," Bailino
yelled as he banged Leo's arm on the piano again to release the gun from his
grip. "Go!"

"You fuckin' shit," Leo yelled. "I know what you did to
my sister, you fuckin' bastard."

Jamie struggled to her feet and, with Charlotte in hand,
limped toward the nursery and shut the door. In the sudden darkness, she felt
around until she reached the back corner of the room, slunk down onto the floor
and plopped the shaking baby onto her lap. A small thread of light shone from
the opening at the bottom of the nursery door, when another shot was fired.

Her eyes were fixed on that light, praying for it not to
widen, for the door
never
to open, as she heard Leo's voice piercing the
air. She ran her hand along Charlotte's curls, but the little girl had stopped
shaking and had become very still. Then there was a solid
thud
, followed
by another gunshot, and everything was quiet, except for Jamie's heart, which
was pounding so hard that she thought blood was going to spill out of her ears.

She tilted
her head back against the wall, her fingers pinching her nose to stem the
bleeding while her other hand continued to caress Charlotte's head. The
pounding had morphed into an incessant ringing in her ears, and she thought she
heard new voices coming from the bedroom. She took her hand from Charlotte, her curls sticking to the blood and sweat on Jamie's palms, and felt around in
the dark on the floor until she found the container of baby wipes. She pulled
one out and stuck it into her left nostril. The little girl's breathing was
steady. Incredibly, she'd fallen asleep again.

The
closet door opened, throwing sudden light into the room. Jamie braced herself,
shielding Charlotte's eyes, when a familiar shadow appeared in the doorframe.

"Are
you all right?" Bailino asked. He had changed from his bathrobe into a pair of
jeans and a white T-shirt.

"No."
The tears were free-flowing now.

"Is
she sleeping?"

Jamie
nodded.

Bailino
reached down and put his arms on Charlotte's small body.

"No."
Jamie was speaking softly, but firmly. "Don't."

"
Shhh
... It's all right." Bailino crept his hands around Charlotte's body to lift
her.

"No,"
Jamie whispered, putting her hand on his. "Let me do it."

Bailino
stood back as Jamie struggled to stand, pressing her back against the wall and
sliding up, keeping a hold onto Charlotte. The bloody baby wipe fell out of her
nostril and onto the floor. She was dizzy, but she walked across the small room
and placed Charlotte in the crib and covered her with a blanket and then stood
there swaying. She wanted to crawl in there with her.

"C'mon,"
he said gently and extended his hand.

Too
tired to think about why or what it meant, Jamie took Bailino's hand and
followed him into the bedroom. It was empty. The baby grand piano had fallen
onto its side, and there was plaster and dust everywhere, colored white and
red. Leo was gone.

Bailino
walked Jamie into the bathroom and pulled down the toilet seat. "Sit down," he
said. Jamie obeyed, her compliance no longer out of terror but from, she
feared, a growing hopelessness. He reached over her head and grabbed a
washcloth, which he ran under warm water from the faucet. The bathroom air
still had remnants of steam from when Bailino had showered, and it felt good in
her nostrils and on her skin. Carefully, Bailino wiped Jamie's face.

"Does
that hurt?" he asked.

She
shook her head, which made her dizzier. She leaned her back against the toilet
tank.

Bailino
touched around the bridge of her nose. "Your eyes are swollen," he said and
opened the medicine cabinet.

"They
have been for days," Jamie said with a sniffle.

"Have
they?" Bailino asked.

Jamie
had always marveled at how people saw only what they wanted to see,
particularly when it came to their own destruction, the undeniable pile of
rubble left in their wake that was visible to everyone else, except them.

"Where
is he?" she asked.

Bailino
applied something to her forehead. The burn made Jamie recoil.

"He's
not gonna bother you anymore." Bailino leaned down and kissed Jamie's forehead.
"Okay?"

"Okay,"
Jamie nodded, looking into Bailino's once menacing eyes that had turned softer,
as they had been the night before. But in the crisp daylight, suddenly another
fear took hold of her. Whatever strategy she had employed, whatever game she
had been trying to play to get herself and Charlotte out of there, had relied
on building a trust with Bailino, on earning his respect and perhaps his
confidence. But looking into his eyes right now, Jamie realized that she had
been wrong. Very, very wrong. No matter what he said or what she hoped, she
knew now that in the end he would never let her go.

There was an aching stiffness
in Edward's neck as he opened his eyes and tried to remember where he was. A
crumpled McDonald's bag lay on the passenger seat of his car, and there was a
lingering wetness on the inner thighs of his jeans from the condensation of his
Coke, which sat between his legs still full. He took a sip of the warm, watered
down soda and reached for his phone. There were three missed calls from Tricia,
none from Jamie. Outside, he saw a trailer truck parked in front of him. The
highway cars to his left were whizzing north, a far cry from the virtual
standstill of the Thruway the night before because of construction that closed
all but one lane. Edward remembered pulling off to get something to eat and
then parking at a rest stop at around 10:00 p.m. He must have fallen asleep. He
looked at his phone. It was 6:10 a.m.

"Damn
," Edward muttered, turning the key in the ignition.
He drove onto the highway and within seconds saw a sign: He was only about
fifteen minutes from downtown Albany.

Edward
called his office and told them he wouldn't be in. He held off on calling
Tricia even though he knew she would be worried. He didn't know what to tell
her—he didn't know himself what he was doing, so he just texted a quick "I'm
fine. Call you later."

Dark
storm clouds were rolling in from the west, and Edward was reminded of that day
at the beach long ago. He saw a sign for the Albany police station and took the
exit. The station was only a few blocks down, and he parked in one of the
visitors' spots in front of the building—he was surprised to see quite a few
cars there so early in the morning, but then remembered about the kidnapping of
Charlotte Grand.

Edward
walked into the police station, his legs still wobbly from the long ride, and
approached a big, burly man behind the front desk. "Hi, can you help me?" he
huffed, his voice groggy. "I'm looking for a woman."

"Aren't
we all?" the officer said, with a smirk.

Edward
looked at the officer's badge: Det. McDonnell.

"Does
she work here?" McDonnell asked.

"No,
no," Edward said. "She's missing."

"Jesus,
another one?"

"I'm
sorry?"

"I
just filled out a report. Does she work at the Exotica Strip Club?"

"What?
No, no..."

"Oh."
The officer pulled out another sheet of paper. "For how long?" he asked, less
interested than before.

"Since
Tuesday. But I already filled out one of these things."

The
policeman raised his eyebrows. "You did? Where?"

"In Manhattan."

"Manhattan? Do you live in Albany County?"

"No,"
Edward said.

"What
county do you live in?"

"Nassau County."
The policeman stared. "Nassau County? As in Long Island?"

"Yes,"
Edward said. "I know... But I think she might be here. There was a post on her..."

"Does
your sister live here, sir?" the man interrupted.

"No,
she lives with me. I mean, in my house."

"On Long Island?"

"Yes."

"So
she went missing on Long Island?"

"Yes,
I mean... no, no, actually New York City. Manhattan."

"So
your sister who lives on Long Island went missing two days ago in Manhattan, and you want to fill out a missing person's report in Albany?"

"Well,
I guess," Edward said. "You see..."

"Hold
on a minute." The policeman went to the back of the room and leaned his head
inside a small office door. "Hey, Nurberg, can you take care of this?" He
tossed the missing-persons file onto Nurberg's desk. "I gotta pee."

Edward
saw the file sitting on the desk untouched until a pair of hands picked it up
and a young, tired-looking plainclothes officer approached the front desk.

"I'm
Detective Mark Nurberg." Nurberg stuck out his hand.

"Edward.
Carter." Edward shook the detective's hand.

"Come
into my office," Nurberg said politely, waving him inside the swinging gate.

"Thank
you, Detective."

Once
inside, Nurberg returned to his swivel chair as Edward sat in one of the chairs
before his desk. "What can I do for you, Mr. Carter?" He looked at the form.
"You want to report a missing person?"

"My
sister is missing." Edward glanced at all the newspapers scattered on the desk
and floor and the clippings that hung on a corkboard with tacks. There was a
blanket and pillow strewn on the floor behind Nurberg's chair. "She's been
missing for two days. I last heard from her when she was in Manhattan on
Tuesday. She lives on Long Island. With me. Well, not with me, but downstairs
from me. She's recently divorced, was married to a shit, but I don't think he
has anything to do with it, but who the hell knows. She had seen him the day
before at the lawyer's." Edward took a breath. "I've already filled out a
missing-persons report downstate, and I've contacted everyone she knows, but no
one has seen or heard from her."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Nurberg said, jotting down notes.

"Listen,
I know how this looks, but I'm not a crackpot. I'm a levelheaded guy. I work in
the Manhattan DA's office. Here, here's my business card." Edward reached into
his pocket.

Nurberg
shook his head. "No, that's not necessary," but Edward put his card on the desk
anyway. Nurberg picked it up and studied it. "The Manhattan DA?"

Edward
nodded.

"Do
you know Sandra Conlon?"

"Sandy? Yeah, why, you know her?"

"She's
my second cousin. On my mother's side. She's getting married next month."

"Yeah,
I know. I'm going to the wedding."

"Really?"

"Yeah,
why, are you?"

"I
don't know. I haven't RSVP'd yet. If my mother has her wish, I will be there
wearing a big, flashing neon sign that says,
Single
."

Edward
smiled politely. "Wow, that's weird," he said. "If I hadn't met you today, I
may have met you there."

"Yeah,"
Nurberg said. "How old is she? Your sister?"

"Thirty-two."

"And
you're from Long Island?"

"Yes,"
Edward said, "but I saw something on her Facebook page, and I couldn't stay in
the house anymore and do nothing. Before I knew it, I was driving upstate."

"Does
she have relatives or friends living up here?"

"No,"
Edward shook his head. "Not that I know of."

Nurberg
continued writing. "Did you say 'Facebook page'?" he asked.

"Yes,"
Edward said. "I don't know if it's her or what. So many scammers on that thing,
or if it's a friend, but yesterday, under her profile, the word
Albany
was typed."

"And
you thought that meant she was here?"

"I
don't know what it means, but I just couldn't sit home."

"Mr.
Carter, perhaps your sister decided to leave and not tell anyone..."