Lovers and Liars (63 page)

“You mean, here in town?”

“No. In L.A.”

“I see. Do you usually come home in the middle of the day?”

Jack suddenly stared. “What the hell is going on? What the hell kind of questions are these?”

“Mr. Ford, I’m only doing my job. Please answer the question.”

Jack’s jaw clenched. “I don’t live with Belinda—my wife—in Laguna Beach. I live in Westwood.”

“I see. What were you doing there?”

“She’s my
wife
—I was visiting,” Jack said, coldly furious. “Am I understanding this right? You’re questioning me while that bastard rapist is running free?”

“Adam Gordon will be brought in for questioning,” Perez said. “You and your wife are estranged?”

“Yes.” He stared. “I didn’t rape my own wife. I didn’t beat her up.”

“I never said you did,” Perez said. “Was anyone at your office with you this afternoon?”

“Yes,” Jack snapped. “My secretary.”

Perez wrote down her name. “I’m sorry, but I have to cover all the bases. What is your wife’s relationship to Adam Gordon?”

Jack went tense. “I don’t know.”

Perez gave him a look of commiseration—loaded with innuendo.

Jack wanted to slug the moron. Instead he answered the rest of his questions, then turned away. The wait was interminable. His anger at the police started to recede. Worry took over. God, over an hour and a half had passed! What was going on? Please let her be okay!

Thirty minutes later a white-coated doctor appeared, introducing herself as Dr. Paige. “Is she all right?” Jack asked.

“She’ll be fine,” Dr. Paige began. “In—”

“And the baby?”

Dr. Paige beamed. “The baby is fine. Your wife wasn’t miscarrying when she came in.”

“Oh, God!” Jack said, and he sank down into a chair.

“She has a few bruises, which will heal. A broken nose. We do have a fine plastic surgeon on staff, but people sometimes want to bring in their own doctor. Your wife was sodomized. The anal tissues are torn, and I put in two stitches. She’ll have some discomfort for a few days. I gave her a mild pain-killer. She should take one tablet every four to six hours as necessary. She can go now, but she should rest for the next few days. I want to see her in one week to remove the stitches. Of course, if there’s any vaginal spotting, she must come in immediately.”

Jack nodded. “Can I see her?”

“In a few minutes,” Dr. Paige responded. “She’s with a counselor from the rape crisis center.”

Jack groaned and turned away. A few minutes stretched into forty-five. Perez approached him and said, “When your wife feels better we’d like her to stop by the station and make a formal statement.”

Jack nodded and Perez left.

“Sir? You can see your wife now.”

“Thank you,” Jack said, rushing in ahead of the nurse.

Belinda looked terribly vulnerable and injured lying in the hospital bed with her swollen, discolored face and the tape over her nose. He took her hand. She opened her eyes.

“Hi,” he said with a faint smile. “Ready to go home?”

“Yes, please.”

Jack squeezed her hand reassuringly. She looked up at him with hurt in her eyes. He wanted to take that hurt away. He didn’t know how.

Getting discharged was another matter. There were more forms to fill out, and he did his best—it was stunning how little he knew about his wife. Then he called a cab and went back to Emergency for Belinda. She was half sleeping, still under sedation. In the cab she sat stiffly against his side, so stiffly he thought it must hurt, while he kept his arm around her and periodically stroked her shoulder reassuringly. She stared out the window.

When they reached her house he helped her into the massive Victorian bed. “What can I do?” he asked.

She looked at him and held out her arms. He sat down and she wrapped them around him, hard. His own arms came up to hold her tightly. “I love you,” he said unsteadily. “So much.”

He was shocked when her lips found his and took them aggressively and hard. He tried to protest. But she grabbed his hair, almost hurting him, and attacked again, open-mouthed, desperate. She thrust her tongue past his lips. Her teeth caught his. It should have been passion, but it wasn’t. Jack knew the difference. It was a physical onslaught, hard and demanding, and he didn’t understand what she was doing. He was confused.

She moved her head away. He saw her eyes, wide and surprisingly lucid—not passion-fogged. She pulled off her shirt. “Make love to me, Jack. Now.” She attacked him again.

Was this right? He wasn’t aroused. She wasn’t aroused either, and he knew it. All he wanted was to hold and comfort her, soothe her. But she was a madwoman, pulling him down, her hands like claws on his back, kissing him painfully. For once in his life he had no erection. “Belinda.”

“Damn you!” she cried with a choked sob. “Damn you! You don’t want me!” She rolled onto her side away from him.

“Honey,” he said. “That’s not true.” He touched her shoulder, she yanked it away. “Belinda, I’m afraid to hurt you—to hurt our baby.”

He heard a sob. Her shoulders shook. From behind he wrapped his arms around her. “This is what you need now. Cry. Cry it all out.”

She cried. She rolled to face him and burrowed against him and cried. Her sounds were animallike, not human. He stroked her. Caressed her. Whispered endearments. Told her how much he loved her. The crying and shaking gradually ceased. He kissed her forehead, smoothed her hair. “I love you.” He kissed her ear. She was very still and very warm against his body.

He kissed her temple, stroked her back. He kissed her bruises one by one, as if to heal them. She lifted her face, eyes closed, lips parted. He kissed them too, gently, tenderly, prodding slowly with his tongue. She clutched his head. He clutched her. And he felt her desire rise just as he felt his.

“I love you,” he said, holding her tightly.

She said, “Jack?”

“Yes?”

He looked down, his gaze tender. Hers was bewildered.

“He raped me.”

“I know,” he said tightly.

“He raped me.”

“I know.”

126

F
ortunately Jack never had the chance to kill Adam Gordon.

Gordon was arrested that night.

While Belinda was sleeping Jack phoned Abe Glassman, who had just gotten back from Las Vegas. “What do you want, Ford?” Glassman sneered.

“Your daughter—my wife—was beaten and raped this morning.”

There was a stunned pause. “Who did it?”

“Adam Gordon.”

There was another pause. “You sure?”

“Belinda says so.”

“I want to talk to her.”

“She’s asleep, and Glassman, she needs to sleep.”

“She okay?”

“Facial bruises. A broken nose. Torn anal tissues.”

Another silence.

“Just thought you’d want to know,” Jack said. And hung up.

Adam was held without bail.

Two weeks later, in the ensuing publicity about his perverted sexual habits, he lost his job.

Exactly five weeks after the rape he was found in his apartment, a gun in his hand, his face blown away.

Suicide, the police said.

It probably was.

127

A
hundred ways to die.

Will Hayward sat in the rental car and watched Abe Glassman stride out of his Westwood, California, apartment building and slip into the waiting limo. It slowly cruised away.

Will turned on the ignition and followed.

128

“H
ow are you feeling today?” Jack asked tenderly the morning after the rape. He held a tray in his hands.

“Sore,” she said, sitting up against the pillows. “I must look awful.”

“Honey, your face is bruised. It’ll take time to heal.” He came forward.

“I smell my favorite.”

“Made by your favorite guy,” he quipped, setting the tray across her legs. She was clad in his shirt. Last night she had wanted to wear it.

“Thank you,” she said somewhat shyly. She ate ravenously, and he thought it was a good sign. After she had finished he removed the tray, and she got up and went into the bathroom. Jack heard the shower. He went in to help. She sent him away. “My legs and arms are fine.”

“Sorry,” he said contritely.

Afterward she came out in his shirt and climbed back into bed. Jack had done the dishes, and he came back in to sit beside her. “What can I do?”