Magdalene (55 page)

He was silent for a second or two. “On our
first date, when we saw him at the restaurant— I knew he was
completely out of control. Trust me, I would’ve called a bishop’s
court right then if I thought it wouldn’t have been a complete
waste of time.” He tapped his knuckles on the window. “He went
whining to the stake president, who called him to the stake high
council.”

“And your people?”

“I’ve had them on him for the last six
months. The four of us—Knox and Sebastian and Morgan and I, I
mean—have been over every piece of paper they’ve dug up and I’ll
tell you, if Knox can’t prove it, it
can’t be proven
.”

I sat stunned. “Six months?”

“Well, since Thanksgiving weekend,
yeah.”

“Mitch,” I growled, “you have been dealing
with this alone all this time, letting your
pseudo
family
help you, but not me?”

He started and looked at me.
“Cassandra—”

I glared at him. “
I
am your family
now and I have connections they don’t have. Did you ever think of
that? I’ve been begging you for the last month to talk to me, to
tell me, to let me help you, but you couldn’t, you said, because it
came under ecclesiastical confidentiality— But apparently not
really, because
they
know and have known all along, but
forget the wife, right? You know
everything
about me. I have
never held anything back from you, but you still don’t trust
me.”

“Cassandra, it’s not like that.”

“No, it’s like you thought you should hide
the assholes in your church in case I assumed you were all
alike.”

“Cassandra—”

“I’m not done! I’m not so ignorant I don’t
know there are a few bad apples in every barrel, and that Sitkaris
is your cross to bear. I knew what he was the minute he touched me
and you knew I knew, but you
still
wouldn’t let me help you.
You could’ve given me a little bit of credit and just told me. It’s
not as if I don’t know what happened at Jep Industries down to the
last detail, and it’s not as if I wouldn’t have understood that
religion or spirituality or God or whatever has absolutely nothing
to do with any of this.”

He wiped his hand down his face. “I’m so
sorry, Cassandra. I thought I was protecting you.”

“Bullshit! You were protecting
them
.
From
me
and my
opinion
of them. The
same way
you wouldn’t talk to me about your garments and your covenants and
Mina, to protect them
from me
. Because you thought so little
of me and my ability to comprehend what they meant to you and
respect them on that basis.”

His eyes narrowed at me. “Like you didn’t
talk to me about your meeting with Giselle. Or what you did with
Hayleigh and Amelia. Or that you went to my Relief Society
president behind my back. Or what revenge you’ve got planned for
Greg. Or that you nearly severed his most prized possession
barehanded in front of an emergency room full of people.”

I sniffed. “Well, I couldn’t take it all the
way off or he’d have bled to death. Even I have my limits. And your
child has a big mouth.”

“He was very proud of you.”

“He was drugged,” I groused. “I don’t even
know how he remembered any of it.”

“Check. Shall I go for
mate
?”

I huffed. “Okay, then. Help me understand.
How did we get from catching a thief in the middle of an affair to
him presiding over your excommunication for adultery? Delicate
politics aside, I thought you told me you have to have some kind of
proof if the person wasn’t penitent.”

He drew a long breath in through his nose.
“They...have...proof. Of a sort.”

“
What
could they possibly have?”

“For starters, pictures.”

I stared at him, confused. “Pictures of
what?”

“You and me. In New York. While we were
dating. Dancing at Cubax. Us on your porch, walking together.
Kissing. Having dinner, the wine bucket next to the table. Feeding
you that cordial cherry at Jacques Torres. Me kissing you in the
emergency room, with my hand up your blouse. We— You and I look
very...involved. Like lovers. It’s very easy to infer what must
have happened behind closed doors.”

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose,
but that wasn’t going to ward off the migraine I had coming on.
“And of course Greg has informed them I was a prostitute.”

“Yes. They’ll want to know if I married you
out of guilt for having sex with you. Better yet—
paying
you
for sex.”

“I don’t buy that. Even if every minute we
spent together was photographed, none of it’s incriminating.”

He sat silent for a long time and I felt
dread curdle in the pit of my belly.

“Mitch,” I growled.

He sighed. “I think...Sally may have
confessed...to having an affair with me.”

My mouth dropped open. Closed. Opened again,
but what could I say?
My
Mitch? My brilliant and powerful
lover—with such a needy woman?

Inconceivable.

“And...Greg was going to force Hayleigh to
write a similar confession. You know once that got out, I would’ve
been arrested and charged. If you hadn’t gotten her out when you
did...”

My stomach turned over.

“Okay,” I said briskly, determined to find a
way to salvage this. “So it’s Sally’s word against yours.”

He shrugged wearily. “That’s all it’ll take.
Greg’s managed to gaslight seventy percent of the ward, seems
like.”

That sounded about right. “Rivington did
that to Gordon from the time he was born. His mother, too. I’ve
never met a more broken woman than my mother-in-law, who, by the
way, lives in a posh mental hospital in Connecticut and gets
visited by her granddaughters on a regular basis.” I paused. “You
know, keeping Rivington around would’ve been more fun, so I could
flaunt my success, rub his nose in his destitution. Find little
ways to torture him. But Gordon was on the verge of insanity when
he went to prison. I couldn’t risk Gordon’s relapse if Rivington
were in close proximity to him once he got out.”

Mitch laughed bitterly. “And all
I
had to do was actually
listen
to what Mina and Louise were
trying to tell me, and then do something about it.”

“Oh, you can’t explain gaslighting to
someone who hasn’t lived through it and come out on the other side
with a thorough understanding of how it works. Mina had had a taste
of it. It’s why she married you, right? Louise had to clean up the
messes he left behind.”

We fell into silence, and together watched
the clock tick toward seven.

“You think they’re really going to
excommunicate you, don’t you?” I murmured after a while.

This time he paused. Too long. “No,” he
murmured. Then he burst out, “This is so out of my realm of
experience. I—” He waved a hand. “I’m trying to have faith that the
Lord wouldn’t let this happen when he knows the truth of it,
but...”

“But you said Greg’s part of the
tribunal.”

“Yes.”

“He’s already cemented the relationships.
Being present—he’ll take over. Wrap you up and tie you in a
bow.”

Mitch said nothing.

Then something occurred to me. “Why didn’t
you just ask to be released from the bishopric when all this
began?”

He sat still for a second or two. “I did,”
he murmured. “Twice. I was refused.”

“Oh, now that makes
no
sense. If
Sitkaris is so beloved, and he’s such good buddies with everybody,
there is no reason for this to have gone this far. All they had to
do was release you and install him. Everybody’s happy.”

“The Lord calls bishops. The stake president
prays about it and is told who to call. Petersen said he had
been...instructed...not to release me.”

I barely kept myself from snorting, but this
was my husband and I respected him, so I would attempt to keep my
cynicism to myself. “By that reasoning then, the Lord knows he’s a
rat bastard.”

“Yes.”

Or not. “Thus,
the Lord
,” I sneered,
“is letting this happen to you.” I regretted it as soon as it came
out of my mouth, ridiculing his beliefs exactly as he’d feared I’d
do. Mitch’s eyes closed and he let his chin drop to his chest as if
he didn’t have the strength to hold it up anymore.

Then I knew: He had already come to that
conclusion and felt abandoned.

I’d experienced abandonment and I hurt for
my husband in ways I didn’t remember hurting for myself. And I’d
added to it.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“I won all the battles,” he muttered as if
he hadn’t heard me or didn’t care. “And I lost the war.”

I cleared my throat and asked with some
hesitation, “Couldn’t they have just asked you if we had sex? If
you were involved with Sally?”

“Petersen did that,” he grumbled. “With the
presumption that I was guilty. It didn’t matter what I said.”

“So you didn’t deny it.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Well, why the hell not?”

“I never explain anything,” he snapped and
got out of the car, then walked around the front of it to open my
door for me. He offered his hand, as usual, ever the gentleman.
“
I
don’t have to.” I stared up at him, the King of Steel,
who, tomorrow morning, would still be one of the most powerful men
in the country, but would not be a bishop of a Mormon ward or even,
as a matter of fact, a member of the Mormon church.

And his heart was breaking.

I reached up slowly, laid my hands on his
cheeks and brought his face close to mine. I looked into that
handsome, troubled face—

“I love you, Mitch.”

His eyes widened and his nostrils flared.
His mouth touched mine and I melted into him. We kissed for many
moments. His hand cupped my ass and pulled me in tight to his
body—even in the church parking lot, even as he prepared for his
pillorying.

“Do you want me to come with you?” I
whispered against his mouth when the kiss softened.

“No,” he whispered back. “I need to do this
myself.”

“I’ll wait.”

“It could be hours.”

“I’ll wait.”

He took a long breath and dropped his
forehead to mine. “Thank you, Cassandra,” he whispered. “No matter
what happens, it’s worth it just for that.”

I wrapped my arms around him, pulled his
face into the curve of my neck, felt his ragged breathing.

“Go now.”

He released me slowly, then turned to cross
the parking lot, one hand in his pocket and his coat gathered over
his hand.

Swaggering.

I loved that ass.

That man.

I took a seat on the hood of the car and
shoved my hands in my blazer pockets, only to start picking the
lint out of it. A microscopic piece of paper came out and I looked
at it. Blinked. Threw it on the ground and scrambled to open the
car to find my purse, then dug in it to find the list of names
Prissy had given me.

I reread the list more carefully than I had
when I’d begun the task she’d set me, then pulled out my phone.
“Nigel,” I said as soon as he answered. “Do you remember all that
actuarial bullshit I sent you from Vorcester & Minden? That
insurance company in Alabama? I need you to do something for me,
and I need it fast.”

* * * * *

The Hour is
Come

I started awake at midnight when Mitch
opened the passenger door and dropped into the seat, his mouth
tight. I watched him and waited, tense, for whatever news he
had.

“I have to come back at noon,” he rasped,
rubbing his eyes and dropping his elbow against the door ledge.

That was unexpected. “Why?”

“Two General Authorities are coming out from
Salt Lake. Retired lawyers.” He snorted. “
Trial
lawyers.”

To put him on the witness stand.

“They
have
to know this is wrong,” I
said tightly as I started the car and headed toward home.

“No, they
don’t
. They have a pile of
incriminating pictures and three false witnesses with no reason to
distrust them. If I were looking at the kind of evidence they have,
having Greg in my ear, I’d believe it, too.”

“Three? I thought it was just Sally.”

“Sally,” he muttered. “Some woman I don’t
even know. And...Inez.”

My heart stopped. “Inez?” I whispered.

“Who...
confessed
...that she seduced
me way back when she and I were dance partners, that she and I had
a short fling after I came back from my mission. You know, before I
married Mina. In the temple. After having lied about my virtue, or
lack of it, to get in. And never having confessed or repented in
the twenty-five years since, so I’ve been living a few lies all
this time.”

“But—” My mouth opened and closed like a
fish’s.

“She’s here. She showed up about a month
ago. She’s aged. Badly. I didn’t recognize her and she’s using an
alias.”

“Oh, my God,” I whispered. “That Sister
Schoonover.”

“Yes.”

“Prissy said she looked familiar.”

Mitch nodded. “Prissy was part of my age
group growing up. Everybody knew I had a thing for Inez. Everybody
knew Sally had a thing for me. There are lots of people who can
corroborate that Inez and I spent a lot of time kissing, making
out. It’s not a stretch to believe it.”

“But...” None of it made sense. “What would
she gain by doing that?”

“Thirty thousand dollars. From Greg. To feed
her drug habit. And she asked me to double it.”

I sighed.

“The pictures of you and me just corroborate
everything that’s been confessed.” He barked a humorless laugh.
“Sebastian would be very proud of what I am said to have done with
these women.”

My stomach seemed to twist and turn in on
itself, but I kept my voice calm. “Yet they didn’t send you
packing.”

“They have no way to come out of this
unscathed. On one hand, they need to uphold the integrity of the
Church. If I’m guilty, keeping me around would be wrong by any
organization’s standard. But I have money, power, and connections.
Those connections include a lot of people whose power and money
equal the Church’s resources. Sebastian and Knox both have axes to
grind. I could do some real damage to the Church if I wanted to,
whether I’m guilty or not. What they don’t know is if I’m prepared
to do it.”