Now You See Me... (28 page)

Chapter 52

“Make a wish, Dassie.”

He blew out all the candles except one and switched on the light. She blinked at the sudden brightness and forced herself not to flinch when he sat on the side of the bed.

“You won’t try to run away?” he said.

“I would have gone with you, Justin, if you’d asked. I was shocked to see you.”

“I IM’ed you, Dassie. Over and over. I told you we had to talk. I tried you a hundred times, I saw you were online. But you didn’t answer.”

“I was afraid my parents would see.” She held her bound wrists toward him. “I understand why you did what you did, Justin. It was my fault, all my fault. I want to make it right.”

She didn’t know where the words came from. They weren’t her words, or Dinah’s. Dinah’s brothers had come to save her, but no one was coming to save Hadassah.

He stared at her. An eternity passed before he leaned closer and fingered the rope, another as he undid the knots.

She massaged her wrists.

Her head pulsed when she sat up. She was dizzy. Maybe it was the wine, or what he’d put in it. Or the reaction to whatever had been on the cloth he’d held over her nose and mouth. She inched to the edge of the bed and slowly pushed herself to a standing position. She didn’t know where he had put her shoes. Her legs were wobbly.

I am Yael,
she told herself.

She picked up the nightgown, which he had laid on the end of the bed. She ran her hand across the silky fabric. “It’s beautiful, Justin. I’ll change in the bathroom. I won’t be long.”

“I broke the lock. I didn’t know if I could trust you, Dassie . . .”

“I don’t blame you,” she said, hiding her dismay. “Where’s my sweater, Justin? It’s warm in here, from all the candles. It’s probably chilly in the bathroom.” She saw his frown. He didn’t believe her. “This is my first time, Justin,” she said shyly.

She cast her eyes downward. She wondered how Yael had convinced Sisera that it was safe to enter her tent.

“I’ll wait outside the door,” he said after what seemed like an eternity. “You can change in here.”

Her heart sank. He picked up the goblet and blew out the last candle on his way out of the room.

He shut the door. She tiptoed across the carpeted floor to the window and looked out at security bars. Straight ahead, only a few feet away, was the neighboring building. The blinds on all the windows were shut.

She felt a wave of tiredness as she moved to the closet. Maybe she would find a hanger, a belt, something she could use. She heard the creak as she opened the closet door.

She knew he had heard it, too.

“What are you doing, Dassie?” He sounded playful.

“Looking for something to hang up my clothes.”

“Just leave them on the side of the bed.”

The closet was empty.

“Are you ready?” he called.

“Almost.”

Her hands shook as she unbuttoned her blouse. She undressed quickly, leaving her clothes at the end of the bed, and slipped the nightgown over her head. The room was warm, but she shivered. A blanket of goose bumps covered her arms.

She lay down on the bed. Her eyelids were starting to feel heavy, and she fought the urge to shut her eyes.

“Dassie?”

He opened the door and approached the bed. He sat on the edge and stroked her face.

“You’re so tense,” he said.

“I’m a little nervous.”

“Don’t be.”

He brought his face to her lips and kissed her softly. She tasted the wine.

“I’ve waited so long for someone like you, Dassie. Do you really love me?”

“With all my heart.”

“Forever?”

“Forever.”

He moved away. “Is this why you wanted your sweater, Dassie?”

In his right hand was the shard. The glass gleamed in the light.

She stared at it.

He grabbed her hands and pinned her arms above her head. “You lied, Dassie. You broke your promise.”

Her heart lurched wildly in her chest.

With his free hand he placed the tip of the shard in the hollow of her throat. “This is what Greg felt, Dassie. You were going to kill me with it, too, weren’t you?” He sounded sad.

His breath was warm on her face.

“It was for me, not for you,” she said. “I didn’t know you were coming for me, did I?” She saw indecision in his eyes. “I cut myself with it this morning. I can show you.”

He hesitated.

“I was ashamed to tell you,” she said. “It’s so ugly. I promised myself I wouldn’t do it again, but I couldn’t stop. Help me stop, Justin.”

He lowered her hands and released them. She turned her right palm up to show him the angry, bright red line.

“Poor Dassie.” He stared at her arm. “I told you I would kiss your hurts away.” He bent his head.

Her scream startled him. It was her scream and Dinah’s. It was the howl of the man she had stabbed and left for dead, an eldritch screech filled with terror and fury. Using both hands, she shoved his shoulders, hard.

The shard flew out of his hand as he toppled backward to the floor and hit his head against the chair.

She jumped from the bed and lunged for the sliver of glass. It was invisible against the beige carpet. She pawed the carpet, swept her hand across it in wide arcs.

And then she saw the sliver of glass. She grabbed the shard, wincing as the sharp edge opened her wounds.

She scrambled to her feet while he braced himself on the chair and stood.

He took a step toward her.

“Dassie, I would never—”

She raised her hand and pointed the shard at him. “Don’t.”

Chapter 53

Wednesday, December 8, 9:30 p.m. Along the 900
block of Northwestern Avenue. A suspect took out a
screwdriver from his waistband and pointed it at
the victim, saying, “I’m going to kill you.”

We heard the scream when we were steps away from the apartment door. Cheryl had called Hadassah’s cell phone several times. Justin never answered. By then Jessie had arrived, and Cheryl’s conviction had returned.

“Let me tell him I’m here,” she’d begged. “Justin will talk to me. I
know
he will.”

Connors and Jessie drew their weapons. He broke down the door. I grabbed Cheryl’s arm to stop her from following Connors and Jessie into the apartment, but she wrenched her arm free and ran inside. I went in after her.

They were in the bedroom. Justin was all in black. Hadassah was wearing an ivory nightgown, edged in lace and streaked with blood. My nightmare come true, and hers. Her right arm was raised in a fist. At first I didn’t see the long sliver of glass she was aiming at Justin. He was standing a few feet away.

He looked dazed when Connors told him to put his hands on his head. Cheryl, her face a sickly gray, said, “Please, honey, do what they say.”

So Justin put his arms on his head, but he didn’t take his eyes off Dassie.

“Dassie, tell them I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said as Connors pulled his arms behind him and cuffed his wrists. “Tell them it’s what you wanted, too.”

Hadassah was shaking. Jessie put an arm around her shoulders, gently unbent her fingers, like the petals of a rose, and removed the shard. Even from where I was standing, I could see that Hadassah’s palm was bleeding.

“Tell
them, Dassie.” Justin turned to his mother.
“Mom?”

The
“Mom?”
has stayed with me, and Hadassah’s scream.

I phoned the Bailors. I didn’t name Justin. I told them Hadassah was safe and put her on so they could hear for themselves.

Connors found an empty vial of sleeping pills in Justin’s pocket, and Hadassah thought Justin had put something in the wine he’d made her drink. Jessie drove her to the Cedars-Sinai emergency room, where doctors treated her lacerated palm and pumped her stomach while other doctors tended to Justin.

Zack met me at Cedars. We sat with Cheryl for hours, in the same waiting room where Nechama Bailor was reading psalms and Chaim Bailor was pacing in long, anxious strides.

It was a strange non-reunion, surreal in its irony. Rabbi Bailor looked with mild curiosity at the woman whose arm I was holding when I arrived. A second later I could see that he’d realized she must be the mother of the man who had brought all of us here. He told me later he hadn’t recognized Cheryl, hadn’t seen in her the young girl he had married one May evening under a canopy of stars. He had wondered who she was, but had kept his distance. What do you say to someone whose son intended to kill your child?

I had worried how Cheryl would react when she saw Rabbi Bailor, but she avoided looking at him. She picked at the skin around her thumb and talked to Zack and me about Justin, her hopes for him, her fears. Every few minutes she got up and walked to the desk to ask an emergency room volunteer when she could see him. She must have been overwhelmed with anguish over what her son had planned to do, profoundly relieved that he hadn’t been successful. She was probably troubled by the thought that sharing with a sensitive son decades of resentment toward the man who had broken her heart had contributed to the avalanche of events that had brought two families to this sad, sad crossroads.

Later that night I drove Cheryl to her apartment and tucked her into bed when she was too tired to talk. In the morning I accompanied her to the Hollywood station and waited with her while Justin was booked. He’s on a suicide watch now, in county jail. Jessie told me the district attorney is going for second-degree murder. Justin’s father flew out to see him and has retained a top-notch attorney to defend his son.

After Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’, Zack and I visited Cheryl and made sure she ate the food my mother sent. Since then I’ve stopped by several times. Cheryl seems pleased to see me, but I know I’ll always be a reminder of the night that changed her life. She told me that people in the community have been dropping off meals, and she’s received more phone calls and invitations in the past few weeks than she has in the year since she moved here. It’s sad that it takes a tragedy for people to notice you.

Melissa is moving to Seattle. She was shocked and saddened to hear about Justin. Greg had talked about him fondly, and often, and Justin had bought Kaitlin the yellow scooter I’d seen in the yard. Greg’s parents found papers in their son’s safe-deposit box, including a folder with proof of Adam Prosser’s cheating. They left the folder with Melissa. She gave it to me.

I sent a copy of the contents of the folder to Janet Mendes. I sent another copy to Robert Hornstein, the founder of Torat Tzion. That probably explains why Dr. Mendes was anxious to meet with me.

“I wish we’d had this in September,” she told me in her office.

I said, “Uh-huh,” in a tone that told her I wasn’t buying what she was selling. Then I repeated what I’d learned about Amy Brookman’s accusation, and told Dr. Mendes I couldn’t reveal my source. For what it’s worth, Dr. Mendes appeared shaken, but I’ve learned that people and their reactions aren’t always what they seem.

“Of course, we’re going to make sure appropriate measures are taken,” she told me. “I hope you don’t feel it necessary to make this public, Molly.”

Greg had wanted to go public, but I didn’t see any good in dragging Torat Tzion through the media mud, especially since “appropriate measures” included expelling Adam Prosser and Amy Brookman, and removing Gerald Prosser from the board.

As for Dr. Mendes, my mother heard a rumor that the secular studies principal will be leaving Torat Tzion at the end of the year. I can’t prove she doctored the AP exams, and maybe she didn’t. I’m curious whether AP scores at Torat Tzion will be as uniformly high this May as they have been in the past few years.

The storm blows over, the driftwood remains.

Connors and I are okay, I think. He believed my explanation about the license plate, but I still feel an occasional twinge of hurt that he doubted me. And I’ve made a new friend in Jessie. We met the other day for coffee, and Zack and I plan to go out with her and Ezra.

Dr. McIntyre has taken a leave of absence from Torat Tzion and his practice. He’s undergoing therapy. Nancy is hopeful. And the district attorney won’t be filing charges.

Hadassah is back at school and is seeing a therapist. She plans to go to seminary in Israel, though not necessarily this coming September. She needs to heal first, in body and in spirit. She told me she’s dreading her court appearance in the event Justin’s case goes to trial, but she’s strong. Jessie told her the injury she inflicted on Greg was superficial, despite the profuse bleeding. But Hadassah still feels guilty. She has nightmares about him and wonders when they’ll stop. I didn’t tell her that seven years later, I still dream about Aggie, and I wasn’t even there when she died.

I don’t think we’ll ever know what Justin was thinking when he attacked the man he’d loved like a brother. He told Hadassah he was desperate to stop Greg from phoning Cheryl or the police. My friend Irene thinks it’s more complicated. She thinks Justin had built up resentment toward his real father, who, in his mind, had abandoned him for a new family; that he transferred that resentment first to Rabbi Bailor, who had betrayed his mother, and then to Greg, who was about to betray him.

Irene is probably right. She usually is.

Rabbi Bailor was stunned when I told him that Cheryl Wexner was his high school sweetheart, that Justin was her son. “I don’t think I ever saw her,” he told me. That was probably true, in more ways than one.

The rabbi insisted that he had championed Greg Shankman’s case, though unsuccessfully. I’d like to think that’s true. It’s possible that Greg’s disappointment with the rabbi’s efforts was unreasonable.

Rabbi Bailor also told me he’d defended me fourteen years ago. It seems Rabbi Ingel had insinuated to others that Rabbi Bailor was a little too fond of me, that maybe fondness was clouding his judgment.

“I was a coward, Molly,” he said. “I failed you. I failed myself.”

There are things Rabbi Bailor could have done fourteen years ago, but I am ready to move on. There are things Charlie Bailor should have done when he became Chaim, though I’m not sure any of them would have kept him from breaking Cheryl’s heart. Cheryl told me that she and the rabbi talked the other day.

“I should have done that years ago,” she said.

A small vengeance, Bubbie G says, poisons the heart.

Maybe that’s why I phoned Rabbi Ingel last week. I planned to tell him how I’d felt all these years, to get closure, to rid myself of the poison. He stopped me before I could say anything and told me he was glad I’d called.

“Maybe I was a little hard on you, Malka, but I did it for your own good. And I was right, wasn’t I? My words made you turn your life around.”

There is nothing you can do if someone doesn’t want to see.

I’ve been checking out J Spot from time to time. Birch2 is a frequent visitor. I thought long and hard, then phoned Sara and told her that if she didn’t tell her parents about her online activities, I would. But I’m not Lucky7, and as Dr. McIntyre said, you can’t be everywhere.

In case you were wondering, Liora’s date turned out to be a dud, but on the plus side she’s racking up frequent flier miles. I put her in touch with Aliza. They seem to be hitting it off—and not, Liora said with a laugh, just because they’re both eager to find their true loves.

The last time I saw Dassie, she asked me whether I thought Justin loved her. Or had it been all about vengeance? she wanted to know. I told her he probably loved her.

“Like Shechem?” she said. “He came to love Dinah.”

“Like Schechem,” I agreed.

It occurred to me that Cheryl’s love had fostered vengeance, that her son’s vengeance had turned into a distorted love. That Greg Shankman had loved inappropriately, and then not well.

Last Friday I added the garlic clove and sugar cube Bubbie gave me into my Shabbos
chulent.
Bubbie was right about the
chulent.
It was delicious. As for bringing a baby, time will tell. In the meantime, I count my blessings that I am with someone I love.

Tonight as Zack lit the first candle of Chanukah in our menorah at home. It was also the first anniversary of our engagement. Zack gave me a beautiful necklace and four boxes of blueberries. And Godiva chocolates, of course. I gave him a leather desk set he’d been eyeing. No Clementines—they won’t be available until next year.

After dinner with our families, we had drinks at Yamashiro and invited Irene to join us on her break. The Bailors had sent her flowers, and she had an audition tomorrow that looked promising. Life was good, she said.

Zack and I strolled through the gardens and watched the koi. Then we walked outside and looked at the starry night.