Dina Santorelli (26 page)

"Cool,"
Benny said. "Thanks, Don."

Benny
and Tony picked up the money that Leo had knocked onto the floor and left,
while Bailino and Joey began scooping up the playing cards.

"Would
you have really let him spend the night with Jamie, Uncle Don?" Joey asked,
stacking his cards on the table in a neat pile.

"Not
in a million years."

"What
if you would have lost the hand?"

"But
I didn't." Bailino smiled. He put his arm around Joey. "You want to rent a
movie? I saw you had your eye on that Angelia Jolie one."

Joey
blushed.

"Go
ahead, Joe, watch whatever you want." He handed Joey the cards that he had
picked up from the floor. "It's gonna be okay, you know."

Joey
nodded, his eyes welling with tears. As he started to cry, he leaned on
Bailino's shoulder. "Thank you, Uncle Don... I love you."

"I
love you too, kid. Always have."

Bob sat at his large mahogany
desk. The hours ticked by as if he were watching the world through a series of
time-lapse photos: coworkers passed, back and forth, by his office door, stuck
their heads in, waved hello, good-bye, all while the sunlight rose and fell
through his office window.

It
was like college all over again, Bob thought. Edward Carter loomed over him
like a storm cloud forever stealing his sunshine. It didn't matter that Edward
had left the firm and had become a public defender. It didn't matter whether
Edward quit law altogether and opened his own online coupon business. Edward
would always be one of the greatest legal minds anyone who knew him ever met no
matter how long he was out of the picture.

Eight
years ago, when Edward announced his leave of absence to care for his ailing
mother, Bob knew that a window of opportunity had opened. Bob had gotten the
brunt of Edward's caseload—he actually volunteered to take on as much as
possible—and had worked day and night to impress the powers-that-be at his
firm. And when that leave of absence turned into a resignation, Bob knew that
his future at Worcester, Payne & Leach had been sealed. Over time, he
became the go-to guy—the lawyer who was first choice when an important client
was taken on and the voice of the firm when it came to media relations. And, he
was sure of it, he was this close to being the token lawyer in
People
magazine's
"Sexiest Man Alive" issue for 2010.

Bob
knew the idea of Edward sitting on Governor Grand's roundtable of the state's
best legal minds shouldn't have fazed him—considering he was raking it in on
Easy Street while Edward was sweating it out on Main Street, paying his
perpetual dues in the DA's office—but it did. Just when he had finally gotten
rid of the Carter siblings altogether, they kept popping back into his life
when he least expected, or wanted, them.
Sir Edward Carter
—it just
didn't have the same ring to it, that was for sure.

To
cheer himself up, he checked his Twitter profile. He had just over 26,000 followers,
up about thirty since this morning. He typed something witty and retweeted a
few inspirational quotes from several influential people he followed and then
logged out.

Maybe
he was wrong. What he had told Andrews was true—the politics of Edward Carter
were at the opposite end of the spectrum from those of Phillip Grand. And
although Edward may have welcomed the prospect of being part of a group with a
wide diversity of opinion, he preferred keeping a low profile. Bob decided this
kind of thing wasn't even on Edward's radar.

Still,
he just had to know. He picked up his office phone and dialed, trying in his
mind to formulate a reason for the call. But he didn't need one when Edward
picked up on the first ring.

"Is
she with you?" Edward said, without saying hello.

"Who?"
Bob asked, startled.

"Jamie."

"What?
You
still
can't find her? How long has it been?"

"Listen,
I don't have time."

"She
called me earlier today."

"She
did?! What did she say?"

"I
couldn't hear her. There was a bad connection."

"But
you heard her voice?"

Bob
thought back to the phone call this morning. "No, I don't think I did, but does
that matter?"

"Listen,
I can't talk. I'm on my way to Albany. Call me if she calls again and you
actually hear her voice. Thanks." Edward ended the call.

Albany
?

So
it was true, Bob thought. Edward was answering the governor's call for the
state's brightest legal minds, and he was driving all the way upstate to make
his case in person. He imagined Edward ringing the doorbell of the Executive Mansion with his
American Lawyer
article on Grand in one hand and his
reference-filled resume in the other. He was probably determined to get his
liberal mind on that panel and keep Phillip Grand's conservative agenda at bay.
Hell, Bob thought, he might even try to stop the execution of Gino Cataldi
tomorrow night while he's up there.

Bob
shut down his computer, grabbed his keys, and ran out his office door.

"Leaving
for the day, Mr. Scott?" Patsy, his secretary, asked as he ran past her desk.

"Yes,"
he called back. "Oh, and tell Mr. Turner I won't be in tomorrow, Patsy. I need
to travel upstate and take care of a few things. I'll touch base with him in
the morning."

Sir
Robert Scott
, Bob thought, jamming
his finger into the elevator's down button. He had to get home, craft a quick
resume and clips, pick up his briefcase, pack an overnight bag, and get himself
upstate to dazzle Phillip Grand. Although the thought occurred to him that the
governor might have his hands full with the current crisis involving his
daughter, this was the perfect opportunity to make a name for himself and jump
ahead of the line, he reasoned. The elevator door opened.
And I'll help find
the governor's daughter
, Bob thought, crossing the threshold. And save the
day. All in a knight's work.

Jamie lay in the corner of
Bailino's bed, although she didn't start off there. In the hours after Charlotte had fallen asleep, she kept herself busy by pacing the nursery, looking out the
window and washing her hands—all while trying to formulate a good plan for
escape, but nothing seemed feasible. She hadn't seen Bailino since the bathroom
incident earlier that evening when he wasn't too happy with her, and she had
decided that the best plan was just to get through whatever was going to happen
and live to see another day. She thought about her mother who taught her to be,
as she liked to say, "a lady," and was probably looking down on her and
wondering,
How could you just lay there and let him do whatever he wanted
?
Truth be told, Jamie felt like she had been doing that for years, long before
Bailino kidnapped her life, and she wondered whether it was naïve to think that,
given the chance, Bailino would not hurt her, even after she witnessed the
brutality of which she knew he was capable.

For
now, though, she thought it best to perform the duties of her
job
and
crawled into her side of the bed. She still had her clothing on and wondered if
that would infuriate him. She had to keep him calm, yet stand her ground—he
seemed to admire that. She remembered what Bailino had said about the bra that
morning, so she slipped it off through her sleeve and placed it on the
nightstand and pulled the blankets up to her neck. In the quiet of the dark,
she could hear her stomach rumble and realized how hungry she was. She had had
a few of Charlotte's Cheerios that morning and a handful of Joey's cut grapes,
but couldn't remember eating anything else.

The
electronic lock of the bedroom door clicked, and the creakiness of the door's
swing was as quiet as it was ear piercing; Jamie braced herself. The familiar
smell of Bailino's cologne reached her nose, but it was fainter this time.
Muddled. A lamp turned on as another smell became more pungent and
recognizable.

Brownies.

On a
serving tray were twelve frosted brownies carefully cut into twelve equal
squares. Next to them was a basket of gourmet chocolate.

"There
was a box of brownie mix in the closet, so I just made them," Bailino said, as
if it were no trouble at all. "Want one?"

Jamie
reached for a brownie and was about to take a bite, then hesitated.

"If
I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already," Bailino said, as if that
were supposed to make her feel better. "And not like that."

Jamie
took a bite, careful to catch any crumbs with her free hand and then toss them
into her mouth.

Bailino
opened a few drawers, taking out a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a
T-shirt, and excused himself into the bathroom. He seemed to have calmed down.
When he returned, he sat down on the bed, his knee bent forward so he was
partially facing Jamie. "Actually," he rubbed his temples. "I just wanted to
apologize for my behavior in the bathroom earlier. I overreacted. Do you want
another one?" he asked, holding out the tray. "Do you like chocolate? The
truffles have cherry flecks."

Jamie
took another brownie and stuck the whole thing in her mouth to keep from having
to worry about the crumbs.

"Well,
what do you know... a woman who eats." Bailino put the tray on the nightstand.

Jamie
smiled weakly to mask the quiver in her cheek and then lay down and pulled the
blanket up, her cheeks puffy with cake.

"You
must be tired," Bailino said, reaching for the lamp switch. "There's probably
nothing more exhausting than following a toddler around all day. Do you want me
to leave the light on?"

Jamie
shrugged her shoulders. "It doesn't matter." She felt as though she were in a
haunted house and waiting for something to jump out at her from an unseen
corner.

Bailino
turned off the light and lay down on his side of the bed. She'd thought about
turning over to the side and pretending to sleep, but she didn't think that she
would fool anyone or that it mattered much if Bailino were going to go at her
again. She decided to just lie there and wait, but Bailino appeared to be doing
the same. It was quiet for a long time.

"You're
very good with children," Bailino said finally. His voice was softer, the way
it had been down by the river with Charlotte.
Was this another test?

"Thank
you," Jamie said.

It
was quiet again. Jamie's heart began to race.

"You're
welcome," Bailino said finally.

"Are
you going to kill me?" Jamie blurted out suddenly. The room was completely dark
since the sun had set, and Jamie was feeling courageous under the cover of
night, although part of her felt as if she were alone on a desert island and
her question merely a message in a bottle being thrown out to sea.

"Again?"
Bailino asked.

"You
never answered me this morning."

Jamie
heard the ticking of Bailino's wristwatch. "No," he said.

"But
you killed that other girl."

"She
was a whore."

"How
do you know?"

"She
was a stripper, a dime-a-lap-dance whore who took care of Leo and everyone else
in the private room of the Exotica Strip Club downtown. For some godforsaken
reason, he thought she'd make a good nanny. Stupid, stupid." Bailino sounded
like a parent who had sent his child out to buy milk and was disappointed when
he came home with candy.

"But
even so, if she was, that didn't mean she deserved to die. She was somebody's
daughter. I'm sure she had friends, a life somewhere."

"You're
feeling suddenly brave," Bailino said. Jamie turned her head to look in
Bailino's direction, but she couldn't see him at all. She wondered if he could
see her in the dark—wolves had keen eyesight and could detect the slightest
movement in front of them.

"You
said I was free to talk," Jamie said. "By the river."

"Yeah,
but I didn't say anything about the house."

"Oh,"
Jamie said.

"That
was a joke."

Jamie
paused. "Why are you being nice to me now?" she asked.

"Would
you rather I weren't?"

"No,
I mean... You tell me that you're not going to kill me, but you're telling me
things I shouldn't know, and I've seen your face."

"So
you think I'm lying?"

Jamie
thought she felt Bailino inching closer in the dark.

"I
just don't know... anything." She crept toward her end of the mattress.

"Especially
about loyalty."

There
was a playfulness in Bailino's voice, and it emboldened her. "Another joke,
right?" she said.

He
chuckled. "Okay, now, it's my turn for questions." Jamie could sense Bailino
propping himself on his pillow. "Is one of the reasons why your husband left
because you wanted children and he didn't?"

Wham.

The
question caught Jamie off guard. Without knowing it, Bailino had hurt her very
core, and she let out a reluctant sniffle.

He
turned on the light and looked at her. "That rat bastard," he said.

"No."
Jamie inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to keep her composure. "It was the
opposite."

"The
opposite?" he asked incredulously. "You didn't want children?"

"He
... we both wanted children," Jamie said, "and I couldn't have them."

There
was a long pause. "Oh," he said finally, turning the light off again, as if he
were trying to give her a little privacy. Jamie felt him worm his way back
under the blanket, but then the questions started again. "Did you think about
adoption?"

All
the time.
"He wouldn't," she said,
shaking her head, as if the movement itself would repel Bailino's questions.

"What
exactly was wrong?"

"The
doctor said it was an unexplained fertility issue."