Magdalene (52 page)

She said nothing, but continued to caress
his arm, not in a sensual manner, but caring, her touch
sympathetic. He turned his head to see her hand, slim, with long
narrow fingers, so soft and feminine.

Strong.

She belonged here, but she planned to leave
in a year, so what did it mean? What would he do without her?

But he sighed and said nothing because that
was the deal. Nagging her to stay would be cheating and it would
only drive her away sooner.

“I’ve never had this,” he said again, low,
afraid of how vulnerable it made him feel, how weak.

“I know,” she whispered. “Sucks, doesn’t
it?”

He looked back at her sweet yet
sophisticated face, as guileless as always. No wonder half her
clients had had fantasies of marriage. “You...understand?”

“Oh, yes. All those years with Gordon.
Fighting him. Ignoring my girls’ demands. Trying to instill some
discipline and failing. Fending off Rivington, who wanted me, felt
entitled to me. Then I met Nigel.” She pursed her lips in thought.
“If he had come to me and said, ‘I want to help you,’ I would’ve
refused. But he came to me and said, ‘I want your husband, and this
is what you will do so I can have him.’ It was easy for me to take
his help.

“But, say, my assistant. Susan. She insists
on doing things for me and it’s...weird, this girl who just wants
to do little things for me. Not because I sign her paycheck or
because it’s part of her job, but it’s— It’s like she sees some
weakness in me and she wants to take care of me. I
hate
it,
but I let her because it makes her happy.

“And Sheldon. He knows my favorite music and
makes sure it’s playing. Knows what I read and makes sure I have
the newspapers I need in the car. Knows how I take my coffee, knows
what gossip to pass along to me, what information and
disinformation to spread and to whom. He always asks me if there’s
anything more he can do for me, any errands I might need doing that
he can. I asked him
once
to get my dry cleaning and now he
coordinates with my housekeeper to take it in and pick it up. None
of that is part of his job. It...embarrasses me how he goes out of
his way to take care of me, when he doesn’t have to. All he has to
do is keep me alive. Watch over my children.”

Mitch nodded slowly.

“You serve everyone, Mitch. Who serves
you?”

She wasn’t asking about his family,
immediate or adopted.

You haven’t had a minute to yourself in
twenty years.

Mina’s voice.

“No one,” he murmured.

“There’s power in that, isn’t there?”

Yes, there was.

“And to be served is to have power taken
from you, to allow it to be taken from you.”

He nodded slowly.

“I would like—” She cleared her throat.
“Would you think about not working the Sunday shift at the mill
anymore?”

“Why?” But he didn’t have to ask. Not
really.

“Just a step in that direction, Mitch. Not a
big one.”

He sighed. “You’re right. If I’d been home
tonight, I could’ve—”

“We
both
would’ve. But there was no
need. You came home because Trevor was more important than whatever
you hope to accomplish by casting ingots once a week.”

“I like casting ingots,” he muttered,
knowing he sounded like a sullen little boy, and grew annoyed when
she became amused at him for it.

“Let me take care of you,” she murmured.
“That’s why I married you, after all.”

He stared at her, wondering if she realized
what she’d just said, but she arose and headed to the bathroom.
“Get undressed,” she tossed over her shoulder, then he heard the
sound of water running into the oversized tub.

Mitch looked down at the floor, feeling the
weight of the world on his shoulders. Then he looked at the clock.
Four-thirty. His son had a concussion. Shouldn’t he be more
worried?

But no. Someone with strength and resources
had taken the initiative to tend Trevor for him, had handled the
situation beginning to end, had made sure his son was safely home
and drugged and tucked into bed—

Someone used to taking charge and getting
things done: fast, rude, possibly cruel.

Exhaustion enveloped him suddenly, and he
might have collapsed back on the bed if
she
hadn’t caught
him and pulled him to his feet. He heard nothing but the soft rasp
of a zipper, the rustle of fabric, as he let her undress him.

Finally he stood nude in the middle of his
bedroom with his nude wife. Tired. Dizzy. He simply followed when
she led him into the candlelit bathroom and obeyed when she pointed
to the bathtub. He hissed at the heat of the water under all those
bubbles, but climbed in anyway. He would’ve relaxed, but her hand
on his back stopped him and she climbed in behind him.

She pulled him back against her body until
he was up to his chin in hot water and bubbles, his head resting
between her jaw and shoulder. Her hands caressed his stubbled chin
and cheeks, kneaded his shoulders, swept down his chest and
massaged there, then up again to his throat and neck. She massaged
his temples with her thumbs.

“Sleep,” she whispered.

So he did.

* * * * *

High Voltage

April 13, 2011

Wednesday, Mitch dropped into his desk chair
to deal with the morning’s most pressing business so he could lock
himself in his lab and forget the world for a while.

“Hollander!” Tracey said as soon as he
picked up. “I was wondering when Cassie would let you in on her
nefarious plots.”

Cassandra had done what Mitch couldn’t have
done without opening himself and the Church up to legal
repercussions. She hadn’t said a word about it to give him
plausible deniability, but she hadn’t counted on Trevor, who’d
spilled the beans simply by asking where she’d stashed the Sitkaris
women.

But Cassandra had stayed frustratingly mum
and blown Mitch a teasing kiss before ducking into the plane that
would take her to Alabama. Mitch waited until she was in the air
before heading to Louise’s house to demand an explanation.

“
She
didn’t,” Mitch grumbled.

“Cassie’s a brilliantly sneaky bitch.
Payback’s hell, ain’t it?”

Mitch grunted. “Tracey, you know I have to
be kept in the loop, and she’s made it very clear she’s not going
to tell me anything.”

Nigel chuckled. “The ladies are fine.
Gordon’s pampering them shamelessly, and I have a shrink friend who
owes me a favor or six, so she’s been by to check on them, talk to
them a little bit. Did you call one of your compatriots? We’ve
never had a random Mormon bishop knock on our door before.”

Thank heavens.
“That was the first
thing I did after Cassandra’s co-conspirators ’fessed up,” Mitch
said. “He and his leadership need to know the situation in case
Sitkaris figures out where they are and shows up to make
trouble.”

“He sat and talked with them a good long
while. Thanked us profusely. Gave us his phone number and said he’d
be by Sunday to check on them, bring them your communion—what is
it?”

“Sacrament. We don’t want them to show up at
church in case Sitkaris has friends there, which is entirely
possible.”

“How do you know this bishop isn’t one of
them?”

Mitch felt a humorless smile curl his mouth.
“He’s a friend of
mine
.”

“Ah. Okay. What’s the news there?”

“Not a peep out of him. It makes me
nervous.”

Tracey made some vague noise of
understanding. “Now, when the girl and her mom are a little more
stable, you may want to think about sending them to Kansas City.
Get them out of the vicinity and around people who don’t mind
getting blood on their hands.”

It was a good idea, but he’d have to make
sure Amelia was amenable to it. Whisking two traumatized women away
in the middle of the night to get them out of danger was one thing.
Orchestrating their lives was an entirely different thing.

“In the meantime, Sheldon’s been hanging
around getting fat and happy on Gordon’s cooking, and your big
bouncer friend—Luis? from Cubax?—popped up and said you’d asked him
to coordinate schedules.”

“Yup,” Mitch said tightly.

Tracey paused. “Rest easy, pal,” he
murmured. “We got your back.”

Mitch cracked a genuine smile for the first
time in days. “Thank you.”

He sat for a long time after he’d hung up,
his elbows on his desk, his fingers steepled against his mouth.

The situation with the Sitkaris family
wouldn’t have him this wound up if Greg weren’t so quiet about it.
It’d been three days since Cassandra had sent Hayleigh to New York,
and two since Prissy and Louise had packed Amelia up and driven her
there themselves.

Last night at church had been quiet,
routine. He’d expected Greg to show up and blow Mitch’s office door
open, but that hadn’t happened. Neither had he filed an insurance
claim against Trevor. That bothered him the most. Then again, Mitch
should’ve known better than to expect (hope for) a frontal attack,
even in the form of standard operating procedure for a car
accident. Greg didn’t work that way.

“Mitch, this just came for you by
courier.”

He looked up to see Darlene crossing the
office with a fat manila envelope in her hand.

“Thanks.”

There was no return address on the envelope,
just a laser-printed label with his name on it. It wasn’t even
sealed, just held closed with the cheap brass clasp.

Pictures.

Lots of them.

And a piece of paper that slid out on its
own.

cc:
President David Petersen
Nazareth Pennsylvania Stake High Council
Bishop Mitch Hollander

Pictures fell from the envelope in a
blizzard, eight-by-tens, color and black-and-white, professionally
shot zoom photos of him and Cassandra.

Dancing at Cubax.

Snuggling on her doorstep.

Walking hand-in-hand down Park Avenue,
talking, smiling, laughing.

Almost kissing, Cassandra’s hands under his
suit coat, cupping his butt.

Sitting in a dark corner of an emergency
room, Cassandra on his lap, Mitch’s hand up her shirt, the two of
them kissing passionately.

It shocked him.

Mitch looked at Cassandra’s face, the
glances she had shot him as they went about their courtship. How
had he missed it, that nebulous thing he’d felt from her from the
moment she’d fallen, giggling, into his lap on New Year’s Eve?

Mina had looked at him that way, and he’d
always known it for what it was.

Cassandra had been in love with him from the
beginning—

If you had also asked me for my client list,
I would have given it to you... You are the only other person
besides me who will have read this. I am trusting you with my
life.

—and he had mistaken it for simple lust.
She’d never admit it, since she went to a great deal of trouble to
lie to herself, but now Mitch knew. He finally had the last piece
of the puzzle that was Cassandra’s true motive for dating him,
marrying him. But now that
he
knew, it was exactly the
leverage he needed to extend that stupid one-year agreement to the
rest of their lives.

How had he been so blessed as to love
two
women in a single lifetime who loved
him
in
return?

He picked up another grouping of pictures
and felt his gut clench—not in fear for his spiritual future, no.
With desire, wondering how he’d resisted her all those weeks.

They sat in a cab, the camera perfectly
aimed to show Cassandra draped over him, Mitch’s arm around her,
drawing her closer. The night of the argument that had terrified
him that he’d lost his chance when he’d refused to kiss her, and
now...

It looked so much different from this
angle.

It looked like they had been making
passionate love and got interrupted by having been tossed in the
back of a cab.

Her hand was wrapped around his neck, her
lips pressed against his cheek, at the corner of his mouth. His
eyes were closed, half ecstasy, half agony, his head tilted,
letting her have her way with him.

Shot after shot, in rapid sequence. If he
stacked them all together and flipped through them, he’d have a
movie.

He did that.

And groaned with want, need.

But Cassandra was twelve hundred miles away
and wouldn’t be home until tomorrow. Only two days without her, and
he was out of his mind with missing her.

Find someone. Someone who can match you the
way I never could, someone who’ll take care of you the way you
deserve.

Let me take care of you. That’s why I
married you, after all.

Mitch’s throat clogged.

His incredible romance, spread out in front
of him. Every whisper and smile and moment that built their
relationship, their love—

—yet giving every indication that not only
had he
not
kept his covenants, but that he’d slunk away to
New York to sin in secret.

With a hooker.

There, a picture of his feeding her a cherry
cordial at Jacques Torres. Cassandra’s head was back, her eyes
closed, her beautiful mouth pursed mid-chew, unable to see the pure
desire on Mitch’s face as he held her to him and lowered the
confection into her mouth.

The entirety of Cassandra’s birthday flashed
through his mind, when they’d gotten high on sugar and traded
increasingly nonsensical gobbledygook, laughed themselves silly
over it, when Cassandra had looked at him, her face shining with
delight.

He was captivated by her dry wit and her
affection for mankind and its foibles, something he would not have
expected from a woman who’d been a pawn most of her life.

He saw her reputation for fast, rude, and
cruel for what it was: at once efficient and kind. Too bad she’d
never had the stomach to turn it on her daughters.