Controversially spared the death penalty at her trial, the Angel of Death, as she was still known in the tabloid press, enjoyed a relatively easy life at ASH, albeit a life conducted behind bars and under a heavy shroud of secrecy. She had her own room, with a window and views out across the manicured gardens of the facility to the Mojave Desert beyond. Her days were structured but not arduous, with hours divided between work, exercise, recreation and psychiatric treatments, which could be anything from hypnosis to group therapy sessions.
Unfortunately, Matt Daley knew none of this. He worried constantly about Lisa—to him, she would always be Lisa—being singled out for brutality and victimization by other inmates because of her notoriety. Matt had written scores of e-mails to ASH’s chief psychiatrist, begging for news on her condition. Was she eating? Was she depressed? Could they at least confirm that she had been given the letters Matt wrote her religiously every Sunday, updating her on his life and the worldwide success of his acclaimed but controversial documentary, Azrael: Secrets and Lies…letters to which Matt had yet to receive a single reply. Did she even know that he was trying to reach her? That one friend at least had not abandoned her in her most desperate hour?
The e-mail replies were always the same. Polite. Brief. Straightforward: Matt Daley was not family. He was not entitled to any patient information unless the patient had specifically authorized its release. Sofia Basta had not.
“I know if she saw me, she’d change her mind.” Matt told the guard for the hundredth time. “If you’d let me through to the visitors’ lounge, just for a few seconds…I’ve come a long way.”
“I appreciate that, sir. I do. But I’m afraid you need to go back home.”
SOFIA READ THE LETTER AGAIN, RUNNING her hands lovingly across the paper, thinking of Matt’s hands touching it, the way they had once touched her. It began like all the others.
“Dearest Lisa…”
Reading the name was her favorite part. The name felt good. It felt right. Whenever she read Matt Daley’s letters, whenever she thought of him at all, she was Lisa. And Lisa was the best part of herself. She’d thought about changing her name legally after the trial. Lisa. Lisa Daley. It had a wonderful ring to it. But as the days and weeks passed, and the reality of her sentence sank in—they could dress it up all they liked, call her prison a “hospital” and her punishment “treatment,” but it was still life without parole—she changed her mind. What use was a new name to her now, in here? There were no second chances, no fresh starts. This was the end.
But not for Matt. For Matt, there was a chance. A future. Who was she to destroy it by giving him hope? By making him think, even for a moment, that there could be any going back…? For Matt Daley to live, Lisa had to die. It was as simple as that.
It was so hard to hold on to the truth. To separate what was real from what was fantasy. She’d lived with lies for so long. But she had tried not to lie to Matt. When she’d told him she loved him, she meant it. Had she met him earlier, much earlier, before Frankie and the book, before Sofia Basta, before she lost the thread of who she was, things might have been so different. As it was, she would spend the rest of her days caged like an animal, surrounded by electrified fences and desert wilderness. Matt’s letters meant everything to her. But she owed it to him not to reply…To let him go.
She read on.
“I don’t know if you are even receiving these letters, my darling. At this point I guess I write them as much for myself as for you. But I can’t stop. I won’t stop, Lisa, not until you know that I love you, that I forgive you, that I will never give up on you, no matter how many times the guards turn me away.”
It touched her that he still said “the guards” rather than “you.” Darling Matt. He still wanted to absolve her of everything.
“I can’t bear to think of you in that awful place. Please, my darling, if you’re being mistreated, you’ve got to let somebody know. If not me, then your lawyers or even the governor. Even Danny McGuire might be able to help.”
Danny McGuire. It was funny, every time she thought of Matt, she felt like Lisa, but every time she thought of Danny, she was Angela Jakes. Poor Angela. So beautiful, so young. She was the first one to be violated, the first one to suffer. By the time she became Tracey, and Irina, and even Lisa, she was stronger, hardened by the litany of horrors, numb to the pain. But Danny McGuire had known her at the beginning, when she was still vulnerable, still raw. He had known Angela, and in his own way, Sofia suspected, he had loved her. Reading his name in Matt’s distinctive, cursive handwriting, she almost felt nostalgic.
Perhaps she should send Matt some sort of message, anonymously, just to let him know she was okay. Apart from the obvious hardship of losing her freedom, the routine at ASH suited Sofia well. Half her life had been spent in institutions, and the other half on the run, not just from the police but from her own demons. At ASH, her days were pleasantly predictable. She found the hospital routine a comfort.
As for being picked on by the other patients…if anything, the opposite was true. In the outside world, women tended to be too envious of great beauties to appreciate them aesthetically. But here at ASH, with no men to compete for other than the smattering of male guards, and little enough beauty in any form, Sofia’s beauty was a passport to popularity. Other women wanted to be around her, despite the fact that she was far from social, choosing to eat alone at mealtimes and declining all group activities from movie night to organized athletic events. But she never left her room without admiring glances. Occasionally the tone of the glances shifted from admiration to outright lust, but unlike the state prison, there weren’t many bull dykes at ASH and Sofia had never felt threatened.
Nor was her beauty her only advantage. Through no effort or desire of her own, Sofia had become something of a celebrity within the hospital. Many of the other women admired her, viewing the Azrael victims as rich, dirty old men, men who had callously abandoned their children and who’d therefore gotten what was coming to them. Sofia herself was careful never to endorse this view. Flashbacks to the murders still gave her terrible nightmares, and talking about them could bring on acute anxiety attacks. The only part of the past she held on to was Matt Daley.
“He came again today.”
The male nurse’s voice wrenched Sofia back to the present. Reluctantly she looked up from Matt’s letter.
“You still don’t want to see him, huh?”
Sofia shook her head. “I’m tired. I need to sleep.”
The male nurse left her, watching through the glass door panel as she lay down on her bunk and closed her eyes. Could it really be possible for a woman to grow more beautiful with each day?
The nurse’s name was Carlos Hernandez, and he was one of only a handful of males on the psychiatric staff at ASH. His buddies in Fresno had teased Carlos about landing his “dream job.” “Welcome to Altacito,” they mocked, “population two thousand. One thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine crazy bitches…and you!” But the truth was that Carlos was lonelier in this job than he had ever been in his life. Yes, he was surrounded by women, but there wasn’t a single one with whom he could strike up an acquaintance, still less a friendship or relationship. The patients were obviously off-limits, and the average age of his female colleagues on the nursing staff was forty-two, with the average weight probably around 180 pounds. Not exactly rich pickings. For an institution that housed over two thousand women, it was astonishing how few of them were attractive.
Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink.
Sofia Basta, on the other hand…she was the exception that proved the rule. An anomaly. A freak occurrence. She was older too, in her early forties, according to her birth certificate, but she looked at least a decade younger, and infinitely more desirable than any woman Carlos Hernandez had ever met, let alone dated. Her smooth skin, perfect features and lithe, slender body would have been more than enough to fuel the young nurse’s fantasies. But Sofia had something beyond that, an inner calm
, a sort of goodness that shone out of her like a light. Of course, Carlos Hernandez knew about her mental illness. Take her off her meds and she could snap at any moment, change back into a confused and highly dangerous psychopath, capable of murder. But to talk to her, it was so hard to believe. Sofia seemed like the sanest, loveliest, most gentle creature on earth.
Through the glass he saw her shoulders shaking. It was against the rules, but he couldn’t help himself. Slipping back into the room, he sat down on her bed.
“Don’t cry,” he said kindly. “You don’t have to see anyone you don’t want to see. A lot of patients here find outside contact hard.”
Sofia turned over and looked at him with those delicious liquid-chocolate eyes. Carlos’s stomach flipped like a pancake.
“Does it get easier? As time goes on?”
It didn’t get easier. It got more oppressive and stifling by the day, the hour, the minute. Carlos Hernandez had seen the toll that a life in an institution took on a human being. The hopelessness, the despair, knowing you would never get out, that this was your world till you drew your last breath. It was bleak. But he couldn’t bring himself to say as much to Sofia Basta.
“Sure it does.”
“I would see him,” Sofia blurted out, “if I were ever going to get out of here. If I had any future, anything to offer him. But since I don’t, it seems cruel. He has to forget me.”
“Try to get some rest,” said Carlos, pulling the blanket up around her and gently stroking her hair before leaving the room. He glanced up and down the corridor, checking if anyone had seen him, but he was safe. D wing was deserted, as it always was on visiting days.
Carlos Hernandez had never met Matt Daley. But he knew one thing about him already: he would never “forget” Sofia.
Sofia was unforgettable.
MATT DALEY DROVE TOWARD THE INTERSTATE, his new customized Range Rover the only car on the road. Barren desert stretched around him in all directions, an ocean of emptiness and dust. Like my life. Desolate.
The world thought that Matt Daley had turned his life around. And on the surface, he had. After years of grueling physical therapy, he’d learned to walk again, against all the odds, and now only used a cane for support. Rarely was his name mentioned in public these days without the epithet survivor thrown in somewhere. His documentary on the Azrael case, produced lovingly on a shoestring budget because Matt had refused to cede editorial control, had received wide critical attention, if not exactly acclaim. Matt made no secret of the fact that he was an apologist for Sofia Basta, pinning the blame for the Azrael killings firmly and exclusively on Frankie Mancini’s shoulders. Despite the fact that the jurors at the trial had effectively done the same, this stuck in many people’s craw, including HLN’s Nancy Grace. Grace had wanted Sofia’s head on a platter from the day of her arrest. Ironically, it was the Fox anchor’s vitriolic condemnation of Azrael: Truth and Lies that had ensured it a far wider audience than Matt could otherwise have hoped for. Distributed throughout Asia and the Indian subcontinent, as well as in Europe and the United States, the film was a resounding commercial hit. Matt Daley was more than a survivor. He was a rich man, a winner, a success.
None of it mattered.
He hadn’t expected Lisa to see him today. After four years he was resigned to her rejection. But he’d hoped.
Hope would be the death of him.
He pulled onto the freeway. Now that he was alone, tears coursed freely down his cheeks as he once again gave way to the pain. Sometimes he fought it. Told himself sternly that he had to do something, to take his depression by the horns and wrestle it down and defeat it. But most of the time he knew.
One day it would get to be too much. One day he would drive toward the edge of a cliff and simply keep on driving. Lay down his burden. Be free.
One day…
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CLAIRE MICHAELS SIPPED HER COFFEE AT a corner table of a Le Pain Quotidien in Brentwood feeling totally content. It was a glorious June day, nine months since her brother Matt’s last abortive Altacito visit, and at long last things seemed to have turned a corner in all of their lives. Claire had driven up San Vicente in the new Mercedes convertible Matt had bought her for her birthday last month, drinking in the blue skies and sunshine and feasting her eyes on the blossoming acacia trees that lined the wide, sweeping road. Even nature seemed to be celebrating today, erupting in a riot of color and scent and joyfulness in honor of her brother’s big news.
It was all such a far cry from that awful day last October. She remembered it like it was yesterday. Matt calling her from a rest stop on the I-5 sobbing uncontrollably, barely able to speak, to tell her where he was. His breakdown had been total and catastrophic. Claire had driven him straight to Wildwood, a rehabilitation center in Toluca Lake, and signed the papers as his next of kin. By the time she drove away, Matt no longer remembered his own name.
But miraculously the breakdown had been the making, or rather the remaking, of Matt Daley. After only ten days at Wildwood, he was well enough to receive visitors. Within eight weeks, the depression that had dogged him for more than five years now—since the day Sofia Basta, posing as Lisa Baring, drugged and left him in a Hong Kong hotel room—at last seemed to have lifted. Claire cried the first time she saw him laugh again, and not just laugh with his mouth but with his eyes, his whole being, like he did in the old days. He gained twenty much-needed pounds, began to work out regularly and started to talk about the future. Most importantly of all, he stopped talking about Lisa, or Sofia, or Andrew Jakes, or anything to do with the Azrael murders. It was a miracle.
There were more miracles to come.
Matt met a woman in rehab, a divorcee and recovering alcoholic named Cassie. The two of them bonded instantly, and despite Claire’s initial reservations, when she and her husband met Cassie, they found her to be as warm and sweet and funny as Matt had described her. Last week, after a quick but astonishingly happy, drama-free courtship—much too mellow to be called a “whirlwind romance”—Matt and Cassie announced their engagement.
“Hi, sis. Sorry I’m late.”
Weaving his way through the tables, smiling broadly in khaki shorts and a blue UCLA T-shirt, Matt looked the picture of health and happiness.
“Hey.” Claire beamed back at him. “Cassie not with you?”
“I just dropped her off at her Pilates class. Why, I’m not good enough for you now?”
“You’ll do.” Grinning, Claire pushed a small, gold-wrapped package across the table.
Matt raised an eyebrow. “For me?”
“Hey, I can give presents too you know. It’s an engagement gift. Don’t get too excited, though, it’s nothing much.”
Matt unwrapped the box. Inside was a simple but elegant antique man’s watch, with a battered leather strap and a rose-gold face. On the back were engraved the intertwined initials M and C, and the date of their engagement. “Nothing much? My God, Claire, it’s gorgeous. It must have cost a fortune.”
“Not really,” Claire lied. “I’m just so happy that you’re happy. You deserve it, Matt. You really do.”
Matt was happy. It wasn’t the soaring elation, the addictive thrill he’d felt in Bali with Lisa. But in its own way, he told himself, what he had with Cassie was just as precious. Cassie brought him peace and security and contentment. She didn’t give a damn about his money, she was nothing like Raquel—and she never questioned him about the past. Loving Cassie was a choice that Matt had made, something rational and good that he had decided to do. Loving Lisa had been an impulse, the irresistible pull of a powerful and dangerous drug. Matt would never forget the high he’d felt at the time. But he knew that that drug had damn near killed him. He could never go back.
Matt ordered two soft-boiled eggs and an open salmon sandwich for himself and a duck-breast panini for Claire while she fired questions at him about the wedding. Had he set a date yet? Booked a venue? Who was on the guest list? Were Danny and Céline McGuire coming over
from France? Had Matt heard from Danny at all?
Matt answered all the questions good-naturedly, referring his sister to Cassie for all bride-, cake-and flower-related details. But the basics were simple. It would be a small wedding, in the garden of Matt’s new, Nantucket-style Brentwood Park home. The McGuires had been invited but were not expected to attend. They’d somehow managed to have three children—three!—since the trial, and their newest baby was still too small to travel, but according to Danny’s e-mails they were very happy. Angela Jakes’s ghost had finally been laid to rest.
David Ishag had sent Matt a case of champagne back when the Azrael documentary came out and wrote him a very kind letter while he was at Wildwood. But other than that, Matt had deliberately severed all ties with anyone connected to the case or to Sofia Basta. His wedding to Cassie would mark the beginning of a new, happier chapter in his life. The old book was closed.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, BACK BEHIND THE wheel of his Range Rover, Matt switched on the radio. NPR news from Washington blasted the familiar, singsong voice of Lakshmi Singh into the car. The first two reports washed over Matt. New growth figures from the Fed and something about global warming from the National Science Foundation that he ought to care about but didn’t. He was thinking about Cassie and how cute she always looked after Pilates, all sweating and energized, convinced that she was a mess without makeup when actually she looked more natural and sexy than ever. Swinging the car right onto Montana, he suddenly screeched to a halt, narrowly missing slamming into an SUV in front of him.
“In breaking news,” Lakshmi Singh was saying, “Frankie Mancini, better known to the public as one of the two Azrael killers, is reported to have taken his own life while on death row at San Quentin Prison in central California. Mancini was awaiting execution for his role in the murders of four men between 1996 and 2006 and after numerous appeals was expected to be executed later this year. It’s understood that Mancini was found hanging in his cell in the early hours of this morning.”
Sidney Sheldon's Angel of the Dark Page 29