“What about you, Kendra?” Joel’s voice was gravelly. “Don’t you have anything to say?”
Kendra uncrossed her arms. “Just that you overestimated yourself.”
Unsteady on his feet, he lurched at the insult. “You’ll wind up just like Emily Except you won’t have a long-suffering husband to wipe the drool from your chin.”
“I will, but he won’t be you.”
He stumbled backwards, his head jerking several times to one side like a tic he couldn’t control. “It all started that night. Remember, Kendra? The night you betrayed me by pretending you never had dinner with me. And made out like I was the one who was nuts?” He nodded as if it all made sense. “That’s when my life began to fall apart.”
But he was wrong. The seeds were planted long before that night, though neither would realize it until it was too late. “It wasn’t the sailboat or the piano or the cars that ate up the money. Jordan paid you enough.” Kendra was trying to be gentle. But how gentle could a wronged wife be when her husband was shriveling into nothingness before her eyes. “Was it heroin, Joel? Or cocaine?”
Brooding and tight-lipped, Hunter Steele took up one end of a three-seat sofa. At the other end, Francesca Lynfield sat as stiff as her tailored suit. Though within arm’s reach of each other, mother and son were miles apart. She cast her son a castigating eye. Nearly inaudibly, he said, “Cocaine.”
Joel would have gone for him, but Jordan was quick. The elder Swain must have been a wrestler in his youth. He had the body for it, and he hadn’t forgotten the moves. The altercation was over inside three seconds. Joel wilted under the stranglehold, his padlocked arms beating the air in defeat. “Jordan Swain working his deals!” He strained his eyes upward. “What did he promise you, hah Hunter?”
Jordan made a gesture. Doctor Silverstein rose from the chair and quietly slipped out of the office.
“And what did you promise your dear Mummy?”
Hunter glanced away, his jaw clenching.
“Better yet, what did she promise Jordan? A trip beneath the sheets? A blow job inside in the OR?”
Hunter sprang to his feet, fists raised, the boxer’s stance positioned to clout his boyhood friend.
“Hit me,” Joel urged him. “Knock my block off. Anything’s better than this.”
Hunter lowered his arms. “Fuck it, Joel, you’re not worth it. Never were.”
“He holds me tight, Kendra,” Joel said as he struggled inside his father’s competent clutch. “You can see how tight. I could never live up to his expectations. Or yours.”
Lenore Swain wept inconsolably. “Don’t, Jordan! God, don’t hurt him anymore!”
Jordan Swain eased up on the full nelson. Joel shook off the aftereffects and wheezed with ragged breaths. “Daddy?”
Ahead of Evelyn Silverstein, two paramedics—stout men of unemotional bearing—wheeled in a stretcher equipped with leather strapping and intravenous fluids.
Joel dangled inside his father’s slack-armed clutch. When he opened his eyes, his voice sang with curiosity. “Have you come to join the party?” He reacted to the jab of the needle. “What’s next? A straightjacket? Shock therapy? A padded cells?”
“I’ve made careful inquiries.” Jordan strived to keep his voice level. “It’s the finest facility in the country. You’ll have the very best of care.”
“Are there locks on the door? Of course, there are. How long?”
“A year, maybe longer. Everything depends on you.”
His head jerked to the side. “Is this what it was like for you, Kendra? God, I hope so. It’ll console me in the days to come, that you were there first.”
On a count of sixty, Jordan handed his son’s limp body over to the medics. Willpower returned him to the desk. Bowing over the pristine stationery, he signed his name in triplicate.
Kendra opened one of the shutters. The skyline shimmered with a sonata of pleasant notes, keys of black and white playing in syncopated rhythm. Street traffic was sparse. Pigeons cooed. Homeless figures skulked below, seeking sustenance, food, and a shadow to pull after them like a blanket. Two blocks away, the el skimmed along the tracks, hollowing a tunnel toward Marshfield Avenue.
“Kendra?” Jordan said her name twice before she comprehended the syllables weren’t Joel’s voice echoing inside her head.
“Joel was right,” she said to the night and to Jordan. “You knew. You’ve known all along.”
A key ring dangled from his hand. She recognized the fob as belonging to Joel. Jordan pressed the jagged objects into the palm of her hand and closed her fingers around them. His complexion was as gray as his hair. For the first time in his life, Jordan Swain was a defeated man. “I’ll speed through the divorce, if that’s what you want. And make sure you’re financially sound.”
Lenore cleared her throat. She was waiting for him by the door.
“In a minute,” he said. When his bloodshot eyes came back around to Kendra, he said, “I knew. May God forgive me, but I knew.”
Chapter 41
THE BUNGALOW WAS waiting for them to come home. A nightlight glowed in the kitchen. The inviting odors of cinnamon and vanilla ushered them inside.
Ethan checked for messages. Kendra search for the babysitter. The teenager was asleep on the couch with the television screen lighting up her face. She gave Kendra a groggy rundown. The baby had his bottle. He woke up only once but fell back asleep after reassuring coos and back pats.
A few minutes later, Ethan walked the girl home while Kendra crept into Joel’s old office. They had painted blue clouds on the ceiling and hung twinkling stars everywhere, a galaxy of them. Daniel Alan Swain was everything his parents were not. She often pondered where the plump bundle of giggles came from, what distant ancestor passed down his strawberry-blonde hair, and how his genes had combined to give him trusting gray eyes. His sugary disposition, she decided, came straight from heaven.
He lay on his tummy, dreaming the dreams of happy baby boys everywhere, hair slicked down over a sweaty forehead. Kendra held the tiny fist, clutched in defiance, and shook it gently. He sucked his gums, squirmed, purred a honeyed sigh of contentment, and scrunched his eyes together the way his father did.
The clacking screen door announced Ethan’s return. They met halfway between the nursery and the kitchen. He danced a jig and swept her into his arms. “Mrs. Wakeman,” he said, still unused to working his mouth around the unfamiliar syllables.
“Mr. Wakeman. Or should I say, Detective Wakeman.”
In his dark eyes, she saw herself smile twice. The hand at her waist tightened. He dipped her into a tango embrace and gulped down her lips. When the lilting notes of Por Una Cabeza cued up on the speakers, she laughed into his smooching kisses. The passion intensified during the first six bars and lingered over the next twelve. He lifted her up in a rush of dizziness and set her back onto her feet.
Kendra asked, “Does this mean you’re coming straight to bed?”
“Mmm.” His eyes sparkled. “I have a couple phone calls to make.”
“Don’t be long.”
By the time she reached the loft, she had shrugged off the titters and her blazer. When she emerged from the closet, she flipped on the light switch. As always, the restored painting over the fireplace mantelpiece caught her eye. Done in swift brushstrokes, the portrait caught the essence of that other Kendra: the desperate woman on the make. The coral sweater set against blue upholstery brought out the porcelain smoothness of her complexion and the faraway glint in her eyes. The partial nudity stood as testament to her fragileness but not her frailty. The artist had captured her strength, her determination, and her trust.
A second painting hung beside it. Hunter sent it to her as a wedding present. The oil depicted Kendra as he had first seen her: braving the rain and wind, at one with the city, alone but courageous ... the woman she was then, and in many ways, the woman she was still.
She entered the bathroom and turned on the shower, afterwards kicking away her je
ans and tugging off her top. Ethan had timed it just right; he was climbing up the stairs.
She called out to him. “Anything important?”
He didn’t answer but walked across the area rug and paused at the foot of the bed.
Kendra peered out from the bathroom. The half-closed door cut him off from view. “Ethan?”
Still he didn’t answer. This time, his shoes scraped across the floor, away from her and back toward the stairs. Moments later, the bedroom light extinguished.
She cranked off the faucet and crept out of the bathroom. Oblique beams of streetlight stretched across the hardwood planks. Her vision followed the pattern to the top of the staircase, where the shadow of a tall man sponged out the dim luminosity.
“Ethan?”
Even as she said his name, she knew it wasn’t her husband. He was a shadow at the door, a silhouette against a backdrop, a phantom in the dark. The bodysuit and stretch leggings emphasized muscle mass.
“Where’s Ethan?”
He was focusing on Kendra and cataloging the changes in her. She had let her hair grow out. Put on fifty pounds during the pregnancy but shed only thirty. Jogged color back into her cheeks. And skated on slender hope and a fresh start. It was difficult to tell what he was thinking from behind the ski mask. The sapphire gems peering through the eye slits spoke of madness. The mouth opening shifted into a sort of smile.
When she whispered his name, he came for her.
She ran for the staircase and shouted for Ethan, but he grabbed her arm with bone-crunching grip and spun her around. His gloved hand clamped over her mouth, squelching the next scream. She didn’t remember him being this strong. He must have been lifting weights, running marathons, and making plans.
He flung her onto the bed. She landed with a bouncing jolt that drove oxygen out of her lungs. He dived on top of her. His hands were everywhere, as if he had the right, as if he owned her. She reached for the mask, but he twisted her over and yanked her arm into a crushing lock. At the same time, he bore a knee against her spine and leaned over her, adjusting his gagging hand. His head was nodding, as if to make her say Yes. When she gave up the fight, he flipped her onto her back. Kendra experienced a brief instant of freedom and prepared to scream. The open hand sped her way. She didn’t feel the blow, but everything came to a blood-red halt.
He ripped away her underwear. She caught a brief glimpse of the masked features and the blue eyes before he made her look away with another stinging slap. He kissed her on the mouth, his tongue acting in concert with the rape of her body. She groaned once, and groaned again, and together they marched toward the precipice, heedless of consequences.
The sexual act was nothing. A danse macabre, a power play, a feeble attempt at mastery. He was saying, Your mine, not his. The realization made her laugh. He slapped her across the mouth, drawing blood she could taste, but it didn’t stop her from laughing. She made a calculated move and let her hips meet the pounding descent of his. He didn’t want that. Submission, yes, but not commission. He wanted her to fight, to plead, to cry, and to cower. Instead, she was down in the ditch with him, and sniggering.
His hands crawled around her throat and squeezed. Her laughter stopped, as he meant it to. Carbon dioxide crowded out oxygen. Starlight entered her field of vision. She groped for the bed stand. He went with her, his hands tightening. She felt for the lamp and tried to lift it from its base, but her arm was made of elastic and her fingers of rubber. The telephone crashed over. The clock radio turned on, clattered to the floor, and silenced. The television remote came into her hand. The speakers boomed and the screen became a strobe light, turning the struggle on the bed into a circus performance. She found the pull knob and fingered it. Her lungs retched for air. Her body heaved. She was freezing cold. Feeling was slipping from her hand, but she tapped the recesses of the drawer and found something solid to hold. The object skidded away. Just as she reaffirmed her grasp, weakness caught up with her. Her hand opened. Light appeared at the end of a mile-long tunnel. She wanted to go toward the source. She would have, except for Danny’s cries. Was it the baby? Or her brother? She couldn’t tell which.
She closed her fingers into a fist and lifted the object out of the drawer. The grip fit comfortably in the palm of her hand. The weight balanced nicely. The metal burned like dry ice against her fingertips.
The madman’s sapphire eyes were crazed now. He didn’t know he was making love to a dead woman. He didn’t notice the gun.
She aimed pointblank and squeezed the trigger. The explosion came from the other side of the universe. The repercussion smacked her against the headboard. She blacked out. Perhaps for an eternity or only a second or two. Her eyes snapped open. She gazed up at the ceiling. Headlights from the street reflected off the whirring ceiling fan. The whop-whop-whop of the blades accelerated. She struggled to a sitting position, reached for her throat, and wheezed flimsy breaths through a constricted windpipe. The coughs, when they came, were violent but reassuring. The fit passed. Kendra had the presence of mind to look around. She found the black outline sprawled on the floor, and couldn’t help thinking that it looked like a chalk mark left at a crime scene.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs. Ethan. His service revolver braced between two clasped hands. Blood sluicing down the side of his face and into his collar. A hematoma the size of a fist swelled the underside of his jaw. Another lump was ballooning on his forehead. He blinked his eyes to wash away the blood. His vision was, at best, cloudy, but it would do. He found Kendra in the dark and yelled out her name.
“I’m ... I’m all right.”
The ceiling light switched on and flooded the room. Kendra shied away from the glare. She tried to cover up, for Ethan’s sake more than her own. The natural whiteness of his complexion turned to marble, but beneath the durable rock, he shook with fury.
Sirens closed in.
Ethan moved laterally, his gun arm pointing down. He staggered with weakness. The feebleness pissed him off. He cocked himself into a readier stance, throwing off the effects of concussion.
“The baby ...”
“He’s okay.” He kicked the man on the floor. Brutally. In the kidneys. The body rolled with the pounding and settled like pig lard. Ethan edged himself around the bed and reached out. She took his free hand into hers. He didn’t speak except to say her name again. Never once did he remove his eyes from the slack body or the barrel of the revolver from its target.
Sirens screamed onto the scene. The front door crashed open. Glass shattered. The staircase took the punishment of hard-soled shoes. Ethan set aside his service revolver and folded Kendra against him. He checked out the damage, angling her face to the light. “You’re going to the emergency room.”
When he saw the handgun on the floor, he kicked it away. Leaning into the muscled curve of his arm, Kendra gazed over the side of the bed. The policemen frisked the assailant, flipped him onto his stomach, and handcuffed his hands behind his back. He didn’t put up any resistance. Wetness soaked his sweater and spilled onto the floor. Ethan motioned. A cop reached down and yanked off the ski mask. The pale profile lay like a crescent moon in a blackened lake, but the eyes remained sealed.
“Is he breathing?” Ethan asked. “Is he alive?”
“Barely,” one of the cops said.
More sirens answered in the distance.
The sapphire eyes fluttered open. The bleeding man twisted his head and stared up at Kendra. Their eyes met. His didn’t blink.
Kendra buried herself in Ethan’s arms. He ran a gentle hand over her brow and said to the lead cop, “Wait until he stops breathing. Then let the paramedics come up.”
“What if he doesn’t stop breathing?”
“Give him ten minutes to think about it.”
Chapter 42
GULLS SKIMMED CLOSE to the water, whooped into the air, and glided overhead, keening their distinctive cries. While Emily searched for shells in the shoals, Kendra meandered along the shore, leaving footprints
in the sand.
The sunrise promenade had become a ritual ever since Kendra sold the bungalow on Marshfield Avenue. She and Ethan left the ghosts to haunt each other and moved into the Queen Anne on what was intended to be a temporary stay. Now that their family would soon expand with a child of their own, they decided to settle down for the foreseeable future, perhaps for a lifetime.
From the outside, the house on Lakeshore Boulevard seemed like any other house. The occupants knew better.
Their extended family had melded into a curious, atypical unit of love and respect. Birdie stayed on since the Queen Anne was as much her home as anyone’s. Danny’s giggles echoed the crazed laughter of his grandmother, which blended in with everyone else’s mirth. Kendra invited the Swains over for birthday parties and holidays, until they too became a part of the laughter. Joel was present in spirit even though it would be a very long time, if ever, that he would be with them in the flesh. Pontiac Correctional Center was a long way away, and twenty-to-life was an even a longer prison sentence.
On a daily basis, Kendra greeted a new mood, took in a reinvented sky, and experienced a transformation of emotions. The walks became a moving meditation that washed clean the blood that could never be completely eradicated from the house. By stretching her eyesight to the horizon, she was able to look forward instead of backward.
Appearing like a playful schoolgirl, Emily skipped back from the water’s edge and showed Kendra her findings. Several conches were nestled in the cup of her hand. She picked out the largest and gave it to her daughter. They resumed their walk, matching similar strides to the rhythmic tempo of the waves.
Emily asked, “Whatever happened to that gentleman?”
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