CHAPTER 20
On the subway, Suzanne found a safe spot on an empty seat and pulled Nora Sutherlin’s medical file out of her messenger bag. She’d read it last night outside Kingsley Edge’s house. She’d read it again at her apartment. After two readings she still didn’t know what to make of it.
The file began with Eleanor Schreiber’s results from a physical she’d taken before starting her freshman year at NYU. A basic physical for insurance purposes, all it revealed was a healthy eighteen-year-old girl with low cholesterol, low blood pressure and some mild hay fever. The only note of interest was that young Eleanor had refused a pelvic exam. The little scribbled note had raised Suzanne’s hackles. Why would she refuse a basic pelvic? Suzanne had immediately assumed the worst: STI…pregnancy. Maybe even evidence of an abortion. But a few pages later she’d found something that blew all her dark theories out of the water. At age nineteen, Eleanor Schreiber had apparently partied too hard one night and passed out drunk. She’d woken up with a frat boy on top of her. The file contained notes from a rape crisis counselor who’d been brought in to talk to Eleanor before, during and after the exam. Apparently the counselor hadn’t gotten to perform her duties that night, as a note on the chart testified:
Patient said she doubts the young man sexually assaulted her. Claims she vomited on him during the rape attempt. Dismissed by the patient once her priest, Father Marcus Stearns, arrived. Patient clearly suffering from severe denial.
But young Eleanor hadn’t been in denial. The doctor’s report not only showed no presence of trauma or fluids, but an intact hymen as well. At nineteen years old, Eleanor Schreiber was still a virgin. Suzanne knew she should have stopped reading there. To read another woman’s medical file seemed such a gross invasion of privacy it turned her stomach to even have it in her hands. And yet she couldn’t stop, even after learning that teenage Nora was not lover to Father Stearns, or anyone for that matter.
After Eleanor turned twenty, things got even more interesting. For some reason, instead of seeing a GP or an ob-gyn on a regular basis, Eleanor Schreiber went to a Dr. Jonas for all her all her medical issues. Dr. William Jonas, an internist at Central in Connecticut. And for a young woman who didn’t participate in organized sports, Eleanor seemed to acquire a shocking number of minor injuries—a sprained wrist, a bruised rib, even vaginal tearing. To Suzanne they seemed to be clear signs that Eleanor Schreiber had been in a physically abusive relationship in her twenties. And yet Dr. Jonas merely treated his patient, took the most perfunctory of notes and sent her on her way without ever calling the police or an abuse counselor. It seemed a shocking oversight on his part.
Suzanne turned another page in the file. Her hands shook as she read. To herself she whispered, “Nora Sutherlin…you bad Catholic…”
Age twenty-seven, Eleanor Schreiber had gotten pregnant. And Catholic or not, the pregnancy ended quickly with a prescription for RU-486. After that, the medical file ended. No more injuries, no more visits to Dr. Jonas. Nothing.
Nothing…which is what Suzanne had on Father Stearns.
Kingsley Edge said go visit the sister—the one she didn’t want to see. She knew Father Stearns had a sister in Denmark. He’d told her that night at the rectory. Surely Kingsley didn’t mean her—that would be one hell of a research trip. So that left Claire or Elizabeth.
She’d researched Claire last night. Lovely woman about Nora Sutherlin’s age—a rich Manhattan socialite, no husband, no kids, no scandals. As a war correspondent, Suzanne did really hate talking to socialites. Maybe that’s what Kingsley meant. But then she’d looked into Elizabeth. Her very first Google hit on Elizabeth Stearns revealed one vital and terrifying fact. Despite also being exceedingly well-off, Elizabeth Stearns had a real job. She worked as a therapist for victims of childhood sexual abuse.
The very phrase created aching knots in Suzanne’s stomach and a thousand memories of Adam came crashing to the forefront of her mind. After his suicide, the revelation of the abuse he’d suffered from their priest had tainted every memory of him. Every recollection of him from after the age of nine—Adam’s goofy grin in his graduation photo, the day he pushed her in the pool on her twentieth birthday, the pride in his voice when she’d come home from her first assignment in the Middle East, alive and triumphant—was blighted by the knowledge that every grin had been a fake, every laugh a mask. The last thing she wanted to do was spend the day with a woman who worked with victims of sex abuse.
Suzanne closed the file as she reached her stop. In ten minutes she had her rental car. In fifteen minutes she was on the road to New Hampshire.
In four hours, she was there.
* * *
After a huge dinner in the dining room on Griffin’s anal table, the three of them—Griffin, Nora and Michael—adjourned to the living room. Nora threw confetti everywhere in honor of Griffin’s six years clean and sober while Michael sat in near silence on the leather sofa and watched Griffin and Nora do some ridiculous dirty dancing on top of the coffee table. Michael wanted to join in the celebration, would have joined in, but Griffin’s threat from earlier that Michael too would be getting tattooed that night had put him into hardcore freak-out mode. His sexuality he could hide more or less. At least he could keep the submission and the attraction to guys a secret from his mom. But a tattoo? That’s not something one could keep in the bedroom.
A little after five, the doorbell rang and Griffin commanded Jamison to answer it, which he did only after calling Griffin a “well-arranged waste of molecules.”
Griffin’s butler returned with a leggy, purpled-haired woman at his side who had elaborate tattoos running up and down both her muscular arms. Dark green vine tattoos ran across her ample cleavage and climbed up her neck—the tip of the top vine ended in the hollow behind her multi-pierced ears.
“Griffin Fiske, you dirty whore. One more year again?” she asked in a Scottish accent.
“Spike…don’t pretend you didn’t miss me.”
“Don’t have to pretend.” She slapped Griffin hard on the biceps, hard enough Michael flinched in sympathy. But Griffin only grinned.
“Nora, Michael. This is Spike. She does my ink for me. Best in the business.”
“Lovely to meet you,” Nora said, shaking Spike’s hand. “You do gorgeous work.”
“And you have gorgeous skin,” Spike said, making a circuit around Nora. “Would look better with ink on it.”
Nora sat on the couch and picked up the edits on her books she’d been working on all day.
“I would love a tattoo. Big-ass Jabberwocky all over my back. But my priest doesn’t allow me to get anything weird done to my body.”
Griffin rolled his eyes while he stripped out of his shirt and sat two chairs side by side.
“Nora, you have your clit hood pierced,” Griffin reminded her.
“Yes,” she agreed. “But who do you think did that?” She put on her glasses, pulled her hair into a bun that she secured with a pen, instantly transforming herself into Writing Nora, the only version of Nora Michael found sexier than Dominatrix Nora.
“Father S did your piercing?” Michael’s mouth went suddenly dry.
Nora only shrugged as she turned a page in her notes.
“You celebrate Valentine’s Day in your way and we’ll celebrate it in ours. Carry on.”
Nora waved her hand dismissively while Spike and Griffin got settled in. Spike plugged in her electric needle, mixed her ink and cleaned Griffin’s arm with alcohol.
“Anything fancy, mate?” she asked as she adjusted Griffin’s arm.
“Not this year. Just add another band to the bottom.”
It took less than fifteen minutes to finish Griffin’s tattoo—a black vine around the bottom of his right bicep. Michael could only watch in fascination as blood pooled and dripped. Griffin barely even winced as the needle pushed ink deep into his skin. For the entire time Spike worked on Griffin’s arm, Michael studied his face. He had such a handsome profile. And even in obvious pain, he couldn’t stop laughing or smiling every few seconds. Where did all that happiness come from? Michael didn’t really care. He just wanted to be a part of it.
Once finished, Spike cleaned Griffin off and took a photo of the tattoo.
“When are we getting that griffin on your back we’ve been talking about?” she asked.
“Think we’ll save that for next year and lucky anniversary number seven.” Griffin turned to Michael. “Spike specializes in big work. Did big black angel wings all over the back of some guy in Scotland.”
“My best work,” she said with pride. “I love wings. They’re my favorite to do. Speaking of…” She gave Griffin a meaningful look.
Griffin looked at Michael.
“Come here, Mick. Got a present for you.”
Michael stood up and walked over to Griffin. Nora put her notes away, shoved her glasses on her head and watched them both.
“Griffin, I don’t think I should get a tattoo. My mom might kill me. And I don’t know what to get or where.”
Griffin reached out and took Michael by the forearm. He lifted Michael’s hand and placed it on the center of his bare chest. Every nerve in Michael’s body came alive at the contact of his fingers on Griffin’s skin.
Griffin started to unbuckled Michael’s watch.
“Wait. Stop,” Michael said. Griffin clapped a hand onto his arm and held Michael in place.
“It’s okay, Mick,” Griffin whispered. “You can trust me here. Please.”
Swallowing, Michael nodded. “Okay.”
Griffin removed Michael’s watch and set it aside as carefully as if it was Griffin’s three-hundred-thousand-dollar Audemars Piguet and not Michael’s twenty-three-dollar eBay special.
After removing the watch, Griffin took off Michael’s black wristband. He turned Michael’s arms over and showed the scarred wrists to Spike.
“Can you do it?” Griffin asked.
Spike narrowed her eyes at the scars, and Michael inwardly writhed in mortification.
“I’ve covered worse. Much worse,” Spike said as she ran her fingers over Michael’s wrist scars. “Yeah, I can do it. ’Course I can.”
“This is what I was thinking, Mick.” Griffin pulled a folded piece of paper out of the back pocket of his pants. He opened it up and showed Michael. “I stole your sketchbook while you were with Nora and sent some of your drawings to Spike. This is what we came up with.”
Griffin gave a drawing to Michael, who could only stare at it in speechless wonder.
“I thought we could cover the scars,” Griffin whispered. He tucked a loose strand of Michael’s hair behind his ear, and Michael shivered at the intimacy of the gesture. Watching Griffin have sex with Nora didn’t feel as private as Griffin absentmindedly taming Michael’s hair. “You won’t have to hide them anymore. Your wrists will look like that.”
“Like this?” In his hand Michael held a drawing of angel wings—open and unfurled and almost solid black. One wing would be tattooed on each wrist.
“You’ll be able to do this,” Griffin said, holding both wrists out and together, “and you’ll have a full wingspan. Want to do it? My treat, okay?”
Michael swallowed a throatful of tears. No more hideous scars on his wrists he’d have to cover up… Just beautiful ink that Griffin had bought and paid for. Getting this tattoo would be like being marked by Griffin.
“Yes.” He looked up at Griffin with eyes that never wanted to look away again. “Let’s do it.”
Griffin clapped his hands loudly and grabbed Michael by the shoulders.
“You won’t regret this, Mick. Ink doesn’t get into your skin. It gets into your soul. Changes you. And this will change you in the good way.”
“You sure you want to do this, Angel?” Nora asked, her eyes full of concern but no judgment.
“Yeah, definitely. It’s okay, right?” he asked.
“This decision is all yours to make. If you want it, do it.”
“I want it.”
“Good,” Spike said. “I hope you mean that because inking scar tissue is a bitch. We’ll do the basics tonight and get some decent coverage. I’ll need you back in six weeks for touch-ups.”
Michael sat down while Griffin brought a table over and placed it front of the chair.
“Griff,” Spike said, giving him a stern glare. “You’ll have to hold him steady. This won’t be easy going.”
Griffin looked at Michael, and Michael gazed back at Griffin without blinking or looking away. That strange feeling he always experienced when about to start a scene with Nora came over him. He started to sink into that weird Zen place that Nora and Griffin called subspace.
Michael extended his left hand and Spike started to swab his wrist with alcohol.
“Hold him down, mate,” Spike ordered Griffin. “Don’t let him move a muscle.”
Griffin took Michael’s hand in his and held his fingers and forearm hard against the table.
“I won’t even let him flinch.” Griffin and Michael’s eyes still remained locked on each other. Michael felt blood surging through his body. The buzz of the electric needle started up.
“Won’t lie to you, kid,” Spike said, making a final adjustment on her needle. “Skin on the wrist is thin and sensitive. Getting ink on your cock would hurt less than this will.”
Michael took a deep breath in and slowly let it out of his nose the way Nora had taught him.
“It’s okay,” Michael said and knew he’d never been so calm or certain in his life. He had Griffin’s hands on him holding him down. No fear, no agony, nothing in the world could penetrate the armor of his happiness. “I can take pain.”
* * *
Slowly Wesley turned around. Standing in the doorway to Nora’s bedroom was a man well over six feet tall, with perfect pale blond hair, penetrating steel-gray eyes and a face too handsome to be human. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt that revealed impressively taut biceps, and in his right hand he held a motorcycle helmet.
“So Søren rides a motorcycle,” Wesley said, not knowing why that was the first thing that came out. “For some reason, I’m not surprised.”
Søren’s eyes narrowed and the corner of his mouth twitched with amusement. He tossed the helmet onto a chair and crossed his arms over his broad chest.
“Hello, Wesley,” Søren said and spoke no other words.
“I’m not going to say hello to you.” Wesley took a deep breath and took a few steps closer. “We’re not friends. This isn’t going to be a friendly conversation.”
Søren stared at him a moment and Wesley felt himself being weighed in the priest’s eyes. For more than two years, Wesley had wondered about Søren—what did he look like, how did he act, what the hell did Nora see in him? Now the man himself stood in front of him. And that’s what Wesley saw. A man—mortal, very handsome, but still only a man.
“We aren’t friends, no.” Søren said the words with a magnanimous air. “But must we be enemies?”
Wesley summoned all his courage.
“You hit Nora. You hit her often. You’ve sprained her wrists. You’ve bruised her ribs. You’ve done stuff to her she wouldn’t even tell me about. Yeah, Søren, I think we’ll be enemies.”
Søren didn’t seem the least surprised or intimidated by Wesley’s words. In fact, he seemed almost pleased.
“I am a pacifist, Wesley. I have no interest in getting into any kind of fight with you. I think Eleanor would never recover from the laughing fit that would induce if she discovered we’d scuffled over her.”
“Where is Nora anyway?” Wesley demanded. “I came to see her, not talk to you. You’re about the last person in the world I want to talk to.”
The insult didn’t seem to register. The man was a wall nothing could penetrate.
“She’s upstate with two friends for the summer. I won’t bore you with the details of why, but she’s quite content, I assure you. Do you care to tell me what you’re doing in Eleanor’s home?”
Wesley didn’t answer at first. He turned his back to Søren and weighed how much to tell the man.
“She’s not,” Wesley finally said.
“Pardon?”
Wesley turned back around and glared at Søren.
“She is not content. I don’t believe that, and something tells me you don’t, either.”
“You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here?”
“I live here.” Wesley pulled his keys from his pocket. “I still have a key. This was my home with Nora. What are you doing here?”
“Kingsley had the house alarmed when she went upstate. Silent alarm. You tripped it when you entered. I was nearby and came to investigate.”
Wesley’s stomach knotted up.
“Alarm? This is a really safe neighborhood. Why would you alarm Nora’s house when she’s not even here?”
Søren didn’t answer and the silence scared him more than any explanation.
“Things are happening,” Søren finally said.
Wesley gave a short, empty laugh.
“Well, that explains everything. Thanks for that, Father Stearns.”
“Her file was stolen from Kingsley’s office. That file contained everything there is to know about her. We don’t know who stole it. We don’t know why anyone would take such a risk.”
Wesley’s anger turned to fear.
“You assholes—you and Kingsley both. You keep her safe or you’ll answer to me. And I know that doesn’t scare you, but I’ll make it scare you if I have to. Now I guess I’ll go. Gotta run upstate to find Nora and make sure she’s okay.” Wesley headed for the door, knowing he’d have to barrel past Søren to get through. In his mood, he rather relished the idea. “Somebody’s got to and obviously you don’t give a damn about her.”
Wesley headed for the gap between Søren’s body and the door frame, a gap just wide enough for him to fit through. But Søren’s arm suddenly clapped down against the frame and barred Wesley’s way.
An icy bolt of fear raced into the pit of Wesley’s stomach as Søren turned brutally cold eyes onto him.
“Wesley…” Søren said his name with the unmistakable hint of menace in his voice. “I said I didn’t want us to be enemies. For your own sake, I’d highly suggest adjusting your tone.”
Wesley couldn’t meet his eyes, wouldn’t meet them. He stared past Søren and out into the hallway. Out there he could see the ghostly outline of Nora padding down that hall in her penguin pajamas with her wet hair up in a bun and a cup of cocoa in her hand. His Nora…his best friend…the woman he would have given everything to. Once he’d offered her every penny he had and she’d turned it down. Maybe he’d offer again and this time he’d tell her exactly how many millions of pennies he had. And then it would be him and her and cocoa and penguin pajamas and Battleship games and stupid jokes about druids for the rest of their lives.
“I love her,” Wesley whispered. “I love her more than my own life, and you…” He finally met Søren’s eyes. “You hurt her.”
Søren nodded.
“I do.”
“You beat her. You do stuff to her that turns my stomach.”
“I know it does, Wesley.” Søren spoke the words with such sympathy that Wesley’s throat tightened.
Wesley took a step back.
“What? You aren’t going to defend yourself? Justify it? Tell me it’s what Nora likes? What she wants?”
Søren shook his head. “Of course not. I don’t have to, after all. You know as well as I do that she loves being with me, loves what I can give. Even more, she needs it.”
Wesley pulled himself to his full height of six feet and yet Søren still dwarfed him. But what he lacked in height he made up for in youth and rage.
“Needs it? She doesn’t need getting beaten. No one needs that. You’ve trained her, messed with her mind, made her think that’s what sex is supposed to be like.”
“So you, a virgin, are going teach Eleanor what sex should be like?”
The five fingers on Wesley’s right hand slowly balled themselves into a tight fist. What he wouldn’t give to be able to break that beautiful face that stared at him with such arrogance, such hauteur….
“I’d do a lot better than a sick sadistic Catholic priest who can’t even hold her hand in public.”
Something in Søren’s eyes flinched…just a little, just enough Wesley could see that he’d finally struck home.
Wesley waited. Søren said nothing else.
“I helped her paint this room, you know?” Wesley nodded at the walls. “Moved the furniture, put down the drop cloths… We painted all day. Took three coats to get the walls as red as she wanted. That print over the bed? I hung it for her. She spent a solid hour trying to figure out exactly where she wanted it. We rearranged the furniture in here until after midnight. Then we ate pizza at one in the morning. And you know what she said after all that? Do you?”
Søren stared at him.
“No.”
“She said, ‘Wes, I don’t know what I’d do without you. I hope I never have to find out.’” Wesley smiled at Søren. “Took four months but we repainted every room in this damn house. Repainted, rearranged the furniture… This was our house. Mine and hers. I know she’d sneak over to the rectory every once in a while and let you wail on her for a night. But I got her the rest of the time. I cooked her breakfast. I answered her fan mail. I put her to bed when she fell asleep at her desk writing. I rubbed her back when she was sore from overworking herself. And when she got all wrought up over you, it was me she cried on. No, she and I never had sex. That’s true. But we had love, real love that didn’t take anything out of us, that didn’t bruise us or break us. I loved her without hurting her. You asked me if I, a virgin, could teach her what sex should be? No, course not. Hell no. But at least I can teach her what love should be like. And she knows it too.”
“Does she now?”
Wesley smiled.
“Seen her new book yet? Read the dedication page. Then you’ll see why I say she’s not quite as content as you want to pretend she is.”
Wesley raised his chin and gave Søren the longest, coldest look he could summon. Søren only stared back, his gaze a second longer and one degree colder. Sighing, Wesley gave up and gave in.
“Whatever,” he said. “Like you care. I’m gone. Have a nice motorcycle ride back to your church where you can have fun pretending to be some kind of saint we all know you aren’t.”
This time when Wesley pushed through the gap, Søren let him pass. Wesley made it five paces down the hall when he heard his name.
“What?” Wesley asked, spinning around.
“Wesley…” Søren gave him a look that terrified Wesley more than any of the dark, cold glares Søren had already thrown at him. This look was almost—Wesley searched for the right word—humble. “Please, Wesley. I need to ask a favor of you.”