Taylor looked the prince up and down, from his finely made Italian wool suit to his Gucci loafers, then said easily, “I think you’re right, sweetheart. He certainly is something. ‘Remarkable’ doesn’t begin to cover him, though.”
“How about ‘pervert’ then?” Lindsay asked, loud enough for Missy and Officer Fogel to hear.
Missy gasped.
Officer Fogel giggled.
Taylor turned and waved them away from the door, saying, “Show’s over.” He closed it softly. He turned back and said, “So, Prince, you’ve been speaking to my wife?”
“Yes, I want her to tell you to go to hell, I don’t want you to hurt her, and you will because you’re uneducated and a ruffian and I want her to come back with me… . What did you say?”
“My wife. She is my wife. Her name is now Lindsay Foxe Taylor. It has a ring to it, don’t you think?” Taylor walked past the prince to stand beside Lindsay. He lifted her hand. Her engagement ring shone brilliantly, highlighting the wedding band.
“No, you can’t have married him, you can’t have. Oh, Jesus, this can’t be—”
The prince fell silent, stunned, disbelieving. Lindsay wasn’t certain what he was thinking now. Was it about all the money he’d never get out of her now? Had he been the one to want her dead?
It needed but Sydney to complete the drama, and she arrived two minutes later to a thick pool of silence. She looked at her husband and said with disgust and no preamble, “I thought you’d come here, you bloodless fool. I’ve looked and looked for you. You just couldn’t keep your distance, could you?”
The prince looked up at his wife. He showed no interest. A faint line of displeasure marred his brow.
“I told you to leave her alone, damn you! Why can’t you ever listen? Jesus, why did you come to New York anyway? I didn’t want you to get near her! There’s nothing you could say to her that she’d believe!”
“I’m glad he came, Sydney,” Lindsay said quietly. “I really am. I see things so clearly now.”
Sydney looked at her half-sister and smiled slightly. “Did your pulse flutter anew when he walked in? Isn’t he handsome? And his body is as fine as any model’s.”
“Oh, no, no flutterings. He just wants me to come home with him. He’ll take care of me. I tend to believe him, since I’m twenty-six and very old. That was how old you were when you married him, so you should know. I guess he also wants access to my money.”
The prince said very quietly, “It doesn’t matter now, Sydney.”
“What doesn’t?”
Not even for an instant did Taylor feel sympathy for the man at his wife’s deadly sarcasm.
“She’s already married to him. Can you believe that? She’s already married to him.”
Taylor said to a slack-mouthed Sydney, who was shaking her head back and forth, “It’s true. We didn’t invite you because the screaming and yelling and cursing would have disturbed the other patients, not to mention the minister.”
“She’s married to him,” the prince repeated.
“So,” Taylor said, “here’s the bottom line. If any or all of you tried to kill her for her money, you can forget it. She dies and I get it all. You don’t get a penny. Not even half a lira. Nothing. Do you understand me, both of you?”
“She married him and he’ll hurt her. Just look at him, tough as a peasant. How could you marry someone like him, Lindsay?”
“You’re fucking disgusting!” Sydney screamed at him. She grabbed his arm and tugged him toward the door. “Just shut up. I can’t believe this!” At the doorway Sydney turned. “Oh, yeah, little sister, all my best wishes. I’ll ask Valerie to call you with some advice. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I think I do, Sydney. I asked him to give himself to me and he said yes.”
“I’ll just bet he couldn’t say yes fast enough.”
“That’s right,” Taylor said. “I was so fast I nearly knocked her bandages off.”
“She married him,” the prince said, shaking his head. “Him!”
“Oh, shut up!” Sydney yelled at him. Then they were gone, the prince still mumbling, but quiescent, Sydney silent and pale, her hand firmly on his arm.
Taylor said nothing for many moments. He was studying Lindsay. Finally, “I’m sorry I ruined your show. I didn’t realize then that you had everything under control. He didn’t hurt you this time, did he? You saw him clearly, didn’t you?”
She raised wondering eyes to his face. “How can you understand things so readily? You’re right. He didn’t even scare me a little bit. I was kind of sorry when you arrived, but no matter. He’s pathetic, isn’t he, Taylor?”
“Yes, very pathetic.”
He kissed her fingers, her mouth, her nose.
“I like the sound of that, Taylor. Control. Yep, I had control. You know something else? I was a sarcastic bitch. I felt mean and hard. It was wonderful.”
He continued kissing her; then, “How’s the pain?”
“I feel brain-dead but I hurt hardly at all.”
“Is Missy driving you nuts?”
“No, but she’s driving Officer Fogel crazy.”
“He deserves it, the horny sod.”
They spoke quietly for a while longer, then Taylor looked down at his watch and said, “I’m off now to see Dr. Gruska. Barry’s coming with me. Fogel and Missy will be here. I’m going to pin their ears back for letting the idiot prince in. You rest now, okay, sweetheart?”
“Be careful, Taylor.”
It was cold in the psychology building. Heat sputtered and hissed from the old radiators along the walls of the long corridor and the linoleum cracked beneath their feet. “This is his office,” Taylor said. The door to room 223 was closed but there was a light inside. They paused, hearing voices.
“He’s got a student in there,” Barry said, raising his hand to knock.
Taylor pressed his hand down. “Just a moment,” he said. They stood very still, listening to a girl’s intense voice. She couldn’t be more than twenty years old, if that. She was speaking softly, leaning forward—they could see her outline through the opaque glass. “I do trust you. Do you truly think you can help me, Dr. Gruska?”
“Ah, Bettina, I know I can. You’re young and beautiful and smart. You’ve repressed so many feelings, my dear, and your father hasn’t helped you by ignoring you and pretending not to notice that you’re nearly a woman now. But I can free you by releasing those feelings. I’ll cleanse you. We’ll free them together and I’ll show you what it can be like to express yourself, all of yourself, to give all of yourself and not hold anything back.”
“I don’t believe this,” Barry said under his breath. “Is this guy serious?”
“Dead serious, more’s the pity. Sounds like he’s got another live one.”
“Shall we rescue the kid?”
“Yeah, let’s.”
Dr. Gruska didn’t at first recognize the hard-faced man who strode into his office. A harder-faced older man came in behind him. He felt a spurt of alarm. Then he recognized the first man.
“You visited me a while ago. You’re a doctor from Omaha, right? Dr. Winston.”
“That’s right. But I’m really not. I lied to you. My name is Taylor, and this is Sergeant Barry Kinsley with the NYPD.”
If Gruska chose to think him a cop, just as well. Taylor paused and looked at the girl, who’d stood and was now staring in sheer fright at both of them. She was small, slender, with long blond hair straight down her back. She wasn’t especially pretty but she was as innocent and guileless as a pup. Taylor wondered what Lindsay had looked like at her age. Taylor nodded coldly to her, then said to Gruska, “We’d like to speak to you, Dr. Gruska, about Lindsay Foxe.”