“It was terrible.”
“I know. Horrendous.”
She was staring at me, intently, not bothering to wipe away the tears dripping down her cheeks, or even noticing that her nose was running. “He didn’t realize that I loved him all along. I should have told him. I should have touched him. I should have gotten help, sooner.”
“He’s done some very bad things. Terrible things,” I added.
“But he shouldn’t be in jail,” she whispered. “I want him to suffer and pay for what he did, but he shouldn’t be in jail.”
“But he thinks he should be. Do you know why?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
She didn’t answer.
“Kira, did he confess because he thinks you killed those women and he’s protecting you?”
She looked down at the cup in her hands and moved the straw backward and forward again. I watched her movements, waiting to hear her response.
After five minutes, I realized she wasn’t going to say anything else, and so I left.
In the elevator, I was struggling to put on my one glove when my cell phone rang. There was no one else in the elevator so I answered it. Allison was calling to tell me my next appointment had canceled, in case I wanted to come in later.
Downstairs the doors opened and I walked through the lobby. I got to the door and realized that I didn’t have my glove. Had I dropped it in the elevator? Just outside? I turned to retrace my steps.
Terry Meziac was twenty feet away from me, watching me. I froze. Was he following me? Why? Or was it just a coincidence? Alan’s wife was in this hospital. Alan was in jail. Maybe Terry was watching out over Kira for the judge, not watching me at all.
I saw the glove on the ground in front of the elevator. Bent down. When I straightened up he was gone. I spun around, did a quick search of the lobby, but I didn’t see him.
Of course he was there protecting Kira Rushkoff. He was a bodyguard.
A bodyguard with a record, Noah had told me.
I hurried outside in time to catch a taxi.
After I gave the driver the address, I turned in the seat, and as we sped off I watched out the rear window, but there was nothing to see.
Seventy-Two
“I know what I thought I was going to get out of her, but I didn’t get it.”
“You actually thought she was going to confess and you were going to get a reprieve for your client,” Nina said. “You’re sure that he didn’t have anything to do with the murders and that he’s covering up for someone, and it makes perfect sense that the someone is his wife.”
We were sitting in Nina’s office. It was too cold to go out, so she’d ordered up lunch-tuna sandwiches on rye bread for both of us. She’d finished hers but I’d only taken a few bites of mine.
“I don’t understand love any better than I did forty years ago when I first started studying human psychology. We’re such pathetic victims of our emotions.”
I didn’t want to philosophize. We had to figure out a way for me to ethically talk to the police about Kira.
“How is your wrist?” Nina asked.
I looked down at the white cast. Like the snow, it was going to get gray eventually, long before it was time to remove it.
“It’s all right.”
“Do you still feel any pain?”
“A little ache. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. To me. You’re in pain and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Oh, there’s a point to this. A little parable. Go ahead, O wise one.”
“If I could take your pain away, Morgan, I would. You feel that way about Dulcie. I’ve seen you with her when she’s hurt herself. But you’re not supposed to feel that way about your patients.”
“I can’t stand by and watch Alan take responsibility for something he didn’t do, that he thinks his wife did-something I’m not even sure his wife was capable of doing. Someone did kill those girls, and that person is still out there.”
“What is Alan’s problem, Morgan?”
“I’m not a neophyte like Blythe, I’ve been a therapist for years. I don’t appreciate the idea that you are handing me.”
“Play along. What’s his problem?”
“He has intimacy issues. His wife is a real woman. Dealing with her means dealing with his emotions. He doesn’t want to do that. So he shies away from sex with her. In the meantime, she can’t deal with his distance, so she distances herself further. She was powerful, she made a lot of money, got a lot of press, and she pushed it. She became more powerful, made more money and got more press. She gave herself an excuse. He won’t love me the way I want to be loved because I’m not needy enough. I’m too successful. It works. They split off. She works. He has the Net. It allows him gratification without emotional risk. He can find pleasure and excitement without a connection and still not feel as if he is really cheating on his wife. How am I doing?” I asked sarcastically.
Nina’s phone rang and I didn’t need to look at the clock on the wall to know that her next patient was there.
“I’m trying to help you,” she said.
“I know.”
But on the walk back to my office I wasn’t sure how she could help me. It wasn’t until I sat down at my desk that I finally figured out why Nina had asked me those precise questions.
How did she know enough about Alan to know that I had identified with him and felt that, if I could save him, if I could help him, it would mean that I could save myself, too? Not from Internet porn, but from a cold, emotional landscape that I kept running back to whenever I got too close to the sun.
Seventy-Three
The cell where he was being kept was in the Tombs in Lower Manhattan. I’d been there to see patients before, but no one had ever looked more out of place than Alan Leightman did.
“I don’t understand why you’re here. You’re a New York City Supreme Court judge,” I said, once we were sitting across from each other in the visitors’ room.
“I’m a killer, Morgan. That’s why I’m here.” He couldn’t even make eye contact with me when he said it. “I deserve this.” Now he looked at me. That part was true. He didn’t think he was entitled to any comfort or leniency. He was a successful man who believed he was a bad boy and should be punished.
“It was kind of you to come down here. You know, you shouldn’t feel you failed with me.”
“I’m not so sure. My job was to help you see yourself more clearly. To balance the real person you’ve become with the tortured kid you were. To give you the tools to fight your way out of your addiction. I didn’t do any of that. If I had, you wouldn’t be taking the blame for this.”
He looked away from me again. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“You can’t convince me of that. I met with Kira.”
“That was kind of you. How is she?” He had leaned forward, engaged again. Concerned. More connected to me now.
“I don’t know, Alan. There’s no way for me to measure-I didn’t know her before. But I don’t think she’s doing very well.”
“I want you to be her therapist. I want you to take over.”
“I can’t do that. Technically, you are still my patient. I can’t treat both you and your wife. Besides, she already has a good doctor.”
“You’re sure he’s good enough?”
“Alan, no one is good enough to help Kira with what’s bothering her. She knows that you didn’t kill anyone and she’s racked with guilt that you are doing this to protect her.”
His whole body went rigid. “What are you talking about? Protect her?” He was suddenly nervous, twisting around in his seat, looking behind him, then to the side, then to the other side, checking to see if anyone was listening.
“She wanted to punish you. She wanted you to worry that your addiction had driven her crazy. But what if that’s all she wanted? What if you’re wrong and she didn’t kill those women, either? Did you think this through?”