Finding Ashley

by Danielle Steel

  “You’re not at fault here. He is. He raped an innocent young girl. He brutally beat you, and raped you. He has to pay for that. It’ll carry even more weight because you’re a nun now.”

  “I’m not a nun, I’m a fraud,” she said, furious with herself. “I’m going to ask to be released from my vows. I don’t belong there. I want to go back to Africa. I can be a nurse. I don’t have to be a nun to work there.”

  “You can’t run away from this again. This man needs to be punished.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t entirely his fault,” she said, sobbing. “After the first time, I didn’t even try to stop him. I was too scared. You would never have done something like that. You would have stopped him. You wouldn’t have let him rape you.” Melissa was looking hard at her sister, and she wanted to kill Sam Steinberg with her bare hands.

  “Let me tell you something about my career. What happened to you was not your fault. After my first book was published, I wanted an even better contract on the next one. Carson had gotten me a good deal, but I was ambitious. My publisher called and invited me to lunch. I was very flattered. He took me to the Four Seasons and I felt like a big deal. I had three drinks at lunch. When we left the restaurant, he put it to me. If I’d sleep with him, he’d sweeten the deal on my next book, that is if I sweetened the deal for him first. He didn’t rape me or beat me. He coerced me. He enticed me, and I was greedy and stupid enough to go along with it. Carson and I had just started dating. So I went to his place with him. He had an apartment on East Sixty-second Street for just that purpose. I went there with him, like a total whore. I gave him a blow job, and went to bed with him. We had sex all afternoon. It was consensual. When it was over, he said he’d call my agent in the morning and give us a great contract with a huge advance, but he wanted to meet me again. He suggested we meet once a week. He called Carson in the morning and gave me a slightly better contract, not a great one. I took the contract and signed it. I never went back again. I stayed away from him, and I didn’t tell Carson. But I knew exactly what I was and what I’d done. I’d prostituted myself to get ahead. I had felt like a slut and had behaved like one. There are a million guys out there like these, waiting to jump on young women, using sex to make their deals. And some of us are dumb enough to buy into it. I never did it again, but I never forgot what I did. So I’m not so lily pure either. And I did it willingly. You didn’t. You were raped.

  “The publisher I had sex with was fired a few years later, and went to another publishing house. He’s probably still playing the same game if he can get anyone to fall for it twenty years later. There’s always Viagra if he can’t get it up. He’s probably seventy-five or eighty by now. There are guys like that in every line of work, and women who fall for it like I did. But those women are speaking up now. They’re blowing the whistle on these creeps. That’s the only way it’s going to stop. Women have a stake in the game now. Men in Hollywood, big men, are losing their jobs, their careers, their TV shows, their parts in movies. Some of them will probably go to prison. It’s going to cost them big-time and it should. I was stupid, and lost my integrity momentarily, but you were a victim, Hattie. I want you to go after the guy and put your name on that list. I’ll stand beside you all the way.”

  “I can’t do it,” Hattie said, sounding strangled, as the two sisters fell into each other’s arms and cried for each other. “I’m so sorry that guy did that to you,” she said to Melissa.

  “He didn’t do it. I did. I went to his apartment with him, like a cheap trick he picked up on the street. As I said, I never told Carson. I was afraid he’d be disgusted with me. He was the head of a respected publishing house. Guys like him have won for years. But they’re not winning now. They’re losing everything, just as they should.” Hattie looked at her mournfully, and Melissa made her a cup of tea and handed it to her. They’d been talking for hours and it was getting late.

  “I should go soon. I was going to talk to Mother Elizabeth tomorrow. I don’t want to keep it a secret from her anymore. I don’t belong in the convent. My motives were never pure. I was only thinking of myself.”

  “Your motives were entirely pure. Stop saying that. Steinberg’s the sinner here, not you.”

  It was a wicked world and they’d both been victims of it. It was too late for Melissa to make the publisher accountable, she didn’t even know if he was still alive and he had probably retired and it no longer mattered. It was ancient history and she’d given up writing. But it wasn’t too late for Hattie, and she wanted her to speak up, and add her name to the list of the victims. He had cost Hattie a promising career and wounded her deeply.

  “I’ll talk to Mother Elizabeth about it, and see what she thinks,” was all she’d agree to. And she didn’t want to embarrass the convent. She left a few minutes later, after Melissa hugged her tight again and told her she loved her. She felt drained when Hattie left, and she wanted to think about everything they’d said. She was heartbroken over Hattie’s story, but it finally explained why she had gone into the convent so hurriedly. They’d both been religious as children, but Hattie had never wanted to be a nun as a young girl. It had never made sense to Melissa before, but now it did. She was a classic victim in the worst possible way, and still blamed herself eighteen years later. She had carried that burden and her secret for all these years. It had cost her eighteen years of her life as a woman, and changed the course of her life.

  For the first time, Melissa didn’t want to see Norm that night. She texted him and told him she was sick. She said she had a headache and the flu and would call him in the morning. She thought of her own foolishness too, and how disgusting it had been. She hadn’t let herself think of it in years, but Hattie’s story brought it all back. In her own way, in her youth and stupidity, she’d been a victim too, of the manipulations of someone older and more clever than she was. She would have gotten the contract anyway, because her books were good, but she didn’t know that then, so she had sold her soul to the devil. She remembered perfectly now how dirty she’d felt afterward, and swore she wouldn’t do anything like that ever again, and never had. He hadn’t contacted her again and had probably moved on to his next victim.

  * * *

  —

  Norm showed up at her door the next morning, looking worried. He had a thermos of freshly squeezed orange juice, blueberry muffins he’d made himself, a jar of homemade soup, and the Sunday paper. He offered to make her scrambled eggs and she didn’t have the heart to turn him away. She looked rough enough to be convincing about her illness. She had been awake for most of the night, and cried every time she thought about what her sister had said. How could she ever make it up to her? She remembered too how furious she had been at Hattie wanting to become a nun, so she’d had to deal with Melissa’s anger and disapproval on top of everything else. All she wanted now was for Hattie to get even with Sam Steinberg and join his other accusers. The list was long in his case, and the charges would stick. No one was rising to his defense. He was a well-known slime bag among his peers in L.A.

  “Did your sister come up yesterday?” Norm asked her. There was something about the look on Melissa’s face that seemed wrong to him. She looked sick, but she didn’t have the flu. Something else was troubling her, but he didn’t want to press her and upset her. Instead, he tucked her into bed, and made chicken soup for her to eat later. Then he climbed into bed with her, put an arm around her, and held her close. He didn’t try to make love to her. He could see she wasn’t in the mood. “Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked her after they’d lain there for a long time. Melissa thought about it before she answered.

  “I don’t think so.” She didn’t want to violate Hattie’s confidence, but she trusted him. “Hattie was the victim of one of the men on the Hollywood list,” she confided to him. “It’s taken her eighteen years to tell me. It’s a terrible story. She was trying to be an actress then, and he was a big producer.”
He could guess the rest. She didn’t have to tell him, and he didn’t ask. “I want her to go to the police, and add her story to the others. She doesn’t want to.”

  “It has to be her decision,” he said wisely, and Melissa knew he was right. “The others will bring him to justice, if she doesn’t.”

  They lay there quietly for a long time, and he brought her the soup at lunchtime. Afterward, she put on some clothes and they went for a walk, without talking. She felt better when they got home. He left a little while later. He knew she wanted to be alone. He was the right man at the right time, and they understood each other. She wouldn’t have appreciated him a few years earlier, but she did now.

  * * *

  —

  Hattie called her that night after she’d talked to Mother Elizabeth. She had listened quietly and explained to Hattie that some people didn’t find their vocation until after they entered the convent, which had been the case for her. “You would never have stayed all this time if you didn’t have a vocation. What do you want to do about this man?”

  “I don’t know,” Hattie said, feeling lost. “Melissa thinks I should go to the police. I don’t want to.”

  “Do what feels best to you. No one can tell you what to do.” Hattie repeated that to Melissa when she spoke to her.

  “She thinks I should go on a retreat to clear my head. Maybe I will, over Christmas.” Melissa didn’t argue with her. The mother superior was right. Hattie had to make her own decision. She had suffered enough and carried the guilt for eighteen years.

  “I love you,” was all Melissa said to her, and she could hear Hattie crying at the other end.

  “I love you too,” she said softly, and hung up.

  Chapter 13

  Day by day the list of victims as accusers and sex offenders in the newspapers continued to grow. Many of them were well known, some less so. The revelations were beginning to spread into the political arena, and politicians were listed now too. Everyone was waiting to see where it would spread to next, like blood on the floor, staining all it touched, and spreading faster than it could be stopped.

  Melissa thought of Hattie all the time. She was haunted by Hattie’s description of the scene.

  A week before Christmas, Hattie called. She said in a dead voice that she had decided it was cowardly not to speak up, since others had. It wasn’t fair, she said, to let them carry the full weight. Mother Elizabeth had contacted the police sex detail, and made an appointment for the next day. As was proper, according to convent rules, the mother superior would go with her, but Hattie wanted her sister there too, and the superior had agreed. She was calling to ask Melissa to come, and she said she’d be there.

  She drove down to New York that night, in case it snowed and she couldn’t get there the next day. She stayed at the hotel where she’d stayed when she met Michaela. Norm offered to come with her, but she declined. Hattie wouldn’t want him there, and Melissa was going to leave the city as soon as the meeting with the police was over.

  Melissa arrived at the convent at one o’clock, and they left together. The appointment was at two, and they drove one of the convent cars downtown. Hattie drove since Mother Elizabeth didn’t like to drive. Hattie was wearing her habit, and looked very serious. There was silence in the car, and Melissa suspected the two nuns were praying, so she didn’t speak.

  The police station where the sex detail of the New York City Police Department was located was on Centre Street. They parked and walked inside. It was an ugly, brightly lit building, with people hurrying down the halls and disappearing into offices. They went to the right door, entered, and were told to sit down. They waited ten minutes, and a woman in a police uniform came to get them, and led them into a room where two female detectives were waiting at a long conference table. Hattie was relieved to see that they were both women. The younger of the two was a sergeant, African American, somewhere in her thirties. The senior officer was a lieutenant about Melissa’s age. The sergeant gave them a warm smile. Both were out of uniform, in street clothes, and they greeted both nuns respectfully. They offered Hattie water and she declined. She just wanted to get the ordeal over with and leave. She reached out and held Melissa’s hand. The mother superior remained quiet as they began their questions.

  Little by little, Hattie told them the same story she had told Melissa. There were additional details she had remembered, all of them equally upsetting. The violence of the attack and the rape itself made Melissa wince, even hearing it the second time. He had hit her again and again, threatened her, battered her, and raped her many times, on the floor, on the couch, on the desk, over a chair. He had sodomized her repeatedly, and between the rapes were the beatings, and the threats warning her not to tell anyone afterward, or he would find her and kill her. She believed him. She had sought refuge in the convent. To her it was a safe house, although to Melissa, after Saint Blaise’s, a convent would have been even more frightening. She said she thought the nuns would protect her and he wouldn’t find her.

  The two detectives made many notes, and asked as few questions as possible so as not to interrupt her.

  When it was over, they told her they would be contacting the LAPD to add her case against Sam Steinberg to the others, rather than opening a separate case in New York. It would be more effective to keep all of the cases in a single jurisdiction. They were going to try to keep her case sealed because she was a nun, but couldn’t promise it.

  There were so many cases being reported now, in the newspapers and online, that it was becoming commonplace. Hundreds of victims had come forward to accuse dozens of men, nearly a hundred so far, and the majority of them well known. The entertainment industry was being decimated. Hattie’s case was one of the worst, but not unusual. They filed it under her name at the time, and kept her religious name confidential, which they said would make it harder for the press to find her.

  “The press?” Hattie looked panicked.

  “They see all the police reports,” the sergeant explained, “but there are too many to follow up on, and they’re more interested in famous actresses who have stepped up to accuse the offenders.” It made for more lively reading. It had been going on for weeks, nearly a month by then, and the number of cases was still growing. It hadn’t slowed down. In fact, the furor was increasing.

  “You’ve helped all the other women who’ve come forward, and those who haven’t yet but want to, by telling your story,” the lieutenant told her when she thanked Hattie. She looked dazed after telling it again for the third time. It was like reliving it.

  “Will I have to go to court and testify against him?” Hattie asked them.

  “It’s very unlikely. When all the cases have been reported, I’m sure he’ll plead guilty. He’s not going to go to court against all of you. No jury will look favorably on him. Some of the others may be able to cut a deal, but he’s one of the worst offenders. He’ll go to prison. Some of them attacked minors, drugged them and raped them. That doesn’t seem to be his M.O.”

  They typed up Hattie’s statement on a computer, printed it, and had her sign it. The three women were silent as they wended their way back through the police station, and back to the parked car. It had been an impressive experience, and Hattie had been very brave.

  On the way back to the convent, Hattie told Melissa they were sending her to a retreat house in Vermont for a few weeks until she felt better, and also to make sure the press didn’t find her. “I’ll be there for Christmas.” Melissa nodded. They hadn’t spent Christmas together in years anyway. Not since she had entered the convent. “I’ll write to you,” she promised. They hugged for a long time, and Hattie followed Mother Elizabeth into the convent, as Melissa watched them. Then she went to the hotel, picked up her bag, and headed back to Massachusetts. She cried on and off during the trip, and Norm was waiting for her when she got home. He had dinner in the oven. He had made a French dish, hachis
parmentier, which was duck with mashed potatoes and black truffles. She didn’t think that she was hungry, but found that she was ravenous when she tasted it. It was a good winter dish, and she marveled at his cooking again.

  “How did it go?” he asked her after a little while. She looked exhausted, after the meeting with the police and the long drive.

  “It was hard, but she was very composed and coherent. They say he’ll go to prison, where he belongs.” Norm nodded. He thought the idea of these men preying on women and particularly young girls was heinous. Hattie had given up her dreams of acting, the career she had studied for, and her freedom, to hide in the convent for eighteen years as a result. It was a lot to lose, and Melissa wasn’t sure that the life she had chosen had compensated for it. She was almost sure it hadn’t, and it was obvious she was having doubts now.

  Melissa was grateful to nestle in Norm’s arms that night.

  The next day, after he left for work, she was at her desk paying bills when the phone rang, and she picked it up absentmindedly.

  A cheerful “Hi, Mom!” came through the receiver, and for a minute she assumed the caller had the wrong number. The greeting was unfamiliar, and suddenly she realized who it was. It was Michaela. She had just called to chat. Melissa smiled broadly once she knew who it was.

  “Well, this is a nice surprise. How’s everything in L.A.?”

  “Crazy busy before Christmas. We can’t wait to come see you.”

  “I can’t wait to have you.” The normalcy of the conversation almost made up for the past week of Hattie’s miseries. Michaela had no particular news, she said she just wanted to hear her mother’s voice. It reminded Melissa again of how much Hattie had done for her. And she wished she could do more for her in exchange now. Hattie was on a silent retreat so she couldn’t call her, nor could Hattie call out.