by C. J. Lyons
From the smirk on Littleton’s face, I had a pretty good feeling how “a bunch of spiders” ended up in Tymara’s bed. In his warped, narcissistic world, Littleton actually believed Tymara had been attracted to him.
“I saved her,” Littleton went on, his lips curling and gaze tilting up, as if he was imagining something. “She owed me for that. She liked it rough, wanted me to do her in the worst way. Me and her, we were like this.” He held up two fingers, crossed as if for luck.
“That night, that was the first time you were ever together? And the last? How does it make you feel, knowing she’s gone?” If I could crack his delusion, he might give me more. Power-reassurance rapists start out stalking their victims, creating a fantasy love affair. The rape is, in their warped imagination, a much-anticipated date. Until their fairytale ending doesn’t play out.
“What do you mean, how do I feel?” Littleton replied. “I loved Tymara.”
He got a distant look on his face, and his hands jerked at the chains securing him to the table. Reliving his fantasy. It took everything I had to disguise my grimace of disgust.
“Loved her and lost her. That’s us. Romeo and Juliet. Star-crossed lovers.” Littleton opened his eyes wide and stared at the camera with a grin, playing to his unseen audience.
I tried to steer him to the information I needed. “Those other men. You trusted them with the woman you loved.”
“Share and share alike. That’s what brothers do.”
“Brothers?”
He gave a slow nod, his gaze never leaving the monitor. “Not everyone is created equal.”
I frowned, trying to follow his line of reasoning. “Tymara. She wasn’t equal?”
“Got to pay to play.”
“I don’t understand. You loved Tymara. But you knew, somewhere deep down inside, you knew she’d never love you. That’s why you let other men torture her, sodomize her, beat her, rape her. To punish her for not loving you?”
Littleton narrowed his eyes, glaring at me in silence, assessing a piece of meat: Me. My shudder was involuntary and left in its wake shimmers of color. The fugue I’d fought off earlier threatening to return at the worst possible moment.
“I don’t know nothing about that.” His smirk said exactly the opposite. “Besides, you’re here for me to talk to, not the other way around. We just wanted to let you know there are consequences. Serious consequences, doctor. I were you, I wouldn’t be going around asking more questions about Tymara. You won’t like the answers that come knocking.”
Littleton braced his weight on his shackled hands, leaning as close to me as he could. I was fighting my fugue, battling it for control of my body, leaving me no strength to reply.
Giving Littleton exactly what he wanted. He thought I was frozen in terror. Glee filled his eyes, making them glint in the harsh overhead light. Sparks rained down from the ceiling, showered us both, quivering and hanging in midair.
“Bet you’re afraid of spiders, too, aren’t you, Dr. Rossi? Might want to check under your pillow tonight.”
Chapter 14
BEFORE I COULD begin to process Littleton’s threat, Ryder burst into the room and grabbed him, hauling him back, and forcing him back into his chair with a thud that rattled the table. I felt the opposite of an adrenaline rush. Instead of being propelled into action, I was frozen in place, my brain sluggishly struggling against my fugue as my limbs iced over.
Two guards rushed in, one helping Ryder, the other joining me. Ryder straightened and looked over his shoulder at me, his face a mix of worry and fury.
Ryder’s hand grazed my arm, his fingers trailing against my skin. Tiny thrills of electricity spread through my body, warring with the frigid chill holding me hostage. Thankfully, the fugue released me and I was free to move again.
He nodded to the guard, who escorted me past him and out the door. When I looked back, Ryder took the seat opposite Littleton, an amiable smile now masking his true feelings. His game face. I’d seen it before, but it always amazed me how he could shut down his emotions faster than flicking a light switch.
“You okay, ma’am?” the guard asked as he closed the door, locking Ryder inside with Littleton.
I slumped against the wall. “I’m fine.” My voice wasn’t too bad, not shaky at all, so I tried it again. “Thanks.”
I couldn’t manage anything more, so I walked into the observation room, passing Gena as she joined Ryder and her client. Harsh institutional fluorescents beamed onto us, but every shadow seemed to radiate heat and color, shimmering into a mosaic of neon.
My meds were wearing off early. Stress of the trial, lack of exercise, skipped lunch—so many factors trying to force my body off this tightrope I walked without a net. Last thing I needed was to start gulping down pills in front of Manny.
Ryder’s voice, calm, friendly even, hummed through the monitor, soothing my pulse. “The only way you get out of here, Eugene, is by talking. So go ahead, tell me everything.”
Littleton began to spin a tale of his and Tymara’s love affair, punctuated with fake outbursts of anger at the “bastards who hurt my lady.” Never mentioning names, insisting Tymara’s attack occurred after he left her, and that he had no idea who had brutalized his “girlfriend.” It would look good on paper, although the video revealed his scoffing smirk. Total waste of time.
It was all for nothing. There’d be no justice served today.
My stomach rebelled at the idea. I had to get out of here, get to a safe place to take my meds before my body seized up once again.
The neurologists have a fancy name for it: an oneiric state. A fugue, in which my body becomes catatonic, while my brain keeps working on overdrive. The first time it happened, I was holding the heart of a nun who had been shot in the chest. I froze and she died. I told myself she would have died no matter what. Useless, empty words.
Breathing slow and deep, I gathered my strength. I pushed up from the chair and edged to the door.
Manny, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, shoulders slumped as he watched Gena steer her client clear of anything resembling testimony that would help build a case against Tymara’s killers, didn’t turn away from the monitor.
“Guess you picked a good time to go on sabbatical,” he said, his gaze fixed forward as I fumbled for the doorknob. “Nice you won’t have to see the results of your fuckup.”
It was a fight to stay on my feet, but my anger trumped my physical symptoms. “You’re blaming me?”
He shot me a glare lanced with disdain.
“You son of a bitch. I told you Tymara was scared for her life. I begged you to give her protection, but you wouldn’t listen. You never would have gone on with the trial if it hadn’t been for me insisting. Littleton would have walked anyway.”
“Fat lot of good it did,” he snapped. “Making me look a fool in front of Judge Shaw.”
“Did you notice Littleton’s choice of pronouns in there? He said we. Which means there will be more victims. Maybe there already have been, and we just haven’t found them yet. Have you thought of that?”
“None of your business. Not anymore. Seems to me you’d best listen to his warning. Stay clear of all this. Go on vacation, your sabbatical, whatever the hell that means.”
I started to leave, then turned back, my emotions getting the best of me. “How convenient for Littleton to suddenly hire a lawyer like Gena Kravitz who happens to be sleeping with the prosecution. Who’s paying her, Manny? The Brotherhood? Are they paying you, too?”
The words shot out before I could think them through. With more speed than I would have imagined, Manny was across the room, shoving me back against the door.
I knew how to defend myself. Years working in the ER and hanging out with cops had taught me tricks that could put a man on the floor quickly. But I’d also learned that sometimes words were a far better weapon. Especially when I couldn’t depend on my body, like now.
“How much was Tymara’s life worth?” I asked him, his face mere in
ches from mine, his mouth open as if he were about to either scream or devour me. I wasn’t even certain what I was accusing him of. All I knew was that the fury building since I discovered Tymara’s body needed a target, and Manny was an easy one to hit. “How much was your honor worth?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. Get out.” Spittle sprayed my face as he hurled the words at me. His hands flew open, releasing me as his body lurched back a step. “Get out. Now.”
I twisted the doorknob and yanked the door open, backing out of the room, still facing Manny. How much of our loss today was his fault? I wondered. I’d been so busy blaming myself, trying to find new options to keep Tymara’s case alive, I hadn’t really thought of Manny’s role in all this.
Maybe he’d never intended to win this case.
I stumbled down the hall, back through security, to the courthouse on the other side of the pedestrian bridge. It was only after I’d locked myself into the safe tile and metal cocoon of a closet-sized women’s room that I allowed myself to sag against the sink, legs wobbling, ready to collapse.
Could Manny really be working for the men who raped and killed Tymara? I’d never liked the prosecutor, didn’t appreciate his idea that this was all just a game, a contest, rather than lives at stake. But helping men—no, not men…vicious animals—get away with rape and murder? Could the Brotherhood be so powerful that they could corrupt a prosecutor, taint a trial?
My entire body shook. Emotion combined with another fugue. Splashing water on my face helped a little. I fumbled through my bag. My fingers paused over my new prescription, the PXA. Two fugues coming on back-to-back. Was it worth it? Should I try it now?
No. Things weren’t that bad. Not yet.
Instead, I grabbed my small makeup case. I didn’t wear makeup, other than the occasional lipstick. The case was filled with plastic pillboxes containing a variety of assorted medications. They weren’t labeled. I knew them all by heart.
Cupping my hand and filling it with water, I downed two Ritalins and added a longer-acting Adderall for good measure. After swallowing the pills, I sank to the floor, my back to the door. My phone vibrated, a text from Devon. PICK YOU UP AT FIVE, DON’T FORGET. IT’S IMPORTANT.
Right. His urgent medical consultation. As long as it didn’t involve his father, Daniel Kingston. I couldn’t handle that argument, not today. I slid the phone back into my bag. The pills would start working soon. Soon. The word whirled through my mind, creating colors and shapes behind my eyelids, music playing with the syllables, permeations of half-lives, pharmaceutical equations, digestive process timing, pill disintegration, all coalescing in an abstract biochemical equation my mind processed with the ease of blinking. Things I couldn’t do in normal time, but I had left normal time far behind.
I tried to raise the little finger of my right hand, not surprised when my body didn’t obey. I’d crossed over into the fugue state, the echoes of color swallowing my awareness, my mind clearer, sharper, faster than ever—but my body beyond my control. Terror and exhilaration warred within me.
While my body was frozen, my mind rewound time with whiplash speed, dissecting every word, movement, and nuance of expression that had occurred in the courtroom and later in the interview room. The judge’s perfume was an old-fashioned lilac scent, similar to the one my third-grade teacher had worn. Jacob was missing a button from his left shirtsleeve. One of the jurors had a deviated septum, giving him a slight whistle when he breathed. Details my brain overlooked at the time now flashed before me as I relived every moment.
Pupils dilating, flushes, furtive touches to lips and neck: Manny and Gena were involved, I was certain.
Finally, I saw what Ryder had seen while I was testifying—and more. Littleton had been waiting for a chance to act out, throw the case if it didn’t go his way. But how had he known the chance would come? Did he know the judge was already leaning toward a mistrial because of Tymara being unable to testify?
Had this entire trial been orchestrated by the men behind Tymara’s assault? Littleton’s so-called brothers. Did they have that kind of power?
There had to be a way to stop them.
My hand twitched. Pins and needles shot through my thighs, put to sleep by the hard tile floor. I opened my eyes and slowly stretched my cramped muscles as the fugue released its grip on my body. I glanced at my watch. Twelve minutes had passed. In my mind, it felt like seconds.
To my body, it felt like days.
I grabbed on to the edge of the sink and hauled myself up. Leaning against the wall, I waited for my legs to stop shaking. I risked a glance into the mirror.
My face looked normal. How could that be? It felt like everything behind the face was so alien, so out of control. Yet, there I was, same as always.
Maybe it was good to have a reliable mask, to be able to fool the world, just like I’d fooled everyone in the courtroom this morning. Let them all think I was the same old, capable, dependable Angela, the woman with all the answers who never stopped fighting for her patients.
Fool them all into thinking I actually had a future.
Chapter 15
JACOB VOORSANGER COULDN’T pinpoint the exact moment he had sold his soul. That bothered him.
If his father could talk, could form a cogent thought inside the shriveled shell of a body that refused to release its stranglehold on life, he’d be delighted to point out the moment when Jacob fell from grace and ruined everything.
For Abraham Voorsanger, that moment would probably have been the instant Jacob left his rabbinical studies and decided to practice law. Or when Jacob fell in love with Angela Rossi and asked her to marry him.
A marriage that took place inside this very courthouse before a judge in the presence of two witnesses: Angie’s sister Eve and Jacob’s roommate from college. The disapproving older generations from both sides had been conspicuously absent in silent protest.
Jacob paused his pacing, ignoring the late-afternoon traffic-court penitents who streamed through the courthouse’s large oak doors and passed him on their way through security. If he hadn’t become a lawyer, hadn’t fallen in love, he wouldn’t be in this situation now. He tried to follow the permutations of choice back to their roots, only to get lost in the maze of logic.
Footsteps echoed around him. Someone’s heels—a woman, delicately built, he guessed from the sound—struck a perfect cadence. She laughed, short and sweet, the sound echoing against the marble floor, a tone that swirled through Jacob like rays of sunshine, making him lift his face and listen until it faded into obscurity, drowned out by the dull thuds of the rest of the crowd.
Meeting Angie, being with her, was like that sound. Pure, light, effortless.
Maybe that was where he went wrong. He should have put more effort into them, less into himself and his career. He’d let her do too much of the heavy lifting.
Idiot. Fool. Blind, stupid, fool. He shook his head, scanned the crowd. Still no sign of Angie. He resumed his pacing across the courthouse rotunda.
He may not have gone to shul for years, but he still studied the Talmud each week, especially the Nezikin. As well as the Christian Bible and the Quran. Often, he learned as much from the religious texts and commentaries as he did from the Law Review and judicial proceedings.
Long ago, Jacob had given up any hope of being a great man, or even a good man. Now, he was merely trying his best to be a just man.
Looked like he’d failed at that as well. He could almost hear Abraham’s disapproval ring through his mind despite the fact that the old man hadn’t spoken a coherent word in the year since the Alzheimer’s swallowed him whole.
A woman’s voice sang through the noise surrounding him. Angie. He spotted her at the security desk, returning her visitor’s pass. She shrugged the strap of her bag onto her shoulder, one hand gripping the handle as if fearful of theft, even here in this bastion of law and order.
Her footsteps dragged. She looked tired, weary even. But despite that, she gave off
an indefinable energy, a vibe that to him translated into passion, the passion she threw into everything. The passion she’d once shared with him.
He blew out his breath. It fogged in the chill, pine-scented, almost-Christmas air before drifting away. He jogged over to join her. “How’d it go?”
She didn’t answer right away. Her skin was flushed, and she was sweating despite the draft in the rotunda. She turned to take a deep drink from the water fountain, and for an instant, he wondered if his actions earlier had worse consequences than he’d imagined. Had he lost her for good? But she tilted her face up to meet his gaze, and he was reassured.
“Well?” Nervous energy propelled him to take three steps and stand on her other side, where he had more room to fidget. “Did he give it up?”
“He refused to name names.”
He slumped against the wall, his eyes sliding shut for a brief moment. “Damn.”
“Littleton’s going to walk. Time served.”
“Manny let him plead out?” His sacrifice had been for nothing.
“Yes.” She pursed her lips, as if holding back a secret.
He had a sinking feeling he knew what that secret was: She was disappointed in him, that he who’d lectured her so often and so freely on ethics had turned his back on his own.
She surprised him with a question rather than a recrimination. “If you can try a case without the victim, you could do it without a witness, right?”
“Depends. On the other evidence, the other witnesses, circumstances as to why they can’t appear.” He squinted at her. “You know all this. Why are you asking?”
“Nothing.” She walked past him toward the doors.
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
“Didn’t drive.”
“Then you walk me to my car. I’ll give you a lift.” He was beside her, reaching for her satchel. She considered, then slipped her head free from the strap of the battered old messenger bag. He’d found it for her in a secondhand shop near their first apartment. He loved the thick leather, impervious to time or weather. Unlike their marriage.
