She only hesitated a moment. Already, her sense of self as someone who made her own decisions about such matters had begun to fall away. Paradoxically, even though no one had actually hurt her physically, she still felt completely helpless. The mere threat of violence had stripped away that self-possessed “in charge” feeling she’d had as a television newscaster.
She went over to him and began to unbutton his shirt. He was tall and strongly built. The way he looked down on her and held her eyes with his own made her feel like a little girl in front of him.
He had a thick mat of chest hair, with just a bit of gray beginning to encroach across the area where his nipples were. He was very lean, not an ounce of fat anywhere. She undid his belt buckle, opened the button at the top and pulled down the zipper. The pants fell to the floor and he slipped off his shoes and kicked the pants away. Then he sat down and held up first one foot and then the next for her to remove his socks. He stood back up. She could see he was already aroused.
“Keep going,” he said.
She slipped her hands under the sides of his shorts and pulled them down. He sat back in the chair, unselfconscious at his arousal.
“Now you,” he said.
She stepped back and took her own clothes off. Somehow it felt different, having him already naked. It was the first time she hadn’t had to take her clothes off in front of people fully dressed. She wondered if he’d planned it deliberately in order to make her feel more at ease.
He took her hand and led her into the shower. He liked the water hot and they stood under it together for a long time. She soaped him down all over, feeling him grow in her hand when she got to that part. It was all like something she was watching on TV, something happening to someone else.
Then he turned the water off and they got out and she toweled him down, then he did the same for her.
“Can’t wait much longer,” he said. He turned her around so her back was to him and pushed her down until she was lying over the back of one of the stuffed chairs.
“I like it from behind,” he said.
Then he was in her and she felt that sense of helplessness again. Every bit of what was the private part of Kitty Wells was under someone else’s control, like the first time she’d been examined by a male doctor when she was sixteen. He’d been a young doctor and good-looking. It was the first time she had experienced the red flush. The man hadn’t said anything, but she could tell he was surprised and probably a little turned on. Even at sixteen, Kitty already knew the effect she had on men. Any man.
Now she felt that same heat rise once again as DeMaio pulled himself deep into her. She groaned and flushed red. His hands squeezed her tiny buttocks and he pushed harder and then came with an intensity that scared her. He made almost no sound, but she could feel the tension in the muscles of his legs as he spasmed again and again.
Then it was over. For the first time in her life she’d had sex with a man she hadn’t selected herself, on her own terms. He stayed on top of her, inside her for several minutes, his hands periodically stroking her back and thighs. Then he pulled out and wiped himself off with a towel.
Kitty slid down and sat in the chair, pulling her legs up and hugging them. Her skin had begun to return to its normal color. She was sore but couldn’t deny the arousal she had experienced. She was surprised once again how closely humiliation, helplessness, and arousal all played together. But still there was a part of her that seethed. To be treated like a thing, an object of pleasure. A possession. She was angry at herself for being aroused. It ran against everything she knew herself to be. Still, they would never own that final part of her, her anger. Not as long as she had breath in her body.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked. “I’ve got the weekend. We’ll do that a few more times before I have to leave.”
“Then what?” said Kitty.
“Don’t know. I might have to put you on my Rolodex.”
38
S
HEILA VOGLER’S CONCENTRATION ON THE
paper in her hands was total. Garrett knew to keep quiet until she was through reading. When she did, she sighed heavily and looked up, her eyes filled with sadness.
“What an awful man,” she said. “Why are there so many fathers like him in the world? Ought to be sterilized at birth, if we could only identify them.”
“No argument,” Garrett said. “So, I gather from your reaction that you agree the girl cannot be returned to him?”
She nodded. “You were right to get her examined as quickly as you did. There’s no question she was beaten. That gives us the power to take her away, at least temporarily.”
“Temporarily?”
“There will have to be a hearing. Depends to a certain extent on how far the father is willing to go to get her back. Some of them say good riddance and that’s the end of it. But when they hear they have to pay child support, they often decide to try to get them back. The girl makes money for him after all, by working in the store. If he can afford to hire a solicitor, we may have our hands full. But for right now, I can place her in a home.”
“My friend Sarah would like to take her,” said Garrett. “They’re already friends and Lila is also staying with Sarah. I think it would be a help to Ayesha to be in a familiar environment with people she knows.”
“Sounds like you’re trying to start a haven for troubled youth of your own,” said Sheila. “It’s taking on a lot, you know.”
Garrett waited. Saying anything more, he knew, would only jeopardize the plug he’d made.
Sheila tapped her pen on the desk in silence, then swiveled her chair and picked up the phone. She dialed and waited, asked for someone, then waited some more. Finally, she explained the situation to the person on the line and Garrett heard her say, pointedly, “We’re short on available homes right now, right? So, I may take another action in this case.” She listened some more, said “Thanks,” and hung up.
“All right. It’s a gamble, Garrett, but I’ll remand Ayesha into your and Sarah’s care for one month. Then we’ll do an evaluation. The tricky part is going to be school. She’s home-schooled. Is that something you and Sarah are prepared to take on?”
He shook his head. “Don’t believe in it myself. I’d rather put her in the local high school. Maybe she and Lila can go together. What Ayesha needs more than anything is a little exposure to the real world.”
“From what you’ve told me, she already got a dose of that from her time in the city with Lila.” She looked at him disapprovingly.
“Lila just wanted to show her the city. Showing off to her new friend, maybe the only one she’s ever really had, you know? She had no intention of going to Big Margaret’s. That was an accident of being seen in public. Lila swears she’ll never do anything like it again, and I believe her. She was really scared at being drawn back into that.”
“And if Lonnie hadn’t come along, that’s exactly where both girls would be,” Sheila said. “I only hope you’re reading Lila correctly. Remember what I told you about girls who are prostituted so young. They almost never escape the consequences.”
“Doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the chance.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t. Come back tomorrow and I’ll have you sign some papers. You’ll have to get Sarah to sign them too. I only hope it works, Garrett.”
“You and me both,” he said.
He headed in his car to the Holiday Inn near the center of the city. It was a mammoth convention center, one of the ritziest hotels in the province. He parked near a huge open green filled with soccer players and met Lonnie at the entrance.
“They probably require a press pass,” Garrett said. “My ID will get me inside, but you don’t exactly look like a member of the Fourth Estate, if you know what I mean.”
Lonnie smiled. “I’m just a poor reporter who happens to work out in the gym during his spare time, boss.”
“Amount of working out needed to look like you might give King Kong pause. Anyway, I want you out here in your car ready to go. Soon as the briefing is over, we need to follow our man. See where he goes.”
Lonnie nodded and turned for the car. “Bring me some of those fancy canapes.”
Inside, a crowd of some fifty or so news people milled about eating the aforementioned canapes. He’d been right about Lonnie. His cousin would have looked like a body-building ex-convict, a giant midst the blow-dried anchormen, barely-out-of-college environmentalists, and Kitty Wells-sized correspondents.
Garrett spied one of the more rumpled reporters chowing down in a corner. Ernie Sackett had written stories about Garrett’s various collars over the years. He lifted a glass of red wine in salute as Garrett came over.
“What are you doing here, Garrett? Slumming? You never come to these shindigs. You take a sudden interest in the safety of offshore drilling?”
“I’m interested in this guy, what’s his name? DeMaio? Know anything about him?”
Ernie shrugged. “Global Resources CEO. Usually don’t get a direct PR briefing from someone like him. A sign, I guess, that they’re feeling the pressure regarding the safety of their rigs that are so close to the coast. The hurricane’s sudden move toward shore gave a lot of people the willies, politicians included. No one wants another Gulf Coast-type oil spill. The forecasts have been for one of the busiest hurricane seasons in years.”
Garrett nodded, his gaze sweeping the room for any others he might know. He spotted two men in the back who looked out of place, the way Lonnie would have.
“Who are they?” he said, pointing the men out.
“You’ve still got the eye, I’ll say that,” Sackett said. “I spotted them right off. Government men. Don’t know why they’re here. Maybe they have an interest in DeMaio too. Word is he’s connected to the wrong kind of people, if you get my drift. Whole bloody company is if you ask me. Connected, I mean. There’ve been rumors about Global for years. Nobody’s proven anything though.”
Garrett smiled. “That’s why you’re here, Ernie. To blow the whistle on ’em.”
He tilted his glass in mock salute, then turned as a group of men entered the room and made their way to the podium.
“Which one’s DeMaio?” Garrett asked.
“Tall, lean guy in the two-thousand-dollar suit,” said Ernie, taking out a small tape recorder.
The new arrivals settled into chairs at the front and waited for the members of the press to be seated. Then a slight, nattily dressed man addressed the crowd.
“Thank you all for coming,” he said. “Global Resources is committed to being responsive to the press. The recent hurricane raised some concerns and we’re here to reassure the people of Nova Scotia that our rigs are the most advanced and safest anywhere in the world. Our CEO, Anthony DeMaio, will now answer your questions.”
Ernie was the first one to his feet. “Mr. DeMaio, we heard there was considerable damage to your rig off Lighthouse Point from the hurricane. Doesn’t this affirm what many were telling you when you fought to have that rig placed so close to shore?”
DeMaio smiled thinly. “Actually, the Lighthouse Point rig is not yet fully operational, so there really was no danger during the recent storm of anything like an oil spill. There was some damage from the high winds that has already been repaired.”
A woman stood across the room. “So you’re saying that once it does come online, there is potential for damage from a storm like this one?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” DeMaio snapped, looking miffed.
It was a more brittle answer than Garrett would have expected. The CEO was probably not a seasoned spokesman who entertained the press very often. This meeting had one reason only and that was to reassure the press and, through them, the public. That meant coddling them, really. DeMaio’s superior demeanor seemed out of place somehow.
“Global Resources has an exemplary safety record and we adhere absolutely to all safety and environmental regulations,” DeMaio continued.
“Except for the one that says rigs should not be within twenty miles of the coast,” said another reporter.
“We received special permission for Lighthouse Point, and the rigors of the environmental impact statements required were severe, over the top really, in our opinion. But we met them all. I would like to point out that none of our other rigs suffered serious damage during the recent hurricane.”
Garrett stood. He was no reporter, but having used his credentials to gain entry, he saw no reason not to take advantage of the opportunity. “I wonder if I might ask a slightly different question,” he said. “Can you explain why your Lighthouse Point rig has such unusual accommodations? Specifically, why there are Club Med-style rooms?”
DeMaio’s eyes seemed to bore into Garrett. “I don’t believe that information is accurate. Certainly not to my knowledge. Might I ask where you got this information?”
“I didn’t get the information from a source,” Garrett said. “I’ve seen the rooms myself.”
DeMaio looked startled for the first time. He leaned over and conferred with the man next to him. Then he straightened himself, almost looking like he was girding for battle. “I’m told,” he said, “that there are some upscale rooms at Lighthouse Point that are used for visits by officials from foreign nations interested in our facilities. We are a business, after all, and sell our state-of-the-art oil rigs to nations around the world.” He pointed at once to another reporter, cutting Garrett off from asking further questions.
But the explanation didn’t wash with Garrett. As CEO, DeMaio should have known about the special accommodations at Lighthouse Point, and Garrett felt certain that he did.
The meeting droned on for another fifteen minutes. Then DeMaio’s eyes met with those of the slight man who had introduced him and the man stood and thanked the crowd. Garrett felt DeMaio’s gaze wash over him as he left the podium and stopped to talk informally with reporters. This, Garrett assumed, was the schmooze part of the job.
He worked his way through the room over to where the two G-men stood. He nodded to them.
“Didn’t know there was interest in this matter by the intelligence services,” he said.
“And you would be?” said the bigger of the men.