Authors: Renee Simons
"And?" he prompted. "Are you afraid?"
"Yes."
"Didn't it occur to you that you'd be putting yourself in danger?"
Clasping her hands together didn't prevent their trembling. "I don't know if I really thought about it at all, in the beginning..."
"I can't help wondering if you have any regrets about taking the step."
Jordan
thought about Ethan and Terence and her parents and all the people she'd never known who'd been hurt by Anthony Volpe. Something surged within her - a feeling that her actions had been inevitable, as inevitable as their consequences, whatever they might be. "No." Her voice had steadied, along with her resolve. "The truth must be told."
"I wish you luck." He turned to the camera. "We'll be back after these words from our sponsors."
Jordan
spent a sleepless night after the appearance on the Curt Fellows show. His questions and her answers echoed ominously inside her head, allowing her no rest. She sat at her window for a long time, then wandered downstairs to the library, where nothing tempted or distracted her. Even a mug of warm milk didn’t help. Finally she moved to the dining room window and looked out at a street empty of all life except the police officer in the surveillance car struggling to stay awake while his partner dozed.
At nearly dawn the phone rang and she ran to pick up the receiver before anyone woke. She whispered softly into the mouthpiece and an equally soft voice caressed her ear.
"That was some performance, Baby Doll. Almost as good as the one in my office. Your old man would've been proud."
The false gentleness of his tone chilled her. She knew his potential for cruelty. "I'm gonna get you, only this time you won't have him to come let you off the hook." She heard a click and the phone went dead in her hand.
Back in the library she curled up in a corner of the sofa. So there it is, she thought. I know him and now he knows me. She closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against the cool leather. It wasn't so bad - knowing what could happen.
Surely her father had understood the ramifications of straddling both sides of the fence. When he'd come to the farm, he could have had no doubt about how things would end. But he'd done what needed doing, what he'd thought was right. With his face before her, and the first rays of morning sunlight peeking through the drapes, she finally fell asleep.
A whiff of strong, hot coffee woke her. Through one open eye she glimpsed Ethan sitting on the edge of the sofa, passing a cup of the aromatic beverage back and forth beneath her nose.
She smiled sleepily. "Why the special treatment?"
"You were up most of the night. To wake you any other way seemed unnecessarily cruel." She took the cup from him and sipped the steaming liquid. "Who was on the phone?" he asked.
"Wrong number."
"Why do you have to lie? Why can't you, after all this time, trust me?"
She had trusted him with her heart and her body. Why not this? "First promise you won’t do anything." He nodded though his reluctance was obvious. "It was Volpe."
"What did he want?"
"Just engaging in a little harmless baiting, that's all."
"That's all?" She could see he was finding it difficult to stay calm. "That's enough!"
"Ethan, you promised."
He shook his head. "This isn't the first time I've made a promise only to regret it later."
"I refuse to let the man get to me, and you mustn't either. The trial is only days away. We have to hold out until then." She touched his arm. "Please?"
"I promise to try, love, but I can't help being concerned when you seem hell-bent on destruction."
"Have you been talking to Dominique again?"
"Nope. I may be stupid, but I'm not bonkers."
She smiled. "You're neither, as far as I can tell."
"I'm glad you see it that way." He took the cup with one hand and hoisted her to her feet with the other. "Now, go on up and have your shower. Mrs. Willis is holding breakfast for you."
A day or two later, the last strategy meeting took place at the house. Lieutenant Torres lifted all restrictions on
Jordan
’s comings and goings, but kept in place the surveillance team at the house. The other trailed discreetly behind her or her car at all times as she moved about within the city.
Sgt. O'Keefe asked
Jordan
to come down to the police station and try to identify some of her father's mob contacts. One or two faces looked familiar, but she didn't think she'd been of any real help.
"It was worth a shot," the officer said. "Thanks for taking the time."
Exhausted after an entire morning of looking at mug books, she left the building, nodded at the surveillance team and got into her car. A package wrapped in emerald green paper topped with a shiny gold bow the size of a cabbage rose filled the passenger seat.
Despite her raging curiosity, she decided to wait before looking inside. When she opened the box and laid the object on the bed, she was grateful for the privacy of her room.
To a casual observer the baby doll with its mint green dress and lacy bonnet would have seemed perfectly harmless. To her it meant that Volpe's assault on her senses had begun. She returned the doll to its bed of tissue, replaced the cover and placed the box at the back of her closet.
After arriving home from dinner with Ethan the following evening, she found another sitting on her dresser. With a pounding heart and trembling hands, she dashed to the closet and pulled out the box, posing both play things side by side on the edge of the dresser. They were identical except for a broken finger on the new "present."
"I wonder if he got it cheap because it's damaged," she muttered, knowing the doll had probably been perfect at the time of purchase.
How had Volpe or, more likely, someone in his employ twice gotten past the surveillance team? The warning voice she had managed to beat into submission on numerous occasions spoke again, urging her to tell Dominique. Three more dolls came in rapid succession. She knew she would have to inform the task force.
They had gathered in a conference room across the hall from Dominique's office to discuss strategy for the trial, slated to begin in one week. Present were Ethan, Drew, the lawyer Wallace Patterson, Lieutenant Torres, Captain Mahan and Dominique.
Throughout the discussion with its rapid fire exchange of ideas,
Jordan
found concentrating difficult. Tired from too little sleep, preoccupied by the need to be in control of a situation clearly beyond her control, she doodled on a yellow legal pad and sipped black coffee. Occasionally, she struggled up through the maze of conflicting thoughts in which her mind foundered.
Once the talk centered on Ethan's testimony, once around Drew's. Captain Mahan expressed reservations about Drew's effectiveness as a witness. Dominique felt certain she could counteract any negative feelings the jury might experience over his homosexuality, by making the fact known during his testimony. Finally,
Jordan
’s turn came.
As Dominique prepared to question her, a knock sounded on the door. An officer entered the room with a package. "This just came for Ms. VanDien," he said to Captain Mahan.
"Did you check it out?" the Captain asked.
The patrolman smiled. "Well, it isn't ticking, if that's what you mean."
Glaring at the young police officer, Lieutenant Torres, took the delivery and placed it on the table, then resumed his place beside
Jordan
. Ethan rose as if to come to her but Mahan held him back. Finally, she tore apart the wrapping. She worked slowly, deliberately. Why hurry. After all, she had a pretty good idea of the contents. Finally, she tipped the box toward her to see what was inside.
The object was an ugly perversion of the dolls Tony had sent before. While he'd damaged each one in some way, this barely resembled the others. He'd smashed it beyond recognition, except for its dress of bridal white and the great, shining glass eyes staring up at her, eloquently frozen in time.
She knew that tomorrow or the next day he would find her and try to destroy her as he had this innocent toy. She sighed, silently pushing the box toward Torres, who removed the doll and with a vicious curse slammed it down on the table.
"What in damnation is that?" Mahan asked.
"Me."
"What's going on?" Dominique asked softly. "Who sent that - thing?"
Jordan
’s eyes shifted to her. "Volpe."
"What have you been hiding from us?"
Ethan leaned forward. "Has this been going on since the phone call." She merely nodded. "You bloody fool." He shook his head. "I think you are trying to get yourself killed. Or you wouldn't have let it go on."
"What phone call, Ethan?" Dominique asked. When he explained, she turned back to
Jordan
. "Talk."
"Not in front of them,"
Jordan
insisted.
"Here and now. As is."
Ethan spoke up. "Some of this could be quite... sensitive. Why don't you give her a break, Dominique?"
She motioned to the lieutenant, who left the room briefly, returning with a policewoman carrying a stenotype machine.
Jordan
gave Dominique a questioning look as the officer made ready.
"Your break," she replied with a shrug. "You'll only have to tell your story once."
Chapter 13
Jordan
stared at the officer for a moment more, then turned to Dominique. "You don't need her. I can say it all in two sentences."
"Okay. Say it."
"When I was fifteen I was raped. By Volpe."
In a room of people involved daily with the violent side of life, who'd had ample evidence of the cruelty of humans to their own kind, the statement shouldn't have been a shock. But the dead silence told her it had exactly the effect she had always dreaded.
Dominique pressed. "And the doll?"
"That's what he called me...Baby Doll. Over and over. When I demanded he use my name he said he didn't know it, and didn't want to. It was a job and to do a job right, you had to be impersonal. Later, I was glad. I would have changed my name rather than have it remind me of him."
She motioned to the box. "He sent several of these, each damaged in a different way to let me know what his plans are. His way of wearing me down." She sighed and rubbed her temples. "It worked."
"Why didn't you tell us about him?"
She glanced around the room. Those at the table looked everywhere but at her. Only Ethan's gaze met hers, holding promise of support despite his disapproval of what she'd done. Did he understand what a victory over fear their lovemaking had been?
"I was afraid you'd treat me differently if you knew. That you'd prevent me from continuing with Conlon and from avenging my father's death."
"And your mother?"
Jordan
didn't answer.
"What about your mother?" Dominique repeated. "What happened to her?"
"If you checked on me, you know the answer to that."
"Tell us."
She shook her head. "No."
"
Jordan
..." Dominique's voice coaxed. "We need it all."
"Damn you! I'm not the enemy. I refuse to bare my soul before the world." She pushed back her chair and went to the window, staring out but seeing nothing.
Wallace spoke up for the first time. "Just consider this a preview of the trial."
She turned to him. "What do you mean?"