Page 114 of Remember Me
Narrowing her eyes, the frizzy-haired woman fires me another disapproving look.
“Can you grab her crutches?”
Ten minutes later we’re signed out of the hospital.
***
The storm and fog now out to sea, we Uber to the house in less than an hour. I help her upstairs.
“I need to take a hot bath,” she tells me as I transport her to our bedroom. “Cleanse myself of that monster.”
That monster! Rage again surges inside me. I would have liked to have been the one to give him that bullet. Billings beat me to it. Too bad it didn’t kill him. Gravely injured, he, too, was airlifted to the hospital and immediately taken to surgery. For allI care, the sick fuck can take his last fetid breath and go to hell. Where he belongs.
A few minutes later, we’re in my sunken tub. Scented candles lit. The Jacuzzi jets on. Soothing every muscle of our tired bodies. Skye sits between my legs, her back to me, her head against my chest, as I gently sponge her. Running the soft object over her bruised flesh and scattered scars. Relishing every sensuous inch of her body.
Dropping the sponge into the bubbling water, I rub my hand over her belly, knowing there is a life form growing inside her. “Skye, the doctor told me,” I whisper against her neck.
Her hand meets mine as the other toys with her gold locket. “We’ll need to add a new photo.”
I hear the happiness in her voice. For the first time in over twenty-four hours, a smile lifts my lips. Knowing there will be a tomorrow, tonight I will hold her in my arms. Never let her go. About to kiss her, I hum a Springsteen song.
“Don’t Look Back.”
The future is ours.
CHAPTER 69
Skye
Six Months Later
Paris
“Maman! Papa! Regardez-moi! Je danse sur le pont!”
The sweet raspy voice calls out to us, the French accent perfect.
My heart warms as I watch my pigtailed daughter frolic across Paris’s majestic Pont Royal, swinging Kangy and her baby Joey. She’s wearing the big yellow hat and royal blue coat that I bought her for her fifth birthday. MyMadeline! The coat, which hung on her then, now fits her perfectly. My little girl is getting big!
Finn squeezes my hand as we trail her. “She’s something,” he says, love and pride brimming in his voice.
“Yup.”
“Just like her mother. Smart, beautiful, and brave.”
I feel myself blush. “And artistic like her father.”
To my joy, Finn’s career has continued to soar. Without Kayla, who’s disappeared from the art scene. His first show in Paris at a prestigious Left Bank gallery sold out, each painting commanding six figures. Later this year, we will be going to Art Basel in Switzerland, the premier art show of Europe that brings together the who’s who of the art world, and then to Hong Kong where Finn’s work is in high demand among wealthy Chinese art collectors.
As we walk across the bridge hand in hand, our fingers entwined, I take in the magnificent City of Light and think howlucky I am to be here with my family. I almost lost my life—not once, but twice. One tragic night I may never completely remember; the other I will never forget. As I look down at the Seine, a tourist boat cruises under the bridge. People of all ages are clamoring on the two decks, enjoying the sights of the city and the mild spring weather. I shudder. Six months ago I was hanging over the deck of a yacht in the Pacific Ocean, facing a dark, stormy sea. And a more tumultuous future. Possibly none. With Sheldon Greenberg pinning me against the railing, holding a gun to the base of my neck, I was minutes away from being shark chum. To my horror, the squad of police boats, which had come to apprehend my assailant, retreated. Unbeknownst to me, it was all part of a carefully executed but risky plan. The helicopter that I’d heard overhead earlier didn’t fly off. Rather, while the distracting bellow of police sirens sounded below, it stealthily landed on the yacht’s helicopter pad. Inside it was LAPD’s infamous homicide detective, Pete Billings. And my husband. Both armed and wearing bulletproof vests.
About to say adieu to my life, I heard a gunshot. Cold and nauseated, I couldn’t understand why I felt no pain. Perhaps death was numbing. In my last moments of consciousness, the night of my near-fatal car crash flashed into my head. I wasn’t even going to take the fleeting memory to my grave because I knew my body this time would never be found. I’d never see my husband or daughter again. Nor would I ever see Greenberg rot in hell.
Darkness claimed me. It wasn’t until I came to in my husband’s arms moments later that I learned that Billings had nailed Greenberg with one shot. A bullet to his lower back. No, it didn’t kill him. Death was too good for him. Instead, the bullet shattered his spine, leaving him quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his sorry life. It was a perfect punishment for the predatorymonster. Groping women and forcing them to have sex with him will never happen again. He has no use of his limbs, and his dick is as useless as tits on a bull.
His confession—all of it—was caught on tape via the smart watch Billings had given me. Both his attempt on my life and his sexual assault of Nicole Farrell. I, who reported news, was now headline news. Soon after my Pulitzer-nominated story appeared on the cover ofVanity Fair,women came out of the woodwork like termites and told the media of how Sheldon had harassed them and/or assaulted them. The first was actress Zoey Taylor, who shared how Sheldon had once propositioned her when she was a masseuse. Then, another after another and not just actresses. The list ranged from writers, directors, and assistants to a FedEx driver, a hotel waitress, and even his proctologist’s nurse. A thirty year history of sexual harassment and abuse. His actions disgusting, appalling, and unconscionable, running the gamut from masturbating in front of his victims to forcing them to have kinky sex with him... and everything revolting in between.
All of us testified at his trial, all of us sitting together in the courtroom and wearing black in solidarity. The world had to know about the atrocities we’d suffered at the hands of this monster. The shame and pain we’d endured. The #RememberMeToos we called ourselves. Clad in an ill-fitting orange jumpsuit, a dissipated Sheldon sat in the front in his wheelchair with his lawyer, his head bowed down the entire time, unable to face us. When the no-nonsense female judge read him his sentence—one hundred seventy years in prison with no chance of parole—he looked up briefly and muttered, “I’m sorry.” The bastard couldn’t even say the two words to our faces. In unison, we gave him the finger.