stinging inside her. Her face throbbed from his blows. She wanted to vomit. She was eighteen years old, too young, too young, and yet there was no one else to help her. She might as well have been alone with a dead man.
What to do?
She managed to rise. She felt herself begin to tremble, knew she was about to lose control, just as Sydney had. She couldn’t allow it. She walked to the ornate telephone and picked it up. She stared at it, wondering how to ask for the police in French. Her hand shook; she stopped it. She drew a deep breath. She got a good grip on herself, and said when the operator came onto the line,
Suddenly the prince groaned.
4
Lindsay was on her knees vomiting into the toilet when the police came running into the suite. She staggered to her feet, clutching a blanket around her. Her mouth tasted bitter and dry. Sydney was standing now, pale and still, the .32-caliber pistol in her hand again, and she was staring down at her husband, who was still lying nude on the bedroom carpet, covered with blood, moaning.
Lindsay was aware of men staring at her, at Sydney, at the prince, taking it in. She pulled the blanket more tightly around her. Her face hurt, her insides burned, and her stomach was roiling. She couldn’t speak, just stared back at them. She heard Sydney sobbing, saw two more men carry in a collapsible gurney. They put the prince on it, covered him, and wheeled him out. Lindsay’s last view of him was of a man with a gray face, black hair plastered with sweat to his head, and he was moaning. There was a man from the hotel, obviously, because he was very nearly distraught, chattering wildly, wringing his hands.
One of the policemen, a young man with thick black hair and a huge mustache, strode toward Lindsay. She backed away, one hand in front of her to ward him away. It was instinctive. He slowed, spoke to her, his voice low, but she couldn’t understand his words. She couldn’t understand anything. One of the other men said in English, “You are too ill to walk. He will carry you,
Okay? That was crazy. Said with a thick French accent it sounded even crazier. She closed her eyes when the man picked her up and carried her to the elevator, through the lavish lobby of the George V, to the police car whose front tires sat on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. She lay against him, aware of the siren, aware of the low talk between him and the two men in the front seat. There were avid faces pressing against the police-car windows and there were loud voices. She turned her face inward. This was reality and she couldn’t bear it. She wondered where Sydney was. She felt the pain building inside her, the horror of what had happened to her, of what she had allowed to happen to her. She couldn’t seem to stop shivering, but she knew she wasn’t cold. The man who was holding her continued to speak quietly. She heard his words, but she saw the prince’s ghastly gray face, saw the people’s greedy faces as they’d tried to get closer.
The police officer carried her into the emergency room of St. Catherine’s Hospital—she saw the huge sign— and then into one of the small curtained cubicles. He laid her onto an examining table. She was shaking, her teeth chattering, clutching the blanket to her like a lifeline, clutching now at him. He spoke more, then pulled her arms away from him. He left. A nurse leaned over her and she understood the word
But it didn’t help. One of the men just held her down. The other man jerked off the blanket and tossed it to the floor. Then he was bending her legs and pushing them back toward her chest. They were speaking to her, both of them, but she didn’t understand.
Lindsay reared up, sent her fist into the doctor’s jaw, and sent him staggering back, flailing his arms to keep his balance, knocking over an instrument tray. She tried to grab the blanket, but it was out of her reach. Suddenly there was another man, and the three of them held her down. Her legs were pushed back again and one of the men was holding them back and apart. The nurse was beside her again, her hand lightly stroking her cheek, trying to quiet her. But Lindsay saw those men, and all three of them were looking at her between the legs and touching her and then one of them suddenly stuck two fingers inside her and she felt raw pain rip through her and she screamed and tried to jerk back on the cold table. Then she felt his fingers curling deep inside her. She screamed and screamed but he didn’t stop. He scooped her out and she was watching his face, seeing him nod to the other doctor as he looked down at the fingers that had been in her body.
The nurse looked angry and she said something sharp to the men. One of them said something sharp back to her even as he pushed a long instrument into Lindsay’s vagina.
The probing went on and on, an instrument inserted and withdrawn, cold and hard and thick, and the talk between the men with an occasional curt word from the nurse. Lindsay saw their frowns and their nods through a haze of pain and humiliation. She felt it burning deep into her. She felt a needle slide into her hip. It felt cold. One of the men patted her thigh as if she was some sort of pet or child. Then she felt nothing else.
She awoke alone in a private room. She was naked from the waist down, her legs sprawled. She cried out, lurching up, but the men weren’t here, only a nurse, who was washing her with warm soapy water.
The woman was young and pretty and she smiled and lightly patted Lindsay’s stomach, her fingers damp and warm. She said in very clear, unaccented English, “No, please don’t be afraid. Just hold still, yes, that’s it. Lie back. They said I could finally clean you up. The doctors got all the evidence they needed and made certain you weren’t hurt internally. I’m so sorry, but I’ll give you another shot in a minute, after I’m done washing you and you’ve taken your pills. We don’t want you to get pregnant from this. That’s right, just hold still. No, no more crying. You’re still suffering from shock, which is completely natural. Ah, those damned doctors, they scared you badly, didn’t they? Stupid men, and after what had happened to you! Giselle said they didn’t go easy with you. They have no understanding of what you’ve been through and they were so very busy.”
Lindsay thought: I’m lying here naked and a stranger is washing me and I’ve been raped and Sydney shot her husband and he’s dead. It was simply too much. She closed her eyes, wishing she could also close out all the vicious and bloody images burned into her memory. The woman continued to speak, telling her about how they’d had to deal with her along with a three-car accident and this handsome young man—an American, just like she was—and his poor broken arm. The doctors really hadn’t meant to be so rough, but there had been so little time and others were hurt far worse than she was.
Yes, a crushed body from a car accident was far worse than a simple rape. The nurse gave Lindsay the pills and another shot in her hip. She stayed with her, holding her hand until she slept. She spoke softly, hypnotically, “I’m from Kansas City, you know. My name is Ann O’Conner. I’ve lived here in Paris for eleven years now. I was glad I could be here when they brought you in. Now you have someone you can communicate with. Even the nurses can be short with foreigners. It’s too bad, but it’s true. Your face is badly bruised, but no broken bones. The bruises will fade in a couple of days. Go to sleep now. You’ll feel much better when you wake up. And I’ll be back, I promise you.”
And she did as Nurse O’Conner said. When Lindsay next awoke, it was light outside, the sun high in the sky. Near noon, she thought vaguely, startled, for it had been in the dark of the night when the prince—For several minutes she didn’t know where she was. She focused on the sunlight, unconsciously leaning toward it, welcoming it into her. She remembered then, everything, though her mind fought against it. She started crying, like a faucet coming on without her permission, but she simply couldn’t stop it. Her throat was clogged and it hurt to swallow, and as much as she gulped and wiped her eyes, she couldn’t make the tears stop. She finally decided it didn’t matter. She was alone. Thankfully, she was alone. Her face hurt dreadfully, and she felt as though someone had battered her insides.
The door opened quietly. She kept her head turned away. She didn’t want to see anyone. Maybe it was one of those horrible doctors who had hurt her so badly, who hadn’t cared when they’d shoved things into her, who had shamed her to her soul.
A man’s voice said very gently, “
