Chapter 13 #2
“Not exactly. He raped her last night and nearly killed her.” She told him what had happened. “The police have already been to see her at the hospital. She’s still there now. I don’t know how this works. I think they’re going to arrest him.”
“Yes, they will, and they should. These situations within a relationship are complicated, but not with the kind of damage she sustained. He must have a psychiatric history of some kind.”
“I don’t know. He must be crazy.”
“I’ll be there in an hour,” he said firmly.
“You can’t do that, can you?”
“Yes, I can. And I should have done it a long time ago. I’ve been thinking for the last two weeks. Dominique, I love you. I’ve been an idiot, and you’ve been a saint. Let’s talk about it later. I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
He was there less than an hour later, in early morning Saturday traffic, and she’d never seen a more beautiful sight than when he walked through the door.
She had cried when she saw Felicity and hugged her.
And she cried again when she saw Bill. He held her tight for a minute, and then he went with her to talk to Felicity.
It was a clean case. With the injuries Taylor had inflicted, he could spend many years in prison, or a mental hospital.
Bill met with the police then, while Dominique and Violet sat with Felicity.
They were going to take her to do the D&C in a few minutes.
Violet called Tommy, and he and Marlene came within minutes.
They were staying at The Mark Hotel, which was only two blocks away.
Marlene was somber and sympathetic and said she had been raped at fifteen, by a stranger, and Dominique was touched by what she said.
There was more merit to her than she realized.
She was gentle and compassionate with Felicity.
They all huddled together in the waiting room waiting for Felicity to come back from surgery.
They were talking softly, shocked by what had happened.
Dominique called her main assistant and told her to get all the help she could to cancel the wedding and email all the guests.
She texted Elizabeth Whitfield herself, and told her that due to shocking circumstances that aggrieved her deeply, the wedding was canceled, and Felicity was in surgery at that moment.
Dominique didn’t use the word “rape” in her text.
Bill explained to them that the police were getting a warrant signed by a judge for Taylor’s arrest, for multiple counts of rape, great bodily harm, assault, and intent to commit murder.
It was a long list, which included causing the miscarriage and causing the death of the fetus.
When Felicity came back from surgery, they were all there, and Marlene sat next to her and held her hand, stroked her hair, and told her that she was going to be fine, and Dominique’s eyes filled with tears as she watched them.
Dominique had checked in with her assistants again, and they were emailing all the guests and had notified the museum, the caterers, the technical teams, the florist, the band, and everyone involved with the wedding of the cancelation.
They were telling the guests that due to an accident, the wedding had been canceled, and apologizing for the inconvenience.
Dominique had called her ex-husband and told him what had happened.
He didn’t offer to come to the hospital, but asked her to keep him informed and sent Felicity his love.
They left Felicity to rest at the hospital, she was still sedated, and they went to lunch at The Mark, and Bill went with them.
He sat next to Dominique and held her hand, and he left quietly after lunch.
He was coordinating with the police for her, and promised to call her in a few hours and come back the next day.
“I have some things of my own to take care of,” he said to her quietly. “We have a lot to talk about. I’ve been working on it for the last week. I should have done it years ago. I don’t want to lose you, Dominique.”
“Me too,” she said.
“You did the right thing. It woke me up. I’m going to talk to Eileen about it, and we’ll work things out like grown-ups.” He smiled at her. “I’m so sorry about Felicity. What a terrifying experience.”
“It breaks my heart to see her,” Dominique said with tears in her eyes.
“They’re going to arrest him this afternoon,” Bill told her.
“The doctor said I could take her home tonight.”
None of them could have predicted what had happened.
“Will she have to appear in court with him?” Violet asked, devastated for her sister. She couldn’t imagine anything like it happening to any of them, committed by someone they knew.
“We’ll ask to have it handled in front of a judge in chambers so she doesn’t have to see him.
I’ll call you tonight,” Bill said gently to Dominique.
It was a relief to see him again and she was glad she had called him.
He was a good man. He had fallen into an easy pattern for years, and he knew it had to change. It already had.
After he left, Dominique thought about the wedding they would have given that night, and was grateful Felicity hadn’t married him.
She wondered what would happen to him now.
Felicity had been very clear about agreeing to send the police, and Dominique was sure the Whitfields were going to be distraught, but their son was a dangerous man.
Dominique went back to Felicity’s room then. Marlene was still sitting with her and holding her hand, and Dominique got a glimpse of what Tommy saw in her. She was a kind, compassionate person, and Dominique had warm feelings toward her for the first time.
* * *
Felicity went home with her mother that night, but the next day, on Sunday, she wanted to go home to her apartment.
She shuddered when she saw it. There was blood on the floor and on the rugs.
There was still broken glass on the floor from the table he knocked over, and blood on the couch.
It brought back the memories vividly, but she knew she was safe.
On Saturday afternoon, the police had called before she left the hospital to tell her that Taylor had been arrested at his parents’ apartment and was in custody.
He was being arraigned on Monday, and they were sending him for evaluation at a psychiatric prison facility for thirty days, and after that they would determine if he was able to stand trial.
The police explained that he would probably make a deal with the DA eventually and plead guilty, and accept a sentence at a mental facility of some kind.
He had a long road ahead of him, and would be marked forever as a sex offender.
Felicity blamed herself for not seeing it sooner, and not reacting when he raped her the first time.
She hadn’t added that incident to the charges. He had enough on his plate now.
Taylor’s parents had tried to tell the police that he and his fiancée had had a little spat, and that she had probably provoked it.
They said it was just a lovers’ quarrel, and they had implied that Felicity was immoral and unbalanced.
The police had shown them photographs of Felicity’s injuries and they didn’t say anything after that, but they hired a criminal attorney.
Taylor was currently in jail, pending the arraignment, and more than likely the judge would not set bail, and would send him for the psych evaluation immediately.
The Whitfields made no attempt to contact Dominique or Felicity and didn’t respond to Dominique’s text. Felicity was sure they would try to blame her for what had happened.
* * *
On Monday, they all tried to get back to normal.
Tommy, Marlene, and the boys went back to L.A.
Marlene and Felicity had formed a bond. The boys were disappointed that they never got to deliver the rings, and Marlene told them they could do it another time, maybe at their great-grandmother’s wedding that summer.
She asked Tommy to ask Marie-Aurélie if they could.
Jamie went back to work on Monday, and he and Violet had tickets to a Yankees game that night.
Felicity began reclaiming her life. She packed all of Taylor’s clothes and belongings and sent them to his parents, and returned the engagement ring by courier to Elizabeth.
She didn’t want any souvenirs from Taylor.
It was a chapter she wanted closed. She went to the dentist to replace the tooth she lost and told them she’d been in a car accident.
The bruises to her soul would be harder to fix.
She checked in with her gallery and they had sold two more of her paintings and were very pleased.
She was trying to decide what to do now, to find her footing again, since there was no marriage, no honeymoon, no Taylor, and no baby in her life now.
She was considering taking some more art classes in Paris for a few months, and renting a studio there, near her grandmother.
They had a close relationship. She hired a service that dealt with catastrophes and crime scenes, to get the bloodstains out of her rug and apartment.
She got rid of the couch, although she liked it, and ordered a new one.