Charley's Web (36 page)

“Don’t forget that Alex has the same problem,” Glen reminded her.

“Except he’s had a good head start.”

“Bram won’t let Alex take James,” Elizabeth said, clinging to Charley’s side.

Charley squeezed her mother’s hand on her arm, realizing she no longer knew who was holding up whom, that it was impossible to tell where her mother left off and she began.

The Amber Alert had been issued. Police were combing the highways, roads, and miles of Disney World parking lots looking for an old mustard-colored Malibu convertible. The theme park was in virtual lockdown. Everyone trying to leave was being screened and scrutinized. If Alex was anywhere in the area, they’d find him, Detective Vickers had assured her. Would it be too late?

A life-size Cinderella in a beautiful white gown floated regally by, pursued by dozens of laughing children. Where were their parents? Charley wondered. Who was looking after them?

“There’s the Pirates of the Caribbean.” Glen guided her toward the huge lineup that zigzagged back and forth in front of the popular attraction.

Charley quickly scanned the faces of those waiting. Surely she would easily spot her brother towering over everyone else. But Bram and James were no longer anywhere in line. Not to mention this was undoubtedly the first place Alex had looked. Had he found them?

They continued walking. “There he is,” Charley suddenly gasped, breaking away from Glen and her mother and dashing toward a little boy holding a Mickey Mouse balloon. In almost the same second, a number of officers swarmed in to surround the frightened child, but Charley knew even before she saw his sweet but decidedly un-James-like face, and heard the outraged protests of his parents, that she’d made a mistake. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, and might have collapsed had it not been for all the people gathered around her. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Charley,” Glen said, leading her away. “It’s okay.”

Suddenly she heard a familiar and disturbing tune.
It’s a small world after all. It’s a small…
“Oh, God.”

“What’s the matter?” Glen asked.

The song pulled Charley forward like a magnet until she stood in front of the colorful, doll-covered attraction. Again, she studied the faces of those waiting in the fast-moving line to hop into one of the boats. In one end and out the other, she thought, remembering Jill’s story about getting stuck when her family was mere feet away from the tunnel’s end. “These rides, they all have separate exits, right?”

“Some of them do.”

“We should go around the back.” Charley was already making her way in that direction. But there were almost as many people behind the attraction as in front of it. Charley stood for a few minutes watching families exit the ride, some still singing along to the relentlessly perky tune.

It’s a small, small world.

She saw a door marked
PERSONNEL ONLY
, and she pushed it open. “Can I help you?” a man in a Goofy costume asked from inside, and Charley shook her head and retreated quickly.

An officer approached, and for a minute Charley thought he was about to arrest her for trespassing. Instead, he told her, “We may have something.”

Whatever else he said was quickly lost in the echo of those four words.

“Bram!” Charley exclaimed, rushing toward the man who was sitting on the ground, his legs stretched out in front of him, his back against the side of a door at the back of Space Mountain.

“Charley!” He tried to stand up, but succeeded only in falling over on his side. “Where’s James? What’s going on?”

“We found him in there,” a policeman said from somewhere beside Charley. He pointed toward another door marked
PERSONNEL ONLY
.

“I swear I’m not drunk, Charley.”

“I know you’re not.”

“Looks like someone used a Taser gun on him,” the officer remarked.

“A Taser gun!” Bram exclaimed, pushing his hair off his forehead and shaking his head. “Shit. I thought I was having a heart attack. Would somebody please tell me what the hell is going on.”

“Did you see who did this to you?”

“I didn’t see a thing.”

“Can you tell us exactly what happened,” the officer prodded.

“I’d just bought James this big, stuffed snake. It was supposed to be the snake from
Jungle Book,
” Bram began, struggling to get the words out. “And we were walking along, talking about how it looked just like the one he’d painted, when suddenly I felt this awful pain in the small of my back, and next thing I know, my legs were going out from under me, and I’m going down. Then I get tossed inside some dark closet where I get zapped again. I couldn’t see a thing. I must have passed out. What time is it?”

“Almost four-thirty,” Charley told him.

“I couldn’t have been out more than twenty minutes. Where’s James?”

“We don’t know.”

“Jesus. Let me up.” Again, he tried to stand up. Again he failed.

“You’re not going anywhere until the paramedics have examined you,” the officer told him.

“Where’s Mom?” Bram asked Charley, sounding as young and defenseless as any five-year-old.

“Right here,” Elizabeth said, stepping out from behind Glen and kneeling in front of her son. “I’m right here.” She sank to the concrete beside him, took him in her arms. Bram laid his head against her shoulder and closed his eyes.

Charley clutched the memory of that image like a talisman as she hurried back into the center of the surging crowd.

She spotted them coming out of a restroom, a handsome man and a young boy walking hand in hand, the boy wearing a Mickey Mouse hat to match his shirt and carrying a large stuffed purple snake. It was the snake that first caught Charley’s eye.

“It’s them,” Charley said, so quietly she wasn’t sure anyone had heard her. It was only when she saw Detective Vickers speaking into his headphones and listened as he alerted the others to their location that she was even able to breathe. Her body lurched forward, but was quickly blocked by the detective’s arm.

“Wait,” he advised, “until we get everyone in place.”

We found him, Charley was thinking. James is here, and he’s okay. My baby’s okay.

Although Franny was nowhere in sight.

Where was Franny?

“Okay, now listen to me,” Detective Vickers was saying. “Are you listening?”

Charley nodded, her eyes glued to her son as, fifty feet away, Alex hefted him over his head, depositing him on his shoulders.

“He has no idea you’re on to him, remember, so don’t do anything to make him suspicious until we get James away from him. Just smile and wave and pretend everything’s all right. Okay? Can you do that?”

Again Charley nodded. “Alex!” she called out, forcing a smile onto her face. “James!”

“Mommy!” James cried happily.

Charley registered the surprise in Alex’s eyes, watched his expression freeze, then convert into something approximating joy. If she didn’t know better, she might have thought he was actually glad to see her.

“Charley! I found him. He’s okay.”

“Thank God,” Charley said. “Come here, baby. Let Mommy hold you.”

“How did you get here?” Alex asked, holding tight to her son’s heels.

“I couldn’t wait any longer. A friend gave me a lift.”

“I want to go down,” James said, kicking at Alex’s chest.

“Whoa, boy. Hold on a minute.”

“Now. I want to go down now.” James started hitting Alex on the head with his stuffed snake. “I don’t like you. You made Uncle Bram fall down.”

Alex grabbed the snake from James’s hand and tossed it angrily aside. In that instant, Glen rushed forward and snatched James from Alex’s shoulders, transferring him swiftly to Charley’s outstretched arms.

Charley promptly smothered her son’s face with kisses. Had he ever smelled so good? she wondered, running her hands along his arms, his face, his legs, to make sure he was really there, that he hadn’t been stabbed or burned or abused.

“Glen!” James shouted enthusiastically, as Glen retrieved the stuffed snake from the ground and returned it to him. “Are you coming to Disney World with us, too?”

“Charley, what’s going on?” Alex appealed to her.

“You used a Taser gun on my brother.”

“Only to save your son.”

“Was it the same gun you used on Tammy Barnet and the Starkey twins?”

Alex looked stunned. “What are you talking about?”

“I found the videotape,” Charley said simply.

Alex said nothing, although his eyes shifted from side to side, as if he were contemplating making a run for it.

“Don’t even think about it,” Detective Vickers advised, taking two steps forward.

“Where’s Franny?” Charley asked.

“I have no idea,” said Alex.

“You took her from the motel. What have you done with her?”

A slow smile slithered across Alex’s mouth. “If you’ve seen the tape,” he said, “I would think you’d already know the answer to that question.”

Charley clutched her stomach, bit down on her lower lip to keep from screaming. “No,” she said instead, her voice a low growl. “There hasn’t been enough time. And you like to take your time. Don’t you, Alex?”

“You never complained,” he told her, clearly enjoying himself.

“Tell us where the girl is,” Detective Vickers said, “and maybe I can put in a good word…”

“Oh, please, Detective. Do you really think I’m remotely interested in your good words?”

“He hasn’t had time to take her anywhere,” Charley found herself thinking out loud. “He drove right here from the motel. That means she’s still in his car.”

“Well done, Charley,” Alex said, as his hands were secured behind his back with handcuffs. “If this book thing doesn’t work out, you might consider a career as a detective.”

Detective Vickers’s cell phone rang. He answered it, looked from Charley to Alex and then back again. “They found the car,” he told her.

“Franny…?”

“She was in the trunk, unconscious, but okay. She’ll be fine.”

Two uniformed officers started to lead Alex away.

“Wait,” Charley called after them. She ran forward, stopped a foot from Alex’s face, then looked over her shoulder at Glen. “Is this how you do it?” she asked, suddenly shifting her weight from her back foot to her front as her right hand curled into a tight ball, and her fist came crashing against Alex’s cheek.

C
harley sat in the small interview room at Pembroke Correctional waiting for the guards to bring Jill down from her cell. Not that she was sure Jill would see her. Even though she had consented to the interview, there was no guarantee she’d keep her word.

And what would Charley do when she saw her—this smiling psychopath who’d dispatched her lover to seduce her, and orchestrated the abduction and would-be murder of the two most precious things in Charley’s life?

More than a month had passed since her thirty-first birthday, a month of Charley waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, nightmare visions of children being tortured circling her head like vultures, eager to swoop down to pick at her flesh. Daylight brought little respite. Everywhere she turned, she saw little Tammy Barnet fighting for air inside her plastic bag, and heard the Starkey twins crying for their mother as their flesh was seared repeatedly with the butts of lit cigarettes. She saw her mother, slack-jawed and barely conscious, wrapped in a red-and-white-flowered bedspread, and her brother sitting splay-legged on the ground, his normally luminous gray-blue eyes clouded with pain and disbelief. She saw her son perched uneasily on Alex’s shoulders, struggling to be put down, and her daughter lying ashen-faced and limp in a paramedic’s arms, and every time she realized how close she’d come to losing them, she groaned out loud.

She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t write. She’d taken a leave of absence from the
Palm Beach Post.
She’d abandoned work on her book. She drove her children to school each morning and picked them up every afternoon. In the hours between, she sat in her living room and tried not to imagine the tragedy that could have been. Sometimes she was successful; more often she wasn’t.

Her children, on the other hand, were proving to be remarkably resilient. Franny had no recollection of being Tasered; she only remembered opening the door to the motel room, and then waking up in her mother’s arms. James’s only complaint was that his trip to Disney World had been cut short, and he proclaimed to all who would listen that he liked Glen much better than Alex.

Glen called often, usually just to say hi and see how she was doing. Charley knew he was just waiting for her to say the word and he’d be there. But Charley was no longer sure what the right words were. Alex had robbed her of her instincts. He’d played her like a goddamn Stradivarius.

Still, she couldn’t blame him for everything. Ultimately, it had been
her
ego,
her
ambition,
her
self-absorption that had put her children at risk. “Looks like my father was right about me after all,” she confided to her mother one night.

“Your father is a moron,” her mother said.

It was her mother who’d insisted she confront Jill.

At first, Charley had balked at the idea. She told herself that she had no interest in ever seeing Jill again. She had no more questions to ask her. Nor was she eager to hear Jill’s answers. The police had already informed her that Jill had initially met Alex through Ethan—Alex had been the “smart lawyer” who’d managed to get the drug dealing charges against him dismissed—and it didn’t take a genius to recognize that in Alex, Jill had found her perfect match, a man whose perverse fantasies meshed seamlessly with her own. Did it matter that, separately and individually, these two sociopaths might never have acted on their murderous impulses, that it was only when they joined forces that they became lethal? Besides, anything Jill told her would probably be lies anyway. And even if Jill wasn’t lying, Charley no longer trusted herself to know the difference.

All that mattered was that Alex was in jail awaiting trial, and that he would no doubt soon be joining his paramour on death row. What mattered was that they wouldn’t be able to harm anyone else’s children ever again.

No, Charley tried to convince herself, she had no desire to give Jill another shot at humiliating her, another chance to manipulate and deceive her. Let her amuse herself at someone else’s expense.

“This isn’t like you,” her mother had said. “Since when do you feel guilty about things, especially things there’s nothing to feel guilty for? Since when do you sit around wallowing in self-pity? You’re the best mother, the best sister, the best daughter anyone could hope for. You are so much more than I deserve. And you’re a wonderful writer. You have a real gift. Don’t ever doubt that. Don’t you dare let that miserable little twit take that away from you. Don’t you dare give her that kind of power.”

“Do I have a choice?” Charley had asked.

“You always have a choice.”

Could she really do this? Charley wondered now, hearing footsteps stop outside the door. In the next second, the door swung open and a muscular female guard escorted Jill Rohmer into the room. The guard quickly removed Jill’s handcuffs, then made her retreat. Jill was wearing the mandatory orange T-shirt and sweatpants she always wore, and her hair, longer than Charley remembered it, hung loosely around her face. She scrunched her lips into an unattractive pout, and stared at the wall. “I’m not sure I really want to talk to you,” she said.

“I’m not sure I want to talk to you either,” Charley heard herself reply.

Charley watched Jill’s head swivel toward her, their eyes making contact for the first time in more than a month. “You’ve lost weight,” Jill said.

“You’ve put some on.”

“Yeah? Well, you try living on the crap they feed you in here,” Jill said, bristling. “Nothing but starches. How’s your hand?” she asked, as if the two thoughts were somehow connected. “I heard you broke a couple of fingers punching Alex’s lights out.”

Charley flexed her still-sore fingers under the table, said nothing.

“They make it look so easy on television, don’t they?” Jill asked. “Guys swinging at each other left and right, beating the crap out of everybody in sight, and nobody ever breaks a sweat, let alone a couple of fingers.” She laughed, the laugh dying abruptly in her throat. “I should hate you for what you did, you know that.”

“
You
should hate
me
?”

“But I don’t hate you. Hell, I actually like you. You’re the only friend I’ve got.”

“I’m not your friend, Jill.”

“No, I guess not. But it was kind of fun while it lasted, wasn’t it?” “It was many things,” Charley told her. “Fun wasn’t one of them.”

“Ouch. Guess I misread you.”

“Guess you did.”

“So, what brings you down here today?” Jill sat down across from Charley, leaned forward on her elbows. “You looking for closure, Charley? Is that why you’re here?”

“I guess you could say that. I need a final chapter for my book.” Charley withdrew her tape recorder from her purse and set it in the middle of the table, pressed the
ON
button, then sat back and waited.

“Don’t you mean
our
book?”

“No. I mean
my
book. The book that’s going to make me rich and famous while you sit in here and rot until they strap you to a gurney and stick a needle in your arm.” Charley smiled. “Now
this
is fun.”

Jill stiffened in her seat. “And where will your precious book be if I decide not to tell you anything? What will you do then?”

“I guess I’ll have to make it up.” Charley shrugged. “You’re not that complicated, Jill. I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

“You’re awfully confident for someone who almost got her children killed.”

Charley pushed her chair back and rose to her feet, reaching across the table for the tape recorder when what she really wanted to do was reach for Jill’s throat.

“Oh, sit down. Don’t get your panties all in a knot,” Jill said. “Your confidence is what I’ve always admired about you.”

Charley slowly sank back down, waited for Jill to continue.

“It’s really interesting the way things work out, isn’t it? I mean, I’m not much of a reader. I never read the papers. Unless, of course, I’m in them.” Jill giggled, looked to Charley for a smile, then continued when none was forthcoming. “Anyway, this one Sunday, Pammy was sitting at the kitchen table reading your column out loud to our mother, and she mentioned how she went out with your brother a couple of times. So I started listening—it was the one about how you decided to have kids without getting married—and I thought it was funny and kind of cool, and I thought your picture was great. Like you were telling everyone they could go eat shit. So I started reading your columns pretty much every week after that. And I learned all about your sisters and your mother and your kids. I learned what you liked and didn’t. I got to know you pretty well actually, and I decided that if I ever got famous, I was gonna get you to write my story. That’s when I met Alex.” She smiled, her eyes sparkling with the memory. “You want to know how we met?”

“I already know how you met.”

“Yeah? You want to hear about our first date? I’ll tell you if you promise not to get jealous.”

“I’m not the jealous type.”

“You’re lucky.” Jill shook her head in wonderment. “I’m
so
the jealous type. I was fit to be tied when you started seeing Alex. Not that I didn’t know what was going on. I helped plan it, for God’s sake. But it’s one thing to plan something, and another to actually do it. The idea of him kissing you, of you putting your hands on him, it just made me sick. I was going crazy thinking about the two of you together. I’d picture the two of you making love, and it made my skin crawl. No offense,” she said, giggling again.

“It makes my skin crawl, too,” Charley said.

Jill laughed. “Maybe now, yeah. But not at the time, I bet. I mean, wasn’t he the best lover ever? I told you he was. I sure as hell didn’t lie about that.”

“You were telling me about your first date,” Charley said, trying to steer the conversation away from herself.

“It’s actually not that interesting a story. He took me to this cute little Italian restaurant. Alex likes Italian. But you know that, don’t you?”

Charley winced, looked at the tape recorder.

“The only really interesting thing that happened is that I sucked him off in the men’s bathroom.”

“You’re a class act,” Charley said.

“And you’re a real prude, aren’t you, Charley? Despite the trail of discarded lovers and two bastard kids, you’re a prude at heart. That’s a laugh.”

“Glad I amuse you.”

“Oh, you do. You do. Alex and I used to laugh about you all the time. How you thought you were so smart when you were so damn stupid I could hardly believe it. You fell for everything, just like Alex said you would.” She stretched her arms above her head, yawned loudly. “He knew just how to get you interested in doing my story.” This time she laughed out loud. “He told me exactly what to write in that letter, how to flatter you in one sentence, tease you in the next. Then you went to see him and he told you that you weren’t a good enough writer, that I deserved better, knowing it would make you all the more determined to do it. Just like he knew the best way to get inside your pants was to pretend he didn’t want to. You fell for everything, didn’t you, Charley?”

“Whose idea was it to murder those children?” Charley asked, once again trying to get the focus off her.

Jill began playing with her hair, twirling it around her fingers. “Alex’s. I was complaining about having to baby-sit those brats every weekend, and he said we should just kill them. I thought he was kidding at first, but then he said how we could torture them first, like I told him I’d done with that kitten. His mother used to punish him by burning him with cigarettes when he was little,” she added, almost cheerily. “Did you know that?”

Charley closed her eyes, refusing to feel sorry for him.

“Anyway, the idea just kind of took off from there.”

“So, you knew all along what was going to happen to Tammy Barnet. You weren’t sorry at all,” Charley stated, remembering Jill’s earlier disclaimers.

“Oh, no, don’t get me wrong. I felt really bad about what happened to Tammy. She was a pretty neat little kid. I was really upset when she died. But, I mean, what choice did we have?”

“What choice did you have?” Charley repeated dully.

“Well, she could identify us. I mean, there was no way she was gonna keep quiet about what happened, and we couldn’t take a chance of getting caught.”

“And yet you did get caught.”

“Yeah, but not right away. First we did the Starkey twins.” There was an almost wistful look in Jill’s eyes. “What’d you think of the video, by the way?”

Tears sprang to Charley’s eyes. She stared at the table and said nothing.

“Aw. You were moved by it. That’s so sweet.”

“Shut up, Jill.”

“I thought you wanted me to talk.”

“I want you to die,” Charley snapped, watching Jill’s eyes open in alarm. “But we don’t always get what we want, do we? At least not right away. Tell me, what was Alex’s reaction when you were arrested?”

“Kind of like you just now. He almost lost it.”

“Because he was afraid you’d cut a deal with the prosecution?”

“No!” Jill looked genuinely offended. “Alex knew I’d never betray him.”

“And he was prepared to let you take the fall all by yourself.”

“No point in both of us being locked up. Besides, he was always working ways to get me out of here. Whose idea do you think it was to do this book?”

“He thought the book would get you out of jail?”

“Off death row anyway. Once all that stuff came out about me being abused….”

“Was any of it true?”

“Oh, it’s all true. My father, my brother, Wayne. They all had their turn. Did you ever get ahold of Wayne, by the way?”

“No. He was killed in Iraq.”

“Really? Can’t say I’m too broken up about that.” Jill twisted her lips from side to side. “Alex understood what I’d been through. Did you know he was molested by one of his mother’s boyfriends when he was about eight?” She continued on before Charley could answer. “Anyway, we thought that even if nothing else came out of the book, at least we’d have a good time doing it. And it was a way of staying connected. Of keeping the dream alive, as it were. ‘The family that plays together’ kind of thing. And it helped pass the time. It can get awfully boring in here.”