The Perfect Letter (20 page)

Not just someone—the man with the gray ponytail. How smug he'd seemed, how sure of himself. He could even now be faxing the Burnside County prosecutor about Leigh Merrill's dark secret. She looked at the stack of letters—the yellowed paper, the green ink in her handwriting. How had the ponytailed man gotten his hands on them?

Had Jake
given
her letters to him?

She remembered what Dale said so many years before, that the only reason to marry Leigh was her grandfather's money. Maybe Jake had decided that her trust fund was payment for ten years in Huntsville.

“Jake,” she said, her voice going flinty. “Did anyone else ever see my letters while you were in prison?”

He blinked. “What?”

“My letters. Did anyone else ever read them?”

“Why would you ask that?”

It was now or never. Could Leigh really trust this man—a man she barely knew after so many years locked away?

“Something strange happened today. One of the writers who made an appointment with me said he knew all about what happened with Dale Tucker. He said he'd been at Huntsville prison with you. He was hinting that he'd read something in one of my letters that made it pretty clear who was the one who'd pulled the trigger.”

Jake was shaking his head. He looked alarmed. “That's not possible,” he said. “I never showed anyone those letters.”

“Where did you keep them?”

He raked his hand through his dark hair, as if he were trying to remember. “In my mattress, in a slit on the underside of it. The guards never found them, even, and they tossed our cells nearly every week. No one could have seen those letters, Leigh.”

“He was very specific. He knew all the details, apparently. He wanted my trust fund in exchange for keeping his mouth shut. Said that if I didn't pay him off, he'd make my letter public.”

“Jesus.”

“What I want to know is what you know about it, Jake.”

His jaw clenched. “What do you mean? I don't know anything about it.”

“He knew I was involved. He said he knew I had shot a man and let someone else take the fall for it. I sure as hell didn't tell anyone.”

“You think I did?”

Leigh folded her arms over her breasts. Her voice was close to cracking as she said, “I don't know. You could have decided to come after me for the money. It's pretty strange that you and he both showed up at the same time, don't you think?”

Jake came up close and grabbed her by the arms. When he spoke, his voice hissed through teeth so clenched she thought they might crack. “How can you ask that? How can you even think it? After everything I did for you, you think I'd sell you out for your grandfather's money?”

She felt her chin start to tremble and willed it to be still. “I don't know. I don't know who I can believe anymore.”

“You can believe in me,” he said. “Of all the people in the world, Leigh, you know you can trust me.”

“I want to. I don't know how.”

“I need to prove it to you? Again?”

“For all I know, the two of you are in this together.”

Jake walked away with his fists clenched, then took a breath and turned around. “What was his name? This person who came to see you?” A harder edge had crept into his voice.

Leigh stood very still, like a trapped animal. “I don't know his name. He didn't say, and I didn't think to ask. I'm guessing I'll find out sooner or later.”

“What did he look like?” His voice was ringing with fury now.

“He was maybe fifty. Thin, scraggly, with a long gray ponytail.” She breathed in and out, slowly. “And I'll never forget this: he kept rapping his knuckles on things when he talked, like he was calling me to order.”

“Oh my God,” Jake whispered. “It's Russ.”

“What?”

“That's got to be Russell Benoit. He served at Huntsville, four years for fraud. He was my cellmate, for a year or so. The knuckle thing, that was something he always did. Used to drive me nuts.”

“Your cellmate.” So Jake did know him. So Leigh had been right to be worried.

“He was a con artist. His specialty was ripping off rich old ladies by posing as a housepainter and then rifling through their papers for
their dead husband's Social Security numbers. Used to work in the laundry with me. I always hated that prick.” Jake was pacing the room now, back and forth, back and forth. “God, I can't believe you met him today. I thought I was done with all that. I thought
you
were done with all that. I thought that when I finally got out, I'd never have to see or hear from anyone I knew on the inside.”

At least now she had a name to go with her disquiet. Russell Benoit. “Do you think he's serious? Will he really expose me if I don't pay him off?”

“I don't know. He's dirty enough for anything.”

“I could pay him off. I mean, I do have money, I could give it to him, if you think it would really keep him quiet.”

“But that's the problem, isn't it? It might keep him quiet for a little while, but then what will he want next?” She could see his jaw working, his eyes narrow. He was figuring something out—and it was scaring Leigh.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don't know. Something. Did he say he was going to get in touch with you again?”

“No, he said he was getting on a plane to New York to try to sell the story to someone else.”

“That's not how he works. He'll try again before he follows through on any kind of threat.”

“So you think he's bluffing? The New York tabloids would pay for a story like that. I know they would. ”

“He might be. Then again, Russ is ruthless when money is involved. He'd sell out his own mother for less than he'd get for our story. But I still can't figure out how he'd know about the letters. I was always so careful to keep them put away.”

“He knew, though. He said he saw my letters, the green pen and everything. He read me part of one.”

Leigh sat on the bed. Her body was so heavy, so filled with dread, she couldn't even keep her head up. She stared at the floor, at a stray pair of panties she'd thrown off the night before, still lying where she'd left them. Already last night seemed like a long time ago.

Jake sat next to her, not looking at her. “I thought I was so careful,” he said. He took Leigh's hand. “Maybe I shouldn't have come to find you. Maybe you were right, what you wrote to me all those years ago. Maybe it would have been better if we'd never met.”

“Don't say that.”

“Why not? It's true, isn't it? I've messed up your life. All I seem to do is find ways of getting you in trouble.”

Her phone buzzed. She didn't even look at it. “I have to go back to work,” she said, standing up and hefting her bag on her shoulder. “Promise me you'll be here when I get back.”

Jake reached for his belt and threaded it through the loops of his jeans, pulled his T-shirt over his head, and slipped on his boots. “No,” he said. “I won't be.”

“Jake, wait—”

“I have to find Russell and figure out what his game is. Don't do anything until I get back. Don't give him anything. Don't even talk to him.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to find Russell.”

Then he was gone, out the door and into the Texas sun.

All afternoon, while she finished her meetings for the day, Leigh was distracted by thoughts of Russell. How far was he willing to go for the money? Did he really mean to get her locked up in prison for murder? She knew that at the very least she could be labeled an accomplice and given her own sentence should the letter be made public.

Maybe it was only fair. Maybe it was what she deserved—after all, she
was
the one who'd pulled the trigger.

It wasn't fair to the authors she was meeting with, but Leigh wasn't hearing them the way she should have been, not really. Her mind was elsewhere—in Huntsville prison, in Manhattan, in her grandfather's barn the night she'd killed Dale Tucker. She wished for the millionth time that she'd never left her room that night, that she'd stayed in the house like her grandfather had wanted.

Maybe she should just pay off Russell Benoit. Maybe that would be the safe thing, the smart thing. But she kept hearing her grandfather's voice in her ear, saying,
Don't you dare, Leela. Don't you dare give your money to that worthless crook. It's yours. I gave it to you—to you, and no one else.

After her last pitch meeting of the day, weighed down with worry, lack of sleep, and a massive stack of unread manuscripts, Leigh dragged herself up the hill to her cottage, looking forward to nothing more than a long, hot bath and a quiet dinner in her room.

She opened the door to the sound of the TV. Jake was back already, watching some twenty-four-hour cable news show in which a bunch of talking heads shouted nonsense at each other. It was the last thing she wanted to hear right then.

“I'm back,” she said, the words coming out in a weary huff of breath. No response. “Hey, you want to turn that thing off? I have
such
a terrible headache.”

The TV switched off. Leigh leaned down to peel off her uncomfortable shoes. “You want to get dinner, maybe order in? I think we should talk—”

She came around the corner, but it was Joseph, not Jake, who was sitting on her freshly made bed, the TV remote in his hand. Leigh felt her knees going out from under her and sat down hard on the nearest chair.

He tossed the remote on the bed. “I'd love to. But how did you know I was here?” he asked, standing up to embrace her. “Hey, you,” he said, and brushed her hair away from her eyes. “I was starting to get worried.”

“Hi,” she said.

Wait. Wait, what's happening here? Where's Jake?

One quick scan of the room told her Jake wasn't there. For the moment, at least, the two parts of her life were still completely separate.

“I—I heard the TV. I figured it must be you. I mean, who else would it be?”

He gave her a quick kiss and then said, “You look terrible. Where were you all night?”

“What?”

“I called and called, and you didn't answer. I figured you must have been out with Chloe, but I called her this morning and she said she hadn't seen you either. Did you go out with people from the conference? You look like you've been up for days.”

Leigh's hand went to her hair, which had been a mess all day because it was still wet from her shower with Jake when she had to leave for her appointments. She hadn't bothered with makeup either in her hurry to get out the door. “Oh,” she said, “you know I don't sleep well on the road. Lumpy beds. Unfamiliar rooms. I feel as bad as I must look.”

She was looking around the room, searching for any evidence Jake had been there—an incriminating boot, a sock, anything—but the room was free of traces of him except for the stack of his letters on the dresser, sitting in the same place where she'd dropped them yesterday. Jake himself seemed to have disappeared.

“So why are you here?” she asked.

“Thanks for the warm welcome! And after I flew halfway across the country to see you.”

She gave a half smile and put her arms around his neck, gave him
a quick kiss. “You know I don't mean it like that. I mean why did you decide to come?”

“You weren't answering your phone. I started to get worried,” he said. “It's not like you to be out of touch for two whole days. I started to think you'd been kidnapped by cultists and carried off into the night.”

“I'm so sorry. It was thoughtless of me. I should have called you back a long time ago, I know. I wasn't trying to dodge you or anything like that.”

“So what happened? Cell reception here doesn't seem too bad.”

Leigh gave a little laugh and tried to act like everything was normal between them. “Oh, you know, I was busy. The conference. Chloe. We had a lot of catching up to do. Think I've had maybe a little too much fun on this trip. I'm still a bit hungover—you know how Chloe is.”

“I know. Why do you think I was so worried?”

Joseph came close and wrapped his arms around her waist. Up close to him, she felt completely confused, both grateful to see him and irritated that he felt the need to be constantly checking up on her, to keep her on such a short lease. She'd never had a dad and didn't need one now.

“I guess I couldn't wait to see you again. Not after our last phone conversation. You seemed so . . . upbeat, about us. I was hoping, I guess, to get that answer from you in person. I just didn't want to wait anymore.”

Not now. Oh, hell, Joseph, your timing is terrible.

“That's so romantic,” she said. “So unexpected. You've never done anything like that before.”

“Maybe it's time I started,” he said, stroking her hair. His hands felt so good, so familiar—part of her wanted that familiarity right now, after the day she'd just had. She sighed and put her cheek against his shoulder, knowing she had no right to do so, that she wasn't being fair to him, or to Jake, but she needed so badly to feel the world solid
under her feet. She had bigger problems than Joseph's marriage proposal, Jake's pride. There was a con artist out in the world who was trying to undo her entire life. She had to decide what to do, and soon.

I can't think straight like this. I just can't.

Joseph stepped back and sat on the bed where Jake and Leigh had made love. She blushed, but Joseph didn't notice. “Leigh, I've been thinking. About the other night . . . maybe I was too hard on you, when we were—you know.”

She stifled a laugh. He wouldn't say the word “sex.” It embarrassed him.

“Well, you were trying to tell me something, something about what you want, and I wasn't listening,” he said. “I thought maybe we should try again. This time I promise to be more open-minded.”