The Perfect Letter Page 11

  “I’ll kill you,” Dale was hissing. “I will fucking kill you.”

  She could see them fighting. It was dark in the barn, but she could see well enough that Jake was too much for the smaller, older man, that Jake was tall and broad and powerfully built. He swung out and caught Dale under the chin, knocking the other man into the dirt.

  She watched as Dale Tucker grabbed a lead line, looped it over Jake’s neck, and pulled. Jake gave a strangled gasp and fell to his knees.

  Leigh’s heart was in her ears. Jake was in trouble. She had to help. She had to save him.

  She slipped around to the outside entrance to the tack room, running now. The barn was completely black, so that the two men fighting were nothing but shadows in the darkness, a blur of movement and grunting. She turned the handle of the door to the tack room, where her grandfather kept the .357. She found the gun right where her grandfather always kept it, under the pile of horse blankets on the shelf. It was loaded. It was always loaded—Gene said an unloaded gun was no better than a baseball bat.

  Holding it low at her side, she opened the tack room door into the barn. The fight had spilled out into the aisle of the barn. She could see their shapes, but could barely make out who was who. Dale Tucker was nearly a head shorter than Jake, wearing his dirty old trucker hat even in the dark, but he was muscular, strong, nearly as wide as he was tall. Jake was kneeling, and Dale had the rope tight around his throat, squeezing, his other hand pulling Jake’s arms behind his back at an angle that looked so painful Leigh nearly cried out.

  “Give me the stuff, you pussy-whipped little shit! I know you have it!”

  “Fuck. Off.” Jake’s voice was nothing but a hoarse whisper, the air nearly squeezed out of him.

  Leigh raised the gun to sight at Dale’s head. She cocked the weapon, a loud metallic clicking, unmistakable even in the dark. Both men froze.

  “Step back,” Leigh said, her voice quavering in fear, or anger, or both at once. “Get your hands off him, Dale. I may be nothing but a worthless piece of ass, but you know as well as I do that my rich granddaddy taught me how to use this gun.”

  Dale let go of the rope around Jake’s neck and stepped away. “Well, look at this,” he said, his voice dripping sour honey. “Mommy’s come to break up the fight. Jake, you didn’t tell me you called for your mommy.”

  “He didn’t. I came looking for him and heard you talking garbage about me.”

  Jake was lying on the floor, gasping, but at least he was breathing again.

  “Honestly, sweetheart, I didn’t know you were here. If I had, I might have said some things different.”

  The gun was heavy in her hands. She’d never aimed one at a person before—she’d shot at cans along a fence line, once at a bunch of coyotes that were harassing some of the horses—but she’d never felt the adrenaline rush into her veins the way she did now, the throb of her own power.

  As Leigh pointed the gun straight into Dale Tucker’s eyes, words flooded her brain. Every nasty thing he’d said to her, every disgusting look, it all came into razor-sharp focus. She remembered the look on his face earlier in the day, when he’d compared her to a mare in heat, just waiting for the stud to come in and ride her. She saw the self-satisfied expression he’d worn when he’d reached out and touched her breast like it was something he owned.

  Now he was sneering. She could just make out his face in the dark, could just see the curl of his lip as he looked at her. Nothing but a worthless piece of ass, he’d called her, because she didn’t like him, because she’d recoiled when he touched her. She was only worthless because she wouldn’t back down to someone like him.

  “You tell your boyfriend about today?” Dale said. “How you took it in the breeding shed like a good little bitch?”

  She watched Jake’s head snap up. That had caught his attention, like Dale had wanted.

  “The only thing that happened in the breeding shed today,” she said, “was when I told you to keep your hands off me.”

  “Oh, come on, now. Tell lover boy here the truth, Leigh. You wanted it. You loved it.”

  “The only thing I want from you,” she said slowly, “is the sight of you walking away. Let him go, and no one gets hurt.”

  “That’s not what you said this afternoon.”

  “I will never,” she said, “let you put your filthy hands on me again. Not ever.”

  “You will. You know you will, because you don’t dare tell Granddaddy on me. The minute you do, lover boy here is yesterday’s news. I think you’ll get down on your knees and do whatever I tell you to, just to keep ol’ Jakey here on the farm. Now, that’s a thought. We could work out a deal, a little tit for tat. That’s all it takes for me to keep my mouth shut about you and Jake. Easy as pie for a girl like you. Sound good?”

  Jake was struggling to get to his feet. “If you ever . . . If you hurt her, you son of a—”

  Leigh kept the gun pointed at Dale, but she could feel her hands begin to shake. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t even think about it. Not ever.

  “Now let’s talk turkey,” said Dale. “What I want right now is for lover boy here to give me the stuff his daddy sent him for. If he doesn’t, then he can be sure that the next time I catch you alone, I won’t be so gentle.”

  “You smug asshole. I’m the one with the gun.”

  “You won’t do it. You don’t have the balls for killing, sweetheart. Might as well give me that gun right now. Come on, give it over.”

  He still didn’t think she’d do it. He didn’t think she was capable of actually pulling the trigger. She held the gun steady.

  “Leigh.” It was Jake now, coughing, pushing himself to his knees. “Don’t give it to him. Don’t listen to him.”

  Dale was moving closer, his shadow coming at her in the dark, slowly. He held out his hand to take the gun from her. He kept talking—low, soothing—like calming a balky horse. “You angry about today, honey? All I did was give you a taste. You liked it, too, didn’t you? Been thinking about me all day?”

  Her face burned, because she had been thinking about him all day. About how much she hated him, about all the ways she wanted to humiliate him, pay him back for humiliating her. And that was the point, she realized—he wanted her to hate him. He wanted her to think about him, to insinuate himself into her head, because to a man like him hatred was the most powerful aphrodisiac.

  “Come on, honey,” he said. Dale was only a few feet from her now, reaching out his hand. “Come on, give me that gun. You don’t know the damage you could do with it, do you? You don’t want that. You don’t want that kind of mess in your life.”

  He was close, closer, sidling up to her, moving slowly, talking low. He was coming for the gun, probably thinking to take it from her. He was enjoying his game, enjoying thinking he had the upper hand.

  But he didn’t have the upper hand, because she still had the gun.

  Maybe, if she’d given it to him, he would have simply put it away. Then again, maybe he would have turned it on her and then Jake. Afterward—for many years afterward—she would try to decide which it might have been. Both. Either.

  What she did remember, what she dreamed about sometimes at night, was the feel of her own fear, the knowledge of another human being who wanted to do her harm. It didn’t matter that he was outnumbered. It didn’t matter that he was unarmed. It only mattered that she hated him and that she was afraid of him and that she was the one who held the gun.

  In the dark she could see him coming toward her, see the broad expanse of his chest in the checkered shirt, the muscular shoulders, the curl of his lip. She’d known that afternoon in the barn that he hated her, that he wanted to hurt and humiliate her. The next time I catch you alone, I won’t be so gentle.

  Her finger tightened on the trigger. A flash.

  All the noise in the world seemed to coalesce around her then. The next thing she remembered the lights were on, and she was on the floor of the barn, Jake bending over her, Jake taking the
gun out of her hand. He was saying something to her, something she couldn’t hear. “What?” she asked him numbly. “What, Jake?” His lips were moving, but she wasn’t understanding him. It was as if he were speaking in a foreign language, something dense and impenetrable.

  “Are you hurt?” Her ears were ringing, but she could just make out Jake’s voice through a fog. “Are you shot?”

  She sat up, felt her limbs and chest. Everything was where it should be. “I don’t think so,” she said.

  On the ground a few feet away lay the body of Dale Tucker, a dark stain spread across the front of his shredded gray-checkered shirt. His mouth was open, and his mean little eyes were staring up at the ceiling, at nothing. She’d caught him full in the chest with a high-caliber round at close range, and it had torn through him like a stone through wet paper. A dark puddle of blood spread out from beneath him.

  Jake bent over him, still holding the gun. “He’s dead.”

  Leigh wrapped her arms around herself, started to shake. “Oh God,” she moaned. “God, God, I killed him.” She could hardly see. The barn started to go white around her, and she collapsed on the floor. “I killed him. I killed him, Jake.”

  It was all going away—Harvard, New York, herself and Jake getting married. It was slipping through her fingers like sand. They’d take her to prison. They might even give her the chair. She felt a noise roiling in her throat, realized the keening sound she heard was her own voice.

  Jake shook her. “Stop. Stop it. Look at me, Leigh. Look at my face, just my face. Breathe.” She tried to do what he said, to look in his face, to breathe, but how could she? How could she? She might as well take the gun and put it to her own head. “I’m going to jail,” she said. “I killed him. I killed him, Jake!”

  “Listen to me. You didn’t. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I did. I did it. I did it.”

  She was panicking, but Jake was looking around at the blood on the floor, his hands on the gun. Then he knelt next to Dale and took aim at the barn door, firing a single shot—bam—into the wood.

  “What are you doing?” she screamed. “Why did you do that?”

  “Powder burns,” Jake said. He took her by the shoulders and hauled her to her feet. “Listen to me, Leigh. I did it. We tell them it was me.”

  “You’re crazy—”

  “No, listen to me. We say we came out here to check on the gelding, the one with the lame leg. We say we heard an intruder. A thief. We went to get the gun just to warn him off. He wrestled me down to the floor and was choking me. I shot him to protect myself. We didn’t know it was Dale until we turned on the lights. It will work, I swear.”

  “I can’t,” she sobbed. “It was me. It was me. They’re going to arrest me, they’re going to take me to prison. I might get the death penalty.”

  “They won’t. I won’t let them.”

  “I can’t, I can’t. I can’t let you do that. I did it. I did it. It was me.” She was still screaming, nearly hysterical now. “I killed him. Oh my God, Jake, what have I done!”

  “Listen.” He was bending down to look in her eyes, trying to calm her, but there was a weird energy in his voice, a sense of urgency she hadn’t understood at the time. “Listen to me, Leigh. Leela, look at me.”

  Her eyes snapped up.

  “This is what you tell the police when they come: that we came out to the barn to check on the gelding with the lame leg. We saw a man, a horse thief. We went to get your grandfather’s gun. The man fought with me. He had me down on the ground. I fired twice. We didn’t know it was Dale until we turned the lights on. Leigh, repeat what I just said.”

  “No, no, I can’t let you do that.”

  Jake’s voice boomed: “Repeat to me what I just said, Leigh.” His fingers were so tight around her shoulders she nearly cried out.

  Leigh felt like she was choking. The words were like ashes in her mouth. “We came to the barn to check on one of the horses. We heard an intruder and went to get the gun. We warned him. He lunged at you, and you fired, and then he had you down on the ground and was choking you. That’s when you killed him. We didn’t know it was Dale until we turned on the lights.”

  “That’s it. That’s all you ever have to say.”

  She was weeping now. “I can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t lie.” She didn’t know where it was coming from, this determination to take the blame for something he hadn’t done, but she couldn’t think, she couldn’t even see straight. She was thinking about Harvard, about having to tell the university she’d been arrested, about her grandfather coming to visit her in jail, about police and lawyers and judges. The electric chair sizzling her flesh. It was over; it was all over, except it hadn’t even begun. “I won’t let you do this.”

  “You will. It was self-defense,” he said, lifting up her chin to look him in the eyes. “I can handle a couple of weeks in jail. What I can’t handle is watching you get handcuffed and put in a squad car because I screwed up.”

  “Jake—”

  His face twisted in pain. “Don’t argue with me, Leigh. If it wasn’t for me, you could have gone to your grandfather and got Dale fired a long time ago. You wouldn’t even have been out here tonight if it wasn’t for me.”

  “That’s not true. I—”

  Then someone was shouting, someone else was in the barn. “Jesus Christ!” said a voice.

  Jake pulled her close as Ben Rhodes arrived on the scene, as her grandfather came running from the house. The arrival of other people in the barn made the situation seem very real all of a sudden.

  “My God,” said her grandfather. “What the hell happened here? Leigh? Leigh, are you all right?”

  She held on to Jake to steady herself. “I’m okay, Pop. I’m not hurt.”

  Ben was kneeling down next to his friend. “Dale,” he said. “Dale, hey, buddy.”

  “He’s dead, Ben,” said her grandfather. “Nothing you can do for him now.” He looked from Leigh to Jake, who still had the gun in his hand. “You better put that gun down, Jake, and tell me what happened.”

  Jake gingerly set the gun down on the floor of the barn.

  “He didn’t—” Leigh started, but Jake cut her off.

  “He tried to kill me. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Jacob,” said his father, “what the hell have you done? You shot Dale? You killed him?”

  Gene shook his head, trying to keep things calm. “Threatening you how?”

  Jake said, “I didn’t know it was Dale. We came out here to check on the gelding, the one that’s favoring his front leg. We saw someone coming out of one of the stalls with a horse, didn’t we, Leigh? I went to get the gun, just to warn him off, of course. He came at me. He wrestled me down to the ground, got his hands around my neck. He said he was going to kill me, so I shot. Isn’t that right, Leigh?”

  Leigh didn’t answer. She couldn’t speak.

  “That doesn’t make sense. What were you arguing about? Why would Dale say he was going to kill you?”

  Jake looked over at Leigh. She opened her mouth to protest, but the look in his eyes stopped her. I’m doing this, it said. I’m doing this whether you want me to or not. “He was angry.”

  “Angry about what?”

  “Jake,” said his dad in a warning tone.

  Jake shook his head. “He came at me. I thought he had a knife, maybe. He would have killed me if I hadn’t shot him first. He said so. He said he was going to kill me, didn’t he, Leigh?”

  “Jake—” she said.

  “I shot him. He said he was going to kill me. You heard him, Leigh. You heard what he said. Tell them what he said.”

  “Is this true, Leela?” her grandfather asked.

  This was the moment. She could have, should have told the truth right then, but something stopped her. Jake was so certain, so calm, and she was so scared—scared of hurting her grandfather, of getting Ben fired, of going to prison. Maybe he was right. Maybe what he said would work. It was self-defense, wa
sn’t it? Jake had the bruises on his neck to prove it. If she told the truth there would be handcuffs and confessions and jail time. She’d lose Harvard, lose her future . . .

  She looked up. Her grandfather’s face was so stern, forbidding. The thought of telling him what had really happened, of explaining what Dale had said in the breeding barn, the thought of explaining how he’d put his hands on her, how he’d tried to blackmail her into sex just now—it was unbearable. Gene would have to know everything; she’d have to tell him about her and Jake, about them running away together. He’d never let her see Jake again.

  Later she would know all that was an excuse. She did it because she was scared, and because Jake seemed so sure it was the right thing, the only thing.

  Over her grandfather’s shoulder she could make out Jake giving her a pleading look. She took a breath and said, “He said he was going to kill Jake. He was strangling him.”

  “Why would he want to kill Jake?” Gene was getting angry now. “Someone had better tell me for real what the hell’s going on here.”

  Jake shook his head no. Gene stood up and said, “If you don’t explain it to me, Leigh, you’ll have to explain it to the cops.”

  “Then I’ll explain it to the cops.”

  Ben stood up and fixed his son with a stony glare. Probably he already knew what was going to happen, how it was going to go: that the police would find the steroids; that Ben would lose his job; that Jake would go to prison. “You have no idea what you’ve done, Jacob. You have no fucking clue.”

  Under the harsh lights of the barn, his face ashen, Leigh could hear her grandfather talking to the sheriff on his cell phone, and the reality of what was happening hit her hard. Dale’s body lay on the floor of the barn, his blood pooling on the floor of the aisle, and she’d felt sick, she’d run out into the darkness to throw up in the bushes, retching over and over until her guts were empty.

  “A man’s been shot,” Gene Merrill was saying. “A man’s dead at my place. You’d better send your people out right away.”