The Perfect Letter Page 16

  “I know. I don’t care anymore—I think it’s time I told what I saw, what I did. If it means that these kinds of secret wars won’t happen again, then I’ll consider it time well spent.”

  “You’re willing to risk a lot to tell the truth.”

  “I am. I’m starting to get old, and at a certain point I realized that truth is the only thing that matters.”

  Leigh shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “As long as you understand the risks.”

  “I do. Took me years to write this book, but I think I’ve finally got it where I want it. I know you’ve worked with really top-notch authors, especially Millikin, but I was hoping you might be willing to take a chance on an unknown guy. This book means everything to me. I don’t want it to go just anywhere. It really needs an editor who will do right by it, believe in it as much as I do, stand behind it.”

  He said this with such sincerity that Leigh was moved.

  “I figured if I was going to do it, I wasn’t going in halfway,” he said. “Your speech yesterday really spoke to me, about writing from your passion. Made me think I was right to come today.”

  “I like to hear that. It makes me think you’d be just as passionate about getting it out there, selling it.”

  “If you ask me to do something, I’ll do it.”

  “I can’t say anything for sure until I’ve read it, since the success is always in the execution, but I promise I’ll do my best to see the potential in it. If it seems like something that will have an audience, then we’ll talk some more. Does that sound okay?”

  His face broke into a broad smile. “Thank you. That’s all I ask.” He paused and said, “If you’re not too busy, maybe I could buy you a cup of coffee tomorrow and we could talk some more? If that’s not too much.”

  She hesitated, thinking about Jake and Chloe. She wanted to find time for them before the conference ended, but she was sure she had time for a cup of coffee, right? Leigh thought through her schedule. She had another day of pitch meetings tomorrow with an hour lunch break . . .

  Jim, seeing her face, said, “It’s too much, isn’t it? It’s too much. Sorry, forget I asked. I’m sure you have plans.” He raked his hand through his hair, as if trying to put himself back together.

  “No, no,” she said. “I was just trying to remember everything I have to do tomorrow. I think I could manage, if that’s still okay?” She felt comfortable with him, as if they were old friends. Comfort and friendship were something she desperately needed just then. “What do you say you meet me in the dining pavilion tomorrow at four?”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  She took the manuscript from him and shook his hand. He pressed her one hand between his two. What was it about him that spoke to her so intimately, that made her let down her guard with him? She couldn’t quite wrap her head around it. “Take care,” she said as he went out the door.

  The rest of her morning went pretty much as planned—meeting after meeting, some promising, some not—and it was creeping toward noon, when she could go back to her cottage, to Jake, and to the avalanche of texts and phone messages that kept showing up on her cell from Joseph and Chloe. Leigh looked at her schedule—one more appointment this morning. If she hurried she could still make it up the hill to see Jake for lunch.

  She was writing a note in her notebook to remind herself about her meeting with Jim the next day when the door opened and her next appointment came inside. “Knock, knock,” said a voice.

  “Come in,” she said, still writing, slightly annoyed that she couldn’t have two seconds to jot down a note when she looked up to see the man she’d met at the bar two nights before, the one with the long gray ponytail who’d offered to buy her a drink at the last show of the night before Chloe whisked her away. He’d known her name, said he’d known all about her. Her memory was a bit fuzzy, but she seemed to recall that she’d gotten a creepy vibe from him. What had he said to her? I know all about you, Leigh Merrill.

  The man sat down now at the table across from her, leaning forward and knocking his knuckles on the table, twice, as if he were about to make some kind of request or demand. Leigh was immediately on her guard. “It’s you,” she said.

  “It’s me,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember me. You were pretty sloshed the other night.”

  “You said you knew who I was . . . now I understand it a little better.”

  “You didn’t understand it at the time?”

  “Not really, no. I try not to engage with people who hit on me in bars.”

  “You thought I was hitting on you?” he said. He looked around at the conference room—the windows, the lights, the tables and chairs, the whiteboard, even Leigh’s bag on the chair next to her—with a proprietary air. “You must be so used to men hitting on you that you always think that’s what they’re after. How cute.”

  “What can I do for you?” she asked, trying to turn the conversation back to business, trying not to show how annoyed she was.

  He produced a thin white envelope from under the table and set it between the two of them, thumping it twice more with his knuckles for good measure. “I have a bit of a thriller on my hands, you might say. A bit of a fast read. A murder mystery, you might call it. I think it will interest you.”

  She seriously doubted that—she didn’t publish thrillers; didn’t this guy do his homework?—but she put on her most polite expression and asked, “Really? Looks a bit thin for a thriller.”

  “More of a book proposal, say.”

  Leigh was prepared to say no already—a book proposal? really?—but she humored the creep. “Okay. Why don’t you tell me more about it?”

  “It’s about a pretty young editor from New York City with a dark and mysterious past, you might say. She’s got a dirty little secret she’s been hiding from everyone, including the man she loves.”

  Leigh swallowed. An uncomfortable coincidence—nothing more.

  “It seems this young editor—let’s call her Laura—once shot a man in cold blood and let her boyfriend at the time take the fall for it. She does a pretty good job of hiding it, too. For a little while, anyway. She becomes a big shot in the publishing world, meets a rich jerk who wants to marry her, but it all falls apart when her ex-boyfriend gets out of prison and the truth about the murder comes out. She loses everything—the ex-boyfriend, the job, the rich jerk. She loses everything because she isn’t smart enough to play the game right.”

  The room had gone very small and very dark. The only thing Leigh could see was a dim tunnel connecting her and the man with the gray ponytail. Somehow he knew her secret, the thing that no one, not even Chloe, had ever known. He was threatening to expose her—to Joseph, to the world.

  It had to be some kind of mistake. A misunderstanding. Please, let it be a misunderstanding. “It sounds pretty awful,” she said.

  “It’s based on a true story, if that helps at all.”

  “It couldn’t be.”

  “You don’t think so? You think I made it up?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  His voice dropped an octave, all the false charm flying out of it, replaced by menace, even hatred. “Oh, I’ll bet you do. I’ll bet you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  Leigh’s mouth went completely dry. This wasn’t happening. “Who are you?” she whispered.

  “We have a mutual acquaintance, you might say.” He grinned at her, showing teeth that seemed very small and sharp, like a rodent’s. “A common friend.”

  Leigh’s terror was replaced by anger. She folded her arms across her chest and leveled her gaze at the man. “Don’t be coy. You’re dying to tell me, so go ahead.”

  “I spent some time up in Huntsville. I saw . . . a lot of mail, you might say. Letters, postcards, catalogs from correspondence schools. You learn the most interesting things about people through the mail.”

  “You were at my talk yesterday. You must know I don’t get much mail.”

  “No
, but you wrote a lot of mail. All those letters in green pen, on the nice stationery. No one got letters like Jake did. They stood out. For example . . .” And here he took a slip of paper out of the envelope and started to read. “‘I’m serving a sentence, too. Maybe it’s the wrong kind of sentence—maybe you don’t think it’s fair, and it’s not—but I can’t change that now. I can’t change the fact that you weren’t the one who really killed Dale Tucker, and I can’t change the fact that you decided to tell everyone you were, and that the jury decided to believe you. We both have to live with the decisions we’ve made.’”

  Leigh felt her breath stop in her lungs. Those were her words, all right. How could she forget? She’d been so upset that day. She’d been angry, and she’d let her guard down, admitted the thing she’d been too scared, until then, to admit. And now it seemed she was going to pay for it.

  The only person who’d been in the barn besides Dale and Jake was Leigh herself. Everyone knew that. It was still possible for her to go to jail for Dale’s murder even though Jake had already served time. A new prosecutor receiving new evidence, like a letter, might mean a new trial.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “Were you a guard? An inmate?”

  “I think the less you know about me, the better.”

  “What do you want?” she asked, her voice husky with fear.

  “What does anyone want, Miss Merrill?” he said. “What makes the world go round?”

  She swallowed. “I wish you would stop being so cryptic. Tell me what you’re after.”

  “Money, and lots of it.”

  “I don’t have any. I work in publishing, you know. My salary wouldn’t make your car payment.”

  “Now, you don’t think I’m that stupid, do you? I’m talking about your grandfather’s money. I know ol’ Gene left you a nice chunk. I’m sure you could get your hands on some of it for me, now.”

  He was after her trust fund? The money her grandfather had left her? No—absolutely not. The trust was the only thing she had left from her family. Her grandfather had left the horse-breeding business to Leigh’s uncle Sonny, which was only fair since Sonny was the horseman in the family and Leigh was hell-bent on moving to Manhattan and working in publishing.

  Still, Gene hadn’t left her out of his will: he’d set aside almost a million dollars in a trust for Leigh, along with enough cash to pay for Harvard. He’d wanted her to be able to get a start in life without relying on anyone. She’d hardly touched it—she’d never really been able to bring herself to think of it as hers—but it was always there if she needed it. It had offered her a measure of comfort and independence, even if it was only psychological.

  Now this creep wanted her to just hand it over? Out of the question. It was her grandfather’s money, the result of her grandfather’s hard work and determination, and this man didn’t deserve a dime of it.

  “No,” she whispered hoarsely. “I don’t care what you think you have on me. I won’t do it.”

  The man knocked again on the table, as if this was the answer he’d been expecting. He grinned at her almost with pleasure, almost as if he were looking forward to the damage he could do now that he had his answer. “You sure about that?” he asked. “Wouldn’t you prefer to stay out of jail?”

  “They won’t put me in jail.”

  “Oh, sure they will. When they see your confession in your own handwriting? You better believe it. And just think what a good time a beautiful girl like you will have in prison.”

  “You don’t have my letters. I have them. I have all of them.”

  “Now, you don’t think Huntsville prison had a copy machine? I could plaster the state highway with copies of you confessing to Dale’s murder if I wanted to. You think the county prosecutor won’t notice something like that?”

  Leigh couldn’t speak.

  “And there’s your nice rich boyfriend to think about. You think he’ll still want you after you’ve done time? Your boss, that fancy British dude? You think they’ll still respect you when they find out what you did? You won’t have much of a career to worry about then, little lady.”

  “I can’t even get the money,” she lied. “It’s all been spent.”

  “No, it hasn’t. You rent your apartment. You don’t own a car. Your boyfriend pays whenever you travel, so I know you’re not blowing anything on that. Let’s see. Did I leave anything out?”

  No, he hadn’t left anything out.

  “If you won’t pay up, I’m willing to bet there are plenty of other editors in New York who would. Tabloid editors. Gossip columnists. You think I’m wrong?” Silence. “No? I’m right, then? Well, I’m glad to know I haven’t wasted my time with this project. Guess I’ll jump on a plane to Manhattan and start making some connections. See you in the funny pages, Miss Merrill.”

  “Wait . . .” Leigh said, weakly, but he was already on his way out the door with the envelope—her future, her past—in his hands.

  Dear God, she thought. What am I going to do now?

  Nine

  She climbed the hill of the vineyard to her cottage once more, staring up at the line of live oaks lining the hillside, the bluebonnets waving in the breeze. The stone path felt like jelly under her feet, like the world was no longer solid. On her back she could feel several long red scratch marks from Jake’s fingernails. Had that only been the night before?

  She felt like collapsing to the ground, crying out—anything. The smug look on the face of the man with the ponytail when she’d told him no, she wouldn’t give him her grandfather’s money, when he’d said that he’d turn her in to the police, humiliate her in front of her colleagues and friends. How arrogant he’d been, how gleeful, as if he relished ruining her reputation. He’d said he could plaster the state highway with copies of her letter if he wanted to, and she had no doubt, really, that he wanted to.

  There was absolutely no way she could pay him off. It would leave her with nothing, and who’s to say he wouldn’t make her letter public anyway, just to spite her?

  He’d never told her his name. She couldn’t look him up on the Internet, couldn’t see what she was up against. He’d known everything about her, including how much money she spent and on what, and she didn’t even know something as simple as his name.

  Leigh’s phone was ringing when she reached the door of the cottage, but she didn’t answer it. It had to be Joseph or Chloe, and neither of them could help her out when the problem was blackmail. She pressed ignore on her phone, trying to resist the impulse to look behind her. If the man with the ponytail knew about what had happened in the barn with Dale Tucker, what else did he know about? He said he’d been at Huntsville with Jake, but what did that mean exactly? How did he know Jake, really?

  She opened the door to the cottage and dropped her bag inside, near the closet, feeling an immense weariness come over her, her limbs heavy, even her head. She didn’t want to talk about the past anymore, with anyone, but it wouldn’t leave her alone. The prospect of chewing over ancient history with Jake, now, also was unappealing to her. She still didn’t know, in the end, what she truly wanted.

  Jake was asleep on the bed, his head thrown back, snoring softly. She lay down beside him as quietly as possible, trying not to move the bed, but he shifted and stirred; waking, he pulled her to him. “Mmm,” he said. “If I keep waking up in your bed like this, you’ll never get me out of here.”

  She sighed and leaned down to kiss him. “I missed you.”

  “Already?” he said, undoing the buttons on her blouse one by one, kissing lower and lower with each new button.

  “Please.” Leigh closed her eyes, feeling the tears squeezing out of them. She felt completely exhausted, wrung out. She didn’t want to think anymore, didn’t want to make decisions or plans or anything. Right now the only thing that made sense was herself and Jake in this room. “Please, can you hold me a minute? I just need a minute. I can’t—”

  His arms went around her immediately, cradling her against his long, lean b
ody. “Of course,” he said. He brushed her hair from her face. “Are you okay, Leigh? What’s wrong?”

  Her heartbeat slowed, her breathing calmed. Nestled in Jake’s arms, she was thinking of the man with the ponytail, of Huntsville prison, of what Jake had written in his letter to her all those years ago, that the guards had made jokes about prisoners being raped there. She shuddered, not wanting to imagine such things happening to Jake, to the boy he’d been back then. “You were gone such a long time,” she said. “I don’t know how you managed. It must have been awful.”

  He looked up at the ceiling. “Some of it. Most of it was manageable, at least. Lonely, but manageable.”

  She touched his face and said, “What about the parts that weren’t manageable?” She brushed a finger over his cheek, his neck, but he was as still as a deer that’s scented a wolf.

  “You don’t really want to talk about that.”

  “Maybe I do,” she said. “Maybe I’m wondering what happened to you there. The people you met.”

  He stood up suddenly, dislodging Leigh. His skin flushed with anger and embarrassment, Jake stalked to the bathroom. Leigh got up and followed him, watching him turn the shower on, hot. “I don’t want to talk about that,” he said. “It was bad, okay? You don’t want the ugly details.”

  The bathroom was filling with steam. Jake got in the shower and let the hot water run over his head. Leigh leaned against the counter, folding her arms across her chest. “It was just a question. We don’t have to talk about it until you’re ready.”

  “Maybe I’ll never be ready, did you think about that? What’s the point?”

  She was staring at the shower curtain. Jake was just a shape behind it, moving. “You did ten years. That’s a lot of your life I don’t know anything about.”

  “And what about you? I haven’t heard a word from you in six years. You have anything you’re dying to tell me about yourself? About what you did in all that time?”