The Perfect Letter Read online

  She looked down at her hands. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  Jake turned the water off, then grabbed a towel, wrapping it around his waist. When he came out his skin was so red it looked like it had been scalded. “Okay.” He took a breath and then said, “Tell me about what’s-his-name.”

  Leigh felt her face burn. She did not want to talk about what’s-his-name, especially not now, and not with Jake, of all people. “What do you want to know?”

  “Start with when you decided to sleep with him.”

  She went back into the other room. She’d known they were going to have this talk eventually, but she would have preferred that Jake wasn’t so bitter, and that she wasn’t so scared.

  “That’s what matters to you? That I slept with him? I slept with other people before him, Jake. It’s not like he’s been the only one.”

  “Anyone serious?”

  “No. I didn’t want them to be.”

  “Okay, then. How did this one get serious?”

  She sat on the edge of the bed. “You have to understand, I was young, I didn’t know anyone in the city. When I first got to the company, I was trying to prove myself. He took an interest in me.”

  “I’ll bet he did.”

  “It was never like that. He was helping me with my career.”

  “You know, strangely enough, listening to you defend him doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  “After I got my promotion, I don’t know. Maybe he thought it wouldn’t be a problem if he asked me to coffee. I said no, the first couple of times. But waiting around for you started to feel so . . . futile. I hadn’t seen or heard from you since that day in court. It started to seem like a kind of insanity, all that waiting. The next time Joseph asked me to coffee, I didn’t see any reason to keep saying no.”

  “He seems pretty uptight, if you ask me. I can’t believe you’d pick him, of all people.”

  She felt anger explode inside her—Jake didn’t have the right to criticize Joseph, not after so many years of conspicuous silence.

  “You don’t know anything about him,” Leigh snapped. “Anyway, we work together, we have a lot of the same friends, the same interests. It made sense to me then. It still does.”

  “Does it? Does that mean you’re still going to go back to him?”

  Leigh hugged her arms more tightly around herself, as if doing so was something strong enough to repel the emotions that suddenly threatened to overwhelm her. “I don’t know,” she choked. “I haven’t had a chance to think clearly yet. I didn’t plan any of this.”

  “And you think I did?”

  She made a dry laughing sound, but there was no mirth in it. “Some of it. You planned to show up at the conference with those letters, at least. You must have known that it would throw me for a loop. You wanted a reaction, or you wouldn’t have shown up here.”

  “A reaction?”

  She couldn’t believe they were having this argument again. She could see where this conversation was going already, devolving into a litany of recriminations and old resentments, and yet she couldn’t stop herself from pushing him a little more, just a little more.

  “Give me a break, will you? You had no intention of staying out of my life, no matter what you wrote in your note. If you had, you’d never have showed up here in the first place. You wanted to see what I would do, Jake. Admit it.”

  “Hell yes, I admit it. I wanted to see if there was still something between us. I haven’t thought of much else in a decade! And I was right. We still belong together, Leigh. Why can’t you admit it?”

  “I never told you that sleeping with you meant I was leaving Joseph. I—”

  “—want to have your cake and eat it, too. I get it, Leigh. Boy, do I. You want to keep both your ex-con boyfriend and the rich respectable guy from Manhattan who’s promoting your career. Who goes by Joseph, too.”

  Leigh felt her anger boiling up again, the same anger she’d felt the day she wrote Jake and told him she was through waiting, that four years without a word was long enough. Why did he have to be so damn stubborn?

  “Lots of people don’t like nicknames.”

  “Yes, rich East Coast pricks with a country-club membership and a big, fat bank account.”

  He was being impossible. He was picking a fight—for what? To force Leigh to make a decision right here, right now? Was that the idea? Well, he was in for more than he bargained for if that was the case. She was an adult now, with connections and responsibilities he didn’t know about and couldn’t understand. If he wanted to punish her, she could punish him right back.

  Jake came up close and grabbed her by the shoulders, hard. “If you think I’m going to wait around for months while you go back and forth between us—”

  “That’s not going to happen,” she said, taking a step back. “Joseph’s not just some rich boyfriend from Manhattan, Jake. He’s my fiancé.”

  The color seemed to drain from Jake’s face. He sat down hard on the bed, his voice very small, very young. If Leigh hadn’t been so angry, she would have gone to him immediately.

  “You’re marrying him? Really?”

  “He proposed right before I came home. Had a ring and everything.”

  He looked at her hand, ringless, before she had a chance to hide it behind her back. His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t say yes.”

  She was still angry, still determined to punish him for picking a fight with her. “I will, though. I already decided, before you dropped off all those letters, that I would. I’m telling him as soon as I get home.”

  Jake stood. The towel around his waist fell to the floor, and he stood before her completely naked, his body flushed, strong—a mountain she couldn’t or wouldn’t climb. She wasn’t sure where to look: at him, his body? His face? She stared straight ahead; she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him see how the sight of him charged her.

  “And now?” His voice dropped an octave; his eyes were a hot, sizzling blue. “Nothing has changed? After last night, this morning?”

  “I don’t—I mean, I haven’t had a chance—”

  “Right,” he said, reaching for her. “Let me tell you how much I think you’re going to marry that guy.”

  He kissed her, his mouth soft, searching, but insistent. Leigh dropped her hands; she wouldn’t reach up and embrace him, not now. She was still too angry. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Stop it.”

  “I don’t think you want me to stop,” he said.

  “I do,” she said. “Please. Please.” She put her hands up to push him away, took a step back.

  He took a step toward her. “I don’t want to stop,” he said. “Not with you. Not after so long. You’re what I want, Leigh. You’re everything. I hate that guy. I hate that you’d even think of marrying him.”

  She couldn’t see past his shoulder—Jake was everywhere, blotting out the sun. He was so much bigger than she was, so much bigger than he’d been back in the days when they loved each other, when they used to be happy, and she was suddenly realizing how little she knew about him. Everything she had been feeling was based on some old picture of Jake that may or may not match with present reality.

  Leigh’s mind was swirling; she couldn’t see, couldn’t think. She took another step back. “I have to go back to work,” she whispered.

  “Work can wait.” He pulled her toward him again and kissed her, hard.

  “It can’t. I have appointments I have to keep.”

  “They can wait. I did.”

  “Jake. I—I need . . .” she said, turning, as if there were any way for her to get away from him. “I need . . .”

  “You need me,” he said, kissing her neck.

  But right now she didn’t need more lovemaking, she needed a little comfort and safety. She pushed away from him and crossed the room. There, on the dresser, were the letters Jake had delivered to her the day before. Several of them were open, lying in plain sight. Only now they weren’t just a remnant of a long-a
go past, they were a threat, a noose around her neck. Someone had read them besides Jake. Someone knew her most intimate secrets.

  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?”