The Perfect Letter Page 27

  Then, of course, there was the matter of her trust fund. It was somewhere in this house. If there was any chance of getting it back, she had to do it. Not for herself, she was realizing—she would give it to Jake. All of it.

  She went slowly through the tall grass to the front door of the sagging pink house. Inside the big window of what must have been the living room, she could just make out the shape of Russell sitting on the arm of an old chair with its stuffing poking out. He was eyeing Jake warily, the envelope of Leigh’s letters in his hand, and drinking his beer with a long, deep swig.

  “Surprised your dad gave you those,” Russell said, nodding at the envelope. “Figured he’d keep them someplace safe.”

  “He wants me to get your copies, along with the money. Said it would be better if we kept them together in one spot, now that the job’s over. Just so we’re all on the same page and all.”

  “He did, huh?” said Russ, taking a long drink of his beer. “You think the job’s over?”

  Leigh started to hear warning bells going off. He’s not buying it, Jake. He doesn’t believe you.

  “Isn’t it?”

  “I’m starting to think it’s not,” Russ said, “since your dad specifically told me to keep my set of your girlfriend’s letters hidden away here. Just in case something happened to the first set. And your dad would know that, wouldn’t he, since he was the one who said so in the first place?”

  Damn. The game was up. And not only that, Russell had admitted he had another set of letters hidden somewhere in the house. Just as Leigh had feared—she’d never be rid of him. Never. They’d been too careful, too clever.

  But Jake wasn’t giving up so fast. His voice was smooth and unperturbed. “Why don’t you give those letters to me, Russ?” he said. “It’ll just be easier if you do. Give them to me and we’ll call it a day.”

  “Why?” Russ said, laughing harshly. “So you can give them back to that girl of yours? You think I’m as stupid as you are? They’re worth a fortune. You’re an idiot if you give those back to her.” He nodded at the envelope still in Jake’s hand. “You should hang on to them, Jake. She owes you. She owes you big-time.”

  “They’re worthless now. She gave you all her money. So what’s the difference if she gets them back or not?”

  “You think a tasty little bitch like her is going to go hungry for long? Naw, she’s going to be a meal ticket for a long time to come, Jake. She’s going to marry that rich jerk, and he’s worth a lot more than she is. Millions. I think I’ll keep my copies, Jake. Just in case.” Russell finished his beer and set the bottle down. “You should think about doing the same.”

  “No,” Jake said quietly. “I won’t.”

  Through the screen door Leigh could make out the shape of him, a shadow in the middle of the room, and the manila envelope that held her letters, a young girl’s pleas to the love of her life, and an accidental confession of her crime. His shoulders were set in a straight line, his carriage very stiff. Jake held up the envelope, his mouth set, and then something in his other hand flared, orange and yellow.

  A flame—Jake was holding up his lighter to the envelope.

  “I won’t keep them, and I won’t let you keep them either.”

  “What are you—?” said Russ, but the envelope caught, the flame spreading quickly, eating up the paper, turning the pages to ash. The copies of her letters—her confession of everything she’d done wrong—was going up in flames.

  Russell lunged at Jake, trying to take the letters. They fought, but Jake was at least a head taller than Russell, with maybe forty pounds on him; he knocked Russell back with one swipe of his right arm while with the left he held the burning paper aloft.

  But Russell wasn’t going to be so easily put off. He launched himself at Jake’s knees and knocked him to the floor. The burning envelope fell out of Jake’s hands and skittered across the floor while Russell sat on his chest, landing several hard blows on Jake’s jaw, the side of his head. “You pussy-whipped son of a bitch! I’ll kill you!”

  While they struggled the envelope landed on the floor next to the overstuffed chair. The paper was still half on fire, the yellow flames licking at the manila envelope, the white photocopies within. A single long flame reached out, caught the stuffing coming out from the underside of the old and rotten chair, and lit the chair on fire.

  The upholstery was so dry that in just seconds the whole chair was alight, licking across the faded floral fabric, charring the pattern of roses and baby’s breath until they were black. Flames and smoke shot toward the ceiling, toward the peeling wallpaper, a pattern of ducks in flight, which curled and blackened and gave off wisps of white smoke. The old photographs hanging at crazy angles on the walls burned in their frames, the glass cracking.

  Seeing the flames, Russell jumped off Jake and stomped on the envelope, trying to put out the flames. Too late—the envelope was nothing but ash.

  Next to the chair the old drapes caught on fire, the flames licking up the fabric toward the ceiling. Jake stood and ripped the curtains down, beating them against the floor to put out the flames, but a pile of magazines next to the drapes caught and flared, and then the old tweedy beige sofa, covered with dust bunnies and bits of lint.

  Russell saw the sofa burst into flames and spat an epithet. While Jake beat at it with the charred curtains, he ran into the kitchen, coming back a few seconds later with a large bowl filled with water. He threw it at the sofa, but it barely made a dent in the fire that was growing rapidly larger and fiercer with every passing second.

  While Jake pulled down the rest of the curtains and beat at the flames as hard as he could, Russell ran back to the kitchen with his bowl. He came back a minute later with an old fire extinguisher, red paint peeling, but when he pulled the pin, nothing came out.

  Everything was so dry and cluttered, so haphazard and disorganized, that it lit up almost immediately. Papers, magazines, old furniture, wallpaper, cobwebs—in less than thirty seconds the whole front room of the house was fully engulfed.

  Jake, sensing the battle was lost, stumbled toward the front door, covering his nose with the collar of his T-shirt. “Russell!” he said. “Get out of there! It’s too late, the whole house is going.”

  Leigh was moving back now, jumping down from the porch, but she could still see Russell rushing back to the kitchen for more water and towels. The fire was spreading fast now. He came back, clutching wet towels to his chest. “The money!” he said to Jake, drenching one end of the sofa with the bowl of water. The other was still alight, though, so he dropped the bowl and beat at the sofa with his wet towels like his life depended on it.

  “Where?” Jake said.

  “In the sofa. The cushions,” he said.

  Through the window Leigh could see the form of Russell Benoit dark against the blaze, plunging his hands into the fiery sofa cushions and pulling them apart. The money hidden inside the cushions burned fast and hot, like kindling, but Russell grabbed at the bundles, clutching at them even as they disintegrated in his hands. Leigh could see the stacks of hundreds curling at the edges as they burned, the fire scorching the skin on Russell’s hands, but it was like he felt no pain, or else he was so consumed with greed that he didn’t care.

  The whole house was going up in smoke. Black clouds billowed from the chimney and the edges of the roof. Feeling the heat coming from the front room, Leigh ran back to where Chloe was already on the phone with the fire department. “Come quick!” she was saying. “The whole place is on fire!”

  Then a scream. Leigh dashed toward the door once more, fearing for Jake, but before she got there the screen door opened and Russell Benoit stumbled out.

  He was on fire. His shirt had caught, and the flames were spreading up to his shoulders and into his hair. Jake flung himself at him, half dragging him out the door and onto the porch, and flung himself on top of the smaller man, rolling him over and over and smashing at the flames with his hands. All the while Russell was sobbing, “My
money! My money!”

  He was looking back toward the house, and Leigh realized the man didn’t know he was hurt. He didn’t feel anything yet—he was only thinking of the million dollars he’d had stashed in the sofa cushions. And before Jake could stop him, he jumped up and ran back into the house.

  “Wait!” Jake was screaming. “Russ, don’t go back in there! It’s too late!”

  But Russell Benoit had gone back into the house. Now the second story was on fire, too, smoke billowing from the windows as the roof caught on fire. From outside the house, they could hear him screaming. Leigh caught a glimpse of him running back into the kitchen with his hair on fire, his mouth wide open, stretched nearly to breaking, his eyes flickering with the light of the flames. She caught a glimpse of him falling, and something from the ceiling, a burning beam maybe, falling down on top of him.

  And then it was gone. The house. The money. Russell. It was all too late.

  Jake stumbled off the porch and stood in the yard clutching his own burned hands to his chest. The heat from the fire was so intense that Jake, Leigh, and Chloe kept moving back toward the road, silently watching the unbelievable scene unfolding in front of them. The smoke rose overhead like thunderheads, building over the wide blue Texas sky.

  Ben Rhodes’s truck broke the trance as it pulled into the driveway. He slammed the door of his truck and dashed toward the house, getting only as far as the front steps before the heat and the flames drove him out again. “Russ!” he called. “Russ, buddy, where are you?”

  “He’s dead,” said Jake quietly.

  Seeing his son there, not to mention Leigh and Chloe, Ben started to get a sense of what had happened. He grabbed Jake by the collar. “What did you do, boy?”

  “I took your letters,” Jake said. “The copies of Leigh’s letters you got from Russ. I found them in your truck. I lit them on fire.”

  “You did this? You killed Russ?”

  “He made it out alive. He made the choice to go back in. He was screaming about the money. Said it was hidden in the couch cushions.”

  Ben advanced on his son with his fists clenched. “Then it’s all gone! The money, the letters, Russ—everything’s gone. It was all in the house. Jacob, what the hell have you done?”

  Despite her nausea, despite her fear, Leigh felt a surge of hope. If the other copies of her letters had been hidden in the house, along with her money, then they were gone, too. The originals would be the only copies left. If Ben and Russell had each had a set, then all the copies were burning up as they stood there. She’d be free.

  “I knew I couldn’t trust you,” Ben snarled at Jake. “You worthless son of a bitch. You’ve ruined everything over that stupid little whore.”

  Jake got to his feet slowly, his face both sad and angry at once, and clenched his fists. “You’re not allowed to call her that. In fact, you’re not allowed to speak about her ever again, Dad. Do you understand me? Not ever.”

  Even in his late sixties, Ben Rhodes was a formidable man, wiry and tough from decades of training the fastest horses in the world. He stalked toward Jake like he meant to kill him, his jaw clenching and unclenching. “I understand I’m going to knock you on your ass, boy. Don’t think I can’t do it still, if I want to.”

  Jake straightened up to his full height. He had a good fifty pounds on his dad, all of it muscle, and maybe half a foot of height. Ben was overmatched, and as Leigh watched, she could see him realize it, see the dawning of recognition on the father’s face, the determination on the son’s: Jake Rhodes was not afraid of his father, not anymore. Every doubt she’d ever had about his divided sense of loyalty dissolved: he was not his father’s son.

  “Get the hell out of here, Ben,” Jake said quietly. “Get out before the cops show up. If you go now, you might be able to avoid going to prison yourself. It’s not a pretty place, prison. You wouldn’t last a month.”

  “I’d last longer than you, you little son of a bitch.”

  “It should have been you, all those years ago. You were the one who was doping the horses and bribing the owners. You were the one sending me to pick up your drugs. I’m still trying to dig myself out of the mess you made. You were the one who should have gone to jail, not me.”

  “I’m the only family you’ve got, Jacob. You better watch how you speak to me.”

  “Why? There’s nothing you have that I want. Not even your love.” Jake shook his head sadly. “I always wanted to be like you, you know. You used to be larger than life. But you took my love and respect, and you used it to hurt the people I cared about. What kind of a father does that?”

  Jake looked over at Leigh and then down at his burned hands. Leigh had to resist the urge to reach out and comfort him. That time would be coming, but it wasn’t now. She could see the emotions working over Jake’s face—anger and sadness, shame and regret and determination. He wouldn’t back down anymore.

  “I’ll never forgive you, boy,” said Ben. “Never. You’ve ruined everything.”

  “I don’t want your forgiveness, not anymore.” Jake turned his back on his father at last, turning instead to face Leigh, whose eyes were blurry with tears of relief and sadness.

  Jake didn’t look at his father as he said, “From a man like you, forgiveness is nothing but a crime.”

  They left before the fire department arrived, driving Jake to the clinic in Burnside to have his burned hands treated. While Jake was in with the doctor, Chloe and Leigh sat in the waiting room, streaked with smoke and leaning against each other in exhaustion. “So that’s it, then,” Chloe said at one point.

  Leigh, who’d been half asleep, roused herself to say, “What is?”

  “Your trust fund is all gone.”

  “I know.”

  “And you dumped Joseph and quit your job.”

  “True. But at least the letters have been destroyed. I won’t have Ben or Russell on my back anymore. I can start my life over. Not quite from the beginning, but close enough.”

  “They’ll find Russ’s body in the fire. They’ll have questions. Everyone from the fire department saw us there. You going to tell the police the truth?”

  “Yes. I’ll tell them Russ was a damn fool who went back inside the house after we all got out safely, which is just the truth.” Leigh swallowed hard and said, “There’s no point lying anymore, Chloe. It never did me any good anyway.”

  “Ben will tell them what he knows about the letters. They could still arrest you for Dale’s murder.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, and I don’t think so.”

  “No?”

  “He’d be in even worse trouble than I would at this point. Extortion is a crime, too. No, I figure Ben will tell them it was an accident and they’ll leave it at that.” She took a breath. “Even if he doesn’t, without the letters, the district attorney probably wouldn’t bother prosecuting me over Dale.”

  “That’s a lot to risk on ‘probably.’”

  Leigh sighed. “I know. But really, I don’t care anymore, Chloe. If the police want to come after me, I’m not going to stop them. I’m done trying to run away from my mistakes.”

  Then Jake came out, his hands bandaged, his face black with soot and pinched with the pain of his burns. He looked at the two women sitting in the waiting room. Leigh jumped up and went to him, but he shrugged and said, “It could have been worse.”

  When Leigh offered to drop him at his apartment in town, he said no, thanks, that he would walk, it wasn’t far. His expression was neutral, and he wouldn’t look at her. Leigh got the sense that maybe he didn’t want her seeing where he lived, that he was ashamed of his place and thought that if Leigh didn’t see it, she wouldn’t know.

  “Better I go now,” he said. “You have to get back, Leigh.”

  Despite herself, Leigh clutched at his arm. “You’re leaving? You’re leaving me again?”

  He stood in the middle of the clinic waiting room looking at his feet. “I think I have to. I can’t tell you how sorry I a
m for everything,” he said. “I’m sorry you lost your job and your fiancé. I’m sorry you’ve lost the money your grandfather left you. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. But from now on, I promise you won’t have to deal with Ben Rhodes anymore. He’ll never come after you again, I’ll make sure of it.”

  “Jake, please. Please let me help you. You don’t have to start over on your own. I thought . . . I thought maybe we were going to give it a try again. For real, this time.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t be a burden to you, Leigh. Because of me you’ve lost all your money. I’ve been trouble for you from the get-go.”

  “You haven’t.”

  “I have, and I know it now. It just wouldn’t work, Leigh. There’s too much water under this bridge. Dale, and prison, and now Russell’s death. I can hardly look at you for the shame I feel,” he said, and in fact he wasn’t looking her in the eye, but past her, at the wall behind her shoulder. “Go on back to New York. Be happy.”

  She didn’t want to do any of those things. She wanted to tell him she wasn’t going back to New York, she was going to stay, that they’d find a way to push through their past and find each other again, make it work somehow. But how? She had next to nothing to her name anymore, nothing except her skill as a book editor. And if she was going to use that skill, she’d have to go back to New York. She’d have to leave him again sooner or later. Maybe sooner was best.

  She said, “What will you do?”

  He gave her a rueful smile. “Start over. Find some kind of work. Prove everybody wrong.”

  Her voice nearly cracking, she said, “You have nothing to prove.”

  “I do, if only to myself,” he said. “If I can find something with a future, it will be a start.”

  She realized they were saying good-bye. That these might be the last moments they ever spent together. Her breath caught. She stifled back tears and said, “I should have given you the money, Jake. It would have been better than watching it burn up. You deserved it, after everything.”