The Perfect Letter (29 page)

Jake groaned, but Leigh was already halfway down the driveway. Chloe got out and slammed the car door. “Quietly,” Jake said. “We don't want to make him more nervous than he is already. And let me go first, at least. Give me the letters, Leigh.”

“Why?”

“I think I have an idea how I might get him to talk to me.”

She handed over the envelope. They went silently through the tall grass, the grasshoppers leaping whenever they came near, the buzz of cicadas rising and falling in the heat. The grass and the numerous outbuildings hid their approach from the road, but they kept their eyes on the front door the whole time.

The house looked like it had sat abandoned for some time until Russell decided to make it his place. Leigh wondered briefly if the place was in fact his or if he'd just started squatting there after he got out of Huntsville. Out front, the porch was covered with lawn chairs and empty paint buckets and maybe two or three years' worth of dust. The screen door was open in the heat, and a scrawny cat scratched at it forlornly, begging to come inside. In the corner of the eaves, an enormous yellow spiderweb flickered in the breeze. The smell of old motor oil and creosote clung to everything.

“Adorable,” said Chloe. “It looks like a serial killer's hideout.”

“Quiet,” hissed Jake.

Behind the screen door someone was whistling. Russell's car was the only one parked outside. The three of them, Leigh and Chloe and Jake, stood behind a cluster of sumac bushes and an old bur oak, half hidden from the front of the house.

Then they heard Russell talking to someone. “Hey,” he said. “I got it.
You coming over?” Silence. Then, “Well, don't keep me hanging, buddy. You want your share, you better come get it.” Then more silence. “All right. See you in a bit.”

“You think that was Ben on the phone?” Leigh whispered.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “He'll probably be here any minute.”

“When he gets here, it will be two against three,” said Leigh. “I like our chances better now.”

“Then let's go,” Chloe said.

Leigh started toward the house, but Jake held her arm. “Wait,” he said. “Let me go first.”

“No way.”

“You and Chloe wait here. Let me talk to him. I have an idea how I might find out where the money is. If things go wrong, though, I want you two to get the hell out of here.”

“No,” she said. “I won't leave you.”

“You will, and you won't tell anyone you were here, Leigh. Promise me.”

“If he hurts you . . .”

“I can protect myself, but I can't protect all three of us. Promise me you will
not
go in that house.”

She would promise no such thing. “You don't have to do this, Jake.”

He gave her a grim look. “Yes, I do.” Then he stood and went up the drive toward the house, his white T-shirt shining in the sun like a flag of surrender.

Leigh watched him go with a measure of trepidation and not a little breathlessness. What did Jake think he was going to do, going in there alone? It was unlikely Russell would tell him where he'd hidden the money, but maybe Jake knew something that would trick Russell into admitting it. Jake had known Russell for years; they'd been cellmates, and probably Jake had more insight into Russell's way of thinking than just about anybody, including Ben. If anyone could talk him into revealing where he'd hidden the money, it might just be Jake.

She and Chloe held back and waited, bracing themselves when they heard Jake knock on the screen door three times fast.

“Hey, Russell,” he said. “Russell. It's me, Jake.”

Russell's dusty form appeared behind the screen door. From where she stood behind the sumac, Leigh couldn't see his face, but she could hear a certain amount of hesitation in his voice as he said, “Jake. Hey, buddy. Long time no see.” His body language, even through the screen door, looked tense, almost hostile, belying the politeness of his tone. “What're you doing here?”

Their voices carried easily across the slight distance to the place where Leigh and Chloe were hiding. Leigh was immediately afraid.
Be careful, Jake. Please, be careful.

“My dad sent me. Said I was supposed to talk to you about a bit of business you got going on.”

“Did he now.” Russell's tone was flat. “Did he tell you what business?”

“Nope. Just that I was supposed to come on over here.”

Russell still looked suspicious. “How'd you get here so fast?”

“I was in the neighborhood.”

He must have seen the envelope in Jake's hand, because he said, “What're you doing with that?”

“Old man said to bring it with me.”

“He did, huh?” Russell held the screen door open for Jake. “You better come in, then.”

Jake disappeared inside the house. Leigh and Chloe could still hear the two of them talking, more faintly now. Murmurs from inside. Some sounds of shuffling, then a door opening. Leigh's heart hammered at her ribs.

“Want a beer?” Russell asked.

“Isn't it a little early?” asked Jake.

The sound of a can hissing open. “Never too early.”

They were moving around from room to room inside the house, so that their voices sometimes came a little more clearly, sometimes a little less. Now there was a murmur Leigh couldn't quite make out, followed by Jake saying, “That's right.”

Ben was going to be there at any moment. Jake had to find out where the money was before he got there, before the odds turned against them.

Leigh turned to Chloe and whispered, “I'm going to go closer. It's safe.”

“It's only safe because he thinks Jake's on his side.”

“Stay here, then,” Leigh answered. “I'll go.”

“The hell you will.”

“Seriously, Chloe. Stay hidden. If there's trouble, call the police right away.”

“You sure about that?”

Getting the police involved in this situation would be a big problem for Leigh, but that didn't matter anymore. They had to be safe about it. “Absolutely,” she said. “I don't care what happens to me, no one else dies. If things start to go bad, you call right away. Got it?”

“All right,” Chloe said, pulling out her cell phone. “Though I can't say I'm happy about it.”

Leigh stepped behind the sumac and walked slowly up to the front door, her vision narrowing to the screen, the shapes of Jake and Russell moving around in the shade inside, their voices coming to her in a murmur, her steps thick and slow and difficult. The front door of the house gaped like the mouth of a tomb. It took everything in her not to turn around and run.

But if Jake was right—if the copies of the letters in his possession were the only ones—she could destroy them, she could burn them up and never have to worry again about Russell Benoit or Ben Rhodes coming after her. She'd be free. If they weren't the only copies, it wouldn't matter if she burned them. She had to be certain—she
couldn't face the rest of her life wondering if Russell and Ben were going to be behind every corner, under every rock. She had to know exactly what they had to keep her in line.

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.