The Perfect Letter (30 page)

“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 am 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.”

For a moment Jake looked like the boy he'd once been. Young, vulnerable, stubborn. She was seized by the urge to cradle his head in her lap and brush the hair out of his eyes, but she made herself stay where she was, to let him be. They were both going to have to learn to live without each other from now on.

“I wouldn't have taken it,” he said. “I never wanted it, no matter what anybody said. It was just you, Leigh. You were all that mattered.”

“Well,” she said, “that was a long time ago, wasn't it?”

“It was. A very long time.”

Now that the last ties they'd had were severed, Leigh could see that there was nothing left for the two of them. After ten years apart, they were virtually strangers, after all. If Jake thought it was a mistake to pretend otherwise, she'd have to abide by his decision.

“Leigh.”

“What?”

“Take care of yourself.”

He clutched his bandaged hands to his chest, then turned and went out the door. Leigh and Chloe stood in the cold waiting room and watched him go, his brown Stetson shading his shoulders against the afternoon sun.

It was all gone—the money, the job, Joseph, and Jake. Strangely, though, Leigh wasn't afraid anymore. It was as if the fire had burned away all her fear, and all that was left was pure, clean. Leigh Merrill was standing on her own two feet for the first time in her life.

She sighed once, put her hand on the door, and stepped out into the bright sunlight.

Back at the cottage—still strewn with papers and discarded clothes, as if a bomb had gone off—Leigh was struck by a sudden urge to take a match to it, too. To light it all on fire and dance around the flames.
It sounded so much easier than going inside to clean up and go home.

“You okay?” asked Chloe, behind her.

The light coming in the windows was milky white, the sky hazy and hot, and though she should have been frantically packing up to go—her flight was in just a few hours, after all—what Leigh really wanted to do at that moment was dive into the cool springs at Wolf's Head, to bathe naked under the midday sun until she turned brown. She wanted to slip under the water and open her eyes to the green light, watching the little fish that swam there, watching for the coyotes and deer that came to drink. To be baptized, to start anew.

“I guess,” Leigh said. “It's hard to know, exactly.”

“You're shell-shocked, that's what,” said Chloe.

“I don't think so. More like relieved. I know it sounds strange, but I never felt like that trust fund was mine, not really. Maybe that's why I never spent it. Pop left it to me so I could live a better life, but it would have been a life built on a lie. Now that the truth's out, I guess part of me is glad it's gone.”