by Joy Fielding
People think they know me.
They don’t.
Actually, I think we have a lot in common. (Please don’t be angry with me for saying that.)
But look at the facts: We’re both attractive young women. (Okay, you’re beautiful!) Yes, I’m only twenty-two, but that’s not that much younger than you are. And we both have brothers and sisters, although you’re the oldest, and I’m the baby of the family. We’re both blond and bosomy. And I think we have similar taste in men. We both seem to fall for good-looking older guys who aren’t always the best choices for us. We like our men to be strong and take charge, but then we chafe at the restrictions they try to put on us. Is that why you never got married?
Personally, I’ve always wanted to get married. I dream of a fairy tale wedding with all the trimmings. Before all this happened, I used to practice writing my vows and designing my dress. I had sketches all over the house. I pictured a long white dress, strapless, but not low-cut. I always think it’s tacky when brides expose too much cleavage, and I wanted something very classy, very Vera Wangish. She’s always been my inspiration, although I’ll never be able to afford her. It’s a moot point now anyway, since Pembroke Correctional doesn’t allow prison weddings. Not that there’s a whole lot of opportunity to meet suitable men in here. (They keep the men and women segregated, although occasionally we manage to find ways of getting together. Hint: there’s way more than reading going on behind the bookshelves of the prison library.) Lots more about that if you agree to do the book.
Please, PLEASE, PLEASE consider my offer. I really think we’d make a great team. I promise to be very forthcoming and answer all your questions as honestly as I can. I won’t hold anything back. I’ll tell you all about my childhood, my parents, my brother and sister, my boyfriends, my sexual experiences. (Like you, I started very young. Unlike you, it wasn’t my choice.) In short, I’ll tell you every sordid detail, including facts never before made public about the unfortunate deaths of little Tammy Barnet and Noah and Sara Starkey.
I recognize that as the mother of two small children yourself, you are no doubt repulsed by the very idea of getting to know me better. You probably think you already know more about me than you ever wanted to know. Believe me when I tell you, you’re wrong.
So, take all the time you need to arrive at a decision. And rest assured that you are the only candidate I’m considering for the job. Naturally, I’m hoping to hear from you sooner rather than later. I fully understand that you’re a very busy woman, and that there are all sorts of demands on your time. You have a family to look after and a column to put out every week. But isn’t it true that every journalist dreams about writing a book?
You’re already well known in Palm Beach, but a story like mine could make you famous across the country. You deserve that, just as I deserve to have the true story of what really happened to those three sweet children made public. Naturally, I’m not expecting anything in the way of financial remuneration. Aside from the law that says criminals can’t profit from their misdeeds, money doesn’t concern me. Whatever you can negotiate with a publisher would be entirely yours to keep.
Mine is a story that needs to be told. I think you have the courage to tell it.
Anxiously waiting on your reply,
Jill Rohmer
P.S.: If you decide to accept my offer, or if you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact my lawyer, Alex Prescott. He has an office in Palm Beach Gardens, and I’ve already alerted him to the possibility you might call. Please do. I promise it will be worth your while.
Whatever you decide, I remain your steadfast fan.
Jill
“Holy shit,” Charley said, dropping the letter to her lap, watching her fingers tremble.
“Bad news?” Glen asked from behind his desk.
Charley noted the phone was no longer attached to his ear. “What?”
“You’re white as a ghost. Everything all right?”
“I’m not sure.”
Glen came around the front of his desk. “Anything I can help you with?”
Charley shook her head, her eyes returning to the letter in her hand. “You remember Jill Rohmer?” she heard herself ask. “She butchered three little kids a couple of years back. Every media outlet had a reporter covering her trial. I even wrote about her in my column.”
Glen’s eyes narrowed, furrowing his brow. “Right. I remember. She was the nanny or something. I remember my ex was freaking out about it.”
“You have kids?”
“A son, Eliot. He’ll be six on Saturday.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small photograph of a dark-haired boy with an infectious grin, showed it to Charley. “He lives with his mother and her new husband in North Carolina. I don’t get to see him very much.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me, too. But they’re bringing him down for the weekend. We’re all taking him to Lion Country Safari for his birthday.”
“Sounds cozy.”
“Interesting choice of words,” he said, not bothering to disguise the strain in his voice as he returned the picture to his pocket. “What about you? Any kids?”
“Two. A boy and a girl.”
“But no husband.” Glen looked pointedly at the empty ring finger of her left hand.
“No husband.”
“In that case, how would the three of you like to join us at Lion Country Safari on Saturday? That way I can show you what a fine, upstanding citizen I really am.”
Charley laughed.
“I’m serious,” Glen said. “You’d actually be doing me a favor. It won’t be quite so ‘cozy’ that way.”
“Thanks, but…”
“Think about it. Offer’s good till Saturday. So, why are we talking about this Jill Rohmer?” he asked in the same breath.
Charley held up the letter. “Apparently, unlike you, she’s a fan.”
“Mind if I have a look?”
Charley handed Glen Jill’s letter, watching him as he read, and trying to gauge his reaction.
“So, did she whet your interest?” he asked when he was through.
“Oh, it’s whetted all right.”
“Does that mean you’re gonna do it?”
“Do what?”
“Contact her? Write her life story?”
Charley made a dismissive sound with her lips that was half sneer, half whistle. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Because she’s pushing all the right buttons. Appealing to both your ego and your curiosity. Waving the chance for an exclusive in front of your face, along with the opportunity to be famous. Not to mention the possibility of uncovering the real truth and righting ‘a grave miscarriage of justice.’”
“Please. There’s been no miscarriage of justice. The woman’s a psychopath. There’s no doubt at all she killed those kids. Don’t you remember the awful tape recordings the police found in her bedroom of her victims’ dying screams?”
“I suppose someone could have planted them there.”
“Which doesn’t explain what her voice was doing on the tapes. She also had access and opportunity, plus her fingerprints were found at the scene, and her DNA was all over the victims.”
“What—no videotapes?”
Charley shrugged. There’d been rumors of videotapes, but despite extensive police searches, they had never been recovered. “What are you suggesting? That you think I should actually consider going to see her?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Good. Something we agree on.”
“But you will.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Charley snatched the letter from his hand and returned it to her purse, all the while shaking her head. Smug bastard, she was thinking. “You think you know me, don’t you?”
People think they know me.
They don’t.
“Well enough to know she’s got you hooked.”
“Is that so?”
Actually, I thi
nk we have a lot in common.
“Who’s got who hooked?” Bram said from beside her, opening his eyes and lifting himself up on his elbows. If he was surprised to find himself in a strange room with his sister and the man who’d knocked him unconscious, his expression offered no sign of it. If anything, he looked rested and serene. “Did I hear you say something about Jill Rohmer?”
“Well, it’s about time you woke up,” Charley chastised, fighting the urge to shake him by the shoulders. Even with a large bruise sitting on his cheekbone, Bram was by far the best-looking of the four Webb children, with pale porcelain skin, large, luminous gray-blue eyes, and lashes so long and thick they looked as if they’d been pasted on.
“You know I used to go out with her sister,” he said matter-of-factly, long slender fingers smoothing the front of his blue silk shirt.
Charley felt any patience she had left quickly abandoning her. “What are you talking about?”
“I went out with her sister—what was her name? Pamela?”
“What are you talking about?” Charley said again, louder this time.
“I went out with…”
“When, for God’s sake?”
“I don’t know. A few years ago. Right after I came to Florida. We took a few classes together.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me this?”
“Why would I? It was just a couple of dates. It didn’t mean anything.”
“You never said a word about knowing Jill Rohmer all through her trial.”
“I didn’t know her. I knew her sister. Why are we talking about Jill Rohmer anyway?”
Glen walked to his office door. “I think your brother could use a cup of coffee.”
“No, that’s all right,” Charley protested.
“I would love a cup of coffee,” Bram said at the same time.
“Be right back.” Glen closed the door behind him as he left the room.
“What’s the matter with you?” Charley hissed at her brother.
“Whoa. Hold on there. What’s your problem?” Bram grabbed the sides of his head, as if to keep it from falling off.
“What’s my problem? You’re my problem,” Charley raged, trying to keep her voice down. “You’re so damn irresponsible.”
“Just because I got a little drunk…”
“You didn’t just get a little drunk. You got a lot drunk. And God only knows what else. And you would have driven home in that condition if Glen hadn’t stopped you.”
Bram’s hand moved gingerly to his cheek. “Yes, I vaguely remember something about that.”
“Do you vaguely remember we were supposed to get together yesterday?”
“Do you have to talk so loud?”
“Do you think I enjoy driving all the way to Miami for nothing? Do you think I like being phoned at work by some guy I’ve insulted in print, telling me he’s got my brother? What made you pick this place, for God’s sake?”
“I read about it in your column. It sounded interesting.”
It was Charley’s turn to grab her head. “Okay, that’s it. The rain’s letting up. We’re going home.” She grabbed her brother’s arm, dragged him to his feet. He loomed over her like a tall tree.
“My coffee,” he protested, as Charley pushed him out of the office toward the front door. “I’ll follow you in my car,” he said as they reached the parking lot.
“You sure you’re okay to drive?”
“I’m fine,” Bram insisted. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“Promise?”
Bram nodded his silent consent as he folded his body inside the tiny MG.
But when Charley turned right on South County Road and looked into her rearview mirror only seconds later, he’d already disappeared.
CHAPTER 5
Okay, that’s it. I’m not doing this anymore,” Charley exclaimed, tossing her cell phone back into her purse as she turned off Old Dixie Highway, and made her way through the twisting warren of streets behind the Palm Beach Convention Center, heading for home. It was almost three o’clock in the afternoon. She had returned to the office after attempting many times to contact her brother to no avail. She’d even resorted to subterfuge, calling from a variety of different phones in an effort to get around his caller ID, but still he wasn’t answering either his home phone or his cell. She’d left at least half a dozen messages. (“Bram, where the hell are you? Stop being such an idiot.”) Not surprisingly, he hadn’t answered any of them. Clearly he didn’t want to speak to her. And after a few hours of aimless research for her next column, she decided to call it a day.
“You want to get drunk and get yourself beaten up, end up in jail, or worse, that’s your problem. Not mine,” she said now, nodding at her reflection in the rearview mirror, as if to underline her newfound resolve. “I will not be the one riding to your rescue anymore. I will not show up at the morgue to identify your bruised, broken body. Let Anne do it,” she said, reminded of her sister in her pillow-filled New York apartment, as she drove past tiny New York Street. “Maybe she can fit it in between speaking engagements. And maybe, just maybe,” Charley continued, turning onto New Jersey Street and pulling into her driveway, “her publicist can even convince People magazine to send a photographer down with her. How’s that for an angle?” she said, turning off the engine and climbing out of the car. “Beats the hell out of the whole Brontë thing,” she said, recalling her sister’s words. “Damn it, anyway. What’s wrong with everybody?”
“Everything okay?” a voice asked, and Charley spun toward the sound. The house next door was undergoing extensive renovations, and a worker in a yellow hard hat was regarding her quizzically from the driveway next to hers, his hands resting on slender hips, sweat staining the front of his white T-shirt, a blue-and-gray-checkered shirt belted around his waist. “We tried to keep the dust and everything away from your property as much as we could,” the young man explained. “If there’s a problem…”
“Everything’s fine,” Charley said. Except for my brother, my mother, my sisters, and the fact I’m getting threatening hate mail, she thought of adding. Oh, and did I mention that I got a letter from a convicted child killer who wants me to write her life story? “Just fine,” she muttered, feeling the worker’s eyes on her backside as she walked up the narrow concrete path to her front door.
“At least it’s stopped raining,” the man said.
Was he trying to prolong the conversation? Charley wondered, glancing toward the still-gray sky, then back at the worker, who was approximately her age and quite cute under that yellow hard hat. She turned away before she could do something stupid, such as inviting him inside her house for a drink. The last time she’d impulsively invited a man into her home, he’d ended up staying for three weeks and fathering her son. “When do you think you’ll be done?” she asked as she unlocked her front door.
“Oh, we’ll be another month at least.”
“See you around then.”
“Count on it.”
Charley smiled, deciding she liked his arrogance almost as much as the cut of his triceps.
“What’s going on out here?” another voice suddenly interrupted.
Charley felt her shoulders slump. I should have gone inside while I had the chance, she was thinking. The last thing she wanted was to get into an altercation with yet another pissed-off neighbor. “Just asking how things are going with the renovation,” Charley said, seeing the scowl on Gabe Lopez’s face even before she turned around.
“Everything’s right on schedule.” Black eyes glared at her from beneath a bushy black unibrow. “No thanks to you.”
“Okay, well…” Charley said, pushing open her front door, “…good luck.” She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. “Asshole,” she muttered. “No wonder your wife left you.” She kicked off her black slip-ons, stepped from the cold tile of the tiny front foyer onto the living room’s warm hardwood floor. “Which wasn’t my fault, incidentally,” she yelled back in the general direction o
f the front door.
“Do you always have to talk so loud?” her brother asked from the sofa.
Charley gasped, stumbling back against a bamboo table that sat against one ivory-colored wall, almost upsetting a glass vase of red-and-yellow silk tulips. “My God! You scared me half to death. What are you doing here?”
“You said to follow you home,” he reminded her, pushing his skinny arms above his head and stretching his reed-thin body to its full length, so that it seemed even longer than its six feet, two inches. At the same time, he brought his feet up to rest on the glass coffee table in front of him.
“Which you didn’t.”
“Only ’cause I knew a shortcut. Figured I could get here quicker. Which I did. Been waiting for you all day. Where’ve you been?”
“I went back to the office.”
“Too bad. I was hoping you went grocery shopping. Do you know you’re out of coffee?”
Charley shook her head in exasperation. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. You can check for yourself.”
“I’m not talking about the coffee, you moron.”
“Hey, hey. Let’s not get nasty.”
“Where’s your car?”
“End of the block. In front of that house with the huge American flag. Isn’t that the place you wrote about, where they have all those orgies?”
“It was a Passion Party,” Charley corrected.
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Oh, God.” Were they really having this conversation? “I’ve been calling you all day. Don’t you ever check your messages?”
“Battery’s dead on my cell phone. Keep forgetting to plug the stupid thing in.”
“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
“And you have a question.”
Charley looked helplessly around the room. What was the point in arguing? She’d never been able to win an argument with her brother. And besides, he was here, wasn’t he? Which was what she’d wanted. (Be careful what you wish for, she thought.) And everything seemed to be in its proper place. The furniture was where it always was: two oversize rattan chairs sat facing the small beige sofa in the middle of the natural sisal rug; a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf completely occupied the north wall, so stuffed with hardcover books that some had recently formed their own shelf on the floor; photographs of her children covered the mantel behind the sofa, as well as the table by the front bay window. Nothing seemed to be missing. “How’d you get in here anyway?”