Charley's Web

by Joy Fielding

  “Sounds great.”

  “Good. Then it’s settled.” Elizabeth jumped to her feet, strode into the hall. “Franny, James. Pack up your overnight bags. You’re spending the night at Grandma’s.”

  Charley smiled at the sound of her children’s excited whoops of glee. The dog, perhaps stirred into action by the sudden commotion, began furiously licking the underside of her neck. At least one male thinks I’m desirable, she thought, trying not to think about Alex Prescott. “See you Wednesday,” he’d said as he dropped her off in front of her house. No mention of going anywhere later for a drink to commiserate with her about the aborted interview with Pamela. Not another word about dinner at Centro’s this Wednesday night. In fact, he’d barely spoken to her at all on the drive back from Dania, probably disgusted by her so-called interviewing technique, but too polite to say so. “I imagine you want to write things down while they’re still fresh in your mind,” he’d said, but Charley suspected he was happy to see her stew in her own juices. I knew you weren’t the right person for this job, his silence had rebuked her throughout the long drive home. So Charley had concentrated on recording her impressions of the Rohmer house and the people who lived there, when what she really wanted to do was hurl her notebook at his head. Two sisters, she’d scrawled across the top of one page, raised by the same parents in the same environment, both battered, both sexually abused. One becomes a caregiver, the other one a killer.

  Why?

  She had no answer.

  “Do you remember what I was like as a baby?” Charley asked her mother now. “And don’t make it up.”

  “I don’t have to make it up. Of course I remember what you were like as a baby. You were lovely,” Elizabeth said. “A little intense, maybe, but very sweet, very curious. Did everything right on schedule.”

  “What about Emily and Anne?”

  “Emily was more of a prima donna. A gorgeous child, of course, but she cried every night for four hours, like clockwork, from the age of six weeks till the age of three months. Irritable crying, Dr. Spock called it, said it would last exactly six weeks, and he was right. After that, she settled down, although once Anne was born, she had a harder time than you did adjusting. The middle child syndrome, I guess. And it didn’t help that Anne was the best baby on earth. A real gift. She never cried, never fussed. Always smiling. Toilet-trained herself at thirteen months. Really quite remarkable. Bram, of course, was the exact opposite,” she continued. “He cried all the time. And it didn’t matter if you picked him up or rocked him or took him for a drive in the car. He screamed constantly. And when he finally stopped screaming, he became a head-banger, slamming his head against the side of the crib for hours on end when he didn’t get his own way. One time he actually knocked himself unconscious. I lived in fear he was going to kill himself.” She sighed. “I guess not much has changed, when you think about it.”

  “I think things are about to,” Charley told her.

  “What makes you say that?”

  Charley told her mother about her conversation with Emily.

  “Your sisters are coming here?” Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears.

  “The date hasn’t been finalized, but it should be sometime in the next couple of weeks.”

  “And they’ve agreed to see me?”

  “I thought maybe we’d have dinner here,” Charley sidestepped. “Bram will come, too.”

  Elizabeth looked as if she were about to faint. She leaned against the far wall for support, crying softly. “I never expected this.”

  “What did you say the secret of happiness is?” Charley asked rhetorically, thinking she should probably go over and take her mother in her arms, but unable to get her body to cooperate. Two years might have passed since Elizabeth’s return, but a span of two decades still occupied the space between where Charley sat and her mother stood. It was too great a distance to cross.

  “Mommy!” James raced into the room, throwing himself in Charley’s lap.

  “Why is Grandma crying?” Franny asked from her grandmother’s side.

  “I’m crying because I’m so happy to be your grandma,” Elizabeth said.

  “That’s silly,” shouted James. “You don’t cry when you’re happy.”

  “Sometimes you do,” Charley said, trying to get her son to sit still long enough to kiss his cheek.

  “Grandma’s taking us to McDonald’s and a movie,” Franny said, her voice wary, as if she was afraid Charley might object.

  “Are you coming too?” James asked.

  “Not today, sweetheart. This time Grandma’s got you all to herself.”

  “I packed my Superman pajamas.”

  “Then I guess you’ll have a super sleep.” Charley watched her son climb off the sofa and wrap himself around his grandmother’s knees.

  “Is it going to rain all weekend?” Franny asked her mother, as if Charley were somehow responsible for the inclement weather.

  “I think it’s supposed to clear up for tomorrow.”

  “And I think we should get going, if we don’t want to be late,” Elizabeth said.

  Charley followed her mother and children to the front door, the dog wrapped around her neck like a shawl. “See. It’s stopped raining already,” she told Franny, who studied the gray sky and looked doubtful. “Good-bye, gorgeous things. Go easy on your grandmother.” Charley knelt down for a final hug, but James was already running down the front walk toward Elizabeth’s mauve Civic.

  “Come on,” he shouted, creating wide circles with his arms as he urged them forward.

  “You’ll take good care of Bandit?” Franny asked her mother. “You won’t forget to feed him and take him for a walk?”

  “I won’t forget,” Charley said.

  “Bye, Bandit.” Franny kissed the dog’s wet nose. Bandit responded by shellacking her face with his tongue.

  “Call me if it gets to be too much,” Charley advised her mother as Franny joined her brother by the side of the road.

  “I can’t thank you enough, darling. I know it was you who convinced the others to see me.”

  “No thanks necessary.”

  “I love you very much. You know that, don’t you?” her mother asked, as she always did.

  “I know. Have fun,” Charley said. She watched her children buckle up in the backseat of the car, and stood there waving until they were out of sight. She lowered the dog to the grass. “Do busy,” she commanded gently.

  Immediately, Bandit lifted his leg. “Would that everything were so easy,” Charley said, as she picked up the dog and reentered her house, closing the door behind her.

  The first time Tiffany Lang saw Blake Castle, she knew her life had changed forever, Charley read. She reached for the bottle of wine on the coffee table, filled the wineglass almost to the top, and took a good, long sip. “Fortification,” she said to Bandit, who was curled up on the cushion beside her. It wasn’t just that he was the handsomest man she’d ever seen, although that was undeniably true. It wasn’t the blueness of his eyes or even the way they seemed to look right through her, as if he were staring straight into her soul, as if he could read all her most secret thoughts. “You can do this. I can do this,” she told the dog. Nor was it the insolent way he occupied the center of the room, his slim hips tilted slightly forward, his thumbs hooked provocatively into the pockets of his tight jeans, the pout on his full lips issuing a silent invitation, daring her to come closer. Approach at your own risk, he said without speaking. “See, that part’s not half-bad.” Bandit cocked his head to one side. “I kind of like that last sentence, Approach at your own risk, he said without speaking. That’s not so awful.” She took another sip of wine, started reading again with fresh resolve. “This is the number-two best-selling book in America,” she informed the dog. “It’ll probably be number one next week, and not only will I read it, I will enjoy it. And I will call Anne when I’m finished to tell her how much I enjoyed it. I will not be condescending and superior, like certain lawyers I
could mention.” What was with Alex Prescott anyway? Charley continued silently. One minute he was suggesting dinner at some little Italian bistro; the next minute he was giving her the cold shoulder. “And I assure you, I’m not used to getting the cold shoulder from men,” Charley told the dog, whose emphatic bark served as an exclamation point. “He’s not even that good-looking. He’s just kind of cocky, you know what I mean?” Bandit barked again, as if he did. “And I’ve always been a sucker for arrogance. I even wrote a column about it once. I don’t suppose you read it. Tell me,” she instructed the dog, “if nobody out there is reading my columns, how come I’m so popular?” Bandit jumped off the sofa, began spinning around in circles. “I’m so damn popular, I’m home alone drinking on a Saturday night. How’s that for popular?” In response, Bandit barked three times in rapid succession, then ran for the door, where he spun around and barked again. “No, we already went for a walk.”

  Bandit began scratching at the door.

  “All right, all right. I get the point.” Charley pushed herself off the sofa, took another long sip of her wine, then decided to take the glass with her. Maybe the fresh air would do her some good, clear her head of unwanted thoughts, and allow her sister’s stellar prose to get the attention it no doubt deserved. “We’re just going to the corner, that’s it.” She opened the door.

  The man standing on the other side wasn’t very tall, but what he lacked in height, he made up for in muscles, his taut biceps bulging with impressive menace beneath his sleeveless black T-shirt.

  Charley gasped, her wineglass falling to the floor, the dog scooting out between the man’s black leather, pointy-toed boots. Shock mingled with fear as she tried to slam the door in the man’s face, but he was too strong and too quick, and within seconds, without touching her, he’d managed to maneuver her back into the house and into her living room, until she was stretched backward over the sofa and he was almost on top of her, looming over her like an enraged grizzly. Was this the nutcase who’d written her those e-mails? The man who’d threatened her and her children? Thank God they weren’t here, she was thinking as her eyes skirted the area for something she could grab, her hand stretching for anything she could throw at his head. Was he here to kill her? Would her mother and children find her lifeless body sprawled across the living room floor when they returned the next morning? Would this lunatic still be here, waiting? Charley’s fingers knocked against the bottle of wine on the table. Could she grab hold of it?

  “Don’t even think about it,” the man said.

  Charley’s hand fell limp at her side. “Who are you?” But even as she was asking the question, Charley realized she already knew who the man was. “You’re Ethan Rohmer,” she said, as a strange calm enveloped her.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Ethan said, smiling as he took a few steps back, allowing her room to stand up straight.

  “What do you want?” she asked, although again, she already knew the answer.

  “I want you to stay away from Pamela. I want you to stay away from my mother. I want you to stay away from my house.”

  Charley said nothing. She was already trying to gather together the words to describe him in print: dark eyes framed by girlishly long lashes; a nose that had obviously been broken more than once, yet still managed to suit the perfect oval of his face; thin lips that smiled with perverse ease; chin-length hair blonder than both his sisters’; a torso that was noticeably long in proportion to his legs.

  “I come home tonight, and I know right away something’s wrong,” Ethan said. “Takes me awhile, but pretty soon I worm it out of them. Turns out my psycho sister’s hotshot lawyer has brought some skanky reporter around, trying to dredge up dirt for a book she’s writing, telling vicious lies, and getting everybody all upset. I don’t like it when strangers upset my family.”

  “You’re saying Jill’s lying?”

  “I’m saying she’s a psycho bitch.”

  “Which doesn’t mean she’s lying.”

  “What’d she tell you? That I helped her kill those kids?”

  “Did you?”

  “Kids aren’t my thing.”

  “You raped her when she was eleven years old,” Charley reminded him.

  “The hell I did.” He gave a short laugh of derision, pushed the hair away from his face. “I assure you that anything that happened between Jill and me was at her instigation.”

  “And Pamela?”

  “Pamela wants you to stay away from her. She’s afraid if you keep poking your nose into other people’s business, you’re liable to get hurt.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  Ethan smiled. “Just looking out for your welfare.”

  “I think you should leave now,” Charley said, upset by the slight tremor she heard in her voice.

  “As long as we’ve got an understanding here. You stay away from my family. You got that?”

  Charley saw a shadow flit against the wall behind Ethan. She heard something click, a dog barking, and sirens rounding the corner.

  “Don’t move,” Gabe Lopez said as Ethan turned to see a rifle pointed at his head. “I’ll blow your fucking face off.”

  “Hey, man,” Ethan said, raising his hands into the air as Bandit scrambled into Charley’s arms. “This is all a misunderstanding. Put the gun away, man.”

  “I was on my porch when I saw this guy go inside and your dog run out,” Gabe explained. “When you didn’t run after him, I knew something was wrong, and I called 911.”

  “Thank you,” Charley said, as Bandit licked at the tears that were just starting to fall.

  “What’s this I hear about you raping an eleven-year-old girl?” Gabe Lopez released the safety catch on his rifle.

  “It’s a lie, man. I never raped anybody.”

  “Tell it to the judge,” Gabe Lopez said with a laugh. He was still chuckling as the police were pushing Ethan’s head inside the police cruiser some fifteen minutes later. “I always wanted to say that,” he said to Charley. Then, propping his rifle against the living room wall, “Is there any wine left in that bottle? I could use a drink.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Tell me about Tammy Barnet,” Charley instructed before Jill could sit down. Charley was sitting beside Alex at the interview table in the small airless room at Pembroke Correctional, her back stiff, her tape recorder already running. After last week’s debacle, after being unceremoniously escorted off the premises when Jill refused to see her, she was determined to dictate the course of their session, to show Jill who was in charge.

  “Hi, Alex,” Jill said, ignoring Charley’s directive as she pulled out her chair. “That’s a nice blouse, Charley. Pink really suits you.”

  “Please answer the question.”

  “I didn’t hear one.”

  “How did you meet the Barnet family?” Charley rephrased, feeling the ground already starting to slip beneath her feet.

  “Come on, Charley. Be nice. You could at least ask how I’m feeling. Tell me you’re glad to see me. Something. Anything. Girls like a little foreplay before the main event. You know that.”

  “I’m in no mood for games, Jill. You’ve wasted enough of my time.”

  Jill leaned forward, her elbows on the table, the playfulness vanishing from her eyes. “Then let’s not waste any more. I’m sure you’ve already talked to the Barnets.”

  Charley had indeed spent most of yesterday afternoon interviewing Tammy Barnet’s mother. She and her husband were in the midst of a painful divorce, their daughter’s murder having proved too great a hurdle for them to surmount together. (“He blames me,” Mrs. Barnet had explained tearfully.) Mr. Barnet had refused to meet with Charley, but Mrs. Barnet had been cooperative, even eager to talk, although she was still in shock, two years after the event, that the seemingly sweet young woman she’d hired to baby-sit her little girl could have so brutally snuffed out her life. “I’d like to hear your version,” Charley told Jill now.

  Jill smiled sweetly at her lawyer,
as if Charley hadn’t spoken. “I wasn’t expecting you today, Alex.”

  “I thought I’d sit in, make sure things went smoothly,” he said.

  “Why wouldn’t they? I’ve already apologized to Charley several times for my behavior last week. You got my letter, didn’t you, Charley?”

  Clearly this meeting was going to proceed at Jill’s pace and discretion, or not at all. There was no point in fighting it, Charley realized. “I got it, yes. Thank you.” Jill’s formal letter of apology had arrived on Monday, along with twenty-four pages of tightly written ramblings about everything from her mother—I honestly don’t know whether she knew what was happening or not, but I really can’t blame her even if she did. There was nothing she could have done to stop it—to her favorite singing group—I really like Coldplay, and am still upset that Chris Martin married that scrawny bitch, Gwyneth Paltrow. What does he see in her anyway?—to her fear of closed-in spaces—Anyplace where I can’t stand up straight puts me in a total panic. What do you suppose that means?

  “So, we’re okay, then?” Jill asked.

  “We’re okay. We just have a lot of ground to cover, and I’d like to get started. I’m sorry if I was so abrupt,” Charley lied.

  “And I’m sorry about what happened with you and Ethan.”

  “You heard about that?” Charley glanced accusingly at Alex. She’d called him right after the police left, but he hadn’t been home. He’d returned her call first thing the next morning to express his concern and dismay. Then he’d asked if she wanted to abandon the project, said he’d understand completely if she’d changed her mind and wanted out of their agreement. She’d told him she’d see him on Wednesday afternoon, as planned.

  “Are you kidding?” Jill was saying now. “The guards couldn’t wait to tell me what happened.”

  “How did they know?”

  Jill shrugged. “You can’t believe how fast this sort of news travels through the system. It’s like they have some sort of psychic newsletter or something. They said my brother had been arrested for breaking into your house and threatening you. They thought it was pretty funny. I called Alex right away, but he was tied up and obviously too busy to get back to me,” she said pointedly.