Charley's Web

by Joy Fielding

  It was a few minutes after five o’clock in the afternoon. They were sitting in the small back room at Centro’s, an unassuming Italian restaurant located in an even more unassuming strip mall a few miles east of Pembroke Pines, drinking an exceptional Shiraz, and trying to pretend the dinner they were about to eat was strictly business. Was it? Charley wondered. What was this dinner really about? “Jack and Jill,” she mused. “Seems almost too perfect.”

  Alex raised one eyebrow as he directed a forkful of mixed greens into his mouth, somehow managing to look appealing even with a hint of salad oil glistening at the side of his lips. “You don’t like your carpaccio?” He indicated her barely touched appetizer with his chin.

  “No, it’s delicious.” Charley lifted a slice of the raw meat to her mouth, lowered it again almost immediately. “It’s just so frustrating,” she continued. “One minute I’m convinced Jill and I are making real progress; the next minute she completely shuts down.”

  “You were getting too close.”

  “To what?”

  “The truth, obviously.”

  “The truth is anything but obvious,” Charley corrected.

  “The truth is that Jill didn’t act alone. The truth is that someone else was calling the shots.”

  “That someone else being Jack Splat?” Charley leaned back in her chair as Alex speared another forkful of his salad. “What am I doing here, Alex?”

  “Not eating your appetizer, by the look of things.”

  Charley chuckled, once again brought her fork to her lips. “I meant…”

  “I know what you meant.”

  “What am I doing with Jill? Or maybe I should say, what’s Jill doing with me? Is this all an elaborate game to her? Is she playing with me? Like she played with Tammy Barnet and the Starkey twins before she…” Her voice drifted off, her eyes falling on the hand-painted map of Italy on the wall behind Alex’s head.

  “I really don’t think so,” Alex said. “I honestly think she wants to cooperate, that she wants the truth to come out. I know she thinks the world of you.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better? That a child-killing psychopath thinks I’m terrific?”

  “It’s hard for her, Charley. She’s never talked about some of these things before. To anyone.”

  “Not even to you?”

  “Not even to me.” He finished the last of his salad. “At least not in the kind of detail she talks about them with you. I knew about Ethan, of course. And I have my suspicions about her father.”

  Charley ran her fingers along the edge of the white paper tablecloth. “Such as?”

  Alex hesitated.

  “Come on, Alex. I know Jill gave you permission to talk to me about this.”

  “Yes, she did. It’s just that I’m used to keeping client’s confidences, not revealing them to reporters. It’s a hard habit to break.”

  Charley found herself oddly stung by his casual reference to her as a mere reporter. Don’t be ridiculous, she castigated herself silently, pushing the carpaccio into her mouth and chewing furiously. That’s what you are, isn’t it? A reporter. Trying to do her job. To ferret out the truth. To write a thought-provoking, bestselling book about a heartless, bone-chilling sociopath, and in the process, to become rich, famous, and respected, not necessarily in that order. What else but a reporter would you be to him?

  What else would you like to be? she found herself wondering, biting into another piece of raw meat. “So, what suspicions do you have regarding Jill’s father?” she asked, trying not to notice how distinguished Alex looked in his navy suit, or the way the color underlined the deep blue of his eyes. What was the matter with her?

  “I think he may have sexually abused Jill, along with Ethan. Isn’t that what you think?”

  Charley sighed. “I think the Rohmers manage to make the Webbs look almost normal.”

  Alex laughed. Charley waited for him to ask the obvious questions about what her family was like, but he didn’t.

  Clearly he doesn’t care, she thought. “How come you didn’t raise any of this at Jill’s trial?”

  “Any of what?”

  “The abuse, the family history, the mysterious Jack Splat.”

  “I wanted to.”

  “Jill wouldn’t let you?”

  “She refused to testify,” he said simply. “Said she’d deny everything if I so much as raised the possibility of abuse or an accomplice.”

  “Because she was protecting someone or because she was afraid?”

  “Probably a bit of both.” He finished the wine in his glass, looked around for the waiter. “I guess this book will be her testimony.”

  “A little late, wouldn’t you say? She’s sitting on death row.”

  Alex squirmed in his seat, pushed his salad plate into the middle of the table, almost knocking over the small vase of brightly colored plastic flowers. “I’m painfully aware of where my client is sitting, Miss Webb,” he said.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

  “No, I’m sorry,” he apologized immediately. “I didn’t mean to snap at you like that. Do you think we could talk about something else? Anything else. At least for a little while?”

  “Of course.”

  There was silence.

  “So, what made you decide to become a lawyer?” Charley asked, then rolled her eyes. Of all the dumb questions to ask, she was thinking, feeling like a teenage girl on her first date. Why was she so nervous?

  “Will you excuse me for a minute?” he asked as if she hadn’t spoken, then left the table before Charley had a chance to respond.

  She watched him disappear into the washroom at the back. “Well, this is going very well,” she said under her breath. Then, to herself, Where did you think it was going to go? It was obvious the man wasn’t remotely interested in her, that he’d taken her to dinner—at five o’clock in the afternoon no less, when the place was filled with seniors there for the “early bird” specials—because he felt obligated. And now he couldn’t wait to get away from her. That was why he’d been so eager for her to finish her appetizer. Not because he wanted to impress her with the quality of the food, but so that the waiter could serve them their main course and they could get out of here. Since she had her own car, he wouldn’t even have to suffer her company on the long drive home. They could go their own merry—and separate—ways.

  Wasn’t that what she wanted as well? When had she started to think of Alex Prescott as anything other than a means to an end? He wasn’t even that attractive, she decided, watching as he exited the washroom and began zigzagging through the other tables toward her. It wasn’t the blueness of his eyes or even the way they seemed to look right through her, as if he were staring into her soul, as if he could read all her most secret thoughts, Charley recited silently, as he stopped to talk to the waiter. 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 a silent invitation, daring her to come closer. Approach at your own risk, he said without speaking. “Shit,” Charley said out loud, downing what was left of her wine in one prolonged gulp.

  “Something wrong?” Alex asked, pulling out his chair and sitting down.

  Charley held up her empty glass. “Out of wine.”

  “I’ve asked the waiter to bring us each another glass. So,” he said, leaning forward on both elbows. “What made me decide to become a lawyer? Was that the question?”

  She shrugged. “Small talk 101.”

  He smiled. “Well, let’s see. My mother always said I could argue anyone under the table. An old girlfriend complained I always had to have the last word. And the idea of justice as a goal always fascinated me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “People are always trying to make things right,” he explained. “Something bad happens, you immediately look for the good you hope will come out of it. Something gets broken, you instin
ctively try to fix it. Someone gets hurt, you want to kiss it better. A family falls apart, you look for somebody to blame. Innocents get slaughtered, you cry for the blood of the guilty. Somebody has to pay. People want justice,” he concluded. “They think it will make a difference.”

  “You’re saying it doesn’t?”

  “I’m saying I haven’t given up on the idea entirely, which is why, to answer your earlier question, I became a lawyer.”

  “An idealist and a cynic all in one sentence,” Charley said, not without admiration.

  “I like the structure the justice system provides,” Alex continued, again as if she hadn’t spoken. “Just the putting of those two words together—justice and system—the notion that you can have a system of justice, I find that fascinating. I like that you have this whole institutionalized procedural—arrests, arraignments, grand juries, indictments, trials, sentences, appeals. I like that people come to me because they think I can help them. I like that sometimes I’m able to do just that. I’m glad that I can put my ability to argue anybody into the ground to good use, and that sometimes my last word is strong enough to keep someone from going to jail. Occasionally I even get to make things right.”

  “You kiss it better,” Charley said, and smiled.

  Alex suddenly pushed himself out of his chair, leaned across the table, and kissed her on the lips. Then he sat back down, watching the colors shift on her face as the waiter approached with two fresh glasses of wine. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that,” he said as soon as the waiter departed.

  Charley said nothing. If she spoke, the words might dislodge the pleasant tingles that lingered on her lips. What had just happened?

  “Can we pretend I didn’t do that?”

  “Why did you?” Charley asked.

  “Because, obviously, I’m an idiot.”

  “I don’t think you’re an idiot.”

  “You don’t?”

  Charley shook her head. Alex leaned forward and kissed her again. This time Charley kissed him back.

  “Well, this is a surprise,” Alex said, as the waiter returned with their dinners.

  “It certainly is,” Charley agreed.

  “I’m sorry,” the waiter said. “You didn’t order the lasagna?”

  “No, I did,” Alex said. “I definitely ordered the lasagna.”

  “And I’m the ravioli special.” The waiter placed the ravioli in front of Charley, the steam rising from her plate partially obscuring her view of the man sitting across from her. Who was he? she found herself wondering. More to the point, who was she? “I feel like a character in one of my sister’s books,” she admitted.

  “And how does that feel?”

  “Pretty good actually.”

  They laughed.

  “What exactly happened there?” Charley asked.

  “I kissed you. You kissed me back,” he said.

  “But why did you kiss me? I didn’t think you even liked me.”

  “You didn’t think I liked you?” Alex repeated incredulously. “That’s why I keep making this incredibly boring drive down here, because I don’t like you?”

  “I assumed you were just looking out for Jill’s interests.”

  “It was more a case of looking out for yours.”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t you ever look in the mirror?” Alex asked. “God, the first time you walked into my office, I just about fell off my chair. And then you opened your mouth, and it got even better. You were smart and feisty and full of pee and vinegar, as my mother used to say, and I thought, Shit, man, you’re in trouble here.”

  “You sure had me fooled.”

  “God knows I tried.”

  “I thought you were an arrogant son of a bitch. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Charley qualified immediately. “I have a soft spot for arrogant sons of bitches.”

  He laughed. “I kept telling myself to keep my distance, keep everything nice and professional, try not to notice how nice your hair looked, or how pretty you smelled. But then you were sitting across from me, not eating your carpaccio, and making small talk 101, and you said something about kissing it better…. And so I did.”

  “So, what happens now?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “Well, I’m not really very hungry,” Charley said, pushing her plate away. “I don’t usually eat this early.”

  “We could always get a doggie bag,” Alex suggested. “Eat later.”

  “Later?”

  “After.”

  “After?” she repeated. “As in ‘happily ever’?”

  He smiled. “As in after,” he said.

  It was almost ten o’clock before they finally got around to eating their dinner. “I’m so starving,” Charley said, tearing into her ravioli, and watching some of the spicy tomato sauce drip down the front of Alex’s pale blue shirt. “Oh, no. Look what I did.”

  Alex reached across the round glass table to wipe up the spill, his fingers brushing up against Charley’s bare breast beneath. “It’s an old shirt.”

  They were sitting in the small eating area off the large kitchen in his one-bedroom condo off PGA Boulevard in the heart of Palm Beach Gardens. The seventh-floor apartment looked out over an artificial lake beyond which was a new plaza full of upscale restaurants and specialty stores. The fabulous Gardens Mall was right next door. The ocean was less than ten minutes away. I could live here, Charley found herself thinking, then instantly dismissed such thoughts from her head. One night does not a lifetime make. Just because Alex Prescott was good in bed—make that great in bed—didn’t mean their relationship would last longer than any of her others. She took another mouthful of ravioli, hoping he’d be around at least long enough for her to finish her research.

  “You’re frowning,” he said.

  “Am I?”

  “Having second thoughts?”

  She shook her head. “Just wondering how this will affect our working relationship.”

  “It doesn’t have to affect it at all. We’re both professionals.”

  “Yeah, but I’m a girl,” Charley reminded him with a laugh. “We don’t compartmentalize as easily as you guys do.”

  “Somehow I doubt that.” He took one forkful of lasagna, then another. “How come you never got married?” he asked, then, “Don’t answer that. It was a stupid question.”

  “No, it wasn’t. I mean, I do have two children after all.” Whom her mother had graciously consented to look after until she got home.

  “You have a date?” Elizabeth had inquired when Charley called her from the restaurant.

  “It isn’t a date.”

  “Of course it isn’t. Have a good time, darling.”

  “Marriage was just never a high priority,” Charley told him. “I guess because of how miserable my parents’ marriage was.” She shrugged. “How about you?”

  “I came close once. A few years back. Didn’t work out.”

  They ate in silence for the next several minutes, Charley naked beneath the shirt Alex had been wearing before they made love. He was now bare-chested above a pair of jeans. She thought of asking him why his close call hadn’t worked out, then decided against it. The fact was he probably didn’t know. Who could really say why a relationship didn’t work? Weren’t there two sides to every story? Reality was subjective, truth a matter of opinion. The bottom line was that relationships either worked, or they didn’t.

  “So, what’s next on the agenda?” he asked. “With regard to Jill’s book.”

  “My book,” Charley corrected.

  He smiled. “Sorry. Your book.”

  “I thought I’d interview Jill’s old boyfriend.”

  “Gary Gojovic,” Alex stated, carefully enunciating each hard syllable.

  “You’re not a fan?”

  “Gary’s testimony pretty well guaranteed Jill a seat on death row.”

  “It was pretty damning,” Charley agreed. “That stuff about seeing Jill torturing a kitten…”


  “Which she’s always denied.”

  “Alex,” Charley reminded him, “she murdered three little children. Why would she have any problem torturing a cat?”

  Alex tossed his fork to his plate. “Speaking of animals, how’s your little dog?”

  Charley found herself suddenly smiling from ear to ear. “He’s great. So sweet. I come home, he’s waiting at the door. I sit down, he jumps into my lap. I leave the room, he follows me. If I disappear for two seconds, he’s so glad to see me when I get back, you’d think I’d been gone for years. I’m trying not to get too attached.”

  “Sounds like you’re already hooked.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s something very appealing about unconditional love. But I just have to keep reminding myself that he’s not my dog, and that pretty soon I’ll have to give him back.”

  “To Glen McLaren,” Alex stated, tapping his fingers restlessly against the glass tabletop.

  “Is there a problem?” Charley asked, sensing there was.

  “How well do you know this guy?”

  “Glen? Not very. But I consider him a friend,” Charley said. “I repeat, is there a problem?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “What are you trying to say, Alex? It’s not like you to be so circumspect.”

  “You have to understand that I wasn’t trying to pry. It was just that I thought his name sounded familiar, so I did a bit of snooping around. Turned out that, at one time, Glen McLaren had a financial interest in a couple of clubs in the Lauderdale area.”

  “I know that. So?”

  “So, did you know that one of the people who used to hang out at one of those clubs was a small-time drug dealer by the name of Ethan Rohmer?”

  “What?”

  “I found out Ethan was arrested one night trying to sell drugs to an undercover cop, although a smart lawyer got the charges dismissed.”

  Charley tried to process what she was hearing. What did it mean? “Are you trying to tell me that Glen and Ethan are somehow involved?”

  “I’m not trying to tell you anything. The truth is they might not know each other at all.”

  “Just because Ethan was a regular at a club in which Glen had a financial stake says nothing other than…”