Call Me! (15 page)

“You sure about that?”

“Quite.”

“Where are you from, originally?”

“Pittsburgh.”

He frowns. “Pittsburgh?”

“Roy?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re doing that
Dragnet
thing again.”

“Maybe so, but I think you’re her.”

I sigh. “The girl you’re talking about is from Portland, not Pittsburgh. And they didn’t drag her out of a basement, she broke free and walked into a precinct house. From what I’ve seen on TV, the media wouldn’t leave her alone. The police feared for her safety, so they put her and her mother in witness protection and relocated her somewhere.”

“Cincinnati’s somewhere.”

“Oh. Well, you’ve got me there, Roy,” I say with great sarcasm. “Yes, you’re absolutely correct. Cincinnati
is
somewhere.”

“You get all your information from TV?” he says.

“Pretty much. But just for the sake of argument, what led you to draw this absurd conclusion?”

“Your husband, Benny.”

“What about him?”

“He was fascinated with her. No, fascinated isn’t the right word. He was
obsessed
.”

“What are you
talking
about?”

He sweeps his hand indicating a wide area and says, “It was all over the news. For weeks. Biggest search party ever.”

“So?”

“Around the time all that was going on I called Benny, to tell him what I was up to. You know, all my business and personal conquests.” He winks. Then says, “During that call he said he was going to meet that little girl and marry her someday. I called him a pedophile, and he hung up on me.”

I try to keep my expression neutral, but it’s hard to do with ice crystals forming in my veins. Also, my stomach is acting funny.

I swallow.

When I’m able to speak with a steady voice, I say, “Pedophilia refers to adults attracted to prepubescent children, not fifteen-year-olds. In any case, Ben didn’t marry Mindy Renee, he married me.”

He stares at my face as if trying to memorize it for a quiz.

“Maybe,” he says. “But he did manage to meet her when she was seventeen. He even got a job tutoring her.”

“He told you that?”

“You’re pretending you don’t know any of this?”

“I’m not pretending,” I say. “The whole idea’s insane.”

It is insane. My mom called Ben from an ad he put up at the grocery store. At least that’s the story I heard. But did I hear that from Mom? Or Ben?

Roy says, “The next time I called Ben, he said Mindy Renee was nuts, and he quit tutoring her to take a teaching job at Clifton State. A few months later, he turns up married to you. I didn’t think much about it till I saw you last week. When I saw how young you were and thought about Ben tapping that fine ass of yours, I remembered how Ben was obsessed with that little girl. She was also blonde.”

“He was probably concerned for her welfare.”

Roy laughs, but it comes out ugly. “Is it true what they said about how you escaped?”

“It wasn’t me. I have no idea if her story is true. I sincerely doubt it.”

He looks at me like he’s sizing me up. Then says, “Your sweet Ben was creaming his jeans to get the tutoring job. When he got it he couldn’t stop bragging. A few months later little Mindy Renee disappears and changes her name and Ben marries a blonde happens to be the same age.”

“You’re repeating yourself.”

“Doesn’t make me wrong.”

“Actually, you
are
wrong. Mindy Renee changed her name shortly after escaping. She and her mother went into witness protection to escape being harassed by the media. She was fifteen. Witness protection has a one hundred percent success rate. It’s never been breached. So I doubt Ben tracked her down at age seventeen. And I doubt Mindy and her mom ever relocated to Cincinnati.”

He flashed a smug smile. “You sure seem to know a lot about it.”

“I’m a private investigator. I know how witness protection works.”

“Ben never said her new name. Just that it was the same girl. And he never said he tracked her down.”

“Then what
did
he say, Roy?”

“He said Mindy and her mom moved to Cincinnati, and in an incredible stroke of freak luck, Mindy’s mom—
your
mom—contacted
him
. About a tutoring job. And even though he signed some sort of secrecy agreement, he couldn’t keep from bragging to his old pal, Roy.”

“Let’s see if I’ve got this straight,” I say. “You’re warning me that Ben had a creepy obsession for Mindy Renee Whittaker, and through dumb luck got a job tutoring her, but found her crazy. So he met me and decided I’d be her replacement? Is that your warning? That Ben wasn’t in love with me when we got married? Or are you warning me you think Ben’s a hebephile?”

“I don’t even know what that is,” he says.

“An adult who’s attracted to children in the early years of puberty. Is that your warning, Roy?”

“No. My warning’s more specific.”

“Can you just give it and go?”

“When the world finds out you’re Mindy Renee Whittaker your life will never be the same.”

“Roy.”

“Yes, hon?” he says, in a mocking tone.

“Why on earth would the world think I’m Mindy Renee Whittaker?”

“Because I’m going to leak the story to the tabloids.”

I force a chuckle. “You’re going to end up looking stupid if you do.”

“I’m willing to take my chances.”

“If you’re dead set on doing it, why haven’t you done it already?”

“I wanted to tell you first.”

“Why?”

“To watch you sweat.”

“ROY?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“What really happened between you and Ben?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been calling him for years, bragging, flaunting your success in his face. You spent a small fortune and went to a great deal of effort to set me up through Carter Teague. You didn’t go to all this trouble because you’re competitive. Ben obviously did something to you, years ago. Or at least, you think he did.”

“Ask Ben.”

I frown. “What are we, in junior high? Ben will have his own version, if he says anything at all. I’d like to hear your side.”

He says, “I’ll make you a deal. Tell me how you erased the photos from my cell phone and I’ll tell you the truth about what Ben did to me.”

“Carter sent the photos to your cell phone,” I say.

“So?”

“Since you didn’t take the photos from
your
phone, there was no memory of them. I didn’t have to erase them from your SIM card, I only had to delete them from your inbox. For example, I couldn’t have erased the pictures you took of you and Carter after I left, because those were taken by your phone.”

“And they’d be in the memory chip somewhere.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

He nods. “You’re not stupid.”

“Sometimes I am.”

“He cost me a scholarship.”

“What?”

“Ben. He cost me a football scholarship.”

“How?”

“I used to play practical jokes on him. Nothing major, just funny, you know?”

“Funny to you.”

He shrugs. “Whatever. Anyway, one night he found me passed out on my bed and decided to play one on me. He wrapped twine around me, tying me to the bed. Then he hung my alarm clock from the ceiling so it was inches from my ear.”

“Sounds harmless enough.”

“Except this was the night before the away game with Georgia Tech, and the alarm clock was set for five a.m. And when Ben was screwing around with it, he somehow turned the alarm off by mistake. I woke up at eight the next morning and missed the bus.”

“Why didn’t someone call you?”

“College kids didn’t have cell phones back then. To make matters worse, the kid who replaced me played the best game of his life. Six weeks later our team went to the Independence Bowl, and the coach started him instead of me. The game was close, and I had to watch from the bench. I was a junior. That was my first and last bowl game, because the coach pulled my scholarship.”

He’s staring off into space, reliving it. I remain quiet until he speaks.

“I’ll never forgive him for that,” he says. “Never.”

I nod. “That’s a big thing.”

“Ya think?”

“Yes. But you said it yourself. He turned the alarm off by mistake.”

“What if I killed Ben by mistake? Would you forgive me?”

“Not at first, probably. But eventually? Yes, I think so.”

He gives me a doubtful expression.

I shrug. “I can’t guarantee it,” I say, “but I like to think that after all this time—”

“Well, you’re obviously a better person than me,” he says.

I note the disgust in his voice. “I’m sorry for what happened, Roy.”

“No need for
you
to be sorry, Mindy.”

I sigh. “I’m not Mindy. But I
am
sorry. Sorry for what Ben did to you all those years ago, and sorry you feel the need to punish him through me. But here’s what I don’t understand. Say I
am
Mindy Renee, and you make it public knowledge. How does that punish Ben?”

He shrugs. “When I hurt you, I hurt Ben.”

“You’d do that to me, knowing what I went through?”

He smiles. “You mean, hypothetically?”

“Of course.”

“The answer is yes. I’d do that to you in a heartbeat.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t give a shit what happens to you.”

“Okay then.”

“Okay what?”

“Go sell your story.”

“Would you like to know what it would take to keep me quiet?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Really. I’m not Mindy Renee, so your revelation won’t affect me in the least.”

He points to the gun. “Am I free to go?”

I lay the gun sideways on my desktop, but hold it just in case. He chuckles, then gets up and leaves. I wait ten minutes to make certain he isn’t standing in the hallway, then I put my head on my desk and sob like I haven’t sobbed in years.