“I begged to go to a summer camp, but they always said it was too expensive.” She laughed, and it seemed a sob. “In their eyes, Perry was an investment. I was a prize to be auctioned off. So the summers passed. Me in New York and him in Connecticut. The one weekend I looked forward to more than any other was family week. Every year, we visited for an extended weekend but not for the whole week, and every year, I got to bring a girlfriend along. Otherwise, I’d have no one to ride the inner tube with or talk to. Perry was always too busy showing off to worry with his little sister. Until the summer of eighty-seven.”
“That would’ve made you …” Gen tried to do the math in her head.
“Fourteen. Perry was eighteen on his second summer as a camp counselor.” Her hands shook while toying with a button on her suit. “I swear to God, he’d been there for so many summers, and he was so bossy, he ran that place by the time he was fourteen. Of course, he’d had a chance to run the house the entire school year.” Alexa blinked furiously.
“What do you mean he ran the house at fourteen?” Gen couldn’t have been trusted with a crimping iron at fourteen, much less a multimillion-dollar household.
“My father died when I was eleven. When Mom checked out completely, Perry didn’t miss a beat. He took up the slack, orchestrating the help, overseeing the banker’s reports, and making certain all the bills were paid. Dad’s business partner sold the company for a massive profit, and we lived off the interest.”
Alexa traded picking her button for chewing the edge of her thumb. Gen had never seen the bold woman so unraveled.
“I brought Tiffany Renly with me to camp that summer. She was gorgeous. All my friends were, but that was the first time Perry seemed to notice. He used me for Tiffany. I used her to gain a bit of my brother’s attention.” Alexa shrugged. “It was innocent enough. A little experimentation. Alcohol and heavy petting. No big deal.” It was as if she were trying to convince herself.
“Where’s Tiffany Renly now?”
The woman looked at Gen as though she’d asked her the meaning of life. “I don’t know. We never really talked after the camp. I think she was scared of getting caught drinking and fooling around, but I wasn’t. No one in my life set boundaries. She was only at Dalton a few days into the next school year before she moved. I never saw her again.”
“When does Rita Ayers come into the picture?”
“The next summer. Eighty-eight. Rita Ayers was my best friend that year.” Alexa paused for so long, Gen thought that was the end of the story. She hoped it was anyway.
“I went through them pretty quickly. I’ve always been … loud and outspoken. It was the only way my parents ever acknowledged my existence. They were so busy. My dad with his business. My mom with her parties, politely called philanthropic events. Then Dad died, and I became unbearably obnoxious.” One of her flower-covered shoulders bobbed.
“During those past two summers, after Perry finished his head camper duties, we’d sneak over to the lighthouse. It wasn’t far. Five minutes through the woods on a bike. The path was even from all the campers coming and going. He’d bring a friend. I’d bring mine.”
“We’d race to the top every time, but I always lost. We always climbed out of the gallery. Perry loved heights. They scared the shit out of me, but hell if I’d whisper a word about it. After a lifetime of trying to be with my big brother, go where he went, and do what he did, I didn’t say anything at all. Not the summer before. Not that one. We shimmied around the narrow catwalk, leaned our backs on the glass, dangled our feet between the bars, and shared bottles of hard liquor. The first summer on the lighthouse I was a rookie. Sure, I had snagged a bottle here and there. After all, what was an unattended fourteen-year-old supposed to do when her mother was at New York society social events? But I’d always carted it to parties and hadn’t had more than a drink or two in a night.”
Alexa pulled her finger from her mouth and stared it with wide eyes. Her head shook. She stuffed both hands under the edges of her thighs. A huff filled her lips and slowly bled out.
“At the end of that first summer, I’d puked off the lighthouse twice. Perry gave me shit for being a child, so I went back to the city with a mission. My brother would never see me weak like that again. When my mother went out, so did I. No one was there to stop me. By the time I made it back to the lighthouse at Camp Caraway, I was a professional underaged alcoholic.”
The rape crisis counselor slipped a hand from under her leg and into the pocket of her slacks. She produced a large, goldish-bronze coin. “Twenty-one years sober.”
“Are you going to make it to twenty-two?” Genevieve didn’t mean to ask the question, but based on Alexa’s behavior, she was concerned.
“Yes, because as soon as you leave, I’m calling my sponsor.” Alexa stared at the coin. “She knows all of this. She’s the only one, besides Perry, who knows all of it.”
“Good.” Genevieve rubber her hands together and recognized the bone-deep chill that’d taken hold. “I’m glad you have someone you can trust.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re deeply concerned,” Alexa snarled.
She held her tongue. The woman’s opinion of her didn’t matter here. The story did. She wanted to hear it as much as she didn’t want to hear another word.
“Sorry, I …” Alexa stuffed the coin back into her pocket. “Perry and Rita had been an on-again, off-again item for six months before we went to the camp. Off more than on because Rita’s parents didn’t approve of their relationship. Perry was too old, too demanding of her time, and too controlling. He was all those things, but he worshiped the ground on which she walked. He’d vowed to wait for her as long as it took her parents to come around.
“Rita was a stunning brunette. She was funny and flirty. All the boys liked Rita. And she, unlike Tiffany, liked a lot of attention.” Alexa’s eyes rolled. “What girl doesn’t at that age? I liked it. With Perry as my big brother and Rita as my friend, people who had never given a shit about me suddenly clamored for my ear.
“The night started all wrong. Some of the other counselors were in the bunk playing spin the bottle. Rita and I were buzzed enough that we joined in. They were innocent pecks. Fun among friends. Perry came in and didn’t say a word. That’s when I knew we were in trouble. If he yelled, you were good, but when he went cold, bad things happened.”
The phone on the desk split the story in two. Genevieve nearly jumped out of the seat. As it was, she jerked. A groan escaped her lips before she could recall it.
“Sorry. Voicemail will pick up in just a second.”
“It’s fine.” She swallowed and waited for the ringing to stop. It didn’t take long. Alexa adjusted on the sofa. She licked her lips and continued.
“I pulled Rita from the circle and followed Perry out the back door and into the woods. I thought he’d come around if I could make light of it. I gave him a bottle of his favorite Cognac; Remy Martin XO. I’d stolen it from one of my mother’s many liquor cabinets and had saved it for our last night. He thanked me, cracked the top, and handed it back. ‘You’re the bartender tonight,’ he’d said. And I was good at it. No one’s mouth was dry for long. We passed the bottle and walked the path to the lighthouse, Perry guiding our way with his trusty flashlight. Every other time we raced bicycles, but that night, we meandered and drank. I didn’t care that we left his friend in the circle of counselors. It was one less person I had to compete with for Perry’s attention. And it was one less time I didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant.”
Sweet Christ. Whether willing or not, Alexa had been coerced into sexual encounters at a tender age. Gen hadn’t been an old maid by any stretch, but compared to Alexa, she had. Compared to her sister, Evangeline, Alexa had been. Her stomach twisted and coiled like a snake in death’s throes.
“Looking back, I only remember seeing Perry take the first shot. He held the bottle, but I don’t recall the satisfied hiss he gave after every gulp of liquor.”
Something ins
ide Gen died. It exhaled the last breath and gave over to the reaper because she knew the exact sound Alexa talked about. Gen’d made fun of Perry about it for years. So much so, that he’d reined in the habit among clients and the New York elite.
“It seemed like we were walking forever, and I remember complaining about walking so much. At one point, I grabbed Rita’s hand and told her we were going back. I told her we were too drunk to climb the metal ladder.” Alexa used her hands to depict a long cylinder. “The first nine loops were a narrow spiral staircase. Hard enough to navigate sober. The steps were so close together. When you reached the watch room, a metal ladder with thin rungs led up to the gallery and the narrow deck.”
“Perry hadn’t said a word since we started the bottle of Remy Martin. The moment I mentioned leaving, he asked me about my day. I was all too excited to tell him about the horse-riding trail my cabin mates and I had taken. He grabbed my hand and towed me along the curving steps. In turn, I pulled Rita along.” Alexa stared at her hands as if they were the perpetrators of a horrendous crime.
Were they?
According to her, a girl was dead.
“When we got to the watch room, Perry was done with me and my stories. He shoved me out of the way and yanked Rita to his chest. For a long time, he just looked at her. No emotions flickered across his face. No rage. No lust. Nothing. I knew I should have grabbed her and run. I felt so cold. Lost. All I wanted to do was climb into my bunk and stay there until it was time to leave. I was going to run and leave her behind.”
Alexa sobbed openly. Tears dripped off the end of her nose and made more fuchsia circle over the chest of the bright pink shirt she wore under her floral jacket.
“Rita kept asking, ‘What? What are you looking at? What? Is my makeup smeared?’ I couldn’t take it. Her babbling and his silence. Rita tried to touch her lips. He caught her hand and turn her toward the ladder. ‘You first,’ he said. I stepped back toward the spiral staircase. He looked at me and smiled. ‘When we get to the top, we toast to your special day.’”
Genevieve could see the smile. Sweet and sly all at the same time.
“I can still hear Rita’s voice. She called over her shoulder from the middle of the ladder, ‘Mine too.’ She sang it, loud and proud. Perry chuckled. ‘Yes, yours too.’”
No one spoke for a while. Gen hardly breathed.
“Rita and I crawled out of the narrow deck on our hands and knees, knowing we couldn’t make the walk to our usual positions. Feet through the railing, dangling into nothingness. Backs on the glass. Eyes to the sky.” Alexa sighed. We toasted twice. My nerves had settled a little. I was asking Perry what was special about his day that we would toast when Rita leaned over the railing and puked. In an effort to save myself from the same fate, I looked away.” Even now, Alexa’s nose crinkled as though she could see and smell it.
“Perry grabbed the bottle from my hands. ‘To the end of my relationship,’ he said. Rita seemed not to have heard him. She gave no reaction, just continued expelling the alcohol I’d fed her. I didn’t know what to say, so I just stared at him.”
Alexa wiped a line of tears from her neck and shivered. She pulled her jacket more tightly around her narrow body. Red rimmed her brown eyes.
“He reached his hand over the edge into the nothingness. He studied the remaining liquor in the bottom of the bottle at an arm’s length. There wasn’t much left. A shot, maybe three. Then he said, ‘Hey Rita, watch this.’ His hand spread wide, and the bottle dropped. I grabbed the rail, leaned over, and watched it disappear into the dark. My breath caught in my lungs, and I waited. It took a long time, but finally, the crack and shatter found my ears. I don’t remember whether I screamed. Rita shoved Perry’s shoulder, and she yelled at him. ‘You bastard. I needed that to wash my mouth out.’
“I held my breath. My fingers went numb from holding on to the railing. I knew he’d retaliate. I knew it, and I did nothing.” Her head shook. “When he didn’t push her, I was shocked. His voice was calm, almost caring. ‘Sorry. We can go down and get you something.’ Rita agreed, and Perry motioned for me to go, so I crawled. He said, ‘If you two would stand and walk, this would go so much faster.’ I didn’t. I couldn’t. I don’t know if Rita did. I was watching the cracked paint under my hands and the darkness to my left when I heard it.”
What?
Genevieve banked the urge to scream the question over and over. Sweat slicked the nape of her neck and the valley between her breasts. Her hands shook.
“It was the squeak of tennis shoes on a slick surface. The glass, I think. Rita gasped. I turned to see her tumbling backward over the rail. I lunged for her, but she was too far away, and Perry was between us. Her fingers reached for him. Perry just stood there, his hands by his side, watching her fall. I called her name as if that would help. He did nothing.
“I watched my friend kick and flail and fight to reach the railing, safety. I’m glad the night took her before I saw her realize she was seconds away from death.”
A tear slipped down Genevieve’s cheek. She wiped it away and swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Based on the laws of physics, I know she didn’t fall any faster than that bottle, but it seemed like it. That sound. It came so fast and loud.” Alexa bit her thumb. “I hear it every day. The railing had caught me in the throat. I laid there with my arms hanging over the rail, and I screamed. I screamed for so long my voice went hoarse. Perry just stood there, staring. When he finally turned, his features were blank. Nothing in his gaze. Nothing. I clutched the railing for my life, and that’s when he smiled. He told me to stay put, and that he would check on her. I couldn’t speak, not even if I’d had something worth saying.” Alexa shivered.
“Before he left, he crouched low. He put his face an inch from mine, and said, ‘It’s a pity she slipped, isn’t it?’”
Thirteen
Genevieve latched all three locks inside her Midtown apartment and collapsed against the door as though holding the door closed would keep the thoughts trying to breach her sanity at bay. Her gaze swept left to the yawning living room. Past the curved white couch and mauve area rug, the short marble fireplace and two squared gray chairs on their fluffy white rug, light poured in the curved bank of windows. It glanced off the white wainscoted walls. The rich chocolate wood floors drank it in. It had been months, maybe six or better, since she’d seen the place with a “view of Central Park” in the daytime. On particularly trying days, she would pad through the wide-open space, sit on the narrow window seat that arched along the windows, look past the large, dull gray building across the street to the sliver of greenery and open blue sky.
The button to the left of the door clicked under her fingertips. In unison, screens rolled down, shutting out the city she loved so much. Her gaze swept right. It didn’t pause to acknowledge the tiny kitchen in front of her. She clicked on the small chandelier in the foyer, basically the only hallway in the apartment, and turned the dial for the lamps in the bedroom beyond to a dim glow. Sultry light warmed the metallic tiles that covered the wall opposite her. She toed off her shoes and let her feet soak into the foyer’s rug. If anyone deserved an afternoon off, Gen did. There had been no appointments to cancel. Besides, she couldn’t face Perry. Not yet. She needed time and distance to think. She needed objectivity before her mind sent her down a dark path. If he killed …
“Objectivity. Objectivity,” Gen chanted. “Look at the facts.” She held a trembling hand over her mouth. “Objectivity was not possible.” Her voice echoed, leaving a hallowed chill at the base of her spine.
No one was objective. No matter how much they tried, life experiences and subconscious biases shaded their views, turning fact into a mutated form of fiction. Even the best judges, those required by law to remain impartial and rule based on law, were once children. Children were at the whim of everyone larger than them, be it their classmates or parents.
First and foremost, Alexa had been a child. A child under the influence of a
lcohol. A child lacking the influence of structure and boundaries. A child drunk with the need for attention.
Alexa hadn’t told a soul that she suspected her brother shoved Rita Ayers to her death because Rita had kissed another boy. The woman had drowned her sorrows in bottle after bottle. She’d become a drunk, and a drunk wasn’t permitted in the Carter family. When she refused to go to rehab, they shoved her out of the house, the will, and the family. The bottle had been Alexa’s lifeline up until that bottle had made her incapable of protecting a friend from harm a second time. After witnessing a partying buddy’s sexual assault, Alexa had gotten herself clean and vowed to help as many women as she could.
The fact remained, Alexa had not seen her brother push Rita Ayers off the lighthouse.
Gen dropped the hand covering her mouth and turned right, walking past the bathroom into the second largest space in the renovated prewar apartment, her bedroom. She sat on the edge of her bed and tossed her briefcase beside her. Normally, the downy softness of the white comforter soothed her frayed edges and invited her to relax and unwind. Most nights, it invited her to do other more illicit things. Apparently, its magic evaporated in the daylight hours. Her gaze lobbed around the room from the single window—of which she never drew the curtain because it faced a brick wall with no windows and she never slept in—to the wall of closets in front of her.
The same charcoal metal tiles covered the closet wall as well as the one to her right. They hid the glut of her shoe, handbag, and clothes collection so well, you’d have to know they were there to find them. Her reflection stared back in the patchwork. Her hair was wild and as unkept as her thoughts, which went directly to the far-right closet closest to the foyer. It housed a file box of copies she’d made of Perry’s case files. Even her reflection shook her head no. There was no need to go down that road. Not yet, at least.
She turned and crawled to the head of the bed, propped her back against the ruched gray satin headboard, and pulled the thin laptop from her deep and crowded nightstand drawer. The 12-inch screen burned bright, ready for her eager fingers the moment she opened it. Her cursor eased down to the Safari icon. The letters practically typed themselves into the search engine. Rita Ayers 1988 death Connecticut.
Why (Stalker Series Book 2) Page 12
