The Ghostwriter(81)

CHARLOTTE

The phone rings and she ignores it, her pen in motion, Janice Ross’s strained voice coming through the mini-recorder. She creates a new bullet point and grabs the police report, underlining the time of Simon Parks’ 911 call, his report of his daughter’s fainting, his inability to get her to wake up. She pauses the tape and stares at the page, her eyes darting across the facts, trying to piece the circumstances together. Five months of work. Five months of sorting through every Simon Parks, dead and alive, in the country. Five months of digging through reported molestations and trying to find other victims. Five months of nothing, and now—a bunch of pieces that she can’t assemble into anything. There is the rap of knuckles against wood and she turns to see her editor, a woman whose patience in the area of Simon Parks is beginning to run thin. Today, however, her face is friendly. “Shipping and Receiving just called. There’s something for you at the front desk.”

She pushes away from the desk slowly, making a final note on the page before sliding her bare feet into her sandals and standing, her walk to the reception area unhurried. She rounds the corner and slows when she sees the neat stack of boxes, stacked high on the counter. “These all for me?” she asks the receptionist, reaching forward and signing the release form.

“Yep. This envelope goes with it.” The woman passes over a thick manila envelope. Eyeing the sender’s name, Charlotte’s heart picks up pace.

Snagging the envelope, she glances toward the boxes. “Can you have someone bring these to my office?”

She doesn’t wait for a response. Instead, she heads back to her desk, her hands hurriedly prying open the envelope and pulling out a thick stack of pages.

Dear Charlotte,

I didn’t know who you were. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t have avoided you. Then again, maybe I would have. I don’t know. I saw a video of Simon four years ago, and have tried to forget it ever since. I’ve hidden when I could have been helping. Please forgive me for that. I was mourning the death of my daughter, and struggling with guilt. I was convincing myself that I was both the villain and the victim, and completely lost sight of the children and women like yourself.

I can’t fix the last four years. I can’t go back twenty, to before he became a monster. The only thing I can do is move forward and ask you to help me. With this letter should be several things. One is a manuscript—it is the story of my relationship with Simon, and the truth about his death. I’m sorry for not sharing that story with you in person, and for not listening to your own. In addition to the manuscript, there will be several boxes. They contain every videotape that Simon had. I haven’t watched them. I hope most of them are innocent recordings, but fear that a majority of them will be documented instances of pedophilia and molestation. There is also Simon’s laptop, and the hard drive to his computer. I don’t know his passwords, but my estate will pay for the forensic analysis necessary to pull whatever incriminating files may exist.

If you are receiving this letter, and these items, I have passed away from a combination of terminal cancer and pharmaceutical assistance. In death, I hope to be a better person than I was in life. I hope to right some of Simon’s wrongs, and am writing to ask for your help in doing so.

I understand that you are an investigative journalist. Your job is to find and uncover secrets, to research. I would like you to track down Simon’s victims, using the tapes and his computer files. I have appointed an executor, an attorney who will equally compensate each documented victim that you find. There isn’t a way to reimburse a child’s innocence, but money is the only thing I have to give them. Money, and the peace of knowing that he is dead. I hope this will, in some small way, help their struggle. You will, of course, be the first compensated victim. My attorney will also reimburse you for any travel or expenses incurred in finding and confirming the victims. If you need additional compensation for your time, please request that from him.

Words are how I have made my living, but I am at a loss of what to say to you. I will never understand what you went through. I will never understand how I fell in love with a man who would do such terrible things.

Thank you for reaching out to me. I’m sorry that I was too afraid to speak to you. I’m sorry that, right now, I am taking the coward’s way out, and writing you instead of speaking to you in person.

Thank you, in advance, for your help.

Sincerely,

Helena Ross

She has passed her office. She turns back, stepping into the small room, and sinking into her chair, rereading the last lines of the letter, her hands careful as she sets the stack of pages onto her desk. She moves the letter to the side, the next item giving her pause, a check clipped onto the top of a letter, one from an Antonio Sacco, an estate attorney in New York. She ignores the letter, her eyes skimming across the check, over and over, the sounds of the office, the chill in the air, everything fading at the pale green check with the neat, cramped writing. Her name so clearly stated. The amount stuttering across the page. One million dollars.

Funny how, in a single moment, your entire life can change.

She moves the check with careful precision, hiding it underneath Helena’s letter, then picks up the manuscript. It’s the first she has ever held, hundreds of pages clipped together, the title page simple, with only the title and Helena’s maiden name.

DIFFICULT WORDS