Jeffery Deaver - Twisted - The Collected Stories of Jeffery Deaver

The DA hadn’t liked that theory either and went forward with the case.

Everyone recommended that Ron take a plea, which he finally did, exhausted with protesting his innocence. There was no trial; the judge accepted the plea and sentenced him to twenty years. He’d be eligible for parole in seven. His secret hope was that the boy in Connecticut would have a change of heart and confess. But until that day Ron Ashberry would be a guest of the people of the State of New York.

Sitting in the TV room, staring at Gwen on the screen, absently playing with the zipper of his orange jumpsuit, Ron was vaguely aware of a nagging thought. What was it?

Something that Gwen had said to the interviewer a moment earlier.

Wait...

What pictures of her in her swimsuit?

He sat up.

Ron hadn’t found any photos of her in a bathing suit in Harle’s closet. And there hadn’t been any introduced at trial, since there’d been no trial. He’d never heard about any swimsuit pictures. If there were any, how had Gwen known about them?

A terrible thought came to him, so terrible that it was laughable. Though he didn’t laugh; he was compelled to consider it — and the other thoughts that sprang up like ugly crabgrass around it: that the only person who’d ever heard Harle threaten Gwen with the full-moon story was Gwen herself. That nobody’d ever heard Harle’s side of the situation — no one except the psychiatrist in Garden City and, come to think of it, he’d let the boy out of the hospital. That all the young man had ever said to Ron was that he loved Gwen and she loved him — nothing worse than what any young man with a crush might say, even if his demeanor was pretty scary.

Ron’s thoughts, racing: They’d just been accepting Gwen’s story about Harle’s approaching her on the way home from school eight months ago. And had been assuming all along that he’d pursued Gwen, that she hadn’t encouraged him.

And her underpants?...

Could she have given him the panties herself?

Suddenly enraged, Ron leapt to his feet; his chair flew backward with a loud slam. A guard ambled over and motioned for Ron to pick it up.

As he did, Ron’s thoughts raged. Could it actually have happened — what he was now thinking? Was it possible?

Had she been... flirting with that psycho all along?

Had she actually posed for him, given him a pair of the underwear?

Why, that little slut!

He’d take her over his knee! He’d ground her so fast... She always behaved when he spanked her, and the harder he whipped her the quicker she toed the line. He’d call Doris, insist she take the Ping-Pong paddle to the girl. He’d—

“Yo, Ashberry,” the guard grumbled, looking at Ron’s purple face, as it glared up at the screen. “You can’t cool it off, git it on outa here.”

Ron slowly turned to him.

And he did cool off. Inhaling deep breaths, he realized he was just being paranoid. Gwen was pure. She was innocence itself. Besides, he told himself, be logical. What possible reason would she have to flirt with someone like Harle Ebbers, to encourage him? Ron had raised her properly. Taught her the right values. Family values. She was exactly his vision of what a young woman ought to be.

But thinking of his daughter left him feeling empty, without the heart to continue watching the interview. Ron turned away from the TV and shuffled to the rec room to be by himself.

And so he didn’t hear the end of the interview, the part where the reporter asked Gwen what she was going to do now. She answered, with a girlish giggle, that she was about to leave for a week in Washington with her teacher and some classmates, a trip she’d been looking forward to for months. Was she going with her boyfriend? the reporter asked. She didn’t have one, the girl said coyly. Not yet. But she sure was in the market.

Then the reporter asked about plans after high school. Was she going to college?

No, Gwen didn’t believe college was for her. She wanted to do something fun, something that involved travel. She thought she might try her hand at a sport. Golf probably. Over the past several years her father had spent countless hours forcing her to practice her strokes.

“He always said I should learn a proper sport,” she explained. “He was quite a taskmaster. But one thing I’ll say — I’ve got a great swing.”

“I know it’s been hard for you but I’m sure you’re relieved to have that monster out of your life,” the reporter offered.

Gwen gave a sudden, curious laugh and turned to the camera as she said, “You have no idea.”