“Look, Charley, all I know is what I read in the papers—are you okay with me calling you Charley?”
“Everyone does.”
“Okay. While reading some online news from a year ago, I came across an article where Jon Rittenberg claimed you were stalking him and his wife. You, on the other hand, accused Jon of sexual assault—of spiking your drink and making you pregnant. You filed your accusation after you were arrested on Jon Rittenberg’s property and charged for stalking and harassment. Police later dropped all the charges. You in turn dropped all sexual assault allegations and said you’d fabricated the whole thing. You apparently agreed to get psychological help. What really happened?”
“What in the fuck? What the hell do you want? Why are you asking me this? It happened over a year ago. Are you media? Did she put you up to this?”
My pulse quickens. “Who’s ‘she’？”
Silence.
I’m losing her—she’s going to hang up.
Quickly, I say, “Look, I believe you, Charley. I believe your story—the original one. The one you retracted. I believe it’s the truth and . . .” My voice hitches. I’m suddenly scared. But there really is no about-face now. “I’m not a reporter. I . . . okay, I wasn’t exactly truthful, either. I’m not an ex-employee of Jon Rittenberg’s. I still work for him. I clean his house. I’m a maid.” I hesitate. Charley’s still listening. “And I need some help because I—I know he’s done this before. I think he’s done this many times before. After finding your stories, I know I’m not alone.”
There is a long silence. “Has he done something to you?”
This time it’s me who remains quiet.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“No,” I whisper. “I don’t think so. I—I needed to talk to someone. I had a feeling he’s done this before. I’m not sure what to do. I’m afraid if I make a complaint, they could drag me through shit like they did to you.”
“How do I know you are who you say you are? Why should I even begin to trust you?”
“You don’t have to. But I also couldn’t not reach out. I’m sorry. It was a mistake. I—”
“Wait.” She curses. “Look. I want to believe you. But even if I wanted to talk, I can’t. I’m bound by a gag order. I signed a nondisclosure statement. Both parties did.”
My heart starts to hammer. Sweat prickles. Jackpot—I’ve hit the freaking jackpot. I knew it!
“An NDA? They made you sign an NDA?”
“I can’t talk about it. I got money and I signed a gag order. That’s all I will say.”
I take in a deep, steadying breath, trying to tamp down my excitement. “Okay,” I say softly. “How about I just put something out here. No need to agree, but if I’m wrong, feel free to hang up. Will you do that? Just hear me out?”
I can hear someone calling her name.
“My break is almost up. I need to go.”
“Wait! Please. Tell me what happened to your baby. I believe you—that he made you pregnant. Did they make you get rid of it? Was that part of the money deal? Did he pay you to have an abortion, retract your accusation, and they in turn dropped stalking charges? He treated you like shit, Charley, and I bet that he said ‘it never happened.’ Did I get that right?”
She swears viciously on the other end. I hear her clearing her throat, then blowing her nose.
“Charley, I understand if you stalked him. I do. I really do. These things make a person crazy. Especially the spiked-drink shit, because you start questioning your own memories even as everyone is questioning you and your motivations. But you don’t deserve this. No woman deserves this.”
Very quietly, she says, “So maybe you are who you say you are, lady, or maybe you’re not, but I will tell you this. It wasn’t his lawyers. It was her lawyers. It was her.”
“What do you mean?”
She inhales deeply. “She made me sign the NDA. Jon Rittenberg didn’t know anything about it. He knows he raped me because he did. But now he just thinks I made the pregnancy part up. Because she cleaned up after him to protect her own reputation and her family’s name. She tried to intimidate me into getting rid of it at first. I . . . God, I’m going to get into a shit ton of trouble for saying this if you let it get out, but it wasn’t explicitly part of the gag order—her lawyers don’t even know this part—”
“What part?”
“She first tried to intimidate me, tried to frighten me away. Tried to make me crazy. She harassed me, spooked me, by sending me GIFs of a Chucky doll with a knife and the words: ‘It’s not all child’s play—die baby, die, die, die. I hope your baby dies.’” A pause. “I don’t know what you want with the Rittenbergs, Kit, but be careful. You might think Jon Rittenberg is bad, and he is, but he’s just your generic entitled male asshole. His wife, though—Daisy Rittenberg—she’s dangerous.”
DAISY
October 18, 2019. Friday.
Thirteen days before the murder.
Daisy is careful. She’s cooking a nice but simple supper of fish that she picked up at the market on her way home from lunch with Vanessa. Jon called earlier to say he would bring takeout, but she told him she was happy to cook. As she melts butter in the pan, her mind churns over the note left inside her BMW.
There was no sign of a break-in. And she’s certain she beeped the lock open as she approached her car, and that it was locked. The only other person who has a set of keys to her BMW is Jon. And Jon would not mess with her head like that. It’s out of the question. Isn’t it? All Daisy can deduce is perhaps she was mistaken—maybe she did leave her car unlocked. Even so, the fact someone knew she was parked near the bistro . . . it must’ve been because she posted the hashtag, #BidingTimeTillBistroLunch. One of the trolls must have seen it before she deleted the post.
What frightens her more is that a troll is physically stalking her.
Daisy jumps as the butter catches and smokes. She whips the pan off the stove and curses. She pours out the burned butter and starts again. As the new pat of butter melts, Daisy resolves to hold off posting on Instagram for a while. And she’ll reconfigure her privacy settings. Maybe the trolls will forget about her. As she squeezes fresh lemon juice into the butter and tastes it, her mind spirals back to the Chucky GIF.
That’s what’s really messing with her head. Chucky.
Only one person in this world would know what Chucky means to Daisy.
But it could be coincidence. Chucky is a common horror meme—a ubiquitous GIF to denote nasty things. It’s just her own guilt that’s turning a coincidental Chucky into a real monster. It’s nothing. Nothing. It’s going to be fine. And she certainly cannot tell Jon. The best thing is to stay off social media for a while. Like Vanessa.
Her mind goes to Vanessa and Haruto.
It’s worrying her—Haruto’s angry grip on Vanessa’s arm. The fear in her friend’s eyes. Daisy pours the lemon-butter sauce into a small serving dish and sets it on the warmer. She reaches for the sharpest knife in the block to fillet the fish. As she slices and peels gray skin away from delicate pink flesh, she decides she will talk to Vanessa about Haruto. She’ll broach the topic, delicately, of course, coming at it in a circuitous way.