Free Charley's Web by Joy Fielding

old when she disappeared one sunny afternoon from her fenced-in backyard. Four days later, her body was discovered in a shallow grave beside the intracoastal waterway. She’d been tortured and sexually abused before being asphyxiated with a plastic bag.
    Five months later, Noah and Sara Starkey, six-year-old fraternal twins, vanished while playing catch on their front lawn. Their mother had left them for two minutes to answer the phone. When she returned, the children were gone. They were discovered the following week, the plastic bags still wrapped around their heads, their naked little bodies bearing the grisly scars of dozens of cigarette burns and bite marks. Both had been violated sexually with sharp objects.
    The killings sent shock waves throughout all of Florida. Not only were the police most certainly dealing with a serial killer but someone so deranged as to torture and kill innocent children. Not to mention, someone cunning enough to snatch those children right from under their parents’ watchful eyes. Someone the children obviously trusted, since no screams were heard. Someone who was probably known to both families.
    On the surface, the Barnets and the Starkeys seemed to have little in common. The Barnets were young and fairly well-to-do; the Starkeys were older and just getting by. Ellis Barnet was an investment banker; Clive Starkey was a welder. Joan Barnet was a schoolteacher; Rita Starkey was a stay-at-home mom. They moved in completely different circles. Within weeks, however, the police had discovered the common link. Her name was Jill Rohmer.
    The Barnets had hired Jill to baby-sit Tammy every Saturday night when they had their “date night.” Jill was always punctual, and happy to stay as late as needed. She’d play dolls with Tammy and read to her for hours before putting her to bed. According to interviews with her parents, Tammy adored her.
    As did Noah and Sara Starkey, for whom she baby-sat every Friday, and then Saturdays as well, when those Saturdays suddenly freed up. Knowing the Starkeys were going through some tough times financially, Jill often refused to take their money. “The kids are fabulous,” she’d say. “I should be paying you.”
    The police obtained a warrant to search the house Jill shared with her parents and older siblings. Under her bed, they found Tammy Barnet’s bloody underwear, along with the tape recordings of all the children’s dying screams. Jill’s voice could be heard plainly. And her DNA was a match to the saliva found on the bodies. An open-and-shut case.
    Rumors abounded about an accomplice, and both her brother and boyfriend were early suspects, but there was never enough evidence to make an arrest. Jill refused to implicate them, and declined to take the stand in her own defense. Her lawyer, Alex Prescott, tried hard to make a case for reasonable doubt, but ultimately there was none. Jill Rohmer was convicted and sentenced to die.
    And now, it seems, she wanted to talk after all.
    If you decide to accept my offer, or if you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact my lawyer, Alex Prescott. He has an office in Palm Beach Gardens, and I’ve already alerted him to the possibility you might call.
    Charley pushed herself off her bed and padded down the hall to the larger bedroom at the far end of the hall where her children slept. She peeked inside, saw Franny asleep in her bed on one side of the room, James half in, half out of his bed on the other. Watching her children sleep, she wondered how a seemingly normal young woman could have committed such heinous acts. And what could she possibly have to say that could mitigate her behavior? Was it possible someone else was responsible? Someone who was still out there?
    Charley walked to the kitchen, made herself a cup of herbal tea, then reached for the phone and called information. “Palm Beach Gardens, Florida,” she instructed the recording. “Alex Prescott, attorney-at-law.”

CHAPTER