Keep No Secrets (11 page)

Struck him, over and over.

If she'd used anything other than her hands . . .

When Jack pulls out of the garage, he can't see sky for the hard rain that pelts the car. He has a vague sense of having heard the storm when he and Claire were arguing inside the house, but at the time it didn't register. He's now glad she didn't let him take Jamie.

The media vans and SUVs wait for

him, their station call letters on the sides blurred by the curtain of rain. Wishing for a distraction, he considers calling Earl to confirm their meeting. But Earl won't forget. Jack is now his highest profile client.

He's almost at the last Missouri exit when his cell phone rings. The Caller ID

reads Harley Lambert. It's Claire's father, and Jack knows Harley is at his office because when he calls from home, the cell phone simply reads Harley and Ruth. The man makes Jack nervous—he always has

—and Jack dreads talking to him. But Jack especially hates talking to him when he calls from his office, which, because he's been retired from the FBI for years now, isn't really an office where he works, but some sort of space he rents in an office park near his home. Jack knows there's a good chance Harley records the call. He's seen the recorder on Harley's desk, the way it's hooked up to the phone, and though Harley claims to record only those who give him permission, Jack knows better.

"Good morning, Harley." Jack keeps his tone as neutral as possible, but he still hears the resignation in it. He knows Harley must hear it, too. The man doesn't miss a thing.

"Don't 'good morning, Harley' me, you little prick! There's not a damn thing good about this morning because of you."

Jack doesn't respond. After all, what could he possibly say to that?

"Listen to me, and listen to me good."

"I'm listening." The media vehicles trail his car, matching each turn through the downtown streets. They follow too close, close enough to be dangerous even without the rain.

"I won't let you hurt my baby again. I stayed out of it last time at her request, but not this time. Say goodbye to your ticket, Jack, because if I have any say in the matter, Jeff City will be pulling it sooner than you can say boo."

"It'll be a bit difficult to support my family without it." He surprises himself with his nonchalant response to the threat of disbarment. Is he growing numb already?

"Don't you dare talk back to me!"

Harley yells so loud Jack holds the phone away from his ear.

He drives under the interstate, where he's granted a brief reprieve from the rain. In the relative silence he glances out the left window and sees Jenny's homeless friend tucked next to a concrete pillar. All these years later, he still haunts these city streets, even without the few dollars and the food she gave him as she walked by each morning on the way to her office.

Jack almost wants to buy him a plane ticket south somewhere, where at least he'll be warm.

"Did you call simply to harass me or would you like to hear what actually happened?"

"I called to tell you you're done hurting my daughter. She might insist on sticking by you while this is going on, but don't be fooled. Once your ass is behind bars, she's done with you. My

grandchildren are done with you."

What Harley says gives Jack hope.

Claire plans to stick by him, at least for a while. Based upon the conversation at the house that morning, he didn't think she would. And if she told her dad this, there's a good chance she believes Jack really is innocent.

"I think I'll wait until I hear that from her to believe it."

Jack can't see him, of course, but he knows every vein in Harley's neck is bulging, and his ears redden as Jack talks.

He's not used to Jack fighting back; Jack has never challenged Harley on anything.

There'd never been a need to, really. He's Claire's father, and though Jack has never felt close to him, Harley liked his son-in-law until Jack did the unthinkable. He saved his bullying for other targets.

"You're garbage, Hilliard. She's finally starting to realize it. Even her mother believes it now."

Though Jack is skeptical of this, it still stings. Ruth has always loved him like a son—she forgave him even before Claire.

She's filled a maternal role since Jack's own mother passed away years ago.

Harley knows it.

At a stoplight on Market & 4th, an SUV bearing KMOV call letters pulls up along the right side of the car. Jack knows without looking that their camera is trained on him through the passenger side window. They can't possibly have a clear shot, though, not with the sheet of rain that forms an opaque film on the glass.

"Look," he says to Harley, "I'm about to pull into a parking garage where I'll lose reception. If you'd like to hear both sides before you reach your verdict, I'll call you later from my office, okay? But I've gotta go."

Harley grunts in response.

The reporters are forced to stay behind when Jack uses the keycard Earl gave him to enter the underground parking garage.

As usual, Earl anticipated everything.

But he still has to traverse the lobby from the parking garage elevator to the separate banks that take him to Earl's firm on the twenty-eighth floor. If he's not fast, they'll attack him in the lobby.

The last thing he needs is to get stuck talking to Harley while they claim their stakeout.

"I gotta go," he says again. The words come out a little too loudly now that he left the battering rain behind.

"Your ticket, Jack. You're gonna lose your ticket this time. Your ticket and your family."

Jack drops the phone onto the

passenger seat and searches for Earl's parking spot, all the while trying to convince himself that Harley's threats haven't shaken him.

Four or five reporters ambush him as soon as he steps off the parking garage elevator. But it's Jim Wolfe, the legal reporter for the
Post-Dispatch
, whom Jack sees first. He leans calmly against a marble column in the center of the lobby.

As the one who first suspected Jack of being Jenny's alibi, Wolfe worries Jack more than the rabid bunch at his side.

You've done this hundreds of times
, he tells himself.
You've crossed this same stream before
without drowning. You can do it now
.

"Mr. Hilliard!" the reporter standing directly next to Jack shouts. "Do you have a comment about the charges brought against you?"

Jack keeps walking but says, "I'll have a statement for all of you later this afternoon."

"Are you guilty of the charges?"

"Of course not."

Earl will murder Jack when he finds out he engaged them in any conversation at all, but it's not Jack's style to ignore questions with easy answers.

"How do you intend to effectively represent the city on other matters if you're busy fighting these charges?" says another.

A short blonde in bright red pumps gets more specific: "Will your being a defendant in
this
case affect your handling of the Bedford case?"

He can't help but glare at the woman who asked that question, and yet they've only just begun. The questions get more personal as he approaches the sanctuary of the elevator.

"Is it true your accuser is your son's girlfriend?"

"What is your wife's reaction to these charges?"

But it's Wolfe who's done his research, who knows Jack's true weakness. His matter-of-fact voice reaches Jack's ears above the din of the others.

"Can you tell us, Mr. Hilliard, is it true the victim could be Jennifer Dodson's twin?"

Earl, who waits in the elevator, hears the last question. Once the doors close, sealing them in silence, he drops his game face. "You okay?"

"I'm okay." It's a lie, and Earl knows it, but they both pretend otherwise as the small cage whisks them to the top floor of the building.

The long walk down the corridor to Earl's corner office is only slightly less painful than the interrogation downstairs.

Secretaries stare over the tops of their cubicles at Jack, then quickly avert their eyes when he attempts to greet them.

Young associates traversing between offices nod and say, simply, "Mr.

Hilliard." He returns the gesture, but he hears them congregating after he passes, waiting until he disappears into their boss' office to start their gossip. His suspicions are confirmed when Earl stops at his secretary's desk. "Tell them to get their asses back to work or they'll be writing research memos for the next five years," he orders brusquely.

In Earl's office, the first thing Jack sees is the morning's newspaper resting on the coffee table in front of the leather couch.

He reads the large headline as he removes his coat. The bold black letters ask: ST.

LOUIS DA: GOLDEN BOY OR

SEXUAL PREDATOR? Underneath, a

subtitle reads: IS SEXUAL

MISBEHAVIOR ‘ALL IN A DAY’S

WORK’ FOR MODERN DAY

POLITICIANS?

He knew it would turn into this—the last time taught him that—and he knows it will get worse. Earls waves it off as he takes a seat behind his desk. "Yellow journalism. Ignore it."

That would be easier if it wasn't staring me
in the face
. Jack turns the paper over. To his relief, national news takes up the bottom half of the front page.

"First things first." Earl opens a small refrigerator behind his chair, pulls out a Michelob, and offers it to Jack. If someone had told him that the man who was his boss at the DA's office all those years now kept a refrigerator full of beer in his office, he wouldn't have believed it.

Earl winks, and Jack understands then that he's joking, trying to help Jack relax.

"It's a little early and I didn't get much sleep last night. I think I'd prefer coffee."

Jack pulls out the chair in front of the desk and falls into it. "But feel free to have one yourself."

Earl laughs. "I'm working," he says, replacing the beer and retrieving a can of Coke for himself. He picks up his phone and asks his secretary to bring a coffee for Jack.

"So am I," Jack says when Earl hangs up.

"We'll get to that, but there are few other things I want to talk to you about first." Earl swivels around once more to grab a book from the shelf next to the refrigerator. Jack recognizes it: the Missouri Rules of Professional Conduct.

Get to
what?
he thinks. His gut tightens as he remembers Harley's threat.
You're gonna
lose your ticket this time
.

"I heard you chewed out the Chief,"

Earl says as he leafs through the pages.

Jack stares at him blankly. "When you got home from the jail."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess I did. The press had camped out on my lawn. I could barely get into my garage."

Earl looks up from the book for a moment and nods slowly, as if he's absorbing Jack's answer. After knocking, Earl's secretary enters with the coffee.

Jack thanks her, but she won't look him in the eye, either.
I'm not a rapist
, he wants to shout at her.

Earl asks her to close the door behind her.

"How can that be?" he says. "He claims he gave you plenty of lead time to get home before logging the charges."

"He did. I wasn't ready to go home yet, though. I wasn't ready to deal with Claire." Jack sips the coffee but it's much too hot and burns his lip.

"Where'd you go?" As Earl talks, he continues to flip the pages.

"Nowhere, really. I drove around."

Earl looks up, his finger holding his spot. "Were you with Dodson?"

He wasn't, of course, but that Earl asked the question disturbs Jack. Have Celeste’s allegations already destroyed the trust he's spent the last four years rebuilding?

"No. I simply drove around, tried to clear my head before going home." When Earl seems to accept his answer, Jack goes on quietly, "Let's move on. What else do we need to talk about?"

Resigned, Earl tosses the book onto his desk and drags his hand over the top of his stubby gray hair, a habit when he's faced with an unpleasant task. He stares at the discarded book.

"What is it? Just tell me."

"Do you wonder how I knew you chewed out Gunner?"

"You obviously talked to him."

"Right." Earl finally pops the tab on his soda can. "He called me."

"Why?"

"He wants to talk to you, but felt he should run it by me first."

Every nerve warns Jack to be alert. "He wants to talk to me about what? About Celeste? I'm not talking to any of them.

Why would you even think I might?"

"Whoa, hold on a second. First, stop jumping to conclusions. It's not like you.

Second, remember they're not enjoying this, either, okay? Gunner and his crew are not out to get you, Jack. The only one out to get you is Celeste, and we need to find out why. I suspect it's not personal."

It sure feels personal
. "Then what does he want to talk to me about?"

"He thinks your personal issues will impair your decision-making. Especially with the Bedford case. He thinks there’s a conflict of interest. That you might identify with the victim a bit too much to prosecute the case fairly."

"I like to think I identify a little bit with all the victims in the cases I prosecute. It's sort of what motivates me, you know?" What do they want him to do, stop working altogether? "He thinks I should take myself off the case?"

"Yes."

"Well, if he wants me off the case, he'll have to ask the judge to order it."

"Jack—"

"It's not open for discussion. I refuse to constantly justify every move I make because of something stupid I did four years ago. Or because some girl now decides to accuse me of something I
didn't
do. If I have to argue my position, I'll argue it to the judge."

A slight grin grows on Earl's face. For the first time since Jack arrived, his former boss relaxes. He sinks into his high-back leather chair that would swallow another man of his height and rests his hands, fingers interlaced, over his belly. "Okay, point taken," he says. Jack is surprised by his sudden acquiescence. He has the sense he was just tested.

"Will you at least tell me how you and Claire are doing, then?"