Keep No Secrets (15 page)

She nods. For just a moment, he sees a flicker of the old Claire in her eyes, the Claire who once respected him. But he also sees something else. Regret, maybe?

She turns back to the pot. "Let's just eat, Jack."

Michael refuses to come down for dinner, so it'll be just Jack, Claire and Jamie. Jack wants to try again to talk with him, but Claire insists it would be a waste of time.

"You need to give him space. You can't force him to think what you want him to think."

He wonders if she isn't speaking for herself, too.

The reporters give up for the night, so he sits with Jamie on the front porch while Claire finishes preparing the meal.

Another cold front followed the rain. The air is now clear and sharp, the sky is littered with stars. Jamie holds a book of constellations on his lap and a small flashlight in his right hand to see the pages. Together they search the heavens of the Northern Hemisphere.

"Can I go to school tomorrow?" He asks the question with his face raised to the sky.

"What did mom say?"

"She said maybe. She wanted to talk to you."

"Oh." Jack has no idea what Claire told him about why he and Michael stayed home from school today, and why so many cars and vans were parked outside the house this morning and then again this evening. "Okay, I'll talk to her. I think it will be all right."

"Are you in trouble?"

Jack tries not to react. Once again, he's grateful for the dark. He keeps his face toward the sky, too, when he answers with a question of his own. "What makes you ask that?"

He shrugs. "When I was at Billy's house, I heard the TV in his family room.

The news lady was talking about you."

Jack finally lowers his gaze, but even as he stares at his son, he's blinded with rage at Billy's mother. Marcia has been Claire's best friend in the neighborhood since Jack and Claire moved in more than nine years ago. Jack knows she tried to talk Claire into leaving him after what happened with Jenny. "Mrs. Edmond let you watch the news about me?"

"She didn't really know. We were in Billy's room but the door was open so we heard it."

Like hell she didn't know
. Jack has the urge to march into the house and tell Claire what he just learned.

"What exactly did you hear?"

Jamie looks down at the book with the flashlight, but he's not seeing the words or diagrams. He's merely avoiding Jack's stare. And all Jack can think is,
I'm about to
lose another son. That bitch across the street will
do everything in her power to make sure I lose
another son
.

"Never mind. You don't need to tell me if you don't want to. But no, I'm not in trouble. Someone is saying I did something bad, but that person is lying.

Once the truth comes out, they won't be talking about me on the news anymore, okay?"

"Does Mom know that?"

"Does Mom know what?"

"That the person is lying? 'Cause she seemed really sad today."

Jack's throat closes. He struggles not to lose his composure. "Yeah, I think so."
I
hope so
.

Jamie smiles. All he needed was

confirmation from his dad. "Yeah, I think so, too." His arm shoots up. "Look! I think it's Monoceros."

Jack looks at the diagram in the book and then at the sky. He searches, but he simply can't see what Jamie sees.

Several hours later, Jack makes his way down the hall toward the master

bedroom. Claire put Jamie to bed an hour ago but never came back downstairs. Jack assumes she went to bed, too. Michael has sequestered himself in the bathroom for a shower. Jack hears the water running and the rumble of the exhaust fan. As he passes Michael's bedroom, he sees his son's cell phone on the desk next to the computer.

He hesitates only a moment before making his decision.

He steps into the room and grabs the phone, presses buttons on the screen until he finds the text message history. The two most recent messages read, gtg take a shower cal u later from Michael, and then simply, ok, from Celeste. Jack scrolls back further to the first messages of the evening.

Hes home

Whatre u gonna do?

Idk

Does he try to talk to u

He wil if i go downstairs

Did u tel him u believe me

Michael doesn't answer, and the next message comes from Celeste just ten or so minutes ago.

U there . . .

Yea

Whered u go

Dinner

Was he there

Yea

Oh . . what happened

Again, Michael doesn't answer the question. His next message is the one about taking a shower.

Jack hears the water shut off, followed by the scrape of the shower curtain rings as Michael pushes the curtain aside. He quickly replaces the phone where he found it.

Michael lied to Celeste. He claimed he went down to dinner, he claimed he saw his father. Even more significantly, he didn't answer her when she asked if he told Jack he believed her story. What game are they playing? What game is
Michael
playing?

Claire watches Jack enter their bedroom from over the top of her book. He stands before the dresser and unfastens his watch, digs his wallet and loose change from his pockets, and deposits all of it into a shallow tray Michael painted for him in an art class many years ago. The actions are habitual and take no thought; his eyes stare trancelike at an empty spot on the dresser as he begins to unbutton his shirt, and she wonders where he's gone to.

When he turns to the bathroom, she sees his bloodshot eyes register her presence, the fact that he's being watched.

He gives her a small smile before closing the door behind him.

Claire? She's lying. You know that, don't
you?

She never answered him. She never said,
yes, I know she's lying
. She sees something broken in him and she knows Celeste didn't do it.

She did.

For her own sake, she should put it back together.

He's still thinking about the text messages when he emerges from the bathroom.

He's already decided he needs to see more. He also wants to see what Michael's computer might reveal, but he knows Claire will balk at the idea.

When he reaches the bed, she quickly sets her book on the nightstand and switches off her lamp.

He pulls back the covers and the

motion releases the clean scent of the sheets as if they hung outside on a line to dry. He knows they didn't; the scent is artificial. He also knows the scent, artificial or not, is nonexistent in prison.

"Is it okay to turn out my light, too?"

he asks, just to be sure.

She nods, but as he reaches for the lamp, she says, "Jack, wait." As badly as he needs sleep, he does as she asks. "I'm sorry, too. About this morning, about my reaction to everything. What I said was cruel, too. I just—"

"It's okay."

"I know you feel like you're been sent to a unique form of hell or something—"

He laughs a bit, despite himself.

"—and you don't need me to make it worse."

"It's okay. It's an enormous amount of stress for all of us." He thinks again of Michael avoiding Celeste's questions. "It's okay, really."

She slides deeper into the covers and motions for him to do the same. He turns out the light and they lie in the dark like two chaste nuns.

And then she surprises him, twice.

Since the night he told her about Jenny, she hasn't cuddled with him like she usually does before they go to sleep.

Instead, the two of them have lain side by side, staring at the ceiling in the darkness.

Sometimes, one or both of them would roll over toward their own edge of the bed. But tonight, she moves close, and he lifts his arm for her to rest her head in the hollow of his shoulder. Lying on her side, she presses the full length of her naked body against him, one leg flung over both of his. It's a nice surprise.

He's about to caress her face, to gently lift it to kiss her. But then she asks, "Have you seen her again?"

The question is the second surprise, but it's not so nice.

"No."

"Are you going to?"

Is he? He might have covered for

Michael, but he won't cover for himself, not anymore.

"I don't know. I haven't decided. But if you've changed your mind, if you don't want me to, I won't."

She sighs and shifts, a burrowing-in movement that tells him she's done for the night. Ever consistent, she's asleep within minutes. He lies awake, acutely aware of what she didn't say, of the assurances he needs to hear but that she refused to give.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ON MONDAY MORNING, the press

follows Jack during his short walk from the parking garage to the courthouse.

Their numbers are smaller, but they cling to him like mongrels waiting for scraps.

He made a formal statement on

Wednesday after talking to his staff, but these lingering reporters must still hope for a spontaneous comment. He ignores them and instead focuses on the screen of his phone to review the day's schedule.

Once he arrives at the DA's office, he stops by the IT department and asks Nick, the office computer whiz, to come see him in fifteen minutes. He then sequesters himself behind closed doors and hits the speed dial to call his younger brother.

"Hey, Jack," Mark says when he hears Jack's voice. "How're you doing? You and Claire holding up okay?"

"We're good." He thinks they are, at least. Like he told Earl, as good as can be expected. After the brief discussion in bed on Wednesday night, Claire's anger has been replaced with resigned sadness.

"But I need a big favor from you."

Jack's brother Mark works as an

independent sales rep for a toy company and runs his one-man business from a home office in his basement. His house, though modest in size, is located in a residential neighborhood of Clayton, one of the tonier, inner suburbs of St. Louis known for, among other things, the number of young, urban professionals who live there. His particular

neighborhood is a moment's drive from the restaurants, shops, galleries and office buildings of Clayton's downtown

business district, which makes it a perfect home base for Jack's single brother.

Jack shows up at Mark's house just before lunchtime. They chat on the front porch for a good five minutes, just as they planned, and then Mark waves Jack in.

The delay gives Jack's stalkers time to get a look at Mark's casual attire: sweatpants, sweatshirt, sneakers, baseball cap. Inside, Mark changes into a suit and tie similar to Jack's; Jack dons Mark's discarded sweats.

The transformation is complete once Jack fits the cap on his head.

"It's scary," Jack says.

"Nah." Mark laughs. "It'd be scary if I had your gray hairs."

Jack whips the cap off and leans closer to the mirror, runs his fingers through his mostly dishwater blond hair. "What gray hairs?"

Mark laughs again, and the sound of it eases Jack’s tension. He wonders why he didn't call his brother sooner.

Mark leaves first, driving Jack's car.

Jack stands watching at the edge of the front window. Once he's sure the press has taken the bait, he grabs the suit he just shed and carries it with him to Mark's car in the garage. After raising the garage door and backing out enough to confirm that no one has returned, he makes his escape.

The joy of Mark's car, a Porsche 911

Carrera, infects his veins as he maneuvers from the Inner Belt into the curve of the cloverleaf leading to Highway 40. Mark sold his BMW convertible only months ago. He owned the BMW for almost

seven years, a new record for Jack's thirty-six-year-old brother, who goes through cars even faster than he goes through women.

Twenty minutes later, Jack glances at his watch as he pulls into his own garage.

Lunchtime traffic was light. He made it from Mark's house to home in record time, and he did it without picking up a tail.

He didn't eat much all weekend, so before climbing the stairs to Michael's room, he scarfs down a couple bites of a leftover pork chop he's found in the refrigerator. He has several hours before Claire returns home from the university.

He doesn't like doing this behind her back, but she would be steadfast in her opposition to violating Michael's privacy.

He has to ask himself if what he saw in Michael's text messages Wednesday night justifies what he's about to do.

He gazes around Michael's room as he waits for the computer to boot up. Dirty laundry spills out of the open closet. One closet door holds the same type of toy basketball hoop that hangs from the back of Jack's office door at work; they bought them together when Michael was eight and first showed an interest in basketball.

The full-sized net in the driveway came a few months later.

Michael's bed is unmade, and the sheets look as if they haven't been washed in months. Jack notices that Michael has taken down the pictures of Celeste he had stuck to a corkboard above the bed. Did Claire ask him to? And if so, was it on her behalf, or Jack's?

He also notices that Michael has

removed all of the pictures of the two of them—father and son. Most were taken some years back when Jack coached Michael's Little League baseball team.

They weren't the typical team photos, with everyone standing stiffly in two rows, facing the camera. They were candids taken by the mom of a player. A professional photographer, she'd stood on the sidelines at games and captured the reckless joy and the spontaneous tears of the pint-size players and their coach.

Her photos recorded a moment in

Michael's life when he still worshiped his dad with awe.

Jack turns back to the screen. With the mouse in his right hand, he clicks on the icon for Michael's desktop and watches as a box appears, waiting for the user to key in a password. With his free hand, he calls Nick from his cell phone.

"Hey, Jack. You at the computer?"

Nick's short greeting makes obvious he's been waiting for the call. In the few years he's worked in the IT department at the DA's office, he's shown himself to be not only a computer prodigy, but more importantly, trustworthy.