Keep No Secrets (21 page)

Dog's eyebrows speak his confusion.

"By that I mean, it's not official business." He's hesitant. He wants Dog to understand he can turn Jack down

without repercussion. "It's just something I'd like you to do for me."

"Does this have to do with that girl?"

"No." Jack takes a deep breath.

"Though I might want you to help me with that, too." He rubs his face. He still hasn't had a decent night's sleep since his arrest. If he weren't so exhausted, would he be doing this? He looks Dog in the eye. "Can I trust you?"

Dog's infamous anger flares briefly.

"Shit, show me some respect, man."

"If anyone finds out, we'd both lose our jobs."

Dog swings his leg off the armrest and sits properly. Jack now has the level of attention he wanted.

"Boss, you
are
my job. If they toss you out on your ass, they might as well toss me, too."

At that statement, Jack pulls out Jenny's letters.

Later, Dog walks out of Jack's office with copies of the letters in his pocket and the story of Jenny's past in his head. Jack slips his own copies into the large Black's Law Dictionary on the credenza behind his desk, but then reconsiders and moves them to a more obscure tome that hasn't been opened for years. His cell phone chimes. He glances at the lit screen and sees the word "Boss." It's Earl.

"You sitting down?" Earl asks without introduction, and Jack's stomach lurches again.

"Yeah. What now?"

"We've got a trial date."

If Jack had managed to eat his burger earlier, he'd be losing it now. "That was fast."

"I pushed for an early date. We can't let this drag out. It needs to be heard and put to bed before it completely destroys your career."

"When?"

"April 1. We've got a little over fifteen weeks to pull this together. With the holidays, it will seem shorter."

April Fool's Day.

"That's not all, Jack. I have some news you'd have welcomed a few weeks ago, but the timing couldn't be worse now."

Like a kid who plugs his ears to avoid hearing something he doesn't want to hear, Jack closes his eyes and seriously considers simply hanging up the phone.

As if by doing so, he can make it all go away. "I'm listening."

"The appeals court just issued a decision on Alex's appeal. They've granted him a new trial."

"Okay." He takes a deep, cleansing breath and tries to consider the

implications of this news from all angles.

"Okay." His office phone will light up with calls as soon as the media learns of the decision. He'll be expected to have a response, which should, of course, be the response of one who got what he wanted.

And that's exactly how he would have responded before Celeste's allegations, before Jenny returned to town. Instead, his reaction to the news is infinitely more complex, because he knows the hunt to find Jenny will resume—this time with sharpened urgency. He also knows his own obligations have become much

clearer. Yet, even with this knowledge, all he wants to do is warn her. All he can think of is her answer to his question about her alias.
"Innocent."

"Jack? Do you know where she is?"

Jack can't help but notice Earl didn't even say her name. He knows he doesn't need to.

"No." Technically, it's true. She said she might go back to Chicago, so for all he knows, she's halfway there. A lawyer's distinction, but that's what lawyers are taught to do, isn't it?

If Earl recognizes the lie of omission, he feigns otherwise. "Good. Try to keep it that way. You shouldn't even be talking to her anymore." He sighs at the other end of the line. "Shall I handle any statements to the press?"

"Yeah, for now. I'd appreciate that. No one will consider it unusual that I don't comment while Celeste's charges are pending."

"I agree. Speaking of Celeste, TC

called." Just like that, Earl segues to the next item on the ever-growing list. TC is the private investigator Earl hired to work Jack's case.

"And?"

"He did some digging into the Del Toro family history. You knew her parents are divorced?"

"Yeah, the mom lives in Florida, I think."

"Right. Celeste ever tell you anything about her?"

"Not really. Why?"

"Her parents divorced when she was eight. Her mom got custody, her dad moved back to Puerto Rico. The mom did two short prison stints over the next seven years on drug related charges."

"Jesus."

"Celeste's school records reflect that she lived with her maternal grandmother during the time mom was locked up, but TC's information suggests that the reality was slightly different. Mom's boyfriend, apparently, moved in with them when the grandmother's health deteriorated. On paper, Grandma remained the temporary guardian, but in reality, the boyfriend ruled the roost. Mom's way of making sure Celeste didn't get shipped off to dad in Puerto Rico."

"How old was Celeste when the boyfriend moved in?" Jack asks. After what he read in Celeste's notebook, Earl's report is setting off alarms in his head.

"Thirteen. During Mom's second prison stay."

Thirteen. On the cusp of puberty.

There's so much Jack and Claire didn't know about this girl who attached herself to their son. He thinks of the times Michael had an Away game, and Celeste came to their house anyway and sat in the kitchen while Claire fixed dinner.

Sometimes she sat at the center island and did homework; other times she helped Claire by peeling potatoes or setting the table. "It's like she'd rather be at our house than her own," Claire once remarked to Jack. At the time, Jack didn't think much of it, and Claire didn't either.

They figured it was her way of loosening her father's grip.

He wonders if her attachment wasn't so much to family as it was to Claire. Did Claire sense it, even if she didn't put a name to it? Is that why she managed to ignore the physical resemblance between Celeste and Jenny? He admires his wife for her ability to bury whatever bitterness she still carried—and he now knows she carried a lot—so she could give a young woman what she needed. Yet if Celeste needed Claire, why go after Jack? As much as her attachment to Claire might make sense, her accusations against
him
are inexplicable.

Jack thinks back to the conversation with Michael after practice, how his answers told Jack only that Celeste wasn't in immediate danger. No more, no less.

The son of a lawyer learns just how to answer truthfully without telling the truth, too. Jack wonders how much Michael really knows.

"So did TC find out how she ended up back with dad, and how the two of them came to live in Missouri?" he asks Earl.

"Why didn't he take her to Puerto Rico?"

"He doesn't know the answer to your first question. As for Missouri, dad has a sister who lives in Fenton. The sister's husband works at Fabick, same as the dad. We're assuming the job brought him here."

"What about the boyfriend? What did he find out about the boyfriend?"

"He's still working on that. I'll keep you updated when he learns more."

Yet if the boyfriend is the culprit in Celeste's journal, why did she express such fear of her father? Was she simply a teen afraid of a parent's wrath, and Jack blew it out of proportion?

"Do you think Michael can shed more light on Celeste's home life?" Earl asks.

"Probably, if he'd talk to me. But those chances are slim." Jack decides not to tell Earl about Celeste's journal or the files on the computer until after he has a chance to run them by Claire. "Like you said, I'll have to be careful how I approach it so it doesn't come back to bite me at trial. But I'll try." He'll also dig a bit more on the computer. "What do I have to lose?"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE NEWS OF Jack's trial date and Alex's appeal causes renewed but short-lived media attention. A few reporters lingered at the house on and off

throughout the week, but they finally packed up their gear and left when none of the Hilliard family appeared on the front lawn for an interview. Their neighbors haven't succumbed to requests for interviews, either. Jack's not sure if they're showing loyalty to him, or to Claire, or maybe they simply don't appreciate the limelight anymore than he does. No matter the reason, he's grateful.

Late afternoon on Sunday, Claire sits in a large easy chair in the corner of the study, skimming the latest Missouri Digest update. Several years ago, over Jack's objection, she painted the room a deep red. He thought it would be too dark and overwhelm the small space. But he grew to love the warm, cozy feel the color gave the room, especially in the winter, and the two of them spent many nights there together, Jack working in front of the computer while she graded papers or, like now, caught up on new case law. But tonight, even standing at the two open French doors, the room feels suffocating.

Indeed, the atmosphere in the whole house is glacial. On Tuesday night, when Claire asked Jack what he planned to do about Jenny now that Alex's request for new trial had been granted, he didn't have an answer. He told her he'd met with Jenny that morning to see the letters and that Jenny had suggested she might return to Chicago. Claire understands that this news doesn't make his decision of whether or not to report Jenny's

whereabouts any easier. Yet she didn't insist he take action, as he expected.

Indeed, she seemed satisfied that Jenny might disappear again. Instead, her wrath flared Friday after Jack informed her he wouldn't spend Christmas at her parents'

house. He's puzzled. He can't understand how she could expect him to go and bear her father's scorn. The two of them have carried on clipped conversations since, but most often their words consist of mere banalities of everyday life.
Do you
want more roast beef? Yes, thanks. Can I help
you with the dishes? No, Jamie can help me.

Marcia is picking up groceries for me, do you
need anything? Just some toothpaste.

Now, the weekend is almost over and Jack still hasn't told her what he found about Celeste. He can't let it go another day.

"Claire?"

She raises her eyes but her expression is unreadable.

"Do you have a minute?" She steels herself. It's so subtle, not more than a slight tightening near her mouth. Only someone married to her as long as Jack would have noticed. In an effort to assure her he's not about to bring up Jenny again, he adds, "It's about Celeste." He doubts that topic is more welcome, though.

She nods slightly and sets the

newsletter and her highlighter on the small, round table at her side. Tucking both legs up under her, sets her hands in her lap and waits.

Jack enters the room, closing the doors behind him for privacy. He sits in the desk chair and rolls it closer to her.

"I looked at some files on Michael's computer." Other than a straightening of her posture and a habitual tucking of hair behind her ear, she's still. "I wanted to see if I might find something, some clue, to Celeste's motivation."

"And?"

Her lack of objection is heartening. She doesn't approve, but even she

understands some boundaries might need to be crossed, considering what's at stake.

"I've found some things she wrote—"

"On Michael's computer?"

"Yeah. Well, some of it." He reaches into his back pocket, hands her the folded papers. She unfolds them as if they're made of fragile tissue. "I'm assuming she sent the typed one to him in an email or something." When she seems to accept that theory, he continues. "The other is something she handwrote, in a journal."

Claire glances up with a question in her eyes. He ignores it for now; she'll ask it outright soon enough. "They're dark. Not typical teenager dark stuff. I mean
really
dark." As she reads, Jack sees her defenses fall. She wants to be skeptical, but the words on the papers won't let her. If there was an invisible wall between them, she might have just come over to his side of it. "I also found pictures."

"Pictures of what?"

"Of Celeste."

"What kind of pictures?" She swallows hard. She doesn't need an answer; she already knows.

"They were quite explicit. More Penthouse than Playboy, if you know what I mean."

She turns back to the papers. She's not reading them again, though. She's simply upset and she doesn't know what to do.

"Where did you get this?" She lifts the handwritten piece.

"You don't want to know."

"Jack." He feels the weight of her disappointment in that one word, but instead of being ashamed, he resents her self-righteousness.

"This is my life we're talking about, Claire, in case you forgot. My freedom."

"But—"

"I'll do whatever I have to do. And I refuse to apologize for it."

"Yeah, and you'll keep getting arrested.

How will that ensure your freedom?"

He grits his teeth and looks away.

"Don't you realize someone reading this will think it's
you
she's writing about?"

"Like you?"
Deny it, Claire
.
Please just
deny it
. But she merely rolls her eyes, and the action disturbingly calls to mind something he once heard a psychologist say on the witness stand:
Eye-rolling in a
marriage is a strong predictor of divorce
.

"I do realize that," he says, "which is why I took it.
I
know she wasn't writing about me."

"So now you're adding 'withholding evidence' to your crimes?"

"I didn't realize I'd committed any crimes." When she simply looks away, he adds, "It's not evidence if it doesn't describe what happened between us, is it?"

"So why are you showing me this?"

"Because I want to do something, but not without talking to you first."

"Go on."

"If what she's written is more than fiction, which I think it is, then I need to let someone know about it. But like you said, they'll think I'm the man she wrote about. So before I disclose it, I first want to read the instant messages Michael and Celeste send each other. I think he knows more than he lets on. I think I might find something that proves someone else—"