Keep No Secrets (44 page)

He stops in the doorway. It's been four years, yet here he thinks he finally detects her scent. He closes his eyes and inhales, letting himself be intoxicated by a memory.

He thinks of the morning he woke next to her in her large four-poster bed. In the moment he first opened his eyes, he was prepared to give up everything for the privilege of doing it again and again. She quickly set him straight. Even though he’d fallen asleep holding a woman he thought had finally opened herself to him, he woke next to a cold stranger who belittled the feelings he confessed for her and left him riddled with guilt and despair. He didn’t—
couldn't
—understand the transformation, and he tormented himself trying.

Not for a minute, though, did he think her behavior that morning had to do with anything but him. Even after he learned she’d been arrested for her client’s murder, he rejected the thought she might be guilty. Despite the mounting evidence against her, he dismissed it all as circumstantial. It wasn’t until after she ran away and he found out about Maxine that he finally decided he’d been duped.

He felt like a fool, but it made it easier to let her go, and with her, his absurd fantasies of a life at her side.

And then she came back.

He stares at the bed.
Turn around and
leave
.
Nothing good can come from entering this
room
.

He steps in slowly. Despite his

memories and the lingering scent, or maybe because of them, her absence up here is more pronounced than

downstairs. The picture of her murdered little sister is gone from the dresser; so is the jewelry box and cologne bottle he remembers. A few books and a piggy bank remain, but otherwise the top of the dresser, like the furniture downstairs, supports nothing but dust. He lifts the piggy bank and is surprised to find it heavy with coins.

The stereo on top of the tall chest of drawers in the corner is still there, but there are no CDs in sight. She probably has an iPod now, he thinks. He opens each drawer of the chest and the dresser, but except for a few slips and some pantyhose, all are empty.

He moves to her closet and gasps

slightly when he opens it to find all the suits he's ever seen her wear. He sees no jeans, T-shirts or sweaters. Only suits.

There must be at least fifteen of them, most black or gray but with a few browns and navies thrown in. They hang patiently under clear plastic dry cleaning bags, one to each suit. Beneath them, assorted pumps and sling backs are lined up like soldiers on the hardwood floor.

At the end of the row, he spots the mint green suit he always liked. She called it her "lucky suit." Even bringing up the rear, it stands out among the more somber colors, refusing to blend in. No one but Jenny, with her striking black hair, her dark skin and long legs, could pull it off. He wonders if he'll ever see her wear it again.

He looks up at the shelf and notices the family photo album she showed him is gone, too.

The desolation of the room suddenly saddens him and causes him to reconsider all of his conclusions about her. Despite his suspicions about her failure to show him the fourth letter, he begins to think she really didn't leave of her own accord.

She was run out of town and forced to leave the largest chunk of who she is behind. She was convicted of nothing, but she was punished nevertheless. She'd loved the law as much as he did—for different reasons, he knows—but the law had let her down.

Had he let her down, too? And with his relentless doubts, is he continuing to do so?

"What does it mean?"
he'd asked.

"What does what mean?"

"The name. Ayanna. What does it mean?"

She hadn’t blinked.

"Innocent."

The bed creaks when he sits on the end.

He resists the desire to lie back and let his memories take him even deeper, to a place he might not be able to leave.

Instead, he looks around the room. His gaze rests for a moment on the large casement windows, and then, on the piggy bank again. If she was worried about money, why didn’t she take the change inside?

He jumps up and grabs the bank.

Turning it over, he tugs at the rubber stopper until it pops out. Coins trickle from the hole onto the bed and he shakes it to help them along. Once it empties, he paws through the pile. His efforts are quickly rewarded. Hidden among the pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters is a small silver key. He inspects it. From the cuts he suspects it’s the key to a safe deposit box; the box number on one side of the head confirms his suspicion. On the other side the letters SG—for the manufacturer Sargent Greenleaf, he knows—are imprinted above a seven-digit code of numbers and letters.

He pockets the key, scoops the coins back into the bank, and replaces it on the dresser in the exact spot he found it. He quickly leaves the bedroom, but on the stairs he hesitates. He returns to retrieve one more thing.

He's about to call Dog to ask if there's any way to trace the key code when his cell phone rings with an unknown

number.

"Hi, Jack."

His pulse speeds up at hearing Jenny's voice for the first time in three months, but when he speaks, he tries to disguise his sense of urgency. "I'm surprised to hear from you."

"Brian said you were looking for me."

"I am. But you knew that from my call.

The one you didn't answer."

"I didn't get any call from you."

Silence, then, "Oh, you mean to my other phone." She laughs lightly. "That phone's at the bottom of the Mississippi River."

It takes only a moment for Jack to understand her meaning.
Under the Poplar
Street Bridge
.

"Where are you?" he asks.

"Why?"

"I want to see you. I know who sent the letters."

"So you finally believe it wasn't me, sending them to myself?"

"I finally believe you."
About that, at
least
.

"Maybe I don't believe
you
. Maybe you're just saying that, to convince me to tell you where I am. For all I know, you'll show up accompanied by a squad car.

You told me if you contacted me again, it would be at their behest."

He glances at his watch and sees it's nearing three. "I doubt it, seeing as they're probably looking for me right now, too."

"What do you—?"

"I cut out of court."
And Earl won't be
happy about it
.

"The trial was recessed until Monday.

That’s what the news said, at least."

This surprises Jack, but he's relieved.

He needs to take a different approach if he wants her to agree. "Jenny, please. I believe you. If you trust me to tell me where you are, I'll believe everything you tell me from now on."

She laughs bitterly. "The words of a desperate man. What's changed, Jack?"

"I told you. I know who sent the letters, and I know it wasn't you."

"So tell me who it was."

He decides to take a chance. "Celeste. I need to get the originals from you, for fingerprints. We want it to be airtight when we take it to the judge." When she doesn't speak, he says, "Jenny?"

Finally, in a voice choked with relief, she folds.

"I'm back at the motel. Come on over."

She surprises him by laughing as she opens the door, and by her playful comment, "This time you're the wet one,"

an obvious reference to their run-in at Mark's house. Her mood is a hundred times lighter, and it causes mixed emotions in him. He's missed that laugh, which once came so easily, and her fearlessness, but the return of both confirms his suspicions. She has, in fact, been withholding some sort of

information from him, and now that she's learned the letters were a hoax and assumes Jack doesn't know about a fourth one, she no longer fears disclosure.

Until he has the original letters in hand, he doesn't intend to correct her.

She takes his overcoat and then grabs a hand towel and tosses it to him. He hastily wipes his face and dries his hair, feeling her watching him the whole time.

"Here, sit." Her open suitcase has reclaimed its spot on the extra bed, and she drags it to one end to make room for him. He notices it's packed.

"I can't believe you came back here, of all places."

She waves his concern away. "Once they checked and didn't find me here, I knew they wouldn't come back. And if they did, a hundred dollar bill to the night clerk goes a long way." She sits on the opposite bed across from him, her hands tucked between her knees. "So, tell me, how'd you figure out it was Celeste?"

"Michael admitted it." He explains how he first saw mention of a "juris doctor"

plan in Michael and Celeste's text messages, but didn't connect it to Jenny until, during Michael's testimony, Earl wrote the initials "JD" on a note to Jack.

"He was asking me if it was okay to ask Mike about you, but when I saw the letters on the note, I thought 'juris doctor' and it dawned on me that the words might have been their code for Jenny Dodson. At the break, I confronted Mike, and he confessed."

"So that's why you thought you saw me on those tapes you mentioned."

He nods. "From the post office where the letters were mailed." She doesn’t need to know he never actually saw the tapes.

"How would she have known where to mail them?"

"Mike said she researched everything online. It's not hard to find an address. I guess she took a chance on them being forwarded. It's not like she had anything to lose if they weren't."

Jenny rises and crosses to the suitcase.

She stands mere inches from him as she carefully digs through the neatly folded clothes. Her movements release the familiar fragrance. She pulls out the plastic bag containing the letters and hands it to him. "All yours." Their fingers touch as he takes it. "How will you explain how you got them?"

He holds her gaze as he tucks the bag into the inside pocket of his suit coat.

"Are you going somewhere?" He tilts his head slightly toward the suitcase.

He sees wariness cloud her eyes as if she's dropped a veil over them. "I may go home soon."

"'Home' being Chicago?"

"For now."

"Why don't you come forward, tell them you didn't know about Maxine until after your arrest?" The question, he sees, catches her off-guard. Brian apparently didn't mention to her he'd told Jack.

"Wouldn't you like to return to your real home?" he adds.

"They wouldn't believe me. And the timing wouldn't be great for you, would it?"

He ignores the second half of her answer. "You could take another lie detector test."

"Why do you care, Jack?" The tone hints at her irritation at being questioned.

"I guess I don't understand why you wouldn't want to be cleared, once and for all."

She smirks. "I thought I was cleared."

"Except you don't act like it, do you?"

She whirls to turn away from him, but he grabs her wrist. A mistake. The line separating his competing urges is much too fine.

She tugs, but he holds tight. "Do you remember our agreement?" he asks.

"Yes."

"Remind me. What was our agreement, Jenny?"

"That I'd tell you everything."

"Yeah. Except you've told me virtually nothing. I risked my neck, I helped you when you asked me to, I got the

information you wanted, and yet all you've done is lie to me. Why?"

"I haven't."

"You have. You let me believe you were in Chicago when you weren't. You didn't tell me you'd gone to Mark's house.

You didn't tell me you were meeting with Rebecca Chambers." At the name
Rebecca
Chambers
, her eyes flicker toward her suitcase. The action was almost

imperceptible, but he caught it. If she wonders how he knows the name, she doesn't ask.

He pulls her closer, back to where she started. He flips her hand to reveal the scarred wrist.

"You never told me why you did this."

"I didn't answer when you asked because it's none of your business, but I didn't lie to you."

She tugs again, and this time he

releases her.

"Why won't you tell me?"

"What? You think I did it because I murdered Maxine? Is that what you really think?"

His anger begins to yield to her

questions. It isn't what he thinks. At least, it's never been what he
wanted
to think, but she's given him too many reasons to doubt her and not near enough to trust her. Would Claire say the same about him?

"I don't know what to think." His voice softens. "You've kept so many secrets from me."

She drops onto the other bed and

lowers her head into her hands. Her hair falls forward, blocking her face. He almost reaches over to touch it, to see if his memories of the texture are accurate; other memories stop him. He thinks again of Brian's comment.
She's protecting you
from a lot of things
. What burden does she refuse to share?

He slips the key from his pocket and hides it in his closed hand. He has no idea if the key has anything to do with the fourth letter, but he's about to find out.

"Why'd you come back, Jen?"

She whips her head up. "For exactly the reason I told you!" she pleads.

"The letters?"

"Yes."

He holds up the key. "Then why didn't you show me the fourth one?"

The passion in her expression slips away, her cheeks go pale. She stares at the key, he sees her swallow. She blurts, "I think I'm going to be sick," and springs from the bed toward the bathroom. He follows, thinking only to help her somehow, but she slams the door and locks it.

Although she might pretend otherwise, there's
nothing she wants more than to be able to tell
you, and for you to be strong enough to listen
.

He returns to the bed to wait, and to ready himself to listen.

She sits on the toilet lid with her head hanging between her legs, trying to slow her rapid breathing and racing mind. She should simply demand he leave. She should threaten to call the cops and see if he calls her bluff. She doubts he would, not in the middle of his trial. He'd leave and come back later unannounced to try again. By then, she could be in Chicago.