Keep No Secrets (45 page)

She tells herself she owes him nothing, but she knows that isn't true. If not for his willingness four years ago to take a fall for her, she might be sitting on death row next to Alex. Or instead of Alex. Jack could argue Jenny owes him her life.

Brian would argue she owes him more than that.

Take your chances and tell him
.

Brian has always felt the secret was not Jenny's to keep. He believed Jack was entitled to know everything, regardless of the consequences to him, to his marriage, to Jenny. Any decisions Jack made, Brian argued, should be based on a full knowledge of the facts. Jenny, on the other hand, believed Brian's opinion to be clouded by his desire to protect her. To her way of thinking, she had no right to cause further pain to a family that has already had enough. On that she and Brian agreed: full knowledge would equal pain. Much more pain, to everyone involved. When she pointed this out to him, he shrugged and said, "What did C.S. Lewis say? The happiness I feel now is the pain I had before?" She never bothered to tell him he had it backwards.

She hears the exterior door open and close, and she lifts her head. Has he given up and left? She waits until she's sure.

When the door opens and closes once more, she curses herself for not going out the first time to lock it.

After a few more minutes of careful listening, she opens the bathroom door and braces herself for the inevitable confrontation. He may hold the key, but she holds the power over the box and its contents. The bank will never allow him access without her at his side. Perhaps, someday, that time will come. But not today.

He waits in the same spot she left him, but something is different. Her suitcase.

The lid has been flipped closed.

"I brought you a present," he says.

She approaches hesitantly until she sees it. Her mint suit, the one he used to tease her about, peeks out from the gap between the lid and the base. He called it her "Crest toothpaste suit" to make her laugh. She lifts the lid and sees he folded the suit carefully and set each piece, the skirt and then the jacket, on top of the other clothes she had already packed. She smiles as she lifts the jacket, but her smile fades quickly when she sees what he placed underneath. The manila envelope.

He searched her suitcase and found it.

He stands, and suddenly her face is cupped in his hands. His hold on her is stronger than it needs to be. "Jenny, I didn't open it, and I won't force you to tell me anything you don't want to tell me. But please, just tell me why you won't trust me anymore." Without releasing her, he uses a thumb to wipe a tear about to fall. "You used to trust me with anything."

She closes her eyes, willing him to just leave, but he whispers, "Please look at me," and she can't deny him. "Why don't you trust me anymore?"

All the things she wants to say catch in her throat. She wonders what happened to the woman who waited for him to wake up that morning four years ago. She gave the best argument of her career that morning, when she convinced him they'd done nothing more the night before than satiate their sexual appetites. She ridiculed all his talk of soul mates and love, and sent him away confused and broken. She didn't believe her own words, but he did, and the verdict was hers. But now, on appeal, she's forgotten how to do it.

She looks into his eyes and understands why the juries love him. He's always argued from the heart. "Say something,"

she says quietly, "just one thing, I can trust in."

His confusion at her request is fleeting; she sees recognition dawn on his face, followed quickly by regret. He can't give her what she wants. Not now. Probably never.

But then he surprises her by echoing the words he overheard her speak at Mark's house.

"Okay. This: if there's one thing you know, it's how I feel about you."

She nods, over and over. It's the best he can do, and it'll have to be enough.

"Do you trust me, then?" he asks.

"It's not about trust."

"Tell me then. What is it about?" When she doesn't respond, he says, "I'd like to know what's in the envelope, what you're so afraid for me to know."

Suddenly, she realizes that he thinks whatever was in the safe deposit box is now in the envelope. In that instant, she decides if giving him the envelope will keep him at bay, she's prepared to do it.

Even though it, too, will hurt him. "Be careful what you wish for," she says.

"What's in it?" he repeats as if he hasn't heard her warning.

"Nothing you want to see. Believe me."

"Do you remember what I said to you when I first visited you at the jail?

"You said a lot of things."

"I told you I could never hate you, even if you'd murdered Maxine."

"You think the envelope has evidence I murdered Maxine?"

"I don't know. Does it?"

She shakes her head, laughs sadly at the irony. He might not hate her once he sees the contents, but he still might want to kill the messenger.

"Okay, Jack. You win." He drops his hands from her face. "But I don't want to be with you when you open it. I think you'll want to be alone when you see what's inside."

At the door, he stops as if he wants to say something more. She stands stoically with one hand on the doorknob. Now that she's made the decision, she can't get him out fast enough. Her palms sweat and her stomach feels as if it's in her throat.

She knows what he thinks he will find.

She knows what everyone believed about her back then. That she's a liar, that she's manipulative. That she planned

everything from the very beginning. He tried not to believe it, she knows he did, but he always had his doubts, too.

"Thank you," he says, lifting the envelope. "For this. For trusting me."

"You may want to reserve your gratitude until after you open it."

He studies her, taking his time as if he's afraid to leave. His sad eyes say what his lips don't: he knows a big change is coming. She wonders if she'll ever see him again.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I am so, so sorry."

"Tell me why, Jen. What are you so sorry about? Why don't you want me to know what's inside?"

She hesitates. "Because what's inside that envelope is going to break your heart."

At that she leans close, and with the palm of one hand on his cheek, kisses him on the mouth. He closes his eyes. She feels the battle taking place inside him as his lips part slightly, but in the end, they remain frozen, refusing to return the affection.

Even after he's secure in his car, her scent lingers on his coat. In his hair. On the envelope.

And her taste. Her taste lingers on his lips.

He tries desperately to remember how Claire smells, how she tastes, and when he can't, he curses Jenny.
She's like a drug to
you
. No matter how many times he denies it, he can't change facts. He craves Jenny and despises the fact of her existence at the same time. He knows what he's about to find. He knows that he's probably the closest he's ever been to knowing the truth, to seeing the evidence of her guilt revealed. And yet, he can't stop the thoughts running wild through his head.

The thoughts that tell him to knock on her door, and when she lets him back in

—because she will let him back in, he knows that, too—to lie down with her one more time. One more time before he destroys her with the information she's given him. Because, above all, Jack knows he will have to destroy Jenny to save himself.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

IT MIGHT HAVE taken him forty-five minutes to get to the law school; it might have taken three hours. He has no idea.

He doesn't remember the drive. He doesn't even remember making a

conscious decision to go there. But he must have, because here he now sits, in his car in the parking lot just across from the school. It's rare to find an open space so close, especially on such a wet day. It's as if someone saved it for him, as if this moment was inevitable.

He looks at the new building through the cascade of rain. It's beautiful, and majestic, in a way. Gothic, resplendent in Missouri Red Granite. The law school finally has a home befitting its noble purpose, and one that matches in style and, in some opinions, surpasses in beauty, the other buildings on campus.

It's nothing like the old Mudd Hall, the boxy building in which he and Claire first met, with its exposed concrete walls inside and out, the rust marks that dripped from the rebar, and the unnatural green hue that trimmed the exterior of the structure. Inside, the carpet was frayed and stained in many spots. Even the library and professors' offices on the upper levels felt as if they were in the basement because of the concrete walls and the stained carpet. Both the old law school, and the matching Eliot Hall next door, looked to be someone's 1970's contemporary architecture project gone horribly wrong.

And yet, he longs for that ugly

building. In the same way his throat closed watching the first wrecking ball attack the old Busch Stadium, he felt an acute sense of loss when the university chancellor announced plans to tear down the old law school and build a new one on the opposite side of the campus.

The new school
is
beautiful. Claire's office is beautiful, too. But he can't help but think that something more than walls and carpet was permanently lost the day they brought down the old school. He didn't see it happen like he did the stadium. He'd been in trial.

He steps from the car, envelope in hand. He's not sure why he thinks she'll be in her office, or what he'll do if she's not. Will he have the strength to wait for her? And what if she's there, but someone is with her? Another professor, or a student?

He walks by reception without

stopping to say hello as he usually does.

He takes the stairs to the fourth floor. He doesn't have the patience to wait for the elevator.

His concerns are unfounded. He

reaches Claire's office and finds her alone behind her desk. Red pen in hand, she's engrossed in grading the contents of a blue book and doesn't even notice him.

He stands in her open doorway and waits for her to look up.

At some point she must sense a

presence. She slowly raises her head, her eyes trailing behind as if she's reluctant to stop her activity. She startles when she sees him.

"Jack."

Later, when he looks back on

everything and remembers this moment, he'll understand that she knew the reason for his surprise visit the instant she saw him in her doorway. But just then, even though he sees the clues on her face, he's still in shock and can't interpret them. He thinks he has to tell her. He thinks he has to show her the evidence of her betrayal so she'll know why he came.

"Earl has been looking for you," she says. "The trial was recessed until Monday, so I thought I'd catch up here."

He stares at her, unresponsive. Her comments are nothing more than a delay tactic.

He steps in without invitation and walks between the two guest chairs.

Leaving the photos in the envelope, he pulls out the papers and places them face up on the desk. They cover the blue book.

She doesn't look down. "You're soaking wet."

"Read them."

She continues to meet his stare. "Jack,"

she says again.

"Read them."

Her lips part as if she wants to speak again, but after a moment she lowers her eyes and begins to read. One hand rests on her lap, but the one holding the pen, the right one, trembles violently.

Like the ride over, he has no concept of how much time passes. By the time she raises her eyes to him again, thirty seconds might have elapsed, or twenty minutes. He might have been standing there an hour. He simply doesn't know.

He does know from the look on her face that none of the information comes as a surprise. She knew all along. She probably knew within minutes of her father knowing, and the date on the report from Lee Randolph to her father made clear that Harley Lambert knew almost immediately. For all Jack knows, she's had copies of the photos and report hidden all these years in a drawer at home.

He remembers her hysterical reaction when she first learned the truth. Or so he thought. Turns out it was Claire, not Jenny, who was the real actress.

"I wish you'd sit down."

"Would you have let her die?"

She rises and comes to his side of the desk, walks behind him and shuts the door. She approaches him, but he takes a small step away. She understands not to touch him.

"Will you
please
sit down?" she asks.

"Answer my question." He still stares at the papers on the desk as he talks.

"Would you have let her die? If they hadn't believed I was her alibi, and they'd convicted her, would you have let them execute her?"

"Of course not," she whispers. "I would have come forward."

"How do I know that?"

"Jack."

"
How do I know that, Claire?
"

"Because I'm telling you."

He closes his eyes and shakes his head.

When he opens them, he sees students through her large window streaming across campus. For an instant, he remembers doing the same with her, hand in hand, so many years ago. Both

innocently unaware of how much pain they would inflict on each other.

"You've told me a lot of things," he says. "Not all, I know now, were true."

"How can you say that to me?" Her voice flares with anger. "After everything you—"

"Don't. Don’t try to say what I did somehow justifies your withholding exculpatory evidence. You
knew
she was innocent."

"No! I didn't
know
she was innocent.

And neither do you. Just because she was there with you the whole time doesn't mean she wasn't involved."

"Do you hear yourself, Claire? Fine, you want to call it
potentially
exculpatory evidence? Does that make you feel better?

You had
potentially
exculpatory evidence and yet you didn't tell me, you didn't tell Earl. You didn't tell anyone."

"Why would I? You got her off all on your own, remember?"

"But what if I hadn't? What if I'd denied it? What if I'd agreed with her insistence that I would hurt you less if I continued with the lie?"