The Girl From Home: A Thriller (31 page)

Jonathan watches the cops pull out of the driveway. His heart is beating so loudly he thinks it's going to jump out of his chest. He wonders whether Detectives McGeorge and Swensen's next stop will be Jackie's house. He should warn her, but what if she's put all of this in motion? What if she told the police that he killed Rick and that's what sent them to his house in the first place?

He decides to call Alex Miller before doing anything else.

*  *  *

Jackie's sixth sense tells her that the knock on her door is not opportunity. A quick view out her window tells her the rest. Detective Martin is calling, this time with a female partner.

They are coming to arrest her. Why else would he need a woman to chaperone? Probably to protect him from her screaming
rape
or something.

Jackie gives fleeting thought to pretending she isn't home. Her car is in the garage, so how could they know? But she decides that type of low-rent deception is too risky. They could have been watching the house. She braces herself to face the music.

“Good morning, Mrs. Williams,” Detective Martin says when Jackie opens the door. “This is Erica Murray.”

She is also African American. Thirtysomething, pretty, with straight hair, tinged with a little red.

“Mind if we come in?”

Of course I mind. Who wouldn't mind being interrogated by the police about her husband's murder?

“No, of course not. Please, come in.”

Jackie leads them to the living room, and they settle around the coffee table, Jackie on the sofa under the window, the police in the armchairs directly across from her.

Once everyone's in position, Detective Martin wastes no time.

“The reason we're here, Mrs. Williams, is that the domestic-disturbance call we talked about at your husband's funeral is really just the tip of the iceberg. We've uncovered some very troubling evidence, and we wanted to give you the opportunity to do yourself a lot of good by admitting to some of the things we already know.”

He stops. Jackie knows she should be quiet, but the silence becomes too much, and she says, “I . . . I don't know what you're expecting me to say, Detective.”

“Well, let's start with the easy one. I'm expecting you to say that you are having an affair with Jonathan Caine.”

“Who said that?”

“I'm asking you, Mrs. Williams.”

“No, you told me.”

“Are you saying it's not true?”

She scrolls through her mind, wondering what evidence the police could have to prove the affair. Did someone see something? That seemed unlikely. She and Jonathan haven't been in public since that time at the Château. That was weeks ago, and there wasn't any public display of affection. Phone records from before she got the burner phone would only reveal one or two calls a day. That wouldn't be frequent enough to prove the affair, would it? They must have listened to her voicemail messages or read her texts. That's the only way anyone would know about her and Jonathan.

But she immediately deletes every message Jonathan sends or she receives from him. Maybe Jonathan doesn't. And even if he does, that doesn't necessarily mean they're really gone. The damn cloud, whatever the hell that even is, might still have them.

If the police have even a few of the messages, they'd know about the affair. Not the murder, but the affair. No doubt about it.

Then a dark thought forces itself into her brain. Maybe Jonathan told them about the affair.

“Mrs. Williams, yes or no?” Detective Martin says with an obvious edge. “Were you having an affair with Jonathan Caine?”

“No. It's not true. We're friends. Nothing more. I don't understand why you would think otherwise, and I think the least you can do is tell me what you think you know.”

“I know your husband was murdered,” Detective Martin says.

His big reveal might as well be followed by scary music.
Da-da-duuuum
.

Jackie's entire body goes numb. It's as if she's watching someone else, and wondering why on earth that person is talking to the police when they so clearly believe she murdered her husband.

“Do you know a man named Ariel Kishon?” Detective Martin asks.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Who is he?”

“So you never communicated with him by e-mail?” he presses.

“No. Never. Why would I?”

There's a long pause. Then Detective Martin answers Jackie's question. “Because he was hired to kill your husband.”

Jackie's about to say
Hired by who?
when the female cop, Murray, says, “Mrs. Williams, I'm with the FBI. I've been assigned to the case because it's a murder-for-hire. That also makes it a federal crime, so the FBI has concurrent jurisdiction with the East Carlisle PD. And even though New Jersey has abolished the death penalty, it's alive and well in the federal system. Now, we know that Ariel Kishon ran down your husband. And we know that someone paid him ten thousand dollars to do it. And the way we see it, this went down one of three ways. You hired Kishon, Mr. Caine hired him, or you did it together. Bottom line for you is that if you tell us how it happened, you might just spare yourself a date with a lethal injection.”

Lethal injection?
Jackie's heart is hammering in her chest to such an extent that she clutches at it, almost as if to ensure it doesn't burst through.

She's got to end this. Now.

“I think you should leave,” Jackie says, trying to sound forceful but acutely aware that she sounds scared more than anything else. “And please don't bother me again.”

Detective Martin doesn't budge, although the FBI agent, Murray, rises. Jackie has a momentary panic that they're going to arrest her right then and there.

“You're playing this wrong, Mrs. Williams,” Detective Martin says, finally coming to his feet. “All wrong.”

*  *  *

Alex Miller answers his own phone, and does so on the first ring. Jonathan wonders whether Alex has any other clients. He must, because Jonathan isn't paying him, so there are undoubtedly other clients who keep the lights on at his law firm.

“Hey. What can I do for you, Jonathan?” Alex says.

Jonathan gives him an uninterrupted narrative. As part of the download, he confesses the affair with Jackie, but adamantly denies that he had anything to do with Rick's murder. He withholds from his lawyer that Jackie admitted to committing the crime. He's not entirely sure why, but decides that such information should be dispensed solely on a need-to-know basis, and right now, at least, Alex Miller doesn't need to know.

When he's finished, Jonathan hears the familiar sigh of disapproval from his lawyer. “Well, I suppose you already know that talking to the police was a big mistake,” Alex says.

It's one of the things that Jonathan finds so frustrating about dealing with Alex. It's easy to pass judgment after the fact, with greater knowledge than was had at the time a decision had to be made. But in life, like on the trading floor, immediate action is required based on imperfect knowledge.

“I do now. At the time, it seemed more like a calculated risk.”

“All right, I guess what's done is done. No more talking from now on, though. Understood?”

“Yeah. Got it. So, tell me, what do I do?”

“The next step is to have Jackie lawyer up. I can't represent both of you, but I'll reach out to a buddy of mine who practices criminal law in New Jersey. Let's all meet at my office tomorrow. Five o'clock?”

“Okay. Sounds like a plan,” Jonathan says.

“One more thing,” Alex says. “You need to remember that your conversations with Jackie aren't privileged, and for all you know, she's recording you. So don't say anything to her that you don't want to hear again over the speakers in a courtroom.”

Alex has clearly come to the conclusion that Jonathan is trying mightily to resist: Jackie might turn on him to save herself.

“I understand,” Jonathan says.

*  *  *

Jonathan calls Jackie right after he gets off the phone with Alex. He gets her voice mail and decides to heed Alex's concern enough not to leave a message. She'll see a missed call and call him back. He's been anxiously waiting that return call for the last twenty minutes.

Jonathan's first interpretation of the silence is that it means Jackie has already turned. After some reflection, he takes odd comfort in the fact that the cops wouldn't play it that way. If Jackie's cooperating with them, they'll want her to call back. Like Alex said, when she does, she'll be taping the call.

When the ringtone finally sounds, Jonathan prepares himself for her betrayal. But as soon as he hears Jackie's voice, he realizes that she's been crying.

“They know,” she says through the sobs.

That doesn't make sense. They certainly would have shared with him if they had evidence that Jackie killed Rick. All the cops indicated to Jonathan was suspicion about the affair.

Jonathan can still hear Alex's admonition not to have any substantive discussion with Jackie—that she might be taping him—ringing in his ears, but his curiosity overwhelms him. He needs to know what the police know.

“Know what?” he asks.

“About Ariel Kishon.”

The name means nothing to Jonathan. “Who's that?”

“I'm assuming he's the guy I hired to kill Rick,” Jackie says. “The guy I found on the Internet didn't tell me his name, but the ad said he was a former Israeli commando. And now the cops are asking about a guy with an Israeli-sounding name, who claims he was paid to kill Rick.”

Jonathan swallows hard. “What did you say?”

“What could I say? That I didn't kill Rick. That I didn't have the first clue who this Ariel Kishon guy was. That you and I are friends, nothing more. I lied about everything.”

Jonathan is trying to process this information. If the police know that Rick was murdered, and they know this Ariel Kishon was hired to do it, that can only mean that they've arrested Kishon. But Kishon must not know Jackie hired him. If he did, they would have already arrested her.

“It may not be so bad,” Jonathan says, trying to sound comforting. “The police obviously can't connect this guy to you or they would have arrested you. And they were here, too, and they didn't arrest me.”

“They were at your house?”

“Yeah. I guess they coordinated this to question us both simultaneously.”

“What did you tell them?”

“It sounds like the same thing you did. I said we were friends, nothing more. They didn't ask me about any Israeli commando guy. But they did ask to see my phone. That's when I told them that I wanted to talk to a lawyer first. Then I called Alex Miller.”

“Who?”

“You remember, I told you about Alex. He went to ECHS with us. He's a criminal defense lawyer in New York City. He was helping me in the securities thing, and so I called him.”

“What did he say?”

“That you need a lawyer.”

Jonathan realizes that sounds like he's distancing himself from Jackie.
You
need a lawyer. It reminds him of her comment that
You
need to be careful
. He wants her to believe that they're in this together.

“I mean, Alex will be my lawyer, and so he contacted a friend who can represent you,” Jonathan says.

“Okay,” Jackie says, in a way that suggests that she understood what Jonathan meant the first time. That
she's
the one who needs a lawyer.

A
t three o'clock the next day, Jackie pulls her car into Jonathan's driveway. His Bentley, which has been a fixture since she's met Jonathan, is not there, and Jackie wonders for a moment whether she's mistaken about the time they had agreed to meet to go to the city.

A moment later, Jonathan exits the house. He jogs over to her car and climbs into the passenger seat.

“Would you mind driving?” he asks.

“Sure. Where's your car?”

“It was in my driveway when I went to sleep, and when I woke up there was a certified letter from Harper Sawyer on my doorstep that repeated the word
repossessed
several times.”

“I thought it was a prepaid lease?”

“Apparently Harper Sawyer believed it was
their
prepaid lease,” he says.

“I'm sorry,” Jackie says. “I know you loved that car.”

Jonathan shrugs. “I did once . . . just like I loved my penthouse and the East Hampton oceanfront house I was going to buy. But it was all in the same kind of way. I loved what I thought they said about me. That I was successful, I guess. That I mattered.”

“You matter, Jonathan. You matter to me.”

He looks into Jackie's face. He's still not sure what's going through her mind. Does she love him, or is he being played for a fool? The one thing he does know is that he certainly loves her. And that is enough for him to take a leap of faith.

*  *  *

Jackie stares up at the skyscrapers like the tourist she is as they walk the few blocks from the parking garage on Williams Street to Peikes Selva & Schwarz. Upon entering the firm, Jonathan says hello to the receptionist and introduces her to Jackie. Alex Miller comes out a minute later, with another man following close behind.

“This is Mark Gershien,” Alex says. “He's a friend of mine from law school, and a top-rate criminal defense attorney.”

Even though Mark Gershien was Alex's classmate from law school, Gershien looks a good ten years older. He's a handsome man, with kind eyes and a strong chin, but there's a weathered quality about him that's more in keeping with someone who has already crossed fifty.

“Very nice to meet you,” Mark says, shaking Jackie's hand, and then Jonathan's. “Although I'm sorry it's under these circumstances.”