Keep No Secrets (2 page)

"He never let me date before," she says.

"He wasn't going to let me until I was eighteen. But he made an exception for Mike. He figured a DA's son has gotta be pretty straight." She shrugs again, and something about her words and her gesture strike Jack as disingenuous.

"Well, I don't know about that, but I'm sure he trusts me to tell him if there are any problems, and that's what I have to do." He turns back to the steering wheel and reaches down to put the car into gear.

"We're telling him everything."

Before he even moves the gearshift, she grabs his arm with both hands. One hand is on his coat sleeve, but the other claws at the bare skin of his wrist. She tightens her grip. "Please, Mr. H! I'm begging you!

You don't understand what will happen!"

Something in the desperate tone of her last words makes him turn and regard her differently. Where before he felt as if everything she said was orchestrated to manipulate him, he now senses her words were spontaneous and her fear is genuine.

"What do you mean?" he asks gently.

She still hasn't released his arm and her close proximity makes him

uncomfortable. The car windows are fogging up, and in the warm, enclosed space, he easily detects the lingering scent of her body spray, the type that all the kids use nowadays. Too sweet and slightly fruity, the scent of a girl on the cusp of womanhood.
Please, not Michael's girlfriend.

Please let it be something other than what I
think it's going to be
. He just wants to be home, sleeping. For an instant, he wonders if Claire has woken up to find the bed next to her empty.

Celeste tucks both lips in, trying not to cry. She reaches up with one hand, still holding his wrist with the other, and wipes under both eyes. The tears and the wiping have smeared her mascara and they make raccoon shadows on her

bottom lids. He's always wanted to tell her she doesn't need all the make-up, but of course he never did.

"What do you mean?" he asks again.

She lowers her eyes and shakes her head. "Nothing." Jack barely hears her.

He wonders how much to push her. If his gut is right, she needs to tell someone, and someone needs to protect her.

"Celeste?" She looks up for just an instant. "What will happen? Are you afraid of him?"

"No," she says quietly, averting her eyes again. "As long as you don't tell him anything, as long as you wait a bit before dropping me off, then he won't do anything."

He takes a deep breath. Either she doesn't get it, or she does and she's trying to protect her father. "And if I
do
tell him, what will happen? What will he do?"

She shrugs.

Repositioning himself as a means of getting his arm back, Jack looks out the front windshield at the beams of gold coming from the headlights. When he and Claire were still in law school, they used to drive out here on the weekends, hike deep into the woods, and pitch a tent for the night. It was against park rules, but no one ever caught them. He wonders if they patrol the area better now, but as soon as he has that thought, he thinks,
as DA, I
should know the answer
. If someone were to come along just now, how would he explain it? Being here—he glances at the dashboard clock—at one fifteen in the morning with his son's girlfriend. And she's got alcohol in her system. And she bears a striking resemblance to another woman he wasn't supposed to be with.

What a headline that would make.

"Will he hurt you somehow?"

She straightens up in the seat and stares forward for a long time. She's still crying, though. He waits, because he thinks she's about to confide everything.

He starts thinking of his next step. If it's bad enough, does he take her back to his house and call the hotline immediately? If it's not, does he give her the time she wants, and then drop her off at her own home, but still call the hotline in the morning? And if it's the latter, what would he say? That he wants to report a sixteen-year-old girl who's afraid to go home after getting caught drinking and having sex? He can just imagine the look on the police officer's face assigned to investigate that report.

Given her intoxicated state, she almost manages to keep her voice level and composed as she speaks the next words.

She still doesn't look at him. "Mr. H, I shouldn't have said what I did, okay?

You're misunderstanding. I just don't want to get in trouble. That's all."

She reminds Jack of all the abused women who call the cops in the heat of the moment but then refuse to testify when the case comes to trial. But maybe he's blown things out of proportion.

Maybe she's just a kid who said things to get him to do what she wanted.

Before Jack responds, her shoulders slump and she adds, "Just take me home.

I'll deal."

And this is when Jack makes his first mistake. With a sigh, he cuts the lights and turns off the ignition. These actions cause her to finally turn to him, her brows furrowed in confusion.

"We'll just let you sober up some more," he explains. He prays no one comes along in the meantime.

She speaks a soft "thank you" and resumes playing with the button on her sweater. He switches on the radio for lack of anything better to do.

After a while, the two of them start talking. Just idle conversation. He asks about school and her teachers and what she wants to do after graduation, where she wants to attend college. She asks him what it's like to be the DA and whether he likes being a lawyer and if law school was hard. He keeps thinking that

eventually he'll segue to talking about the drinking, about her relationship with Michael, but she's opening up so much and he doesn't want to cause her to shut down again.Thank you for downloading from dpgroup.org.

"What's the worst case you've ever been involved in?" she asks.

He tries to read the meaning of the question. It's an innocent question; after all, her family didn't even live in Missouri back when the Barnard case—and then Jenny's case—was news. But still, he wonders how much she knows, if Michael has told her anything.

"Um . . ." He takes a long time to answer. He can't think about the Barnard case without thinking about everything else that happened afterwards. Jenny charged with the murder of Maxine Shepard, a prominent client at the law firm where Jenny practiced law. Jack her alibi, because he happened to make the worst decision of his life on the same night Maxine was murdered. This fact set Jenny free, but it changed Jack's life forever.

He shakes his head as if to dust the cobwebs away and tells Celeste about the Barnard case. "It was this case, a little girl named Cassia Barnard had been abducted and murdered. I mean, I've seen a lot of bad things happen to kids, but . . . I don't know . . . this one was harder for some reason."

"Why?"

"A lot of reasons, I guess. For one, we were pretty certain she suffered a lot.

He'd raped her, really hurt her. Then he left her in the woods to freeze to death."

Celeste winces. "But we didn't ask for the death penalty, and a lot of people thought we should have and were angry that we didn't. Angry at me. At the end of it all,
I
almost thought we should have, too, and I'm opposed to capital punishment.

That's how bad it was."

She looks down at her hands. "I'd like to do what you do, I think."

"Really? Why?"

"I don't know." She shrugs. "What you do makes a difference, you know?"

Jack tenses, remembering a

conversation between Claire, Jenny and his brother Mark, back when Jack was an assistant prosecutor. He was trying to decide whether to run for DA. The three of them had been discussing whether Jack should run despite his opposition to the death penalty. What had Jenny argued?
To
get into a position to make any difference, you
sometimes have to compromise
. The comment had made Claire mad, though she'd restrained her anger.
He makes a difference
now
, she'd said. The conversation now seems as if it took place in another lifetime.

Jack laughs a little, regretfully. "I did make a difference in that case, I guess. I'm just not too sure it was the difference people wanted."

"But it seems like you really care about what you do," Celeste argues. She doesn't understand. Can't understand. "I don't think many adults care much about what they do."

"Yeah," he agrees, softly. "I do care about what I do."

They're both quiet for a moment, and then he asks, "Do you really mean it, that you'd like to be an attorney?"

"Yes, but not the kind that sits at a desk all day. I'd like to be a prosecutor, like you, and be in a courtroom all the time."

Jack grins, suppressing a laugh. He's about to tell her that even prosecutors often sit at a desk and some other types of attorneys also go to court, but then she adds, "I want to protect people."

The statement gives him pause. He thinks again of the fear she expressed earlier. Maybe the two are unrelated, but his instinct tells him otherwise.

And this is when he makes his second mistake. In that instant, almost without realizing it, he decides he's going to cover for her, just as she's asked.

"Celeste?" Her big eyes look up at him.

"If you mean what you say, don't make it harder on yourself, okay?"

"What do you mean, Mr. H?"

"College and law school are tough enough without a kid in tow."

It takes her a minute, but then he sees it sink in. She's silent for a long time.

Then, so softly he has to strain to hear her, she says, "Okay." She nods vehemently and says it again. "Okay."

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN JACK GETS home, Michael is

flat on his back, asleep on the couch. The clock on the microwave in the kitchen announces that it's almost three a.m. Jack sits on the coffee table and studies Michael's sleeping face. It's one of the few times he sees it in a relaxed state, free of the pent-up anger Michael normally wears in his father's presence.

Michael's eyelashes are unusually long.

Both his and Jamie's are. Jamie still has the rounded cheeks of a baby, but Michael's face has grown strong and angular as he left childhood behind.

Peach fuzz still covers his jaw and chin—

it'll be a while before he needs to shave—

but still, he's more man than child. Claire says he looks just like Jack; everyone says that, really. Michael chafes at the comparison.

Jack wonders if Michael will ever let it go, if he'll ever forgive him. When Jack first moved back into the house—after a four month absence during which he hadn't seen his son but for one miserable Christmas visit—he tried to talk to him.

Even Claire tried to talk to him. He claimed he wasn't mad, but anyone can see that he is. He carries his resentment like an invisible shield, always holding Jack at arm's length.

For a brief moment, Jack considers waiting until morning, letting both of them get some sleep before they have this conversation, but he decides it shouldn't wait.

He touches Michael's shoulder once, lightly, and then a second time, giving him a little shake. He can't remember the last time he touched his oldest son, and just thinking about it makes his throat tighten. Two more years and Michael will be gone. Jack resolves right then and there to start hugging him again whether he likes it or not.

When Michael opens his eyes and sees him, he rolls to his side, giving Jack his back.

"Michael, wake up. Sit up." He doesn't say it harshly.

Reluctantly, Michael complies. He keeps his head down, though, his elbows resting on his thighs. He rubs his face with his hands.

"I want to talk to you about tonight."

Suddenly Michael jerks his head

toward the clock in the kitchen as if he just remembered why he's sleeping on the couch and his father has a coat on.

"Where have you been?" Michael asks, finally meeting Jack's eye. He says it as if he's the parent and Jack's the child.

"I took Celeste home, remember?" Jack regards him warily. Maybe he hasn't slept off his buzz; maybe he's disoriented. He's been known to sleepwalk. Jack wonders now if he's even fully awake yet.

Michael grunts and rolls his eyes. "She doesn't live in Wentzville."

Jack leans back slightly, understanding now that, yeah, he's awake, and his comment was an accusation. Wentzville, on the opposite side of the Missouri river, is nowhere near their home in West County. The calming effect of the talk with Celeste in the car quickly begins to erode.

"What's your point, Michael?"

Michael lowers his eyes and doesn't respond. Maybe he's realizing he's already in enough trouble.

"How much did you two drink

tonight?" When Michael just shrugs, Jack adds, "You must have an idea."

"I don't know, a few shots each, I guess." He still won't look at Jack.

"What's 'a few?'"

"Two or three."

Jack is certain it was more. "Where'd you get it?"

Michael is silent.

"Were Jason's parents home?" Jack asks, trying another route.

"Yeah, they were home." Jack is about to express disbelief that Jason's parents would let kids drink at their house—he
knows
these particular parents—when Michael adds, "We didn't drink it at Jason's house."

Jack is silent. Michael understands he's waiting for more.

"About six of us left early. We went on the trail. We built a fire and partied out there for a while."

He's referring to one of the trails in the woods at the top of the street. The developer didn't raze that part of the land when he built the neighborhood because the bluffs in the middle made it

impossible to build on. The bluffs split the woods into two, one upper level and one lower level, and the neighborhood kids have forged winding trails

throughout, even a treacherous one that leads from top to bottom and requires a hiker to hold onto tree trunks and boulders on the way down. By day, the young kids play hide and seek and ride their dirt bikes on the upper trails; at night the teenagers hang out on the lower level, out of sight and under cover of the noise of the bubbling creek that runs alongside the bottom trail.