The Girl From Home: A Thriller (37 page)

Jackie hopes she's hiding that her faith in Jonathan is slipping. She wishes she was firmer in her belief that Jonathan will stand with her to the end, but the truth is that she's not. She has no idea what's going through his mind.

“I'm going to mix metaphors for a moment,” Mark says. “You know that joke about the bear and the hikers?”

“No,” Jackie says.

“Well, these two hikers are awakened by a grizzly bear outside their tent. And one of them starts to lace up his sneakers. The other one says, “Are you crazy, you can't outrun a grizzly bear,” and then the sneakered hiker says, “I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you.”

Mark takes his eyes off the road to see Jackie's reaction to the joke. She smiles, weakly conveying that she understands the punch line was not meant to be humorous as much as cautionary.

“It's up here,” Jackie says. “You need to make a right at the next street, and then I'm the third house on the left.”

Mark nods, and as the Porsche approaches the turn, he says, “So both stories really are about the same thing. Do you trust Jonathan that he's not going to sell you out? Because if you don't, then you have to think about beating him to the punch. And when you consider how firm Jonathan is going to be, you need to factor in that he's in jail now, and he's wondering how much he can trust you not to turn on him.”

The Porsche turns onto Redcoat, and Jackie sees what she's feared. A row of news vans camped out on the street in front of the gate to her home. A few parked cars surround them. Rubberneckers. Her neighbors coming to see her disgrace up close and personal.

“Same as before,” Mark says. “You walk right by them. You don't even need to say ‘no comment.' Just look straight ahead. Keep your front door in your sights and walk straight toward it. Don't run. They may be filming and you don't want to look scared. You want to look calm.”

Calm is the last thing Jackie is at the moment. Nonetheless she nods, psyching herself up to make the short walk to her front door as if it's an Olympic event.

A
fter the arraignment, Jonathan is transported by a small van with metal grating on the window to the detention center in New Carlisle. One of the other prisoners, a guy who has done this drill before, explains that when they think you're going to stay for a while, they move you to New Carlisle.

At the New Carlisle jail, Jonathan is relieved of his designer clothing and given a gray canvas prison jumper. He's also introduced to his cell mate—a large man who calls himself Rino—who is still bloodied from the drunken brawl that landed him in prison.

Four hours into his incarceration, Jonathan hears one of the guards shout out “Caine,” followed a moment later by “Visitor.”

Jonathan exhales deeply, careful not to smile. No one he's encountered so far has smiled.

“Who is it?” Jonathan asks.

“Don't know. Don't care,” the guard says. “Hands behind your back.”

*  *  *

Alex Miller is sitting at a small wooden table in the middle of an otherwise empty room. There are six other tables there, but apparently no one else has a visitor right now.

The guard unlocks the handcuffs and allows Jonathan to enter the room unescorted. Before shaking hands with Alex, Jonathan looks behind him to the door to determine whether such contact is permitted. The guard has stepped outside the room, however. With no one to object, Jonathan extends his hand.

“How you doing?” Alex says.

“I feel like I should offer some type of sarcastic quip about the lack of concierge service, but I don't have the strength.”

“Understood. So let me tell you what's happening. Jackie got bail, and she's out. Different circumstances. She's got kids, she's a lifetime resident, and she's not the target of a second criminal investigation. She said she wanted to visit you, but Mark and I thought that was inadvisable. There's no privilege between you, which means that the prison can record your conversations, and Mark also made the good point that we might want to deny you two have the kind of relationship that would cause her even to want to visit you in prison.”

Jonathan shakes his head in disagreement. He wishes that Jackie had visited, so he could gauge her level of anxiety, calm her down, and hopefully stop her from turning on him. But he's got no say in the matter now. He's locked up, and others are making these decisions.

“I do have some good news, though,” Alex says. “Right before I came to see you, I got a call from the prosecutor who was in court today. She's pretty junior, so I don't think she has any authority, but she told me that she'd spoken to her boss, and they're willing to be very generous with you because they figure that it's got to be Jackie who set everything in motion. Now, for all I know, Rodriguez had the exact same discussion with Mark Gershien in which she put the blame on you. But the truth of the matter is that I think now is your best—maybe also your last—chance to get out from under this. With any luck, I might even be able to roll the securities-fraud thing into any deal we make on the murder.”

None of this surprises Jonathan. The Jersey folks just want someone to pin the murder on—they don't care who, and even Jonathan's rudimentary knowledge of the workings of the criminal justice system includes the understanding that murder trumps a white-collar charge.

“And what if I went to trial? What are my chances of an acquittal?”

Alex pauses, reflecting on this most important question. Then he shrugs.

“Like I said before, my guess—but it's only a guess—is that they don't have much beyond what this Kishon guy has to say. Now, they more than likely have the affair—the prosecutor said in court that they did—so that gives you motive, but Kishon must not be able to identify either of you as his patron. So, at trial, you and Jackie could point at each other, hoping that the jury has reasonable doubt as to which one of you hired the hit man. That's a risky strategy because a jury could conclude you were in it together and convict you both, but I've seen it work. Another way to go is to put Rick Williams on trial. An asshole like him must have pissed off tons of people. That creates a lot of reasonable doubt.

“But,” Alex says with emphasis, “and this is the wild card, the only chance you have of beating this is if Jackie keeps her mouth shut. And that you can assess better than I can. But I'll tell you this: I sure as hell wouldn't trust the Jacqueline Lawson I knew in high school to do the right thing.”

“She's probably thinking the same thing about Wall Streeter Jonathan Caine,” Jonathan says. “Can't trust that guy.”

“That only proves my point, Jonathan. These deals are first come, first served. I saw Jackie when she got out. She looked scared to death. And people scared to death . . . You don't have children, Jonathan, but I do, and so I'm going to tell you, people with kids will do anything to stay with their kids.”

“I'm pretty fucking scared, too, Alex. And I didn't kill Rick—she did. She told me so.”

There, he'd said it. Alex Miller now needed to know. Jonathan was innocent and Jackie was guilty.

Alex doesn't look the least bit fazed by Jonathan's charge. Jonathan wonders whether that's because he'd already figured it out, or because he didn't necessarily believe it was true.

“In that case . . . you should definitely think very hard about cooperating against her. At least you'd be telling the truth.”

Jonathan considers what life would be like for him if he throws Jackie under the bus. She'd go to jail, and he'd be alone. Not exactly the happy ending he was hoping for.

“I can't do that, Alex. I just can't. I know you think it's too soon, that I've only known Jackie a short time, but I'm in love with her. The only future I can see for myself is one in which I'm with her.”

Alex doesn't say anything in response. Jonathan has the feeling that Alex's silence is driven by the fact that he thinks his client has lost his mind. What grown-up falls hopelessly in love in a month? And with a murderer, to boot?

“Jonathan . . . I'm a believer that like a therapist, a defense lawyer shouldn't share anything of his own life with his client,” Alex says slowly, as if he's still unsure whether he should be disclosing anything of his own life, “but since we know each other from way back, I'm going to break that rule with you. A few years ago, I thought I had it all. I was a partner at Cromwell Altman, pulling down a million a year. Fancy apartment, designer suits, the whole nine yards. And I won't bore you with the psychobabble that's been thrown at me since then, but I became involved with an associate at the firm. I didn't know her very long, but I imagine it was something like what's going on between you and Jackie. I felt alive for the first time in years. I was blind, and now I could see. Rebirth. Whatever crazy metaphor you want, that's how bad I had it. Being with her was all that mattered. Sound familiar?”

It does. All too well.

“Yes,” Jonathan says.

“Well, the folks at Cromwell Altman weren't such romantics, and they fired me. I felt like . . . well, like I had nothing. Like I wished that instead of firing me, they'd shot me in the head. Again, sound like anyone you know?”

This time, Jonathan offers only a nod.

“But I had a daughter, and so dying wasn't really an option. Which meant I had to go about rebuilding my life. It wasn't easy. There was more than a little bit of drama that followed, but eventually I focused on what truly mattered, and that was my family. And then I got this job at Peikes Selva, and now this is my life. I won't lie to you—there are times when I'm in my little dinky office and wonder, my God, how the hell did I end up here? But a few years ago my wife and I had our little boy, and . . . I have to say, I'm happier now than I've ever been. So it's a long way of saying that, even though I know things are bleak for you right now, a lot of good things can still be yours. Don't waste your life by going to jail for a crime you didn't commit.”

Jonathan flashes on his father's dying words, imploring him to be a better man. What would that better man do?

And then he thinks about the motto that has guided him for as long as he can remember:
I want what I want.

What is it that he truly wants?

It's the moment of truth. As Alex said, time is not on his side. For all Jonathan knows, Jackie is close to making a decision herself. He has to act before she does.

“Okay,” Jonathan says. “You're right. I'm willing to make a deal.”

A
night in prison has hardened Jonathan's resolve that the path he is about to travel is the only course. So the next morning, when he once again hears his name called out by the guard, Jonathan girds himself for the battle to come.

Like before, Jonathan's hands are cuffed behind his back, and a guard leads him through the prison. But this time, they walk past the visitors' room where Jonathan met Alex Miller the day before, and enter a room at the end of the hallway.

Once inside, Jonathan sees that it's a full house, seven people crowded into the space. The only face among the attendees that Jonathan recognizes, aside from Alex Miller's, belongs to the New Jersey lawyer Alex needed to vouch for him at the bail hearing.

While the guards unlock Jonathan's handcuffs, Alex says, “Let me do the introductions. You all know Mr. Caine, of course. Jonathan, this is Juliana Scillieri. She's the acting county prosecutor for Middlesex County.” Scillieri looks to be Jonathan's age, and smiles the way you would if you were introduced to someone at a dinner party, which couldn't be more incongruous in this setting. “Lydia Rodriguez, you may remember, was the prosecuting attorney at the arraignment. Standing beside her is Detective Quincy Martin. He's the lead detective on the matter.” Detective Martin nods, but even with that limited gesture, Jonathan can tell that Detective Martin is a formidable guy. “Next to him is David Geller. David is the head of the criminal division in the US Attorney's Office in Manhattan, and next to him is Elliot Felig, who is also an assistant US Attorney in that office.” Jonathan recalls that Felig's name was on the bottom of the grand jury subpoena he received on New Year's Day. “The folks representing the federal government were invited to attend because what we decide here will have implications for the securities investigation in New York.”

Alex had previously told Jonathan that the first hint of how receptive they'd be to the proposal could be discerned by attendees.
If Felig comes alone, it means that they're just going to hear us out
, Alex had said.
But if his boss joins, then they're ready to deal
.

Felig's superior was present. That meant Jonathan had reason to hope.

The introductions complete, Geller says, “We understand that you have a proposal to make, Mr. Miller. So . . . we're all ears.”

“First some ground rules,” Alex says. “I assume no one has any objections that this is an off-the-record meeting, for settlement purposes only. Meaning that if we end up going to trial, nothing anyone says here will be repeated there. Agreed?”

“Yes, of course,” Geller says.

Scillieri nods her assent. “Agreed.”

“Good. So let me get down to it, then. Our proposal is that Mr. Caine will cooperate against Mrs. Williams in connection with the murder charge, in exchange for full immunity on that charge and also the securities fraud charges still being investigated in New York.”

“What is the nature of that cooperation?” Scillieri asks.

This is another good sign. The lead prosecutor isn't negotiating, but inquiring.

Alex turns to Jonathan. “Tell them what you know, Jonathan.” Then, as if he can sense Jonathan's apprehension, Alex adds, “Don't worry. It's all privileged as settlement discussions.”