The Girl From Home: A Thriller (39 page)

“That does sound bad,” Jonathan says. “I'll bet a smart guy like Jackie's lawyer will also put the busboy from the Hilton on the stand. He'll testify that a day before the murder, Rick was beating the shit out of me. That also can't be good for the prosecution's case against Jackie. Not to mention that I did once own a Lange & Söhne chronograph and now I don't.”

Alex gives Jonathan a knowing look. “I bet Mark will also say that the pawnshop guy has no motive to lie. It's not like somebody paid him off, right?”

Jonathan knows the attorney-client privilege would protect him if he chose to tell Alex that he gave the pawnshop guy his Bentley in exchange for Mr. Comb-over going to his grave swearing that it was Jonathan who pawned that watch. Still, the less Alex knows, the better.

“I honored my part of the deal,” Jonathan says. “I'm ready, willing, and able to put my hand on the Bible and say Jackie set up the hit, pawned her jewelry, and used the proceeds to pay a hit man. If the pawnshop guy says it was me, maybe they should prosecute him for perjury. But I'm telling the truth.”

Alex shakes his head in disagreement. “Look . . . fun and games aside, Jonathan, if you pawned the watch, then the evidence is pretty good that you hired Ariel Kishon, not Jackie. Scillieri will claim that you lied to her when you said Jackie did it. And if you lied to them about Jackie's guilt, that blows up the deal.”

“But I'm not lying about Jackie,” Jonathan says. “I didn't set up the hit. Jackie did. I'll take a lie detector test. My guess is that Jackie would, too. That's not admissible against her anyway, right?”

Jonathan had tied this up tightly. Even if it was too early to spike the ball, Jonathan knew he had won. From the look on Alex's face, Jonathan could see that his lawyer knew that, too.

“Okay,” Alex says. “I'm going to go straight to Scillieri's office from here. I'll tell her that you held up your end of the bargain, and that there's no room for her to renege. Hopefully she'll understand that trying to undo a plea deal is not a very wise career move. I'll also put in her head the idea that if she cuts Ariel Kishon a little slack, maybe he'll recant the whole murder-for-hire thing. That will allow her to claim she got the guy, and then she can announce that she's dismissing the indictments against you and Jackie because she's now convinced that Kishon acted alone and it was just a hit-and-run. With any luck, Scillieri might be able to salvage her career from this little debacle.”

“Everybody wins, then,” Jonathan says.

“Something like that. Although not everyone is getting away with murder.”

“I'm still going to jail for five years,” Jonathan says.

“Jackie's got to be grateful for what you did for her.”

“I love her, Alex. She's my happy ending.”

T
he Federal Correctional Institution at Fort Dix is housed on the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. It's forty miles outside of Philadelphia, a little more than a half-hour car ride from East Carlisle.

More than four thousand inmates serve their time within its walls, which makes it the largest federal prison by population in the United States. A lucky four hundred are in the minimum-security section, which is more of an army barracks than a prison, and the rest serve their time in the low-security portion of the facility.

Alex had lobbied the Bureau of Prisons for Jonathan to be admitted to the minimum-security section, but after the epic bait-and-switch that landed Jonathan at Fort Dix, there was no way that anyone was willing to make Jonathan's incarceration more comfortable. And while minimum security was a second-best option, as Alex had warned, it was no vacation. Many of the inmates were hardened criminals, doing their second or third stint.

Jonathan's main understanding of prison comes from
The Shawshank Redemption
, and what he recalled most is the line that prison time is slow time. If his actual experience didn't much resemble Andy Dufresne's stint at Shawshank, the quote rang true. Sometimes Jonathan felt as if time had literally stopped.

It gave Jonathan ample opportunity to reflect on how everything had unfolded exactly how Alex had predicted. Ariel Kishon recanted his claim that he was a hit man and pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter. He was sentenced to eight years, which was less than what he likely would have pulled on a murder-for-hire charge, even with his cooperation. At a press conference to tout Kishon's guilty plea, Juliana Scillieri announced that the county prosecutor's office was dismissing all charges against Jackie and Jonathan, telling assembled reporters that the arrests were part of an interjurisdictional effort that successfully resulted in securing Jonathan Caine's guilty plea and significant prison time for securities fraud.

Like Alex Miller had said, everybody won. Only the spoils of Jonathan's victory would have to wait five years.

*  *  *

Inmate visits at Fort Dix were strictly limited to an hour, and one visit per week.

Alex Miller visits shortly after Jonathan's incarceration begins. They meet in a private room, one reserved for counsel visits. Alex tells Jonathan at the outset, however, that it is purely a social call.

“When did you know?” Jonathan asks, without any preface to indicate the topic of Alex's knowledge.

“When you took the deal,” Alex says without hesitation.

Jonathan laughs. “How'd that tip you off?”

“Because you so quickly accepted the five years. That told me that you were primarily worried about something besides going to prison. I knew you were worried about Jackie.”

“Do you think I'm an idiot?” Jonathan asks.

“Far from it. I think you're probably the smartest guy I know.”

“Why, because I tricked some prosecutors?”

“No, because you realized what was really important and made it happen for you. In the scheme of things, giving up five years of your life for that type of happiness is well worth it. Think about all the people who live their entire lives without finding any meaning, any purpose.”

Jonathan nods. “You know, for a lawyer, you're quite philosophical.”

“Thank you,” Alex says. “And for a master of the universe, you're quite the romantic.”

*  *  *

Amy comes up from Florida as often as she can. Usually, her visits correspond with her needing to do something to ready their parents' house for sale. She always makes it clear to Jonathan that she could hold off on the sale if he wanted to live there when he came out of prison. He's consistently told her to sell it. He knows he'll have a place to call home after he's released from prison.

It isn't lost on Jonathan that he and his sister speak, e-mail, and see each other more now than they had in the last twenty years. He promises her that will continue even after he ceases to be a captive audience, and she tells him that she looks forward to getting to know Jackie.

*  *  *

Jackie comes every Sunday without fail. Kissing and embracing briefly upon arrival and departure is permitted, to a point, which Jonathan and Jackie referred to as the three-second rule. After that, hand holding is the only physical contact allowed.

In addition to the litany of regulations imposed by the institution, Jonathan has one rule about these visits. He communicated it to Jackie through a game of telephone—in which he tells Alex, Alex tells Mark Gershien, and then Mark tells Jackie—to keep it all within the attorney-client privilege.

It is that she can never admit to killing Rick. Ever.

Jackie's first order of business upon arrival is always to ascertain whether Jonathan has any bruising. She tries to be discreet about it, but Jonathan knows that she always makes it a point of studying his face and his hands even before a word is exchanged.

Jackie has a job working in the mall. It doesn't pay much, but it's enough to keep them afloat in the short term. She's also gone back to school, using some of Rick's life insurance to pursue a master's degree in child psychology, with the long-term plan that she'll practice in East Carlisle when she finishes her degree. Robert is heading off to college; the life insurance was also enough to cover in-state tuition at Rutgers. Emma is doing well too. Living her life as a normal high school student, going to football games and hanging out with her friends.

Jonathan's favorite topic of conversation is when they imagine their lives upon his release. The plan is for him to move into her house in East Carlisle, but at other times they talk about starting somewhere new. Florida. California. London, even.

What either of them actually says about their future together is almost beside the point, however. What mattered is that they both wanted that future and were willing to wait for it. For Jonathan, that sentiment is brought home by the way Jackie smiles every time she visits. The same smile that had captivated him in high school.

It has taken him a lifetime, and brought him to the depths that a person can go, but Jonathan knows that true happiness lies ahead. He would be with the woman he loves, and who loves him. After spending his life in pursuit of false idols, he had finally found something real in his love for Jackie.

He finally has what he wants.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read
The Girl from Home
, and for going above and beyond by venturing into the acknowledgments. My favorite part of the writing process is hearing from readers, so please, if you've made it this far, go a little further and send me an e-mail at
[email protected]
and tell me what you thought of
The Girl f
rom Home
, or any of my other books. Also, although it would truly be above and beyond, please post a review on your favorite website.

Now to thank the people who made
The Girl from Home
what it is: Scott Miller, my agent at Trident Media, and his colleague, Allysin Shindle, who are my first stop for advice on all things about books (and some other stuff, too); Ed Schlesinger, my editor at Gallery Books, who breaks my heart with his every critique but makes the book something I'm proud to deliver to the world in the end; Stephanie DeLuca, who handles the publicity at Gallery Books and has been a great promoter of my work; and Fauzia Burke and Leyane Jerejian at FSB Associates, who spread the word on social media and the blogosphere.

My friends and those who visit my Facebook page know that I'm a huge Batman fan. The closest I get to actually being the Caped Crusader, however, is that I have a secret identity as a mild-mannered lawyer, and it is only at night and on weekends that I become a writer. Those who have been entrusted with my secret identity have been incredibly supportive of my dual existence, and special thanks goes to my partners and colleagues at Pavia & Harcourt, the New York City law firm where I spend my days.

My thanks also go to those who read and commented on drafts of
The Girl from Home
(and voted on the title), who include many of the same people who have been reading my work since the beginning: Clint Broden, Jane Goldman, Gregg Goldman, Margaret Martin, Benjamin Plevin, Bonnie Rudnitsky Rubin, Ellice Schwab, Jessica Shacter, Lisa Sheffield, Jodi (Shmodie) Siskind, and Susan Steinthal.

As has been my practice in all of my books, some real-life people have contributed their names to the characters, but rest assured, Cathy Bachman, Elliot Felig, Mark Gershien, Yorlene Goff, Jonah Gorski, Paul Gottlieb, Harrison Kay, Erica Murray, Aaron Pratt, Peter Stemblack, Haresh Venagopul, and our dog, Nixie, in
The Girl from Home
are fictional in every way.

The Girl from Home
is dedicated to my parents, Linda and Milton Mitzner, who unfortunately passed away before my first book was published. Given the subject matter of this book, I spent a lot of time thinking about my parents while writing it, and though the usual disclaimer applies that the father in the book is not my father, the one thing that I did take from real life is that both of my parents always urged me to be the best person I could be. (That and the story about the father pushing the car, which
is
truly something my father did.)

Lastly and mostly, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to my family. My writing as often occurs around the dining table as it does at my computer, listening to ideas and critiques offered by my wife and children. And so my thanks to Rebecca, Michael, Benjamin, and Emily for being everything they are, and to my wife, Susan, for allowing me to at least try to be everything I want to be.