The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  While the Web pages loaded, she painted her fingernails—one hand at a time, so that she could zip from one search engine to another, looking up herbal journals for information about belladonna and atropine sulfate. Finally, she found a site that listed adult dosages. In pill form, 5 milligrams. To dilate pupils, 1/50,000 of a grain. And taken internally, 1/20 to 1/100 of a grain.

  Gilly frowned. Seemed like quite a range. What if she could take 1/20 of a grain but Whitney, who was tiny, only needed 1/100?

  The telephone rang again. “Gilly,” her father said. “I wanted to check in on you.”

  “Check up on me, you mean.”

  “Now, sweetheart. You know why I’m doing this.”

  Her heart began to pound in triple time. “Aren’t you supposed to be jogging?”

  “Just finished. I should be home soon.”

  What would she do if he arrived to find her missing? “Actually,” Gilly said, “I’m glad you called. Meg wants to know if I can come over tonight.”

  “I really don’t think it’s a terrific idea, Gilly, with all that’s going on.”

  “Please, Daddy. Her mom is going to pick us up for a ten o’clock movie, and who’s going to be stupid enough to hurt me while I’m out with a detective’s wife?” When he didn’t respond, Gilly forged ahead. “Mrs. Saxton says I can stay over. If it’s okay with you.” She was amazed at how easily the lies came, now that she had them in her mind. She was going to celebrate Beltane tonight, come hell or high water or Amos Duncan.

  She could hear her father’s resolve cracking just the tiniest bit. Meg’s dad was a cop; her mom, a woman they’d known their whole lives. Gilly would probably be safer in the Saxton household than in his own. “Okay,” he said. “But I want you to call me when you get home from the movie. No matter what time it is.”

  “I will. Love you, Daddy.”

  “Me, too.”

  For a long moment after she hung up, Gilly just stared at the phone and smiled. Webs were the very easiest things to spin.

  She logged off the computer and walked to the kitchen. Astral projection was going to be her Beltane surprise for the coven; the effects would be even more startling if they were completely unexpected. Gilly stirred the thermos of iced tea and considered the vial in her hand once again.

  Courage.

  She trickled a tiny bit of the liquid into the tea, then stuck her finger into the thermos for a taste . . . nope, it was still tea, if a little bit bitter—1/20 of a grain? 1/100? Shrugging, Gilly emptied the entire contents of the test-tube into the thermos and screwed on the cap.

  Jack woke to find Addie curled beside him, her hand clutching a washcloth that was spreading a water stain over the comforter in the shape of a bell. He came up on one elbow, wincing at the ache of his ribs, and touched the side of her face. When she didn’t stir, he carefully levered himself off the bed.

  What might his life have been like if he’d had someone like her standing by his side during the nightmare in Loyal? What if he’d served his time but met her every Tuesday night in the common room where inmates could face their visitors over long folding tables, under the watchful eyes of the guards? What if he’d had Addie to come home to?

  He paced through the dark house, wishing he could do for her all she’d done for him. Thanks to Addie, Jack no longer spent time reviewing his mistakes. He had put them into a box and shut the lid tight. Addie, though . . . she sorted through the box daily, holding up each memory to the light like an heirloom, even though it made her bleed inside.

  He found himself standing in front of Chloe’s bedroom door.

  Within minutes, he had stripped the bed of its sheets and covers and removed the posters from the walls. He stacked Chloe’s toys in a box he’d found in her closet. If he could just clear out the constant reminder of what Addie had lost, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard for her to look forward rather than back.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Addie’s voice throbbed, as if she’d taken a punch.

  “Cleaning up. I thought that if you didn’t have to look at this every day—”

  “That I wouldn’t see her face first thing when I wake up in the morning anyway? That I don’t know her by heart? Do you think that I have to look at a . . . a hair clip to remember the person I love the most in the world?”

  “Loved,” Jack said quietly.

  “That doesn’t stop just because she’s not here anymore.” Addie sank into the tousled sheets, the fabric floating up around her like the petals of a tulip.

  “Addie, I didn’t do this to hurt you. If what we’ve got means anything . . .”

  She turned her face to his. “You will never, ever mean more to me than my daughter does.”

  Jack reeled back, her words more painful than any blow he’d felt that night. He watched her fold herself into the pool of linens, her spine rounding. “What did you do with it?” she said, suddenly lifting her tear-stained face.

  “With what?”

  “The smell of her. Of Chloe.” Addie scrabbled through the sheets and pillows. “It was here; it was here just this morning . . . but it’s gone now.”

  “Sweetheart,” Jack said gently. “Those sheets don’t smell like Chloe. They haven’t in a very long time.”

  Her hands made fists in the fabric. “Get out,” she sobbed, turning her face away as Jack shut the door softly behind him.

  The Rooster’s Spit had never, in anyone’s recollection, had anything to do with either chickens or expectorating, but a few old-timers could have told you that the bar tucked at the far edge of town had been a Knights of Columbus hall in a past life, and a Baptist church in another. Now, it was a dark, close space where a man could fall into a puddle of his own troubles, or a tumbler of whiskey, which was just as good.

  Roy Peabody nuzzled the lip of his drink, closing his eyes at the sweet heat that rolled down his throat to bloom in his belly. After weeks of being hounded by Addie, or kept watch over by Jack St. Bride, he was in a bar again. He was alone, with the exception of Marlon, the barkeep, who was polishing glasses until they squeaked. Unlike some bartenders Roy had known—and Roy had known many—Marlon was gifted at simply staying quiet and letting a fellow savor his alcohol. In fact, Roy felt more at home in this bar, where no one expected a goddamn thing of him, than in his apartment.

  When the door to the Rooster’s Spit swung open, both Roy and Marlon looked up in surprise. It was rare for people in Salem Falls to be out drinking at 10 P.M. on a weeknight, and Roy felt a small needle of resentment at the thought that now he would have to share this wonderful moment with someone else.

  It was hard to say who was more stunned when each first saw the other: Jack or Roy.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “What does it look like?” Roy grimaced. “Run along now; go tell my daughter.”

  But Jack just sat heavily down on the barstool beside him. “I’ll have whatever he’s having,” he said to Marlon.

  The whiskey was stamped before him like a seal of approval. Jack could feel Roy’s eyes on him as he took his first long swallow. “You going to watch me the whole time?”

  “I didn’t figure you for a drinking man,” Roy admitted.

  Jack laughed softly. “People aren’t always what they seem.”

  Roy accepted this, and nodded. “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks so very much.”

  The old man reached out and gingerly touched the cut over Jack’s eye. “You walk into a wall?”

  Jack glanced at him sidelong. “You drinking lemonade?”

  At that, Roy hesitated. “I take it Addie knows you’re here.”

  “ ’Bout as much as she knows you are.”

  “I told you, St. Bride, if you break her heart—”

  “How about when she breaks mine, Roy?” Jack interrupted bitterly. “What are you going to do for me in that case?”

  Roy took one look at the deep grooves carved beside Jack’s mouth and saw in his face something too, too familiar