The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  As the sharp smack of pain dulled, she realized that Jack was there with her. “No,” she said slowly, her voice husky with sleep. “I am.” She kissed her fingers, then skimmed them over the purple knot of his eye. “You were right, Jack. You’re not my daughter.”

  “No.”

  “But you remind me so much of her.”

  “I—I do?”

  “Yes.” Addie gifted him with a smile. “Because I love you both.”

  In that moment, Jack felt something inside him crack at its seams. He swallowed hard; he breathed deeply. And Jack, who knew when the first weather map had been created and where the sardine got its name and the only country in the world that began with the letter Q, did not know what to say.

  He pulled Addie close and kissed her, hoping that his touch could communicate what his words could not. That he loved her, too. That she’d given him back his life. That when he was with her, he could remember the man he used to be.

  She rested her face against his neck. “I think we deserve a happily-ever-after.”

  “If anyone ever did, it’s us.”

  Addie wrinkled her nose. “I also think you need to take a shower. It’s hard to tell over the whiskey, but it smells like you’ve been rolling in decaying leaves.”

  “It’s been . . . a pretty bad night.”

  “My thoughts exactly. Why don’t we just go home?”

  “Home,” Jack said. He could not keep the grin off his face. “I’d like that.”

  Meg inched past her parents’ room, pausing when her mother rolled over in her sleep. Downstairs, silent as a whisper . . . and then out the kitchen door, because the click of the lock in that room was less likely to register.

  It took her fifteen minutes to jog to the woods at the edge of the cemetery, the small canvas ballet bag she’d last used when she was six tucked under her armpit. By then, she was gasping for air, sweating.

  You could not grow up as the daughter of a detective without absorbing, through osmosis, a rudimentary understanding of police procedure. There would be officers crawling through the woods within a matter of hours, searching for any evidence they could unearth that would give credence to what Gillian had said. And the first thing they would find was the fire, the maypole, the sachets—all the remnants of their Beltane celebration.

  It couldn’t happen.

  Part of the reason she had wanted to try being a witch was because of the mystery and the secrecy, the feeling that she knew something about herself no one else would ever guess. She shuddered, imagining what her parents would say if they found out; what the other kids at school would think of her. It was hard enough fitting in when you were thirty pounds heavier than every other seventeen-year-old; she could only guess at the sneers that would be directed her way when this became common knowledge.

  Her head still hurt from last night’s celebration; it throbbed with every footfall. It was only because of the flowering dogwood that she managed to find her way back to the spot where they’d all been, and for a moment she had a vision of Gillian’s swollen, wet face as she sobbed onto Meg’s father’s shoulder.

  It fortified her.

  Spilled across the ground were the paper cups left over from last night’s feast, and Gillian’s thermos. Meg shoved these into the ballet bag, then plucked the sachets from the dogwood tree and stuffed them in as well.

  The maypole ribbons had unwound themselves and now danced like ghosts. Chelsea was taller than Meg; she felt like a troll staring up at the high branches where the ribbons had been tied. Biting her lower lip, she tugged at one, and to her delight it unwrapped itself easily. She bunched it up and tugged on the next, and the next, rolling the ribbons like volunteers had once rolled bandages during wartime. Finally, she tugged on the last ribbon, a silver one. It had been tied slightly higher than the other three. Meg yanked, but this one was more stubborn.

  Frustrated, she glared up at the tree. With determination, she wrapped the free end of the ribbon around her wrist and jerked hard. It snapped so suddenly that Meg fell backward, sprawling on the forest floor. In the tree, Meg could still see a tiny flag of silver. Well, who would think to look up there, anyway? Resolved, she stuffed the last ribbon into the ballet bag.

  She glanced around at the small clearing the same way she’d seen her mother look through hotel rooms at the end of a vacation, to make sure no one had left a teddy bear or bathing suit behind. And with their secret tucked firmly beneath her arm, Meg hurried home.

  Chief Homer Rudlow was a figurehead in Salem Falls, a former high school football coach for whom Charlie had once played. Their everyday dealings were not much different from high school, actually: Charlie would bust his butt on a regular basis while Homer stood on the sidelines and occasionally offered a different page from the playbook.

  Charlie sat in Homer’s living room. The chief wore a tartan robe over his pajamas, and his long-suffering wife had made fresh coffee and set out a plate of doughnuts. “The rape kit is all bagged,” Charlie said. “I’m going to take it down to the lab in Concord tomorrow.”

  “Any chance of DNA evidence?”

  “The bastard used a condom,” Charlie said. “But there was blood on the victim’s shirt, hopefully his.”

  “Oh, that would be delightful,” Homer said wistfully. He took a long sip of his coffee and cradled the mug between his big hands. “I don’t have to tell you, Charlie, what kind of heat there’s gonna be on this. Amos Duncan’s not going to let us fuck up.”

  “I wasn’t planning to.”

  “Didn’t mean it that way,” the chief said.

  “I know, I know. I’ve heard for years how Amos saved the town with his goddamned factory.” Charlie’s brows drew together. “I’m gonna catch this asshole, Homer, but not because Amos is breathing down my neck. I’m gonna do it because it could just as well have been Meg.”

  Homer regarded him for a long moment. “Try Judge Idlinger. She’s less likely to jump down your throat when you wake her up to get an arrest warrant.” The detective nodded but remained seated, his head bowed. “What now?”

  “It’s just . . . when I was in Miami . . .” Charlie lifted his gaze to the chief’s. “Things like this don’t happen in Salem Falls.”

  Homer’s mouth flattened. “They just did.”

  The police car pulled up to the curb of Addie Peabody’s home. In the passenger seat, Wes Courtemanche began to open the door and get out. He was champing at the bit, but Charlie shook his head, rested his wrist on the steering wheel. “Just wait a sec,” he said.

  “I don’t want to wait a sec. I want to cuff the son of a bitch.”

  “Cool down, Wes.”

  The officer turned, his heart in his eyes. “He’s in there with her, Charlie. With Addie.”

  Charlie knew Addie Peabody, of course—anyone who lived in town did. He’d known her before that, too, when they were both kids growing up in Salem Falls. But since he’d moved back, he’d had little contact with her.

  Wes had told Charlie about Addie and Jack’s relationship . . . and he didn’t fault Addie one bit. People misjudged other people all the time—Charlie ought to know. And now he was going to have to walk in there and arrest Jack St. Bride in front of her.

  He thought of the way her face would crumble the moment she opened the door and saw him holding his badge. It made him remember the way she had looked in high school, too: all pinched and quiet and curled up into herself.

  Charlie sighed. “Let’s go,” he said, and turned off the ignition.

  Over a bowl of cereal, Addie realized she could quite comfortably spend her life with Jack St. Bride. His hair still damp from a shower, he was bent slightly over his Lucky Charms—a brand that had made his face light up (“When did they start doing blue stars?”). As Addie poured him a glass of juice, he slipped his arm around her hips, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And when she sat down across from him to eat, too, the space between them was stuffed with the easy quiet of people who are sure