The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  Jack turned his head away, silent.

  Charlie nodded; this wasn’t a shock. “Got a lawyer you want phoned?”

  The last lawyer Jack had trusted with his life had landed him in jail for eight months. His jaw tightened at the thought of putting himself at the mercy of another leech who couldn’t care less about winning the case, as long as there was a retainer.

  “Okay,” Charlie said on a sigh. He beckoned to another officer, who came into the interrogation room to lead Jack back to the holding cell. They were nearly out the door when Charlie’s voice made Jack stop. “Is there anyone you want me to call?”

  Addie.

  Jack stared straight ahead, and kept walking.

  “Did you know,” Matt said, watching his wife sprinkle nutmeg onto cottage cheese for her own breakfast, “that if you inject that stuff intravenously it can kill you?”

  “Cottage cheese? I would think so.”

  “No, nutmeg.” Matt dipped the rubber-coated spoon into the jar of peaches again and held it to their daughter’s lips. Predictably, Molly spit it back at him.

  Sydney slid into the seat beside Matt’s. “Do I want to know where you picked up such an esoteric knowledge of spices?”

  He shrugged. “I put away a woman who killed her diabetic husband by mixing some in his insulin.”

  “I’ll have to file that one away,” Sydney said, smiling. “Just in case you start getting on my nerves.”

  Matt passed a washcloth over Molly’s face, and for good measure, rubbed it over his cheek as well. “I feel like I ought to invest in a haz mat suit.”

  “Oh, I have great faith that by the time she marches down the aisle, she’ll be able to use a spoon with finesse.”

  Molly, on cue, burst into a peal of giggles. “You’re not gonna walk down any aisle, are you, muffin?” Matt cooed. “Not until Daddy’s done background checks—”

  They were interrupted by the telephone. Molly’s head swiveled toward the sound, her eyes wide and curious. “It’s for you,” Sydney said a moment later. “Charlie Saxton.”

  He had last worked with Charlie over a year ago, on a grand theft auto charge that was pleaded down. Truth was, not too many cases came out of Salem Falls. “Charlie,” Matt said, taking the receiver. “What can I do for you?”

  “We’ve got a rape case. A guy who just got out on an eight-month sentence for misdemeanor sexual assault attacked a teenage girl here last night.”

  Matt immediately sobered. “The victim wants us to prosecute?” Too often, women who had been raped would suffer through the collection of evidence . . . and then decide they couldn’t go through with it.

  “Yeah. Her dad is Amos Duncan.”

  “Duncan, as in the drug company?” Matt whistled. “Holy cow.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So,” Matt repeated, “what can I do for you?”

  “Meet me at the crime scene?” Charlie asked. “Nine o’clock?”

  He took down directions. For a long moment after Charlie hung up, Matt absently listened to the dial tone while stroking the soft, vulnerable crown of his daughter’s head.

  Meg, Whitney and Chelsea arrived at Gillian’s house shortly after 8 A.M. “Girls,” Amos said soberly, greeting them at the door. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  They were too polite to comment on his bloodshot eyes, his rumpled clothing. “Our parents said we should stay home.” Whitney spoke for the three of them.

  “We wanted to make sure that Gilly was doing okay,” Chelsea added, her voice nearly a whisper, as if speaking of what had happened would only make it worse.

  “I don’t know if she’s up to seeing . . .” Amos’s words trailed off as the girls shifted their attention to something over his shoulder. Gilly stood behind him, looking as fragile as a milkweed pod, a big quilt wrapped around her shoulders. Her feet were bare like a child’s, and this made Amos’s stomach knot.

  “No, Daddy,” Gilly said. “I want to talk to them.”

  The girls surrounded her, a princess’s court. They moved as a single unit up to Gillian’s bedroom and closed the door. As soon as they did, Whitney flew toward Gilly with a small cry, hugging her close. “Are you okay?”

  Gillian nodded against her shoulder. Now that it was morning, it seemed impossible that last night had really happened.

  “What did they make you do?” Chelsea asked, wide-eyed.

  “A lot of tests at the hospital. And I had to talk to Mr. Saxton.” She looked from one girl to the other. “If I’m the one who went through it, why do you all look so awful?”

  No one answered at first, embarrassed to have been caught thinking selfishly when Gillian had suffered the most. Whitney began toying with a stray fiber on the braided rug. “They’re going to find out about us now, aren’t they?”

  “None of our fathers found out last night, did they?” Gilly said.

  “But they’ll go back today. They’ll have to, after what you said.”

  Meg, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, shook her head. “I took care of it.”

  Gilly turned. “Took care of it?”

  “I got rid of . . . everything. I went early this morning.”

  At that, Gillian kissed Meg on the forehead. “You,” she pronounced, “are amazing.”

  Meg blushed. Being the object of Gillian’s direct praise was a little like being a cat stretching itself in front of a sunny window—it felt so good, to the marrow of the bones, that it was impossible to turn away.

  Gillian reached beneath her mattress and pulled out their Book of Shadows. “Keep this at your house,” she told Chelsea. “It’s too risky for me to have it here right now.”

  Chelsea skimmed the pages—including the last entry, where Gillian had written a detailed account of the Beltane ceremony. For the first time since she’d been practicing Wicca, she felt empty inside. “Gilly,” she said quietly, “last night . . .”

  “Who do you think everyone is going to believe?” Gillian’s gaze turned inward, until it seemed that she was very far away from the rest of them. “After what he did to me,” she said so quietly that the others had to strain to hear, “he deserves this.”

  An entourage of men—Amos, Charlie, Matt, and a team of cops skilled at securing crime scenes and collecting evidence—followed Gillian up the path that led from the cemetery into the woods. She was pale and withdrawn, although they had done their best to handle her with kid gloves. Suddenly, she stopped. “This is where it happened.”

  The marker was a huge flowering dogwood, its petals carpeting the floor of the forest like an artificial snow. Under Charlie’s direction, an officer roped off the area with yellow crime scene tape, using the trunks of the trees as stakes. Others knelt to take soil samples and to scour for anything else that might help in the prosecution of Jack St. Bride.

  Charlie headed toward Amos and his daughter. Gillian’s eyes looked as big as dinner plates, and she was shaking uncontrollably. “Honey,” Charlie said. “do you remember where he held you down?”

  Her gaze swept the small clearing. “There,” she pointed. It was a spot free of leaves, a spot that looked no different from any other spot nearby, but Charlie knew that experts could turn up treasures that weren’t visible to the naked eye.

  He sent two of his men to check it. “Why don’t you take her home?” Charlie suggested to Amos. “She looks like she’s about to fall apart.”

  “Gillian’s strong. She—”

  “—doesn’t need to be here. I know you want to help us. And right now, the best way to do that is to give her a little TLC, so that when we need her to step up to the plate, she’s ready.”

  “TLC,” Amos repeated woodenly. “I can do that.”

  “Good. The minute I know anything . . .” he promised, and went to rejoin his colleagues.

  Two men were working at the site of the rape. “Anything?” Charlie asked.

  “No smoking gun. Or spurting, as the case may be.”

  “Spare me,” Charlie mutte