The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  “Not allowed—”

  “He’s in solitary.” The guard glanced over her shoulder. “Next!”

  But Addie didn’t move. “How am I supposed to get in touch with him?”

  “ESP,” the officer suggested, as Addie was shoved out of the way.

  The human scalp has 100,000 hairs.

  In an average lifetime, a person will grow 590 miles of hair.

  Jack scratched at his thickening beard again, this time drawing blood. There was a rational part of him that knew he was all right, that going without a shower for a week wouldn’t kill him. And in spite of what it felt like, a colony of insects had not taken up root on his scalp. But sometimes, when he sat very still, he could feel the threads of their legs digging into his skin, could hear the buzz of their bodies.

  Insects outnumber humans 100,000,000 to one.

  He thought of these things, these useless facts, because they were so much easier to consider than other things: Would Addie come to see him? Would he remember what had happened that night? Would he, once again, be convicted?

  Suddenly, from a distance, there were footsteps. Usually, no one came down here after the janitor’s soft-soled shoes paced the length of the hall, rasping a mop in their wake. These shoes were definitive, a sure stride that stopped just outside his door.

  “I take it you’re still mulling over your decisions,” the superintendent said. “I wanted to pass along a bit of information to you. You had a visitor today, who of course was turned away, since you’re in a disciplinary lockdown.”

  A visitor? Addie?

  Just the thought of her walking into a place like this, the knowledge that she wouldn’t have had to if not for Jack, was enough to make him cry a river. Tears sluiced down his face, washing away the grime, and maybe a little bit of his pride.

  Reaching up, he scratched vigorously at his temple.

  The average person, Jack thought, accidentally eats 430 bugs in a year.

  As a defense attorney, Jordan had dealt with his share of society’s losers—all of whom were convinced they’d been given the fuzzy end of the lollipop. It wasn’t his job to judge them on the things they’d done, or even on their own misconceptions of entitlement. Never, though, had Jordan been treated to a client who was so single-mindedly hell-bent on his own destruction—and all in the alleged pursuit of justice. He pulled in his folding chair as another cavalcade of prisoners returned from the exercise yard, disrupting the meeting he was holding on the other side of the solitary cell’s metal door. “They’re clothes, Jack,” Jordan said wearily, for the tenth time in as many minutes. “Just clothes.”

  “You ever hear of the human botfly?” Jack answered, his voice thin.

  “No.”

  “It’s a bug. And what it does, see, is grab another insect—like a mosquito, for instance—and lay its eggs on the mosquito’s abdomen. Then, when the mosquito lands on you, your body heat makes those eggs fall off and burrow under your skin. As they grow, you can see them. Feel them.” He laughed humorlessly. “And the whole time, you’re thinking that the worst that’s happened is a mosquito bite.”

  A psych exam, Jordan thought, would not be out of order here.“What are you trying to tell me, Jack? You’re infested?”

  “If I put on their uniform, I become one of them. It’s not just clothing. The minute it touches me, the system’s gotten underneath my skin.”

  “The system,” Jordan repeated. “You want me to tell you about the system, Jack? The system says that as soon as Superintendent Warcroft decides he needs your little cell for someone else, he’s gonna ship you over to the State Pen’s secure housing unit. And if you think being stuck here is no picnic, believe me, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Down in Concord, in the SHU, the COs wear full body armor—shields and helmets with face masks and steel-toed boots. They escort you everywhere, anytime you have to leave your little pod, which is next to never. And oh, yeah, the pods are arranged around a bulletproof control booth, where the COs sit and watch every move you make. They watch you eat, they watch you sleep, they watch you shit. They watch you breathe, Jack. You and the other three assholes who share your cell, and who probably got sent there for doing something far more violent than refusing to wear a jumpsuit.”

  “I won’t go to the State Pen.”

  “They don’t fucking ask your permission!” Jordan yelled. “Don’t you understand that? You are here. Deal with it. Because every minute I spend worrying whether you’re behaving yourself is time taken away from your case, Jack.”

  For a while, there was no noise from inside the cell. Jordan placed his palm against the door. Then a voice came back, quiet, broken. “They’re trying to make me into someone I’m not. This shirt . . . these pants . . . they’re the only things I have left of the person I know I am. And I need to keep seeing them, Jordan, so I don’t start to believe what they’re saying.”

  “What should they be saying, Jack?” Jordan pressed. “What really happened?”

  “I can’t remember!”

  “Then how the hell do you know for sure you didn’t rape her?” Jordan argued. He fought for control, shaking his head at the door separating him from his client. He wasn’t going to fall for a sob story. If his client was intent on getting shipped off to Concord . . . well, the court would pay Jordan for mileage incurred. “I filed a motion for a speedy trial, and the prosecutor already signed off on a subpoena ducef tecum,” he said briskly, changing the subject. “We should be receiving Gillian Duncan’s psychiatric records shortly.”

  “She’s crazy. I knew it.”

  “These come from when she was a child and might have no bearing on this case.”

  “What else have you got?” Jack asked.

  “You.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s got to be enough.” Jordan leaned his forehead against the metal. “Now do you see why I need you to shape up?”

  “Okay.”

  The consent came so softly, Jordan frowned, certain he’d misheard. “What?”

  “I said I’ll do it. I’ll put on the jumpsuit. But you have to do me a favor.”

  Jordan felt anger bubbling inside him once more. “I don’t have to do you any favors. You, on the other hand—”

  “A pen, for Christ’s sake. That’s all I want.”

  A pen. Jordan stared at the Rollerball in his hand. Jack’s change of heart had been too hasty. He imagined his client taking the pen and jamming it into his jugular.

  “I don’t think so . . .”

  “Please,” Jack said quietly. “A pen.”

  Slowly, Jordan slipped the pen through the slot in the metal door. A few seconds later it came back, wrapped tight with a pale blue scroll. T-shirt, Jordan realized. Jack had ripped off a piece of his goddamn precious T-shirt to write something.

  “Can you get that to Addie Peabody?” Jack asked.

  Jordan unrolled it. A single word was written on the cloth, a word that might have been meant as praise or accusation. “Why should I help you?” he asked. “You aren’t doing anything to help me.”

  “I will,” Jack swore, and for just a moment—the time it took the attorney to remember to whom he was talking—Jordan actually believed him.

  “Jesus, Thomas.” Jordan winced as the door slammed shut. “Do you have to be so damn loud?”

  Thomas stopped at the sight of his father, sprawled on the couch with a washcloth covering his forehead. Selena touched him on the shoulder. “Poor baby had to work today,” she clucked. “He’s cranky.”

  “He can hear you talking about him, and he has a headache the size of Montana,” Jordan scowled.

  “More accurately, the size of Jack St. Bride,” Selena murmured.

  Thomas walked into the kitchen and took a carton of milk from the refrigerator. After swilling a long gulp, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Lovely,” Selena said.

  “I learned it all from my role model of a dad.” Thomas set the milk on the counter. “What’s the problem with