The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  Althea regarded him over the lip of the mug. “It wasn’t until you just said so.”

  “I’m sorry.” Mark colored again. These white boys, with their face a whole palette.

  Althea decided to take him off the hook. That way, she could always bait him again. “Tell me what we have today.”

  “Motions hearing in State of New Hampshire v. Jack St. Bride.”

  She took the proffered file. “The rape case?”

  “Yes.” Mark took a deep breath. “If you look in there, you’ll see the research I’ve done, and some of my opinions.”

  “Well, matter of fact, I do want to know if any of the counsel has been snooping around you, trying to size me up.”

  Again, that blush. “Well, Your Honor, there’ve been a few questions . . .”

  “Prosecution or defense?”

  Mark looked at his polished shoes. “Both, ma’am.”

  When Althea Justice smiled, which wasn’t all that often, it transformed her face, like a valley being touched by the sun. She knew of this case; hell, with the reporters swarming on the steps of the courthouse like bees at a hive, it would be impossible not to know of it.

  She thought of Matt Houlihan and Jordan McAfee, the counsel that would be standing in front of her a few hours from now, at the mercy of a big bad black bitch. “Mark,” Althea said, grinning, “this may turn out to be a fine day after all.”

  An hour after the motions hearing in the St. Bride case, Jordan lay on his back in the woods, watching the sun leap from branch to branch like an iridescent squirrel. He could feel the moisture from the ground sinking into his skin, right through the shoulders of his dress shirt. The dirt smelled like dying things, but Jordan conceded that maybe his current state of mind was coloring his senses. He had a case that completely sucked, a dead end of a defense, and a client who wasn’t willing to budge in any of the directions that would lead to a plea. Jack St. Bride hadn’t had sex with Gillian Duncan in this very spot, in spite of the fact that his skin was under her nails and his blood was on her shirt. Maybe if Jordan stayed here long enough, the aliens that had apparently come down to rape Gillian would return to zap him with a death laser, so some other hapless attorney could be appointed to Jack’s case.

  “I had a feeling I’d find you here.”

  Jordan sat up, squinting. “Oh, it’s you,” he said dully.

  “You think Lancelot got that kind of reception?” Selena muttered, grunting as she tried to haul Jordan to his feet.

  “You’re my white knight?”

  “Well, I’m trying to be. You’re not exactly making it easy.”

  She had wrapped herself around him to get him upright. Jordan could smell the soap she used—honey, and some kind of flower, mixed together and sitting cozy next to his own bar of Ivory. “What are you saving me from?”

  “Yourself,” Selena said. “Despair. Root rot. Take your pick.” She regarded Jordan thoughtfully. “I heard you had a lousy hearing.”

  “Lousy?” Jordan laughed. “I wouldn’t say it was lousy. Downright abysmal. This judge has a chip on her shoulder the size of the whole goddamned courthouse. She ruled against my motion to suppress Jack’s statement about not being with the girl that night. But she granted Houlihan’s motion to admit Jack’s prior conviction for sexual assault.”

  “I heard you won one.”

  “Yeah,” Jordan snorted. “The rubber-stamp motion for a speedy trial, which I put in weeks ago. The one I wanted before I knew I’d be dealing with a client who changes his tune more often than a fucking jukebox.” He sighed. “Oh, and did I happen to mention the DNA test came back?”

  “And?”

  “Jack’s blood’s all over the girl’s shirt. His skin was under her nails. There was semen on her thigh, and although the results weren’t quite as conclusive, it could be his, too.”

  “Maybe it’s not his.”

  “Yeah, and maybe I’m Johnnie Fucking Cochrane.”

  Selena smirked. “Trust me, you don’t have quite the same tan. Besides, Johnnie wouldn’t lay down and let a prosecutor steamroll him.”

  “Johnnie didn’t sign Jack St. Bride as a client.”

  Selena braced herself against the trunk of the dogwood. “Can’t win ’em all, Jordan.”

  “Thanks for reminding me, because you know, that thought hadn’t entered my consciousness for at least a half a second.”

  Jordan skimmed his hands down the freckled bark of a tree. It reminded him of age spots, which reminded him that he was getting old, and what the hell did he have to show for it? And that reminded him that Jack St. Bride would turn fifty in prison, probably shouting with every breath that he hadn’t committed a crime.

  He turned on his investigator.

  “What have you been doing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Other than eating my groceries and sucking up the air conditioning I’m paying for . . . what have you dug up about this case?”

  “Nothing. Addie Peabody is still out of town, and she’s our best hope to make Jack look good.”

  “That’s if she’s still speaking to him,” Jordan pointed out. “Being arrested in front of your girlfriend has an uncanny way of ruining a relationship. What else have you got?”

  Selena sighed. “Everywhere I turn, there’s someone telling me what a good kid Gillian Duncan is. Smart, sweet, Daddy’s little girl. Add that kind of credibility to the physical evidence . . . well, Jordan, there just isn’t a lot I can offer here.” She reached down between her feet and pulled up the towhead of a dried dandelion. “Here. Make a wish.”

  “Just one?” Jordan said.

  “Don’t want to overload the magic, do you?”

  He closed his eyes. “I wish things were different.”

  Selena held her breath until Jordan blew, scattering the seed pods over the wind. “What do you mean?”

  “I wish I could trade this job for whatever’s behind door number one. I wish Jack St. Bride’s blood wasn’t on Gillian’s shirt. I wish you and I could . . .”

  His voice trailed off, and Selena stared at him. “Could what?”

  “Could find something to get our client acquitted.”

  Selena dusted off her jeans. “Nothing’s gonna get done with us standing here. Let’s go.” But Jordan didn’t follow, and before she knew it, she was standing at the edge of the woods again. Frustrated, she tried to peer through the trees but couldn’t make him out. “You coming?” she called. “I’m gonna be halfway home before you get out of the forest.”

  In the clearing, Jordan turned at the sound of Selena’s voice. I’m gonna be halfway home before you get out of the forest. “Where are you?” he called.

  “Waiting for you!”

  Jordan hurried down the narrow trail that led toward the cemetery. He counted each footfall . . . thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five . . . and finally broke out of the thicker vegetation to find an annoyed Selena tapping her sneaker. “Fifty-one,” Jordan announced.

  “No, actually, I’m only thirty-eight. You’re just giving me gray hair.” Selena turned her back on him. “Can we just get going now?”

  “No. Selena, where are we?”

  She peered at Jordan. “You hit your head on a branch back there?”

  “This is where Saxton found Gillian. Where she’d caught up to her friends after the rape. Right?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “I could hear you. When you called my name, I could hear you.”

  Selena’s mind picked up the ball Jordan had thrown. “But could you hear something other than a voice? Like two people wrestling?”

  “I don’t know. Wait here.” He ran back into the woods, then started kicking at the leaves. “Can you hear that?”

  Selena strained. Daytime sounds—birds, and trucks in the distance—were louder, but every now and then she got a slight sense of disturbance. “Kind of,” she called back. “Real faint, though.” Selena jogged to the clearing again. “I’m guessing it’s about fifty yar