The Jodi Picoult Collection #4 Read online

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  My mother and I argue about the same things over and over, such as why she refuses to treat me normally. This would be a classic example, where she is taking my desire to see Dr. Lee and twisting it into a pretzel so that it seems like an unreasonable Aspie request, instead of one grounded in reality. There are many instances where I want to do things other kids my age do:

  1. Get a license and drive a car.

  2. Live on my own at college.

  3. Go out with my friends without her having to call their parents first and explain my quirks.

  a. It should be noted, of course, that this would apply to a time when I currently had friends.

  4. Get a job so that I have money for the above.

  a. It should be noted that she did let me get a job, and unfortunately to date the only people who’ve chosen to hire me were completely unreasonable asses who couldn’t see the big picture, like whether being five minutes late on a shift is truly going to cause a global catastrophe.

  Instead, I watch Theo sail out the door while she waves good-bye to him. Unlike me, he will be allowed to get his driver’s license sooner or later. Imagine how incredibly humiliating it will be for me to be driven around by my younger brother, the same child who used his own poop to paint a mural on the garage door once.

  My mother argued that I could not have it both ways. I could not ask to be treated like an ordinary eighteen-year-old and also demand clothing with the tags cut out and refuse to drink orange juice because of its name. Maybe I did feel that I could have it both ways—be disabled sometimes and normal at other times—but then again, why couldn’t I? Let’s say that Theo sucked at growing vegetables but was really good at bowling. My mother might treat him like a slightly remedial student if she was teaching him to grow rutabagas, but when she hit the lanes with him, she’d ditch the slow voice. Not all humans have one standard, so why should I?

  At any rate, whether I have simply been cooped up too long or whether I am suffering acute mental distress from my soon-to-be missed opportunity with Dr. Lee, I do the only thing that seems justifiable at the time.

  I call 911 and tell them I am being abused by my mother.

  Rich

  It’s like one of those pictures in celebrity magazines I read at the dentist’s office: “What’s Different?” The first shot shows Jess Ogilvy with a big smile on her face and Mark Maguire’s arm draped over her shoulder. It’s a photograph we took from her nightstand.

  The second picture was taken by my CSI team and shows Jess with her eyes closed and ringed with bruises, her skin frozen a solid, pale blue. She is draped with a postage-stamp quilt that looks like a painter’s color wheel.

  Ironically, she is wearing the same sweatshirt in both photos.

  There are obvious differences—the physical trauma being the biggest one. But there’s something else about her I cannot put my finger on. Did she lose weight? Not really. Was it the makeup? Nah, she wasn’t wearing any in either shot.

  It’s the hair.

  Not the cut, which would be easy. It’s straight in the picture of Jess and her boyfriend. In the crime scene print, though, it’s curled and frizzy, a cloud around her battered face.

  I pick up the photo and study it at closer range. It seems likely that curls were the default setting for her hair, given that she would have gone to the trouble to style it when out with her boyfriend. Which means that her hair got wet while the body was out in the elements . . . something easily assumed, except for the fact that she was protected from rain and snow by the concrete culvert where she was dumped.

  So her hair was wet when she was killed.

  And there was blood in the bathroom.

  Was Jacob a Peeping Tom, too?

  “Captain?”

  I look up to find one of the street cops standing in front of me. “Dispatch just got a call from a kid who says he’s being abused by a parent.”

  “Don’t need a detective for that, do you?”

  “No, Captain. It’s just . . . the kid? He’s the one you arrested for that murder.”

  The photo flutters out of my hand, onto the floor. “You gotta be kidding,” I mutter, and I stand up and grab my coat. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Jacob

  Immediately, I realize I’ve made a colossal mistake.

  I begin hiding things: my computer, my file cabinet. I shred papers that are sitting on my desk and tuck a stash of journals from forensics associations in the bathtub. I figure all of these things can be used against me, and they’ve already taken so much of what was mine.

  I don’t think I can be arrested again, but I am not entirely sure. Double jeopardy only refers to the same crime, and only after an acquittal.

  I will say this for the boys in blue—they are speedy. Less than ten minutes after my 911 call, there is a knock at the door. My mother and Theo, who are still downstairs trying to reinstall the fire alarm Theo set off with some abortive kitchen snack, are caught completely unawares.

  It’s stupid, I know, but I hide underneath my bed.

  Rich

  “What are you doing here?” Emma Hunt demands.

  “Actually, we received a call through 911.”

  “I didn’t call 91—Jacob!” she yells, and she turns on her heel and flies up the stairs.

  I step into the house to find Theo staring at me. “We don’t want to donate to the police athletic league,” he says sarcastically.

  “Thanks.” I point up the staircase. “I’m, uh, just going to . . .go . . .?” Without waiting for him to answer, I head toward Jacob’s room.

  “Abusing you?” Emma is shrieking when I reach the doorway. “You’ve never been abused a day in your life!”

  “There’s physical abuse and there’s mental abuse,” Jacob argues.

  Emma whips her head in my direction. “I have never laid a hand on that boy. Although right now, I’m incredibly tempted.”

  “I have three words for you,” Jacob says. “Doctor! Henry! Lee!”

  “The forensic scientist?” I am completely not following.

  “He’s speaking at UNH tomorrow, and she says I can’t go.”

  Emma looks at me. “Do you see what I’m dealing with?”

  I purse my lips, thinking. “Let me talk to him alone for a minute.”

  “Seriously?” Her eyes widen. “Were you not in the same courtroom I was in three hours ago, when the judge told you accommodations should have been made when you questioned Jacob?”

  “I’m not questioning him now,” I tell her. “Not professionally, anyway.”

  She throws up her hands. “I don’t care. Do what you want. Both of you.”

  When her last footstep fades down the stairs, I sit down beside Jacob. “You know you’re not supposed to call 911 unless you’re in serious trouble.”

  He snorts. “So arrest me. Oh, wait, you already did.”

  “You ever hear of the boy who cried wolf?”

  “I didn’t say anything about wolves,” Jacob replies. “I said I was being abused, and I am. This is the one chance I have to meet Dr. Lee and she won’t even consider it. If I’m old enough to be tried as an adult, how come I’m not old enough to walk to the bus stop and travel down there on my own?”

  “You’re old enough. You’ll just wind up with your ass in jail again. Is that what you want?” From the corner of my eye, I spy a laptop peeking out of a pillowcase. “Why is your computer under the covers?”

  He pulls it free and cradles it in his arms. “I thought you’d steal it from me. Just like you took my other stuff.”

  “I didn’t steal that, I had a warrant to seize it. And you’ll get it back, one day.” I glance at him. “You know, Jacob, your mother is only protecting you.”

  “By locking me up in here?”

  “No, the judge did that. By not letting you break your bail requirements.”

  We are both quiet for a second, and then Jacob glances at me from the corner of his eye. “I don’t understand your voi