The Jodi Picoult Collection #3 Read online

  Jordan walked toward her. “Tell me about Joey.”

  “Everybody liked Joey. He was smart, an excellent athlete. He could relate just as easily to adults as he could to kids his own age. He . . . well, he cut a swath through that school.”

  “You must have been very proud of him.”

  “I was. But I think that because of Joey, teachers and students had a certain sort of idea in mind for a Houghton boy, before Peter even arrived. And when he did get there, and people realized he wasn’t like Joey, it only made things worse for him.” She watched Peter’s face transform as she spoke, like the change of a season. Why hadn’t she taken the time before, when she had it, to tell Peter that she understood? That she knew Joey had cast such a wide shadow, it was hard to find the sunlight?

  “How old was Peter when Joey died?”

  “It was at the end of his sophomore year.”

  “That must have been devastating for the family,” Jordan said.

  “It was.”

  “What did you do to help Peter deal with his grief?”

  Lacy glanced down at her lap. “I wasn’t in any shape to help Peter. I had a very hard time helping myself.”

  “What about your husband? Was he a resource for Peter then?”

  “I think we were both just trying to make it through one day at a time.... If anything, Peter was the one who was holding the family together.”

  “Mrs. Houghton, did Peter ever say that he wanted to hurt people at school?”

  Lacy’s throat tightened. “No.”

  “Was there ever anything in Peter’s personality that led you to believe he was capable of an act like this?”

  “When you look into your baby’s eyes,” Lacy said softly, “you see everything you hope they can be . . . not everything you wish they won’t become.”

  “Did you ever find any plans or notes to indicate that Peter was plotting this event?”

  A tear coursed down her cheek. “No.”

  Jordan softened his voice. “Did you look, Mrs. Houghton?”

  She thought back to the moment she’d cleared out Joey’s desk; how she’d stood over the toilet and flushed the drugs she’d found hidden in his drawer. “No,” Lacy confessed. “I didn’t. I thought I was helping him. After Joey died, all I wanted to do was keep Peter close. I didn’t want to invade his privacy; I didn’t want to fight with him; I didn’t want anyone else to ever hurt him. I just wanted him to be a child forever.” She glanced up, crying harder now. “But you can’t do that, if you’re a parent. Because part of your job is letting them grow up.”

  There was a clatter in the gallery as a man in the back stood up, nearly upending a television camera. Lacy had never seen him before. He had thinning black hair and a mustache; his eyes were on fire. “Guess what,” he spat out. “My daughter Maddie is never going to grow up.” He pointed at a woman beside him, and then further forward on a bench. “Neither is her daughter. Or his son. You goddamned bitch. If you’d done your job better, I could still be doing my job.”

  The judge began to smack his gavel. “Sir,” he said. “Sir, I have to ask you to—”

  “Your son’s a monster. He’s a fucking monster,” the man yelled, as two bailiffs reached his seat and grabbed him by the upper arms, dragging him out of the courtroom.

  Once, Lacy had been present at the birth of an infant that was missing half its heart. The family had known that their child would not live; they chose to carry through with the pregnancy, in the hope that they could have a few brief moments on this earth with her before she was gone for good. Lacy had stood in a corner of the room as the parents held their daughter. She didn’t study their faces; she just couldn’t. Instead, she focused on the medical needs of that newborn. She watched it, still and frost-blue, move one tiny fist in slow motion, like an astronaut navigating space. Then, one by one, her fingers unfurled and she let go.

  Lacy thought of those miniature fingers, of slipping away. She turned to Peter. I’m so sorry, she mouthed silently. Then she covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

  * * *

  Once the judge had called for a recess and the jury had filed out, Jordan moved toward the bench. “Judge, the defense asks to be heard,” he said. “We’d like to move for a mistrial.”

  Even with his back to her, he could feel Diana rolling her eyes. “How convenient.”

  “Well, Mr. McAfee,” the judge said, “on what grounds?”

  The grounds that I’ve got absolutely nothing better to salvage my case, Jordan thought. “Your Honor, there’s been an incredibly emotional outburst from the father of a victim in front of the jury. There’s no way that kind of speech can be ignored, and there’s no instruction you can give them that will unring that bell.”

  “Is that all, Counselor?”

  “No,” Jordan said. “Prior to this, the jury may not have known that family members of the victims were sitting in the gallery. Now they do—and they also know that every move they make is being watched by those same people. That’s a tremendous amount of pressure to put on a jury in a case that’s already extremely emotional and highly publicized. How are they supposed to put aside the expectations of these family members and do their jobs fairly and impartially?”

  “Are you kidding?” Diana said. “Who did the jury think was in the gallery? Vagrants? Of course it’s full of people who were affected by the shootings. That’s why they’re here.”

  Judge Wagner glanced up. “Mr. McAfee, I’m not declaring a mistrial. I understand your concern, but I think I can address it with an instruction to the jurors to disregard any sort of emotional outburst from the gallery. Everyone involved in this case understands that emotions are running high, and that people may not always be able to control themselves. However, I’ll also issue a cautionary instruction to the gallery to restrain themselves, or I will close the courtroom to observers.”

  Jordan sucked in his breath. “Please do note my exception, Your Honor.”

  “Of course, Mr. McAfee,” he said. “See you in fifteen minutes.”

  As the judge exited for chambers, Jordan headed back to the defense table, trying to divine some sort of magic that would save Peter. The truth was, no matter what King Wah had said, no matter how clear the explanation of PTSD, no matter if the jury completely empathized with Peter—Jordan had forgotten one salient point: they would always feel sorrier for the victims.

  Diana smiled at him on her way out of the courtroom. “Nice try,” she said.

  * * *

  Selena’s favorite room in the courthouse was tucked near the janitor’s closet and filled with old maps. She had no idea what they were doing in a courthouse instead of a library, but she liked to hide up there sometimes when she got tired of watching Jordan strut around in front of the bench. She’d come here a few times during the trial to nurse Sam on the days they didn’t have a sitter to watch him.

  Now she led Lacy into her haven and sat her down in front of a world map that had the southern hemisphere as its center. Australia was purple, New Zealand green. It was Selena’s favorite. She liked the red dragons painted into the seas, and the fierce storm clouds in the corners. She liked the calligraphed compass, drawn for direction. She liked thinking that the world might look completely different from another angle.

  Lacy Houghton had not stopped crying, and Selena knew she had to—or the cross-examination was going to be a disaster. She sat down beside Lacy. “Can I get you something? Soup? Coffee?”

  Lacy shook her head and wiped her nose with a tissue. “I can’t do anything to save him.”

  “That’s Jordan’s job,” Selena said, although to be frank, she couldn’t imagine a scenario for Peter that did not involve serious jail time. She racked her brain, trying to think of what else she could say or do to calm Lacy down, just as Sam reached up and yanked on one of her braids.

  Bingo.

  “Lacy,” Selena said. “Do you mind holding him while I look for something in my bag?”

  Lacy lifte