The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  “Ah . . . oftentimes . . .”

  “Isn’t it fairly common for a person who commits a crime to deny that he’s done it, even when there’s physical evidence linking him to the crime?”

  “I—I suppose so.”

  “So it isn’t all that unusual, is it, Doctor, to lie to get out of trouble?”

  “No.”

  “Does that make someone a pathological liar?”

  Dr. Dubonnet sighed. “Not necessarily.”

  Matt glanced at the witness. “Nothing further.”

  He smelled like sweat and blood. His smile was sweet, too, and Meg would have bet he had no idea what he’d just gotten into. Dutifully, she pressed her lips to his cheek and almost immediately lost her balance. She fell into his lap, heard his grunt as her full body hit. “You okay?” he asked, only trying to help her up, his hands sliding awkwardly over her chest and wide bottom before he got the leverage to do it.

  What you want and what you get are two very different countries; sometimes imagination builds a bridge before you have the chance to realize it won’t hold weight. He hadn’t been fondling her; he’d been breaking her fall. But oh, had Meg wished otherwise.

  And in that moment she realized that she hadn’t been the only one.

  This time, Roy brought sandwiches. Roast beef piled high on a crusty roll, tuna salad on wheat, even veggie pitas for the meatless crowd. The judge and the jury and even Jack gratefully dug into this treat, but Matt sat with his back stiff, his untouched turkey sub resting on the corner of the prosecution’s table.

  “It’s the chives,” Roy confessed to the clerk, who’d asked a question about the ingredients in the chicken salad. “You don’t expect them, which is why they come right back and bite you.”

  Head leaning against his hand, Matt drawled, “Your Honor, does this witness have anything to contribute to the defense’s case besides a large dose of cholesterol?”

  “Getting around to it,” Roy muttered, taking his seat. He straightened his tie, cleared his throat, and scowled at Matt. “Skinny folk always have an attitude.”

  With his roast beef sub in one hand and his notes in the other, Jordan stood. “Can you state your name and address for the record?”

  “Roy J. Peabody. I live above the Do-Or-Diner, in Salem Falls.”

  “Where were you the afternoon of April thirtieth, Mr. Peabody?”

  “Working,” Roy said.

  “Do you know who Gillian Duncan is?”

  “Ayuh.”

  “Did you see her that day?”

  “Ayuh.”

  Jordan took another bite of his sandwich. “Where?” he asked, then swallowed.

  “She came into the diner ’bout three-thirty.”

  “Was Jack working at that time?”

  “Sure was.”

  “Did you ever see the two of them together?” Jordan asked.

  “Ayuh.”

  “Can you tell me about that?”

  Roy shrugged. “She came in and ordered a milk shake. Then she changed her mind, said she wasn’t hungry, and walked out. I saw her go ’round back, to where Jack was putting the trash into the Dumpster.”

  “You saw this?”

  “My cash register sits next to a window,” Roy said.

  “What exactly did you see?”

  “She must have said something to him, because he looked up after a minute and they started talking.”

  For taciturn Roy, that pretty much said it all, too. Jordan hid a smile. “How long did they talk?”

  “Had to have been ten minutes, because I changed the cash drawer then. Takes some time to count up all those bills and coins.”

  “Thank you, Roy.” Jordan lifted the sandwich. “For everything.”

  As soon as Matt stood up for his cross-examination, Roy turned to the judge. “Can I ask him a question?”

  She seemed surprised, but nodded. “All right, Mr. Peabody.”

  “What the heck was wrong with my muffin?” Roy barked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You didn’t eat it, did you? Just like you didn’t eat my sandwich today.”

  “It wasn’t a personal affront, Mr. Peabody. I was making a statement,” Matt said.

  “’Bout what? That my food isn’t good enough for you?”

  “If you take muffins from a witness, you’re more likely to believe him.”

  Roy blinked, confounded.

  “Let’s just say I’m on a gluten-free diet,” Matt said with a sigh. “Do you mind if I ask you a few things now?”

  “Go on ahead. I took the whole afternoon off for you.”

  Matt rolled his eyes. “Mr. Peabody, were you inside when you saw Gillian leave?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “And Gillian went around the back of the diner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was your window open?”

  “No, Addie says it’s a waste of the air-conditioning.”

  “So you didn’t hear who called whom over, then?”

  “No. But I sure noticed she was pissed off when she left.”

  Matt looked at the judge. “I’d like to move to strike that statement.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Judge Justice said. “Mr. Peabody, what led you to believe she was angry?”

  “Her nose was so high in the air I thought she’d trip on the sidewalk. She was walking a mile a minute. Huffing, like she was fit to tie Jack.”

  Jordan grinned from ear to ear. If he won this trial, he’d eat lunch at the Do-Or-Diner every day of his life from now on. And he’d tip Roy, as well as his waitress.

  “Do you know, Mr. Peabody, why she was angry?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “Well, for example, what if he’d made an improper advance toward her? Wouldn’t that have upset her?”

  Roy slanted a look at Jack. “I suppose.”

  “Or if he touched her inappropriately? Might that account for a rapid retreat?”

  The old man hesitated, then said, “Maybe.”

  Matt walked back to the county attorney’s table and picked up his sandwich. He took a huge bite, chewed and swallowed. “Thank you, Mr. Peabody,” he said, smiling. “It’s not every day a defense witness caters to the prosecution, too.”

  Meg knew better than to cast a spell that tried to control another person. If a spell was going to work, it meant that energy and power poured through you into someone else—so a connection had been made between the two of you. Which meant if you sent harm out, eventually you’d be the recipient of it, too.

  Hexing, though, wasn’t the same as using magick to destroy. After all, when they’d cast a spell for old Stuart Hollings, they were trying to get rid of his tumor. A growing cancer had to be dissipated. And a person who repeatedly threatened the safety of others had to be stopped. That was why Meg had to do a binding spell.

  It was the first time she’d ever cast a circle by herself. Meg knelt between the shrubs in her backyard, praying her mother wouldn’t come home early from work. A black candle burned in front of her, and an ashtray she’d dug up from the attic held a stick of incense.

  She was supposed to have a poppet, a wax or cloth doll made to represent the person she wanted to stop from doing harm. But Meg had never been crafty and so had no idea how to go about making a representation of someone. In the end, she’d rummaged through her closet, into the bin of old Barbie and Ken dolls she’d had as a kid. Naked, the doll was obscene, the hair matted. Meg sprinkled it with salt water and whispered the words she’d copied from a grimoire at the Wiccan Read. “Blessed be, you creature made . . . uh, in China . . . and changed by life. You are not plastic, but flesh and blood. You are between the worlds, in all the worlds, so mote it be.”

  She held the doll in her hands and imagined a silver net falling out of the sky. Then she took a length of red ribbon from the pocket of her shorts and wrapped it tight around the doll’s hands, mouth, and groin. Finally, Meg took all the energy that trembled through her nerves, feeding her fear,