The Pact Read online

  "I won't need you," Thomas said. He gestured toward his father's bedroom. "Maybe I should go say hi."

  "Maybe you should get your butt back into your own room," Jordan said, smiling at Thomas, and then he whisked out the door with the feel of his son's admiration lightly riding on his shoulders.

  GUS LEANED INTO the rear of the car, buttoning Kate's jacket up to the throat. "You're warm enough?" she asked.

  Kate nodded, still too shocked by the thought of her brother being dragged off by the police to function fully. She would wait in the car while Gus and James and the lawyer sorted out this mess--not the best solution, but the only available one. At twelve, Kate was too young to be left alone at night, and who was Gus supposed to call? Her parents lived in Florida, James's would have had heart failure even hearing about this scandal. Melanie--the only close friend Gus would have felt comfortable phoning as a last-minute baby-sitter--thought that Chris had killed her child.

  But as much as Gus wished she could have spared her daughter all this, there was a niggling voice in her head that urged her to have Kate as close as possible. You have one child left, it said. Keep her in sight.

  Gus reached across the foot of space between them and smoothed Kate's hair. "We'll be back in a little while," she said. "Lock the doors when I leave."

  "I know," Kate said.

  "And be good."

  Like Chris wasn't. The thought leapt between Gus and Kate, a hideous, traitorous current, and they broke apart before either of them could say it aloud, or admit that they'd even thought it.

  GUS AND JAMES HARTE HOVERED in the small cone of light produced by the outside lamp at the police station, as if crossing the threshold without a legal knight in tow was unthinkable and surely risky. Jordan raised a hand in greeting as he crossed the street, reminded of that old adage about people who live together for a long time coming to look like each other. The Hartes' features were not so similar, but the singular, burning purpose in their eyes twinned them in an instant.

  "James," Jordan said, shaking the doctor's hand. "Gus." He glanced toward the door of the station. "Have you been inside?"

  "No," Gus said. "We were waiting for you." Jordan thought about hustling them into the lobby, but then decided against it. The conversation they were going to have was better done in privacy, and as a former prosecutor he knew that the walls of cop shops had ears. He pulled his coat a little closer and asked the Hartes to tell them what had happened.

  Gus recounted the arrest during dinner. Through the recitation, James stood off to one side, as if he'd come to admire the architecture rather than protect his son. Jordan listened to Gus, but watched her husband thoughtfully. "So," Gus finished, rubbing her hands together for warmth. "You can talk to someone and get him out, right?"

  "Actually, I can't. Chris has to be held overnight until his arraignment, which will most likely be in the morning at the Grafton County Courthouse."

  "He has to stay in a cell here overnight?"

  "Well, no," Jordan said. "The Bainbridge police aren't equipped to keep him in their holding cell. He'll be moved to the Grafton County jail."

  James turned away. "What can we do?" Gus whispered.

  "Very little," Jordan admitted. "I'm going to go in and speak to Chris now. I'll be there first thing in the morning when he's called in for the arraignment."

  "And what happens there?"

  "Basically, the attorney general will enter the charge against Chris. We'll enter a plea of not guilty. I'll try to get him released on bail, but that may be difficult, given the fact that he's up against a very serious charge."

  "You're saying," Gus replied, her voice shaking with rage, "that my son, who did nothing wrong, has to sit overnight in jail, probably even longer than that, and there's nothing you can do to stop this from happening?"

  "Your son may have done nothing wrong," Jordan said gently, "but the police didn't buy his story about the suicide pact."

  James cleared his throat, breaking his silence. "Do you?" he asked.

  Jordan looked at Chris's parents--his mother on the verge of puddling to the sidewalk; his father distinctly embarrassed and uncomfortable--and decided to tell them the truth. "It sounds ... convenient," he said.

  As Jordan had expected, James looked away and Gus flew off into a rage. "Well," she huffed. "If your heart's not in it, we'll just find someone else."

  "It's not my job to believe your son," Jordan said. "It's my job to get him off." He looked directly into Gus's eyes. "I can do that," he said softly.

  She stared at him for a long moment, long enough for Jordan to feel like she was picking through his mind, sifting the wheat from the chaff. "I want to see Chris now," she said.

  "You can't. Only during shift changes--that's several hours away. I'll tell him whatever you want." Jordan held the door of the station open for her, the perfume of her indignation following in her wake. He was about to move inside himself when James Harte stopped him. "Can I ask you something?" Jordan nodded. "In confidence?" Jordan nodded again, a bit more slowly.

  "The thing is," James said carefully, "it was my gun." He took a deep breath. "I'm not saying what did or didn't happen. I'm just saying that the police know the Colt came out of my gun cabinet." Jordan's brows drew together. "So," James said, "does that make me an accessory?"

  "To murder?" Jordan asked. He shook his head. "You didn't deliberately put that gun there with the intention that Chris use it to shoot someone."

  James exhaled slowly. "I'm not saying Chris did use it to shoot someone," he clarified.

  "Yes," Jordan said. "I know." And he followed the man into the Bainbridge police station.

  WHEN HE HEARD FOOTSTEPS, Chris came to his feet and pressed his face to the small plastic window of the cell. "Lawyer's here," the policeman said, and suddenly Jordan McAfee was standing on the other side of the bars.

  He sat down on a chair the officer brought and took a legal pad out of his briefcase. "Have you said anything?" Jordan asked abruptly.

  "About what?" Chris answered.

  "Anything to the cops, to the desk sergeant. Anything at all."

  Chris shook his head. "Just that you were coming," he said.

  Jordan visibly relaxed. "All right. That's good," he said. He followed Chris's glance toward the video camera trained on the cell. "They won't tape this," he said. "They won't listen to the monitor. That's basic prisoner rights."

  "Prisoner," Chris repeated. He tried to sound like he didn't care, like he wasn't whining, but his voice was trembling. "Can I go home yet?"

  "No. First off, you don't say anything to anybody. In a little while, the sheriff's going to come take you to the Grafton County jail. You'll be brought in and booked there. Do what they tell you to; it's only a few hours. By the time you get up in the morning I'll be there, and we'll go over to the courthouse for your arraignment."

  "I don't want to go to jail," Chris said, paling.

  "You don't have a choice. You have to be held pending your arraignment, and the prosecutor arranged it so that you'd have to wait overnight. Which means Grafton." He looked directly at Chris. "She did it this way to scare the shit out of you. She wants you shaking when you see her face tomorrow in the courthouse."

  Chris nodded and swallowed hard. "You've been charged with first-degree murder," Jordan continued.

  "I didn't do it," Chris interrupted.

  "I don't want to know if you did or didn't," Jordan said smoothly. "It doesn't matter one way or the other. I'm still going to defend you."

  "I didn't do it," Chris repeated.

  "Fine," Jordan said dispassionately. "Tomorrow the prosecutor will move that you be held without bail, which is likely given the severity of the charge."

  "You mean, like, in jail?" Jordan nodded. "For how long?"

  Something in Chris's voice struck a chord. Jordan tilted his head and suddenly the panicked features of his client reconfigured, and he was staring at Thomas, much younger, asking when he was going to see his mother aga