The Jodi Picoult Collection #2 Read online

  “Patrick,” she says quietly, “I think I’ve already ruined the lives of enough people I love.”

  When the door bursts open and Nathaniel tumbles into the kitchen on a whirl of cold air, Patrick comes to his feet. The boy smells of popcorn and is carrying a stuffed frog inside his winter coat. “Guess what,” he says. “Daddy took me to the arcade.”

  “You’re a lucky guy,” Patrick answers, and even to his own ears, his voice sounds weak. Caleb comes in, then, and closes the door behind him. He looks from Patrick to Nina, and smiles uncomfortably. “I thought you were visiting with Marcella.”

  “She had to go. She was meeting someone else. As she was leaving, Patrick stopped by.”

  “Oh.” Caleb rubs the back of his neck. “So . . . what did she say?”

  “Say?”

  “About the DNA.”

  Before Patrick’s very eyes, Nina changes. She flashes a polished smile at her husband. “It’s a match,” she lies. “A perfect match.”

  • • •

  From the moment I step outside, the world is magic. Air cold enough to make my nostrils stick together; a sun that trembles like a cold yolk; a sky so wide and blue that I cannot keep it all in my eyes. Inside smells different from outside, but you don’t notice until one of them is taken away from you.

  I am on my way to Fisher’s office, so my electronic bracelet has been deactivated. Being outside is so glorious that it almost supersedes the secret I am hiding. As I slow for a stoplight I see the Salvation Army man swinging his bell, his bucket swaying gently. This is the season of charity; surely there will be some left for me.

  Patrick’s offer swims through my mind like smoke, making it difficult to see clearly. He is the most moral, upstanding man I know—he would not have offered lightly to become my one-man posse. Of course, I cannot let him do this. But I also can’t stop hoping that maybe he will ignore me and do it anyway. And immediately, I hate myself for even thinking such a thing.

  I tell myself, too, that I don’t want Patrick to go after Gwynne for another reason, although it is one I will admit only in the darkest corners of the night: Because I want to be the one. Because this was my son, my grievance, my justice to mete out.

  When did I become this person—a woman who has the capacity to commit murder, to want to murder again, to get what she wants without caring who she destroys in the process? Was this always a part of me, buried, waiting? Maybe there is a seed of malfeasance even in the most honest of people—like Patrick—that requires a certain combination of circumstances to bloom. In most of us, then, it lies dormant forever. But for others, it blossoms. And once it does, it takes over like loosestrife, choking out rational thought, killing compassion.

  So much for Christmas spirit.

  Fisher’s office is decorated for the holidays too. Swaths of garland drape the fireplace; there is mistletoe hanging square over the secretary’s desk. Beside the coffee urn sits a jug of hot mulled cider. While I wait for my attorney to retrieve me, I run my hand over the leather cushion of the couch, simply for the novelty of touching something other than the old sage chenille sofa in my living room at home.

  What Patrick said about labs making mistakes has stayed with me. I will not tell Fisher about the bone marrow tranpslant, not until I know for sure that Marcella’s explanation is right. There is no reason to believe that Quentin Brown will dig up this obscure glitch about DNA; so there is no reason to trouble Fisher yet with information he might never need to know.

  “Nina.” Fisher strides toward me, frowning. “You’re losing weight.”

  “It’s called prisoner-of-war chic.” I fall into step beside him, measuring the dimensions of this hall and that alcove, simply because they are unfamiliar to me. In his office, I stare out the window, where the fingers of bare branches rap a tattoo against the glass.

  Fisher catches the direction of my gaze. “Would you like to go outside?” he asks quietly.

  It is freezing, nearly zero. But I am not in the habit of handing back gifts. “I would love that.”

  So we walk in the parking lot behind the law offices, the wind kicking up small tornadoes of brown leaves. Fisher holds a stack of papers in his gloved hands. “We’ve gotten the state’s psychiatric evaluation back. You didn’t quite answer his questions directly, did you?”

  “Oh, come on. Do you know the role of a judge in the courtroom? For God’s sake.”

  A small grin plays over Fisher’s mouth. “All the same, he found you competent and sane at the time of the offense.”

  I stop walking. What about now? Is it crazy to want to finish the job once you’ve found out you didn’t succeed the first time? Or is that the sanest thing in the world?

  “Don’t worry. I think we can chew this guy up and rip his report to shreds—but I also would like a forensic shrink to say you were insane then, and aren’t now. The last thing I want is a jury thinking you’re still a threat.”

  But I am. I imagine shooting Father Gwynne, getting it right this time. Then I turn to Fisher, my face perfectly blank. “Who do you want to use?”

  “How about Sidwell Mackay?”

  “We joke about him in the office,” I say. “Any prosecutor can get through him in five minutes flat.”

  “Peter Casanoff?”

  I shake my head. “Pompous windbag.”

  Together we turn our backs to the wind, trying to make a very logical decision about whom we can find to call me insane. Maybe this will not be so difficult after all. What rational woman still sees the wrong man’s blood on her hands every time she looks down, but spends an hour in the shower imagining how she might kill the right man?

  “All right,” Fisher suggests. “How about O’Brien, from Portland?”

  “I’ve called him a couple of times. He seems all right, maybe a little squirmy.”

  Fisher nods in agreement. “He’s going to come off like an academic, and I think that’s what you need, Nina.”

  I offer him my most complacent smile. “Well, Fisher. You’re the boss!”

  He gives me a guarded look, then hands over the psychiatric report. “This is the one the state sent. You need to remember what you told him before you go see O’Brien.”

  So defense attorneys do ask their clients to memorize what they said to the state psychiatrist.

  “We’ve got Judge Neal coming down, by the way.”

  I cringe. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s supposed to be incredibly gullible.”

  “How lucky for you, then, that you’re a defendant,” Fisher says dryly. “Speaking of which . . . I don’t believe we’re going to put you on the stand.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to, after two psychiatrists testify.” But I am thinking, I cannot take the stand now, not knowing what I know.

  Fisher stops walking and faces me. “Before you start telling me how you think your defense ought to be handled, Nina, I want to remind you you’re looking at insanity from a prosecutor’s perspective, and I—”

  “You know, Fisher,” I interrupt, glancing at my watch, “I can’t really talk about this today.”

  “Is the coach turning into a pumpkin?”

  “I’m sorry. I just can’t.” My eyes slide away from his.

  “You can’t put it off forever. Your trial will start in January, and I’ll be gone over the holidays with my family.”

  “Let me get examined first,” I bargain. “Then we can sit down.”

  Fisher nods. I think of O’Brien, of whether I can convince him of my insanity. I wonder if, by then, it will be an act.

  • • •

  For the first time in a decade, Quentin takes a long lunch. No one will notice at the DA’s office; they barely tolerate his presence, and in his absence, probably dance on the top of his desk. He checks the directions he’s downloaded from the computer and swings his car into the parking lot of the high school. Teens sausaged into North Face jackets give him cursory glances as he passe