The Pact Read online

  GUS MADE IT THROUGH SIGNING OUT at the control booth, past the officer who unlocked the jail door, and all the way to her car before she fell to her knees in the parking lot and threw up. I'm your mother, she had said. I know you. But apparently, she hadn't. She wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her jacket and slid behind the wheel of the car, blindly fumbling the keys into the ignition before realizing she was in no condition to drive. Chris had said it, clear as day. He shot Emily. And while Gus had defended him from gossip and slander and even his father's indifference, she had been playing the fool.

  Small darts stabbed at her mind: Chris's shirt at the hospital, covered with blood; Chris's reluctance to talk to Dr. Feinstein; Chris admitting with relief that he'd never been suicidal. She rested her forehead against the steering wheel and moaned softly. Chris, oh, God, Chris had killed Emily.

  How could she not have seen through him?

  She put the car into gear and drove slowly out of the parking lot of the jail. She would go home and tell James and he'd know what to do ... no, she couldn't tell James, because then he would tell Jordan McAfee, and even Gus's rudimentary knowledge of criminal defense told her that would be a bad idea. She would go home and pretend that she had never come to visit her son that night. In the morning, everything would look different.

  And then she'd be put on the witness stand.

  IT STRUCK GUS AS STRANGE that in the legal system, there was an immunity that could protect you from testifying against your husband, but there was nothing that you could hold up as a shield to keep you from testifying against your child. Odd, since a child was the one who had your smile, or your eyes, or at the very least, your blood running through its veins. Gus would have been ten times more likely to give evidence against James than Chris. And it was not a matter of perjury, in her battered mind, but motherhood.

  She was wearing a garnet-colored dress whose gathered sleeves only set off the fact that she was trembling uncontrollably. Gus had fixed a smile on her face, certain that if she even let her lips relax from their rictus the slightest bit, she would blurt out what she knew. She stood outside the double doors of the courtroom, having been told by Jordan that she'd be the first--and only--witness called that day. The bailiff stood across from her, impassive.

  Suddenly the door opened, and she was led down the courtroom aisle. She kept her eyes on her feet the whole way. As she sat down in the small box, she thought, How much bigger is the one they'll lock Chris in for life?

  She knew that Jordan had wanted her to look at Chris as soon as she was seated, but she kept her gaze trained on her lap. She could feel her son, a magnetic pull toward her left, his nerves jangling nearly as loudly as hers. But if she lifted her eyes to his, she knew that she'd start to cry.

  Suddenly a thick, worn Bible was thrust before her. The clerk of the court instructed her to place her left hand on it and raise her right. "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

  So help you God. For the first time since entering the courtroom, Gus locked her gaze with her son's. "Yes," she said, in a voice that carried. "I do."

  JORDAN DIDN'T KNOW what the hell had happened to Gus Harte. Every time he'd seen her--Christ, even the night her son was carted off by the local police with an arrest warrant--she'd seemed self-possessed and beautiful. Slightly wild and natural, with that tumble of strawberry curls, but lovely all the same. Today, however, on the one day he'd needed her to be perfect, she was a total mess. Her hair was straggling from a hasty braid; her face was pale and pinched without makeup; her fingernails were bitten to the quick.

  Being a witness affected everyone differently. Some people grandstanded. Some seemed in awe of the system. Most settled down to the task with a suitable amount of reverence. Gus Harte only looked like she wanted to be anywhere else but there.

  Squaring his shoulders, Jordan walked toward her. "Could you state your name and address for the record?"

  Gus leaned toward the microphone. "Augusta Harte," she said. "Thirty-four Wood Hollow Road, Bainbridge."

  "And could you tell us how you know Chris?"

  "I'm his mother."

  Jordan turned his back to the jury and Barrie Delaney and smiled at Gus, hoping to loosen her up. Relax, he mouthed silently. "Mrs. Harte, tell us about your son."

  Gus's eyes darted nervously around the courtroom. On one side she saw Melanie, with her stone face, and Michael, his hands clenched on his knees. On the other side was James, who was nodding at her slightly. Her mouth opened and closed silently. "Chris is--he's a very good swimmer," she finally said, and Jordan wheeled about.

  "A good swimmer?"

  "He holds the school record for the two-hundred-meter butterfly," she rambled. "We're very proud of him. His father and I."

  Jordan advanced on her before she could stray farther from their planned testimony. "In your opinion, would you say he's responsible? Trustworthy?"

  He could sense Barrie behind him, her confusion palpable as she considered whether or not to object to Jordan leading his star witness. "Oh, yes," Gus said nervously, looking into her lap. "Chris always acted well beyond his years. I would trust him with my--" She stopped abruptly. "With my life," she finished.

  "You knew Emily Gold," Jordan said, baffled by now, but knowing he had to stop Gus from saying things the jury did not need to hear. "For how long?"

  "Oh," Gus said softly. Her eyes sought Melanie's, in the gallery. "I was Melanie Gold's labor coach. I saw Emily before her own mother did."

  Thank God, Jordan thought. "How long did the Golds live next door?"

  "For eighteen years," Gus said. "Chris and Emily spent most of those years joined at the hip."

  "By that, you mean they were never apart?"

  "Yes," Gus said evenly. "They might as well have been twins." Then what happened? she thought, the question reverberating in her mind. "They used to have their own language, and sneak out of the house to see each other, and--"

  Then what happened?

  "--stick up for each other--"

  Jordan nodded. "You were close to Emily's parents, too?"

  "We were very good friends," Gus said thickly. "Like an extended family. Chris and Em grew up like brother and sister."

  "When did Chris and Emily become boyfriend and girlfriend?"

  "Chris was fourteen," Gus said.

  "Did you and the Golds encourage this relationship?"

  "We asked for it," she murmured.

  "Do you think Chris loved Emily?"

  "I know he did," Gus said firmly. "I know." But she was thinking of what she had felt with Michael, even as she was drawn to him--that need to pull away flaring just as strong. And she was wondering if maybe you could not go from brother and sister to boyfriend and girlfriend, add that much more love and commitment, without feeling too close for comfort. Is that what happened?

  Jordan narrowed his eyes as he suddenly pinpointed what was the matter with this very odd testimony: Gus wasn't looking at Chris--in fact, she seemed reluctant to do so, which was something the jury would certainly notice. "Mrs. Harte," Jordan said. "Can you look at your son for me?"

  Gus slowly turned her head. She took a deep breath and resolutely stared at Chris, quickly pinching away the tears at the corners of her eyes. "This boy," Jordan continued. "This son you've known for eighteen years. Would he ever have hurt Emily Gold?"

  "No," Gus whispered, her gaze sliding away from her son. She swiped the tears away quickly with the back of her hand. "No," she repeated shakily.

  She felt Chris's eyes on her, begging her to look at him. So she lifted her face to his, and saw what the jury could not: his eyes tortured and his mouth tight with pain, as he watched his mother lie for him.

  "I know how hard this is for you, Mrs. Harte." Jordan walked over to the witness stand, his hand on her arm, tender and solicitous. "I only have one more question. In your opinion--"

  Gus knew what was coming. She'd rehearsed it with Jordan McAfee; she'd lived i