The Pact Read online

  "Was that gun held up to Emily's head?"

  "Yes."

  "Was your finger on the trigger?"

  "Yes."

  "Was a shot fired?"

  "Yes."

  "Was Emily's hand on the gun, with yours?"

  "Uh-huh," Chris said.

  "Was she saying, 'Now, Chris, now'?"

  "Yes."

  Jordan crossed the courtroom, coming to rest in front of the jury. "Can you say, Chris--without a doubt--that your actions, your motions, your muscles, were the only things that caused that shot to be fired?"

  "No," Chris said, his eyes shining. "I guess not."

  TO EVERYONE'S SURPRISE, Judge Puckett insisted on having summations after lunch. As the bailiffs moved forward to take Chris to the sheriff's lockup downstairs, he reached out to touch Jordan's sleeve. "Jordan," he began.

  The lawyer was collecting notes and pencils and documents that had been scattered around the table. He did not bother to lift his head. "Don't talk to me," he said, and left without a backward glance.

  BARRIE DELANEY TREATED HERSELF to a Haagen-Dazs ice cream bar. Chocolate inside, and chocolate outside. A clear celebration.

  As an assistant attorney general, the only way to make a name for oneself was to have the good fortune to be next on the roster when a high-profile case happened to come up. In that, Barrie had been fortunate. Murders were rare in Grafton County; dramatic courthouse confessions were unheard of. The whole state would be talking about this case for days. Barrie might even be interviewed for the network news.

  She carefully licked around the edge of her ice cream, aware that a spot on her suit wouldn't be a good idea when she still had a closing argument to give. But as far as she figured, she could stand up after Jordan's summation and recite the alphabet, and Chris Harte would still be convicted of murder. In spite of Jordan's last ditch efforts, a jury knew when it had been taken for a ride. All that crap about the double suicide attempt which the defense had tried as a strategy, and which was just that--crap--was going to weigh heavily on those twelve minds when they retired to deliberate.

  The jury had the memory of Chris saying he'd shot the girl. The whole debacle with his mother on the stand. And the knowledge that for the first three days of this trial, the defense had deliberately been lying.

  Nobody liked finding out they'd been duped.

  Barrie Delaney smiled and licked her fingers. Least of all, she imagined, Jordan McAfee.

  "GET AWAY," JORDAN YELLED over his shoulder.

  "Tough," Selena shot back.

  "Just leave me alone, all right?" He stalked away from her, but she was damn tall and those long legs ate up his stride. Seizing the opportunity, he ducked into the men's room only to have Selena throw the door back on its hinges and step inside. She glared at an elderly man using the urinal, who quickly zipped up his fly, flushed, and left. Then she leaned back against the door, to prevent anyone else from entering. "Now," she ordered. "Talk."

  Jordan leaned against the sink and closed his eyes. "Do you have any idea," he said, "what this is going to do to my credibility?"

  "Absolutely nothing," Selena said. "You got Chris to sign a waiver."

  "Which is exactly what no one's going to hear on the news. They're going to assume I'm as competent in a courtroom as one of the Seven Dwarfs."

  "Which one?" Selena asked, smiling slightly.

  "Dopey," Jordan sighed. "God. Am I an idiot? How could I have put him on the stand without grilling him first about what he was going to say?"

  "You were angry," Selena said.

  "So?"

  "So. You don't know what you're like when you're angry." She touched his arm. "You did the best you could for Chris," she gently reminded him. "You can't win all of the time."

  Jordan glanced at her. "Why the hell not?" he said.

  "YOU KNOW WHAT?" Jordan began, facing the jury. "Three hours ago, I didn't have the slightest idea what I was going to say to you all right now. And then it dawned on me--I wanted to congratulate you. Because you've seen something very unusual today. Something surprising that never, ever makes its way into a courtroom. You, ladies and gentlemen, have seen the truth."

  He smiled, leaning against the defense table. "It's a tricky word, isn't it? Sounds larger than life." He straightened his face in a good impression of Judge Puckett. "Very serious. I looked it up in the dictionary," he admitted. "Webster's says it's the real state of things, the body of real events or facts." Jordan shrugged. "Then again, Oscar Wilde said that the pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. Truth, you see, is in the eye of the beholder.

  "Did you know I used to be a prosecutor? I was. Worked in the same office where Ms. Delaney works now, for ten years. You know why I left? Because I didn't like the idea of truth. When you're a prosecutor, the world's black or white, and things either happened or they didn't. I always believed there was more than one way to tell a story, to see things. I didn't think truth even belonged in a trial. As a prosecutor you present your evidence and your witnesses, and then the defense gets a chance to put a different spin on the same stuff. But you'll notice I didn't say anything about presenting the truth."

  He laughed. "Funny, don't you think, that I should have to take the truth and run with it to the end zone, now? Because that's all I have left, in defense of Chris Harte. This trial ... unbelievably ... has been about the truth."

  Jordan walked toward the jury and spread his hands on the railing of the box. "We started this trial with two truths. Mine," he speared his chest, "and hers." He jerked a thumb at Barrie Delaney. "And then we saw a lot of variations. The truth, to Emily's mother, is that there's no way her daughter could have been anything less than perfect. But, then, we all see people the way we want to. The truth, to the detective and the medical examiner, comes from an arrangement of hard evidence. That isn't to say that the evidence might not lead them to their theory. The truth, to Michael Gold, means taking responsibility for something too horrible to imagine, even though it's easier to point the blame at someone else. And the truth, to Chris's mother, has nothing to do with this case. Her truth is believing in her son ... no matter what that entails.

  "But the most important truth you've heard comes from Chris Harte. There are only two people who know what really happened the night of November seventh. One of them is dead. And one of them just told you everything."

  Jordan skimmed his hand along the rail of the box as he surveyed the jury. "That, ladies and gentlemen, is where you come in. Ms. Delaney has given you a set of facts. And Chris Harte has given you the truth. Do you just blindly agree with Ms. Delaney--see things the way she wants you to see them, through her black-and-white glasses? Do you say: There was a gun, there was a shot, a girl died; therefore it must be murder? Or do you look at the truth?

  "You have a choice. You can do what I used to do--what I like to do as a lawyer--just go on the facts and form your own opinions. Or you can hold the truth in your hands, and see it for the gift it is." He leaned toward the jury, his voice softening. "There once was a boy and a girl. They grew up together. They loved each other like a brother and a sister. They spent every moment together, and when they got older they became lovers. Their feelings and their hearts became so intertwined that they could no longer distinguish their individual needs.

  "Then, for a reason we may never know, one of these young people began to hurt. She hurt so badly that she didn't want to live. And she turned to the only person she trusted." Jordan walked toward Chris, stopping just inches from his client. "He tried to help. He tried to stop her. But at the same time, he could feel her pain as if it were his own. And in the end, he couldn't stop her. He was a failure. He even went so far as to walk away."

  Jordan looked at the jury. "The problem was, Emily couldn't kill herself. She begged him, she pleaded, she cried, she put her hand over his on the gun. She was such a part of him and he was such a part of her, that she couldn't even complete this final act by herself. Now, here's the question yo