House Rules

by Jodi Picoult

  --You can go watch CrimeBusters, || I tell him, and he bolts into the living room.

  The detective stares at me, dumbfounded. --Excuse me, I was in the middle of an interrogation.||

  --I thought this wasn't an interrogation.||

  --A young girl's life might be at stake, and you think it's more important for your son to watch a television show?||

  --Yes,|| I snap.

  --It doesn't strike you as odd that your son isn't upset by his tutor's disappearance?||

  --My son didn't even get upset when his grandfather died,|| I reply. --It was a forensics adventure for him. His feelings about Jess going missing will be determined only by how it affects him--which is the way he measures everything. When he realizes that his Sunday session with Jess might not take place, then he'll get upset.||

  The detective looks at me for a long moment. I think he's going to give me a lecture about obstruction of justice, but instead, he tilts his head to one side, thoughtful. --That must be really hard on you.||

  I don't remember the last time anyone has said those words to me. I would not trade Jacob for the world--for his tenderness, his incredible brain, his devotion to following rules--but that doesn't mean it's been an easy ride. An ordinary mother doesn't worry about whether her son being shunned at a school concert hurts him as much as it hurts me.

  An ordinary mother doesn't call Green Mountain Power when the electricity goes out to say that one of the residents has a disability that requires immediate intervention--because missing CrimeBusters actually qualifies, when it comes to Jacob. An ordinary mother doesn't lie awake at night wondering if Theo will ever accept his brother enough to watch over him when I'm gone.

  --It's my life,|| I say, shrugging.

  --Do you work outside the home?||

  --Are you interviewing me, too?||

  --Just making conversation until the commercial break,|| he says, smiling.

  Ignoring him, I stand up and stir the blueberries I am cooking down for tonight's pie filling.

  --Your son, he took us by surprise the other night,|| Matson continues. --We're not used to minors crashing our crime scenes.||

  --Technically, he's not a minor. He's eighteen.||

  --Well, he's got more forensic scientific knowledge than guys I know who are four times his age.||

  --Tell me something I don't know.||

  --You've got pretty eyes,|| the detective says.

  Fumbling, I drop the spoon into the pot. --What did you just say?||

  --You heard me,|| Matson replies, and he walks into the living room to wait for the opening credits of CrimeBusters to finish.

  Jacob

  I have never been a big fan of I Love Lucy. That said, every time I see the episode when Lucy and Ethel are working at the candy factory and get behind on the packaging, it makes me laugh. The way they stuff the candy into their mouths and inside their uniforms--well, you know it's going to end with Lucy wailing her famous wail.

  Having Detective Matson ask me these questions makes me feel like Lucy at the candy factory. At first, I can keep up--especially after I realize that he is not angry at me for coming to the hypothermic man's crime scene. But then it begins to get more complicated.

  The questions stack up like that candy, and I am still trying to wrap the last one when he sends the next one my way. All I want to do is take his words and stuff them somewhere where I don't have to hear them anymore.

  Detective Matson is standing in front of me as soon as the first commercial airs. It's for Pedi Paws, a new incredible pet nail trimmer. That makes me think of the miniature poodle at the pizza place that we saw, and that makes me think of Jess, and that makes me feel like there's a bird caught inside my rib cage.

  What would he say if he knew that right now, in my pocket, is Jess's pink cell phone?

  --Just a couple more questions, Jacob,|| he promises. --I'll make sure I'm done in ninety seconds.||

  He smiles, but it's not because he's happy. I had a biology teacher like that once.

  When I corrected Mr. Hubbard's mistakes in class, he smiled with the left side of his mouth. I assumed that meant he was grateful. But that weird half smile apparently meant he was annoyed with me, even though if someone's smiling it is supposed to signify that they're cheerful. So I got sent to the principal's office for my bad attitude when, really, it was just because the expressions on people's faces are not always reflections of how they feel inside.

  He glances at my notebook. --What's that for?||

  --I take notes on the episodes,|| I tell him. --I have over a hundred.||

  --Episodes?||

  --Notebooks.||

  He nods. --Was Mark at Jess's place when you got there?||

  --No.|| Now, the commercial on television is for denture cream. Secretly I am very scared of losing all my teeth. Sometimes I dream about waking up and finding them rolling around on my tongue like marbles. I close my eyes so I don't have to watch. --You know Mark?||

  --We've met,|| the detective says. --Did you and Jess ever talk about him?||

  My eyes are still closed, so maybe that's why I see what I do: Mark with his hand sliding up Jessica's shirt at the pizza place. His hideous orange sweatshirt. The earring in his left ear. The bruises I saw once on Jessica's side when she reached for a book on a high shelf, two uneven purple ovals like quality stamps on a cut of beef. She told me she'd fallen off a stepladder, but she looked away when she said it. And unlike me, who looks away out of comfort, she does it in moments of discomfort.

  I see Mark smiling with only half his mouth, too.

  Now the commercial is for Law & Order: SVU, a promo, which means that the next image on the screen will be CrimeBusters again. I pick up my pen and turn the page in my notebook.

  --Did Jess and Mark fight?|| the detective asks again.

  On the TV, Rhianna is in the woods with Kurt, and they're investigating a dead dog with a human finger found undigested in its stomach.

  --Jacob?||

  --Hasta la vista, baby,|| I murmur, and I make up my mind that, no matter what this detective says to me, I'm not speaking again until my show is over.

  Theo

  So I'm headed downstairs to get something to eat when I hear a voice in the kitchen I do not recognize. This is pretty extraordinary--I'm not the only one who doesn't have friends as a result of Jacob's Asperger's; I can probably count on one hand the number of people my mother has ever trusted enough to invite over. The fact that the voice is male is even more bizarre. And then I hear my mom refer to him as Detective Matson.

  Holy crap.

  I run back upstairs and lock myself in my room. He's here because of Jess Ogilvy, and I'm officially freaked out.

  And, for the record, still hungry.

  Here's what I know for sure: Jess was alive and well at about 1:00 P.M. on Tuesday. I know this because I saw her-- all of her. Her tits, let me just say, rank right up there as masterworks of art.

  I'd say we were equally surprised when she reached for her towel, wiped her eyes, and looked in the mirror. She certainly didn't expect to find some random guy in her house, watching her naked. And I sure as hell didn't expect the object of my momentary lust to be my brother's tutor.

  --Hey!|| she yelled, and in one smooth move she grabbed the towel and wrapped it around herself. Me, meanwhile, I was totally paralyzed. I stood there like an idiot until I realized she was pissed and she was coming after me.

  The only reason I got away is that the floor of the bathroom was wet. When she stumbled, I flew out of the master bedroom, where I'd been standing, down the stairs. In my hurry, I crashed into some of the furniture and knocked a whole mess of papers off the kitchen counter, but I didn't care. All I wanted to do was get the hell out of that house and join a monastery or hop on a plane to Micronesia--anything that would put me far away by the time Jess Ogilvy asked my brother and my mom whether they were aware that Theo Hunt was a Peeping Tom, a total perv.

  But sometime between now and then, Jess
Ogilvy got dressed, left her house, and vanished. Is she wandering around with amnesia? Or hiding out and plotting some kind of revenge scheme against me?

  I don't know.

  I can't tell the cops, though, without incriminating myself.

  It's just past five-thirty when I get the nerve to leave my bedroom. I can smell blueberry pie cooking (the only good thing about Blue Food Fridays, if you ask me) and know it will be ready at six--like everything else, we eat on a schedule to keep Jacob calm.

  The door to his room is open, and he's standing on his desk chair, slipping one of his CrimeBusters journals back into its predetermined spot on a shelf.

  --Hey,|| I say to him.

  He doesn't answer. Instead, he sits down on the bed with his back to the wall and picks up a book on his nightstand.

  --I saw that the cops were here.||

  --Cop,|| Jacob murmurs. --Singular.||

  --What did he want to talk to you about?||

  --Jess.||

  --What did you tell him?||

  Jacob draws his knees up to his chest. --If you build it, he will come.||

  My brother may not communicate the way the rest of us do, but after all this time, I've learned to read him loud and clear. When he doesn't feel like talking, he hides behind someone else's words.

  I sit beside him, just staring at the wall while he reads. I want to tell him that I saw Jess alive on Tuesday. I want to ask him if he did as well, and if that's part of the reason he doesn't want to talk to the police, either.

  I wonder if he's got something to hide, too.

  For the first time in my life, Jacob and I just might have something in common.

  Emma

  It all starts with a mouse.

  After our weekly Saturday shopping excursion (thank goodness, the Free Sample Lady had been replaced temporarily by a sullen teenager handing out vegetarian cocktail wieners at the door of the grocery store), I leave Jacob sitting at the kitchen table with the remainders of his lunch while I do a cursory cleaning of his room. He forgets to bring glasses and bowls of cereal downstairs to the kitchen, and if I don't play middleman, we wind up with thriving colonies of mold that have bonded to my dishes like concrete. I pick up a bevy of mugs from his desk and spot the tiny face of a field mouse struggling to survive this winter by taking up residence behind Jacob's computer.

  I am embarrassed to admit I have a very typical female reaction and go completely ballistic. Unfortunately, I am holding a half-full glass of chocolate soy milk at the time, and most of it spills over Jacob's comforter.

  Well, it has to be washed. Although it's the weekend, and that's problematic. Jacob doesn't like seeing his bed stripped; it has to be made at all times unless he happens to be in it. Usually I wash his sheets while he's at school. Sighing, I pull fresh sheets out of the linen closet and tug the winter comforter off his bed. He can make do for a night with his summertime quilt, an old postage-stamp design in all the rainbow colors--ROYGBIV--in correct order, which my mother sewed for him before she died.

  The summer quilt is kept in a black trash bag on the upper shelf of his closet. I pull it down and shake out the blanket inside.

  A backpack rolled into its center tumbles to the floor.

  It's clearly not one that belongs to the boys. Flesh-colored with red and black stripes, it seems to be trying to be a Burberry knockoff, but the stripes are too wide and the colors too bright. There is still a Marshalls' tag on the strap, with the price ripped off.

  Inside is a toothbrush, a satin blouse, a pair of shorts, and a yellow T-shirt. The blouse and shorts are both plus-size. The T-shirt is much smaller and says SPECIAL

  OLYMPICS on the front and staff on the back.

  At the very bottom of the backpack is a notecard still inside its torn envelope.

  There's a picture of a snowy landscape, and the inside reads, in spidery handwriting: Merry Christmas Jess, Love Aunt Ruth.

  --My God,|| I murmur. --What did you do?|| I close my eyes for a moment, and then I bellow Jacob's name. He comes running into his room, stopping abruptly when he sees me holding the backpack in my arms.

  --Oh,|| he says.

  He sounds as if I've caught him in a white lie: Jacob, did you wash your hands before dinner?

  Yes, Mom.

  Then how come the bar of soap's still dry?

  Oh.

  But this isn't a white lie. This is a girl who's missing. A girl who could be dead by now. A girl whose backpack and clothes my son inexplicably has.

  Jacob starts to flee downstairs, but I grab his arm to stop him. --Where did this come from?||

  --A box at Jess's place,|| he grinds out, shutting his eyes tight until I let go.

  --Tell me why you have this. Because a lot of people are searching for Jess, and this does not look good.||

  His hand starts twitching at his side. --I told you I went to her house Tuesday, like I was supposed to. And things weren't right.||

  --What do you mean?||

  --There were stools knocked over in the kitchen, and papers all over the floor, and all the CDs were thrown on the carpet. It wasn't right, it wasn't right ...||

  --Jacob,|| I say. --Focus. How did you get this backpack? Does Jess know you have it?||

  There are tears in his eyes. --No. She was already gone.|| He starts to walk in a small circle, his hand still flapping. --I went in, and the mess ... and I was scared. I didn't know what happened. I called out her name and she wouldn't answer and I saw the backpack and the other things and I took them.|| His voice is a roller coaster, reeling off-track. --Houston, we have a problem.||

  --It's okay,|| I say, wrapping my arms around him and holding him with the deepest pressure, the way a potter would center the clay on her wheel.

  But it isn't okay. It won't be, until Jacob gives Detective Matson this new information.

  Rich

  I am not in a good mood.

  It's Saturday, and although I am supposed to have Sasha for the weekend, I had to cancel as soon as it became apparent that we had an ongoing investigation that demanded my full resources. Basically, I'm going to eat, sleep, and breathe Jess Ogilvy until I find her, dead or alive. Not that that seemed to sway my ex, who made sure to give me a fifteen-minute tongue-lashing about parental responsibility and how on earth was she supposed to carry on with her life when my emergencies kept interrupting? It wasn't worth pointing out that this was not my emergency, technically, or that the disappearance of a young woman might take precedence over rescheduling a date night with her new spouse, Mr. Coffee. I tell myself that missing one weekend with Sasha is worth it if I can make sure that Claude Ogilvy gets to have another weekend with his daughter.

  En route to Jess's home, where a team of CSIs is entrenched, I get a call from the local FBI field agent, who has been trying to ping the girl's cell phone. --You're not getting a signal,|| I repeat. --So what does that mean?||

  --Several things,|| the agent explains. --The GPS locator only works when the phone's active. So it could be at the bottom of a lake right now. Or she could be alive and well and just have run out of juice.||

  --Well, how am I supposed to know which of those it is?||

  --Guess once you find a body, it'll be pretty clear,|| he says, and then I drive through one of Vermont's notorious dead zones and the call is dropped.

  When the phone rings again, I am still cursing out the FBI (which is good for one thing and one thing only: screwing up a perfectly sound local investigation), so you can imagine how surprised I am to hear Emma Hunt on the end of the line. I had left her my card yesterday, just in case. --I was hoping you might be able to come back to my house,||

  she says. --Jacob has something he needs to tell you.||

  I have a team of investigators waiting for me on-site. I have a surly boyfriend who might be a murderer and a state senator breathing down my boss's neck, demanding my job if I don't find his missing kid. But I put on my flashing blues and do an illegal U-turn.

  --Give me ten minutes,|
| I tell her.

  I'm in a slightly better mood now.

  I have, fortunately, three whole hours before CrimeBusters airs. We are sitting in the living room--Emma and Jacob on one couch, me on a side chair. --Tell the detective everything you told me, Jacob,|| Emma says.

  His eyes roll upward, as if he is reading something printed on the ceiling. --I went to her house that day, like I was supposed to. Things weren't right. There were stools knocked over in the kitchen, and papers all over the floor, and all the CDs were thrown on the carpet. It wasn't right, it wasn't right.|| His voice seems almost computerized, it's that mechanical. --She was already gone. I went in, and the mess ... and I was scared. I didn't know what happened. I called out her name and she wouldn't answer and I saw the backpack and the other things and I took them. Houston, we have a problem. || He nods, satisfied. --That's it.||

  --Why did you lie to me about going to Jess's?|| I ask.

  --I didn't lie,|| he says. --I told you I didn't have my session with her.||

  --You didn't tell me about the backpack, either,|| I point out. It sits between us, on a coffee table.

  Jacob nods. --You didn't ask.||

  Wiseass, I think, just as Emma jumps in. --A kid with Asperger's, like Jacob, is going to be painfully literal,|| she says.

  --So if I question him directly, he'll answer directly?||

  --He,|| Jacob interjects testily, --is sitting within earshot.||

  That makes me grin. --Sorry,|| I say, addressing him. --How did you get into Jess's house?||

  --She used to leave her dorm room open for me, and when I got to her house, that door was left open, too. So I went in to wait.||

  --What did you see when you went inside?||

  --The kitchen was a mess. Stools were knocked over; and the mail was all over the floor.||

  --How about Jess? Was she there?||

  --No. I called her name, and she didn't answer.||

  --What did you do?||

  He shrugs. --I cleaned up.||

  I sink back into the cushions of the chair. --You ... cleaned up.||

  --Yes, that's correct.||

  My mind is racing through all the tampered evidence sacrificed to Jacob Hunt's obsessive-compulsive tendencies. --You know all about preserving evidence at crime scenes,|| I say. --What on earth would make you destroy it?||