Keep No Secrets

by Julie Compton

  "Michael, you know you're not supposed to be on the trail at night," she says, apparently deciding that the explanation for Jack's attire can wait until later. "And my God, with Celeste? Who knows what kind of creeps hang out there at night?" When he starts to say something, she cuts him off. "I don't know what bothers me more: that you think you can wander home whenever the mood strikes you, or that you put Celeste at risk like that."

  "Mom, it's just other kids like us.

  There's never—"

  She interrupts him again, turning to Jack. "I can't believe her dad didn't call here looking for her."

  Jack stares at Michael, letting him know that he's protected him from the big stuff, but the rest is up to him.

  Michael gets it.

  "She texted him and told him my car had trouble and she'd be late," he says.

  Claire's mouth falls open. It's not breaking curfew, it's not being in the woods. It's the lying that bothers her most, and Jack suddenly wishes he could do it over, because, like Celeste, he's now exacerbated the situation. Why am I taking the fall for him?

  "I think we need to talk to Celeste's dad tomorrow."

  "Mom, no! Please! Punish me all you want, ground me, take away my car, but please don't get her in trouble."

  She stands. "If anyone got her trouble, Michael, it's you." To Jack she says, "Why don't we all get to bed and talk about this in the morning?" He nods slightly, certain by morning she'll soften towards Michael.

  She always does.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, Claire

  sits at her desk at the law school and stares at a photo of Michael and Jamie standing at the top of Art Hill in Forest Park. The Art Museum in the background frames the boys. Both are bundled in parkas and ski pants, mittens on their hands and snow boots on their feet.

  Michael holds the sled between them.

  Their cheeks are bubblegum pink; they've already been down the hill a few times and are anxious to do it again. They stood still for the picture only after she threatened to leave right then if they didn't. Sometimes she looks at the picture and thinks, Where's Jack? She knows the answer, of course, but she thinks it nevertheless because it's the question she sees on her sons' faces.

  Jack has always loved sledding on Art Hill. When he was a kid, he did it every winter with his own dad. It's one of the few memories of the man he shares with them. He continued the tradition with Michael and Jamie. The year this picture was taken, the winter she forced his four-month exile from their home, is the only winter he missed.

  He's never said so, but she knows he doesn't like that she displays the picture on her desk. She's not sure why she does.

  She turns her attention back to the student papers in front of her. The assignment had been to write a summary judgment motion along with the

  argument to support it. Grading the papers of first year law students is difficult enough on a good day—for some reason, even those who'd attended the best universities for undergraduate school have difficulty structuring a coherent argument on paper—but today she finds her task particularly hard. It's the weekend and she'd rather be home.

  The incident with Michael the night before has been on her mind. If he simply broke curfew by fifteen minutes or a half hour, she could understand Jack's desire to go easy on him. But three hours, followed by the news that he'd spent those three hours on the trail and then lied to Celeste's dad about it? To brush it off as typical teenager stuff, as Jack convinced her to do this morning, seems a bit too lax, and she's perturbed with herself for letting him convince her. She's also a bit confused, because usually the slightest misbehavior on Michael's part ignites Jack like flint ignites a fire. It's Claire who usually argues for letting things go.

  She keeps glancing at the clock on the opposite wall. She thinks, Where's Jack?

  Why hasn't he returned her calls? She wants to talk to him about reconsidering Michael's punishment, or really, the lack thereof. Taking away his car for a few days, in her opinion, isn't much of a consequence.

  She knows the answers to these

  questions, too. The police chief called their house earlier to inform Jack that they'd picked up the suspect in a recent murder case and to ask him if he wanted to be there to watch the interrogation.

  Claire doesn't know why Chief Matthews bothered to ask the question; for the bigger cases, Jack's answer is always yes, even if he has already assigned one of his assistants to prosecute it. It's one of the reasons he's so good at what he does. It's also one of the reasons his team respects him—he doesn't mind getting down in the trenches and he always makes himself available to do so. His efforts sometimes take a toll on their family life, but she does her best to understand. He gets results, too; his office has one of the highest conviction rates in the state, which is all the more impressive because of the large size of the population it serves.

  This latest case mesmerized the city when the crime first occurred two months before. Jack expects it to become a full-blown circus once the arrest is made. On the surface, the case sounded like so many other domestic murder cases, but Jack's instincts told him this one was different. Perhaps it was the fact that the husband was the victim, the wife the presumed perpetrator. Perhaps it was the gruesome way the murderer disposed of the body. It had been wrapped in plastic sheeting and duct tape and buried under ten inches of cement in the couple's basement. Or maybe, even, it was simply the pictures of the couple in their younger, happier days that repeatedly appeared on the front page of the paper when the story first broke. Regardless, Jack's instincts are usually right.

  She's already called the DA's office twice, thinking he might have stopped there after the interrogation; she refuses to allow herself a third attempt. She hasn't tried his cell because if he's still at the jail, she doesn't want to disturb him.

  Two graded papers later her phone rings and she sees it's him calling from his cell phone.

  "Wow. That must have been some interrogation." She smiles and swivels her chair around to look out her window as she talks. Heavy clouds march across the sky, pushed eastward by the cold front.

  The deserted campus is winter brown, but the air smelled of snow when she arrived several hours ago; it's only a matter of time and her view will be transformed into a white wonderland.

  He doesn't respond. She hears the tap of his footsteps on the sidewalk. She guesses he's walking from the jail to his car. Or maybe to his office.

  "Oh, you mean Bedford," he says finally, referring to the couple's surname.

  "That's the case you went over to the jail on a Sunday for, isn't it?"

  "Yeah, yeah. It was fine. I mean, we got a confession from the wife, so, you know, that makes it easier."

  "So what was her story? Why'd she do it?"

  Again, he falls silent. The branches of the leafless oak tree next to the building bend from the wind and scratch against the glass in front of her.

  "You there?" she asks.

  "Look," he says, "I don't know that I should be discussing the details of the case."

  In all the years he's worked at the prosecutor's office, she can't remember him ever saying this to her. Even if there were details he thought he couldn't share

  —and she knows that's often the case—

  he'd never couch it as a refusal to answer her questions. He'd simply craft an acceptable answer that neither denied her nor gave away confidential information.

  "I'm not asking you to tell me anything that won't be on the news."

  "She said he cheated on her."

  Claire closes her eyes. Why did she persist? Why didn't she trust his instincts?

  It might have been naïve of him to think he could protect her, protect them, from the specifics about the case—after all, it will be on the news—but still, he tried.

  When she doesn't respond—she simply has no idea what she could say now—he speaks up.

  "I'm sorry it took me so long. I wouldn't have known you'd called if I hadn't checked my
office messages. I wish you'd tried my cell."

  Still shaken, she says, "That's okay. It wasn't important enough to disturb you."

  "Why are you at the law school today?"

  "I dunno. Since you wouldn't be home anyway, I figured I'd catch up here. I made Michael watch Jamie. A little extra punishment, I guess."

  "Good idea."

  When she doesn't say more, he says,

  "What were you trying to reach me about?"

  "Nothing. It wasn't a big deal. We can talk about it tonight." She swivels back around toward her desk and collects the papers she was grading. Holding the phone between her shoulder and ear, she places them in a manila folder and sets the folder on the corner of her desk for later.

  "Are you still there?"

  "Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm just gathering my notes." The activity outside her open door has picked up as students pass in the hallway.

  "Will you be on campus for a while? I thought I'd head over later this afternoon after I stop by my office."

  In the last few years, once a week or so, he's taken to spending evenings at the law library at a study table on the fifth floor.

  He claims it helps him escape the distractions of the DA's office, but Claire knows the DA's office after hours is just as quiet as the law library. It's a government office; come five o'clock, most of his attorneys and staff are long gone. She suspects his visits to the library began instead as an effort to spend more time with her. Sometimes, after enlisting Michael to watch Jamie, they'd leave campus to have dinner alone before heading back to their house.

  But his visits became a habit. Now he often stays late into the night, even after Claire has locked up her office door and left for home. He seems to appreciate the unique solitude he finds at the vacant library, where he sits hidden from sight between the stacks. He's always been a quiet man, preferring the company of his thoughts to the social chatter of others, but after he accepted responsibility for imploding their lives, his preference grew to a need. She doesn't begrudge him the time alone.

  "No, Michael wants me to take him to Sports Authority, and I also want to stop by the grocery store." She picks up the folder again, yanks on a file drawer and fingers the files inside until she finds a spot for the folder. "We've got a lot of errands to run, so take your time. No rush. I'll feed them while I'm out."

  Two students—a young man and

  woman—loiter in her doorway. It's obvious they're waiting for her to hang up. She wishes now that she'd closed her door.

  "I'm sorry, Jack, but I really need to go.

  Two students have noticed I'm here and they're waiting to talk to me."

  "Okay." He sighs. "Claire? Before you hang up . . ."

  She stops her busyness, reclaims the receiver with one hand. Listens.

  He hesitates. "I don't know for sure, but the press might, you know, decide to have some fun with me about the

  Bedford case."

  Oddly, the warning calms her. She feels a surge of affection for him, for his desire to protect her, even though he can't.

  "Oh, well, we've survived worse, right?" She tries to say it lightly, tries to insert a short laugh after the words, but her efforts fall flat. She hears him take a deep breath.

  "Right. I guess we have."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HE SMELLS THE scent.

  It's happened before. The first time, when he and Claire cut through the cosmetics department at the mall, his heartbeat soared with such trepidation that he clutched at his chest, startling Claire. Another time, alone in line at a coffee shop near their house, it came up behind him like a wind on a blustery day.

  Both times he experienced the same physical sensation, the fleeting but intense pounding of his heart. It ended as soon as it began, after the mistake in his assumption quickly (and with much relief) became apparent.

  Those other times, no touch came on the heels of the scent. Neither the girl at the cosmetics counter nor the woman who stood behind him in line at the coffee shop knew him intimately enough to touch him.

  This time is different. It happens so fast. So fast that his brain doesn't even have time to think, "Someone wearing the same cologne must have just walked the same path I'm about to walk." No time to reassure himself, "It's nothing more than a scent."

  It's late. Almost midnight. He just left the law library at the university. He approaches the pedestrian tunnel that will take him to the other side of Forsyth Avenue, past the dorms and to the spot where he parked his car. He glances at the blue light above the emergency phone near the tunnel entrance, but other than the simple recognition of the phone's existence, he doesn't think twice about it.

  His footsteps become louder inside the tunnel. The tunnel isn't lit, as it usually is, but he doesn't think twice about that either. He's not thinking at all, really, and it's nice, the respite from the usual noise in his head.

  If a hand unexpectedly reaches out of the dark and touches you at midnight on a deserted college campus, your first emotion is probably fear. Your first instinct is one of two—fight or flight. But not when the hand touching you has already left its mark. Not when, in the split second before you feel the touch and hear the voice, you smell the scent that has the power to weaken your knees and make any protective response impossible.

  No, in that case, your response is altogether different. It's still instinctive, but it's not the response that will save your life.

  "Jack, it's me," comes a voice from the past, barely a whisper, its owner unseen, but known.

  He's left with only one response. Just one.

  He turns to the voice.

  The hand slips down his arm and grasps his wrist. It pulls him, and he takes a step, allowing it to happen.

  "Jack," she says again.

  "Jenny," he says, but maybe he only thinks it. Maybe he remains mute.

  He hears her shallow breathing, and he realizes she's as nervous as he is.

  Everything is happening so fast, and yet he still has enough time to have this thought before the hand moves to the back of his neck and pulls his head closer.

  Before the lips touch his.

  The kiss doesn't last long. Not like the first one so long ago. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. And he's no fool.

  This time, he resists from the start.

  The lies come fast, also.

  Later, he climbs into bed, and Claire rolls over to greet him, barely awake.

  "Your skin is so cold," she says as she pulls him into her arms.

  "It's freezing out." That part is true.

  "You're shivering still."

  "Yeah," he agrees. But that part is a lie.

  He turned up the heat in the car on the way home, and the interior grew toasty in minutes. He's not shivering; he's shaking.

  And there's a difference.

  As Claire drifts back to sleep, he lies in the dark and wonders why she didn't smell it, too. Because even now, he still can. It settled on his coat and then, when the hand made its way to the back of his neck, burned its way into his skin.

  Morning comes and he's still awake. He still smells it.

  Her. He still smells her.

  He takes a shower but even afterwards, even after he's toweled off and dressed, he still smells her. In the kitchen, he drops a kiss on Jamie's head as he eats his Cream of Wheat at the table, and he hopes he didn't leave the scent on his son the way she left it on him. He kisses Claire, too, and she looks him in the eye for a long moment, and he looks back. He wants to say, "Please save me." But instead he's silent. She places a palm on his cheek in the same way she's done so many times before and says, "I love you, you know."

  He smiles, a genuine smile, and says, "I know." Because he does. He also says, "I love you, too." Because he does. The lies aren't what he says; they're what he doesn't say.

  After breakfast, he drives out to St.

  Charles, to the little motel off Highway 94 where she told him she's rented a room. He told her he'd only be willing
to listen away from prying eyes. Yet even this, he knows, has its own dangers.

  He stands at her door and pulls his coat collar up around his neck. It's even colder today—26 degrees, with a light snow beginning to fall—but this isn't why he does it.

  Her hair is still wet when she answers.

  She invites him in while she finishes in the bathroom. He says he'll wait in the car. He pretends not to hear her sigh.

  When she climbs into the passenger seat, snowflakes sprinkle her black hair.

  The hair is now dry, and warm from the blow dryer, he imagines. In an instant, the flakes melt and disappear.

  He drives. He knows her eyes are on him, but neither of them speaks. He prays for restraint.

  He drives north on 61. He considers stopping in Bowling Green, but no, he wants to be even farther away. He remembers a little café in Hannibal, next to the river, and feels sure it will be empty on a day like today.

  "Jack," she says, trying to begin, but he cuts her off with a shake of the head. Not yet.

  His cell phone rings and as he pulls it from the front breast pocket of his coat, she turns to face the window. Giving him some privacy.

  "Hey," he says into the phone. There's no way he won't answer. There's no way he's going to send the message to the woman in the car that the woman on the phone comes second.

  "Hey," Claire says back. "Sorry to bother you. I just got off the phone with Mom and she wants to know if we're coming for Christmas. I didn't want to answer without checking with you."

  His mother-in-law, like his wife, has forgiven him. His father-in-law never will, but he puts up with his presence

  nevertheless. He'd have a gun at his head if he knew where he was just then, the bullet already on its way.

  "Sure. I think the kids would like that, too." Well, at least Jamie will. Michael, at sixteen, doesn't like anything. Least of all, his father.