Keep No Secrets

by Julie Compton

  "You got a lot going on today?"

  "Yeah, a few meetings out of the office." He swallows.

  The lies aren't what he says; they're what he doesn't say.

  "Claire?" she asks after he's said his goodbye and hit disconnect.

  Without taking his eyes from the road, he nods slightly.

  She turns to the window again.

  In Hannibal, the snow is sticking. An inch, maybe an inch and a half, has already accumulated. He pulls into the gravel lot of the café. After parking, he walks to her side of the car and opens the door. She knows him so well. She knows he'll do this, despite everything, and so she has waited. She meets his eye as she steps out, and mouths a polite "thank you." Again, he simply nods.

  Last night, lying in bed and unable to sleep, he considered whether meeting in public, even so far away, is best. He decided, without much debate, it is.

  He glances at the river. A large tree has fallen over and juts into the water from the bank. The exposed roots are white from the snow. The brown water bubbles and swells before finding its way to the other side.

  He asks the waitress for a booth near the window in the back. This way he can see who comes, who goes. They both order coffee as they take off their coats and hang them on the chrome coat hook that stands between each booth. He sneaks a look when her back is turned. She's wearing slim jeans, a white knit

  turtleneck, boots. When the waitress leaves, he lowers himself into the booth.

  Leaning back, he rests one arm along the back ledge and scans the restaurant, looking at everything except the woman across from him. He knows it's forced nonchalance, so he drops the arm and props both elbows on the table. While the waitress pours the coffee, the two women engage in meaningless banter and he finally allows himself a long look at her face.

  She hasn't changed. Not much. Her dark skin is still smooth and flawless; her thick hair still falls to mid-back in a straight, sleek curtain. She's lost a few pounds she didn't need to lose, and when she smiles, the corners of her eyes reveal a few wrinkles he doesn't remember, but these details feel organic and therefore don't diminish her beauty. He wishes they did.

  The waitress leaves and he busies himself with fixing his coffee. Hers remains untouched.

  "Jack," she tries again, but he cuts her off.

  "Am I sitting across from a murderer?

  Did you kill Maxine Shepard?"

  For a long time they stare at each other. He hopes she says yes. For the first time, he wants so badly for her to say yes.

  "What do you think?"

  He doesn't answer at first. He

  continues to stare at her. She stares back.

  Finally, he says, "I know who Maxine was."

  "I'm sure you do."

  "She wasn't simply your client. She'd been your father's mistress."

  "Yes."

  "A very expensive mistress. You thought she was the reason the mob put out a hit on your father. That she was the reason your parents and sister were executed."

  Her jaw clenches but she doesn't avert her eyes. "Know. I know she was the reason my parents and sister were executed."

  When she reaches with her right hand for the small pewter creamer, her sleeve rises up her arm and he startles to see an angry scar on her inside wrist. She notices his reaction but doesn't say anything.

  "Where have you been? If you're innocent, why did you run?"

  She shakes her head in disgust. "You, of all people, are asking me such a question?" Her eyes become glassy but he's prepped himself for that. "Since when did innocence inoculate a person from being convicted?"

  "They dropped the charges against you, remember?" he answers sarcastically.

  "Oh, please, spare me, Jack." She stirs cream into her cup too forcefully; the spoon clinks loud against the sides.

  "Coming after me again wouldn't constitute double jeopardy unless I'd been tried. You know that. Dropping the charges doesn't mean a damn thing. I'm at risk of being charged now as much as I was the day she was murdered. Maybe more."

  "Well, taking off in the dark of the night doesn't lend much support to your claim of innocence."

  "Easy words from a prosecutor." She glares at him over the top of her cup.

  "Where have you been?"

  "Chicago. My brother's."

  "They looked there."

  She scoffs. "Not very well."

  She's right, of course. The feeble attempts to find her were all for show.

  Despite her professed fear of being charged again, they'd gotten one

  conviction already. Why muddy the waters?

  When the waitress reappears he

  realizes, as they talked, they have leaned closer to each other across the table. Old habits die hard. He sits back. She does the same, swiping underneath each eye with the heel of her palm. A strand of hair clings to her cheek and he resists the desire to touch it, to smooth it back in place. She orders oatmeal and sliced bananas, honey on the side. He orders a grapefruit but doubts he'll get even that down.

  Left alone once again, he asks, "So why'd you come back?"

  "There's something happening." He waits, and she adds, "I need your help."

  He grunts at that unintelligible

  response.

  She suddenly reaches across the table and her scarred hand covers his. "Jack, please." It happens so fast, like the kiss the night before, but somehow this feels more intimate. He starts to pull his hand away but she tightens her grip and he relents. "Please don't be like this."

  The words make him angry. "Do you have any idea the position you've put me in, just by being here? Just by showing up?"

  "Yes, I do, I—"

  "She gave me a second chance. I don't get any more, you know? Just being here, just being here. . ."

  She releases his hand and leans back, crosses her arms. "Yet knowing that, you're still here."

  He lays down the rules. He tells her he won't make any decisions until he knows everything, and if for one minute he thinks she's not being honest or telling him everything— everything—his answer will be "no."

  "You don't trust me?"

  "No, I don't." He answers quickly.

  She lowers her eyes, bites her bottom lip.

  "You will answer any question I ask you, and you will answer it truthfully.

  You will tell me everything I need to know, even if I don't ask first.

  Understand?"

  She nods.

  "Let's start again. Am I sitting across from a murderer?"

  "No."

  "Look me in the eye when you answer."

  She raises her head and he knows he could easily get lost in those eyes again.

  She knows it, too. "No."

  "Am I sitting across from an accomplice to a murderer?"

  This time her answer doesn't come so swiftly. She's still staring at him. She tilts her head; he sees the trace of a grin, evidence of the woman he remembers.

  "What? Did you bring handcuffs to take me out of here?"

  Finally, when he doesn't react, she says,

  "No."

  "You're aware that I have to tell someone you're back in town?"

  "I know you might. I'm aware that's the risk I'm taking."

  "Did you not understand the question?

  Do you understand I will tell someone you're back?"

  She sighs. "You said you wanted me to be completely honest."

  He nods.

  "Like I said, I know you might. But the truth is, despite what you say, I don't think you will."

  She's right. But still he asks, "What makes you so sure?" He's so angry at her.

  He's so angry that she still has this much power over him, after so much time.

  After everything.

  He expects a sarcastic answer, but she says, "Because of exactly what you said,"

  and then surprises him with an apologetic shrug. She suddenly seems so lost and alone. "Because, just being here . . . I know what I'm asking, and what it could mean to yo
u, if someone finds out."

  She reaches up again, but the tear falls this time before she catches it. "I'm sorry." She's apologizing for the tears, and he wants to believe she's acting. It took him almost four years to believe she'd been acting. Almost four years to accept that he'd been duped. He wants to believe that's what she's doing right now.

  But she's so damn good.

  "Do you know about Alex's conviction?"

  She nods, brushes the stray hair away from her cheek, and the motion almost crushes him. She doesn't otherwise react to the mention of her former boyfriend's name, and Jack wonders if she ever had feelings for him. Maybe she was merely biding her time. For what, though? For Jack? Don't let yourself go there.

  "Is he on death row for a crime he didn't commit?" Or more accurately, was an innocent man railroaded, and was I, as your alibi, unwittingly at the helm of the train?

  "I don't know."

  "Jenny." Saying her name out loud makes his chest tighten. "Did Alex murder Maxine Shepard?"

  " I don't know," she insists.

  They talk all morning in the café and then, when a small lunch crowd straggles in, they move to a bench overlooking the river. The snow has stopped. At two-thirty, they return to the car. He opens the door for her again and realizes she has marked the car, too, with her scent.

  By three-thirty he has her back at her motel. He still hasn't given her an answer about whether he'll help her; he tells her he has to think about it.

  He drives for hours, thinking about what she's told him. That she's received threats, that she thinks they've come from the same men who murdered three-fifths of her family. He doesn't try to figure out whether it's the truth or not, or what she expects him to do about it. He simply drives. At some point he puts the windows down, but it gets so cold he shivers and puts them back up.

  When he asked "Why me?" she simply stared at him. Who else? her eyes asked.

  He arrives home just before

  dinnertime. In contrast to the three inches in Hannibal, the snow here has only dusted the yard. Claire stands in front of the center island, the glow from the oven light behind her. When she moves to greet him, he sees a roasting chicken through the oven window.

  Potatoes in water are just beginning to boil on the stove. In another pot, fresh green beans. The burner underneath the beans hasn't been turned on yet. He knows she's making the chicken for him, for his willingness to spend Christmas with her parents.

  "Hi," she says, and kisses his cheek. She takes his overcoat even though he was about to head to the coat closet himself.

  He wonders if the scent lingers on the coat.

  "I can get it," he says, but she waves him off.

  "I opened a bottle of wine," she calls from the front hall. Back in the kitchen she adds, "It'll be another 45 minutes or so to dinner. Michael should be home from practice by then."

  Jack grabs two wine goblets from the cabinet and pours the wine. It's red, some sort of Australian Syrah. She's never cared about matching wine to the food, and he's always liked that about her. He hands her a glass and sits on a barstool.

  She slides onto the stool next to him and smiles.

  "To an early winter," she says, and raises her glass. She loves winter, especially snow. He lifts his in turn and the small sound when the glasses clink makes him feel better about everything, somehow.

  After their first sip, she asks, "So how were your meetings? Did you have to go far?" She sips again and waits for his response.

  He remembers the trip to Napa Valley.

  The first trip together, after. They both spent the summer trying to heal, but in the glare of the media, and even

  surrounded by those who meant well—

  family and friends—it wasn't easy. When her mother offered to take the kids for them to get away together, he didn't hesitate. It'd been the right thing to do, too. In the small tram overlooking the golden valley, on the way up to the gleaming white walls of Sterling

  Vineyards, she reached for his hand and gave him a look. It took his breath away, that look, because for just that moment, she'd let it go. He knew it'd be back, it was only a respite, but he thought the bottom was behind them.

  The next day, they took the tour at Robert Mondavi. Unlike Sterling, it was in the valley. What had the guide there said? You can't judge the wine until the third sip.

  "Not too bad," he says in answer to her questions—both of them. He sniffs his wine before taking the next sip, but he barely picks up anything. His memory of the other scent is too strong.

  "Not a good day?" The question is so innocent. She can read him, she always could, yet he knows she doesn't suspect a thing. She's learned to trust him again.

  "Just a lot on my mind, I guess."

  "Bedford?"

  She's asking about the new case, trying to face it head on rather than letting it become a white elephant for them.

  Unbeknownst to Claire, he answers about that other, long forgotten one.

  "Yeah, I've got a bad feeling about it.

  It's not how I want to spend the

  holidays."

  The lies aren't what he says; they're what he doesn't say.

  That night, she's all over him in bed. It's not sexual, not yet. Curled up in the crook of his arm, then almost on top of him with her face inches from his as she tells him a funny story about something silly Jamie did that day. It's the wine, and the snow. She's excited, happy about life in general, and she wants him to be, too.

  There was a time when it would have been so easy to ignore the noise in his head, to let her cajole him out of his mood. He'd kiss her, or she'd kiss him, and they'd respond to each other. Within minutes, nothing else would matter. After all the years together, she still turns him on.

  But he made a vow to her, to himself, really, that he'd break that habit. Ignoring the noise never extinguished it; it merely delayed it and, ironically, fed it.

  So instead, he speaks the question as soon as it comes to mind, before he loses his nerve.

  "Claire, do you trust me again? I mean, fully, completely. Can I tell you anything and know you'd still trust me, even if what I say won't be easy to hear?"

  There's a sudden shift in the room. He hears her breathing in the dark. He thinks he hears her swallow. Even though the bedroom door is closed, he hears

  footsteps climbing the stairs, Michael finally going to bed. He suddenly wants to take it back, to turn back time just one minute. One minute only.

  The wait is interminable. He barely sees her face outlined in the dim light seeping through the blinds. But he knows she's staring at him.

  "Do you want the truth?" she whispers, and her voice quivers. She's terrified, and he despises himself for doing this to her.

  But the alternative is even worse. He knows that now. "Or do you want me to tell you want you want to hear?"

  "I want the truth."

  She rolls away from him onto her back.

  She pulls the covers higher, as if protecting herself. Their shoulders are still touching underneath the sheet.

  "It depends. Yes, I trust you again. But it's a very fragile trust and I can't promise you that it can withstand anything you might say." She pauses. He knows what she's about to ask. "Have you done something to break that trust?"

  "No, I don't think so. But . . ."

  The light goes out in the hall, the room grows even darker.

  "Don't keep me waiting, Jack. Just spit it out."

  Her voice has changed. It's louder, clearer. And stronger. She's braced herself.

  Under the covers, he reaches for her hand. She lets him take it.

  "Jenny's back."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE WORDS HIT Claire like a sucker-punch. She'd bend over if she weren't already lying down. Fear clutches at her throat, making it impossible to speak. It's worse than the fear she felt four years ago. When he first asked the question, she thought he was about to admit to an attraction to another woman, a different woman. Nip it in the bud by telli
ng her.

  But now she realizes how ridiculous this was. Of course it's Jenny. Who else could it be? Although he's always radiated a boyish innocence that charms women—

  all women—without even trying, he's never been a player. It's why she fell for him.

  Jenny is the only other woman capable of harnessing his light for herself.

  It's almost as if she's stopped breathing.

  He can't hear a thing, not a thing.

  Suddenly she springs up and sits on the edge of the bed, her lovely, naked back facing him. When he reaches over and touches her lightly, she shudders.

  "Claire?"

  When she speaks, he hears the tears in her voice. "Listen to me," she says. "I'm not going to ask you questions. I don't want to have to guess at what questions to ask, even, to pry it out of you. I just want you to tell me everything." The statement reminds him of what he said to Jenny in the café in Hannibal.

  "Okay," he says quietly. He can do this.

  He can tell her everything without fear because he's done nothing. Nothing, at least, that he can't tell her about. He's already convinced himself of that. The one single thing he won't tell her about—

  the brief kiss in the tunnel—had nothing to do with him; he's already convinced himself of that, too.

  "Last night," he begins, "heading to my car from the law library, I was walking through the underpass, and she was there, waiting for me." It sounds so freaky now that he's said it out loud. It sounds as if she was stalking him. At the time, after the initial shock of seeing her, he didn't find it so odd. It was as if he'd been waiting for that moment for four years.

  As if he knew, eventually, it would happen. He simply hadn't known when, or where. But the fact of it, the certainty?

  Yeah. He always knew.

  "She didn't say anything, not then . . ."

  Claire twitches, then fiddles with the covers to disguise it. She doesn't miss a thing. She knows, simply from his words, that he's seen her twice already. Just since last night. "Only that she needed to talk to me. She wouldn't say why." He waits at first, but remembering this isn't a normal back and forth conversation, he goes on.