Keep No Secrets

by Julie Compton

  "You want to call a bail bondsman?"

  Gunner asks.

  Jack has considered the option of bonding himself out, but it would be too risky. Any bondsman Jack might reach would have no incentive for keeping his mouth shut. If Earl arranges it, however, and the bondsman fails to exercise discretion, he stands to lose a huge chunk of business. Jack might have to wait longer, but just then, his privacy is more valuable than his time.

  So he shakes his head at Gunner's question. Better to let Earl handle everything.

  Jack sits in a holding cell for hours until finally they come to tell him Earl has arrived. Without his watch, he's lost track of time but he suspects it's the middle of the night. An officer he hasn't seen before leads him to another interrogation room to wait for Earl; on the way he asks if he can call his wife. He's shocked when the officer tells him Claire called the station hours ago and was informed that Jack was being booked. Jack wonders why she hasn't come.

  "You can't afford me, you know."

  Earl's voice behind Jack startles him.

  He realizes he fell asleep sitting up. He didn't even hear the door open. He's certain another half hour or forty-five minutes has passed.

  When Jack turns, Earl gives him a devilish grin. For a moment Jack allows himself to think Earl might get this resolved before it becomes public. If it hasn't already.

  To his surprise, when Jack rises to greet him, Earl grasps Jack's hand and reels him in like a fish for a fatherly hug.

  Jack can't remember when he was last hugged like this. Perhaps it's everything that's happened over the past several days, perhaps it's exhaustion from sitting in a cell all night, but his emotions are as sensitive as the tentacles on a jellyfish. He clings to Earl a little longer than he otherwise might have. He doesn't even bother asking him where he's been, what took so long.

  "Did you talk to Claire?"

  "I did. And I told her I'd call again once I saw you and had an idea how much longer this would take." He sees the question in Jack's eyes. "I won't lie to you, Jack. She's upset. She didn't pull any punches with me. She said that once she talked to Michael and he confirmed that you had taken—what's her name, Celeste?

  —home, and that you'd been gone for several hours—"

  "It wasn't several hours. It probably wasn't even two full—"

  "Jack."

  Jack stops mid-sentence and drops back into the hard chair. "Sorry. Go on."

  Earl takes a chair on the opposite side of the table. "Like I said, she's upset. She doesn't know what to think."

  "She said that? What does that mean, for Christ's sake? She thinks I did whatever the hell Celeste's accusing me of?" As soon as he speaks the words, he realizes he still doesn't know what, exactly, Celeste claims he did to her. He knows only that he's been charged with a laundry list of crimes—second degree statutory rape, second degree statutory sodomy, sexual assault and deviate sexual assault—all intended, he also knows, to cover the bases. Just in case. "And what did I supposedly do?"

  "First, you need to understand that it's not clear if she's claiming you forced yourself on her. But that doesn't really—"

  "Wonderful. I'll have to send her a thank you note."

  Earl sighs. "But with the statutory charges, it doesn't matter if technically she consented. And even on the others, she admits she'd been drinking, so any consent wouldn't really—"

  "Yeah, but it does matter if technically, I didn't do anything." Jack laughs sarcastically. "I'm a prosecutor, remember? Will you stop talking to me like I don't already know all this?"

  "Yeah, I will, if you'll start acting like a prosecutor and stop acting like an accused."

  "Fuck off."

  With that, Earl pulls his phone out of his shirt pocket and with his thumb, starts scrolling through messages. He might have done it for effect, yet Jack sees he really is working. His brow furrows as he reads an email; his jaw tightens with deep thought. Jack could be a spider on the wall as far as Earl's concerned.

  Earl hasn't changed since crossing over, not a bit. This reassures Jack and pisses him off all at once. Earl's calm in the face of a storm has always been his biggest strength, and something Jack envied, too. Most who know Jack believe he's followed in Earl's footsteps. For the most part, he has. He plays it cool, too, in the courtroom, with opposing counsel, before the media. The only time he ever cracked in public—truly cracked—was on the witness stand at Alex's trial, when he testified about the night spent with Jenny.

  But Earl, like Claire, like Jenny even, knows there's another side to Jack. An impulsive side. Claire accepts it, maybe even loves it as long as it's honest. Jenny, he thinks, used it to manipulate him. (Jack has never quite understood how he could know this and yet still be vulnerable.) Earl, though, ignores it until it passes.

  Jack closes his eyes and tries to gather his thoughts. He'd like to react to the allegations as he might if he were representing a client, but that's difficult when he's the one being threatened with time behind bars.

  "It's ironic," Jack mutters, almost to himself. "Why would I mess with Celeste when the real thing is just across town?"

  Earl lowers the phone. When his

  expression transforms before Jack's eyes, Jack remembers that Earl doesn't know.

  "Claire didn't tell you?" he asks.

  "Tell me what, Jack?"

  But Earl's tone tells Jack that he knew the minute Jack spoke the words "the real thing."

  "You're in contact with Jenny?"

  Jack nods and qualifies the answer by adding, "She contacted me. She's back in town."

  "And Claire is aware of this?"

  "Yes."

  "Funny, she didn't mention it to me when we talked."

  "Yeah, well, I think we both agree it's best if it stays under the radar."

  Earl crosses his thick arms over his chest. He rubs his chin as he thinks about what he's just learned. He knows as well as Jack that the authorities would love to question Jenny anew. Yet he represented her back when she was charged with Maxine Shepard's murder. In fact, she was one of his first clients in his new role as a criminal defense attorney, and he'd been instrumental in getting the charges against her dropped. He'd be the last one to rat her out. "I understand why you and Jenny would feel that way, but Claire? I would think she'd love to see Jenny squirm."

  Jack doesn't bother responding. Earl knows Claire wouldn't sacrifice her family to the media merely to avenge the pain Jenny—and Jack—had caused her.

  "So why's she back?" he asks. "And why are you in contact with her?"

  "She's being threatened, and she thinks the threats are coming from the guys who murdered her family." From the expectant look on Earl's leathery face, he wants more. "She wants me to help her find out what's going on."

  "She's being threatened thirty years after the fact? Doesn't that strike you as odd?" Earl asks. When Jack doesn't answer—he doesn't have enough facts yet to argue her cause—Earl adds, "And how, exactly, are you supposed to help her?"

  Jack shrugs. It's not that he doesn't know. It's just that he doesn't want to discuss it with Earl. Jack has Earl's old job, and he'll always feel beholden to him for it. He groomed Jack for the position, and he did everything within his power to make sure Jack was elected to succeed him. Jack's relationship with Jenny brought disgrace to the DA's office—and by extension, to Earl—once already, and Jack doesn't want him thinking he'll do it again.

  "I'm not sure yet."

  "Jack—"

  "I don't want to talk about this. I won't do anything stupid. I learned my lesson, okay?" His words sound defensive, but they weren't meant to. Earl wants to talk about Jenny, but she's the least of his problems right now. "Can we just focus on getting me out of here? Where do things stand?"

  Earl's hard stare sends Jack a clear message: Fine, but the conversation is merely postponed, not finished. "I've got the ball rolling. I'll want you to waive your preliminary hearing. I don't want the state to have a practice run. The paperwork for your bai
l is being prepared. When it's done, you'll be a free man, for now."

  Jack pretends not to notice the for now.

  "Did they tell you what they've got?"

  "Her word against a known liar, for starters."

  Jack holds his tongue. Earl isn't judging him; he's being honest.

  "Her fingerprints in your car. What they think—"

  "They've searched my car already?"

  "Went for the warrant even as they were booking you."

  So much for professional courtesy. "Of course her fingerprints are in my car! I drove her home."

  Earl nods. "Obviously. They also found hairs they think belong to her, and

  —"

  "Earl, none of this—"

  He puts his hand up. "I know. Let me finish. They found hairs on her coat that they think belong to you. But also," he pauses, "one under her coat." Jack waits, silent, but his heart beats so hard that he hears it in his ears. "It was on her bra," he adds quietly. " In her bra."

  Jack stands and begins to pace the small room. "Listen to me. That night, Michael and Celeste were fooling around on our couch when I interrupted them. I didn't actually see them, I only heard them, so for all I know Celeste could have been stark naked. Do you get my point?"

  "I get your point. But you know as well as I do that all they needed to make the arrest was probable cause. When they put everything together—hell, they don't even need to put everything together, one or two of the things I've mentioned would be sufficient—they've got probable cause.

  You know that."

  Jack does know it. He also knows that even though there's an explanation for every single bit of evidence Earl has mentioned, a jury will get bored real fast listening to Earl offer those explanations.

  Taken in totality, the evidence is damning.

  "Did they give you an idea when they'd have the tests back?"

  "They wouldn't commit to anything.

  My guess is we'll hear immediately if the hair belongs to you, and they'll claim a backlog if it doesn't. But even if we can explain away the hairs, there's a larger problem. One that even if you can explain, you might not be believed." He sighs deeply. "She wouldn't let them do a gynecological exam, but she did let them take scrapings from under her

  fingernails."

  Jack closes his eyes and shakes his head.

  He simply can't believe this is happening.

  When the Chief first broke the news, Jack assumed that Celeste had something to hide and decided after the fact to use him as her scapegoat. Now he's reconsidering that assumption. Now he wonders if she hadn't already decided to set him up the minute she climbed into the car. Was she that manipulative? Did she know exactly what she was doing when she grabbed his arm and scratched it? He wishes he could talk to her. He feels certain he could break her, persuade her to come clean.

  But he knows that he won't have the chance to confront his accuser until trial.

  By then, his life won't be recognizable.

  He pulls up his shirt sleeve and shows Earl the scratch they'd photographed.

  Earl merely nods, barely looking at it. "I saw the photos," he says. He sighs. "What happened, Jack?"

  He starts at the beginning, at the point when he first heard their voices

  downstairs. Earl listens without

  expression until Jack gets to the part where he lied to Claire in his effort to protect Michael. Earl's square jaw tightens and his gray eyes darken.

  "Why didn't you simply tell Claire you'd driven her home?" he asks, even though Jack has explained it once already.

  "I told you. When Michael heard her voice, he panicked. He begged me not to tell her what happened. I know I

  shouldn't have—"

  "But you said he didn't want Claire to know they'd been fooling around. You could have told her about the drinking, though, right? And that would have been reason enough not to let Michael drive her home."

  Earl questions Jack with the skepticism he uses when cross-examining a witness, and Jack resents it. He understands why Earl is doing it—he's forcing Jack to think about these things now, before a less friendly interrogator forces him to think about them on a witness stand—

  but he can't help but resist the mirror Earl wants him to look into.

  The two of them regard each other for a long moment. "I guess I wanted my son to like me again," Jack finally says.

  "Okay, I can buy that. In fact, knowing you as I do, I do buy that. But I think there's more."

  The small room feels like a balloon with the air being sucked out. Jack remembers when they first arrested Jenny for the murder of her client, how he had to fight to see her. When they finally let him in, he sat with her in a room very similar to this one. At the time, he thought he understood how she felt, confined behind the impenetrable

  concrete walls.

  He didn't have a clue.

  He has one now.

  "Have you seen Celeste?" Jack asks.

  "No, but Claire described her to me."

  Jack shrugs. "Well, then you know why it was easy not to tell Claire. I didn't want her to wonder. I've never even thought of something like that with Celeste— she's a kid, for Christ's sake—but I just didn't want Claire wondering. Always

  wondering."

  "You really thought she might?"

  Earl eyes Jack as if he's curious about what the last four years have been like for Jack and Claire. Jack wants to tell him that they've been good. That things were different from how they used to be, that a certain thread between them had been irreparably broken, but still, they were good. Good enough that Jack has to think twice before answering the question.

  He'd like to say no. He wishes he could. If everything happening now had happened four years ago, before he'd fallen down Jenny's rabbit hole, he could have. But as much as Claire claims to trust him again, wants to trust him again, Jack would be deluding himself to think that she does completely. She still loves him, he's sure of that. She wouldn't stick around if she didn't. But her

  unconditional trust is gone forever.

  "I didn't think she'd wonder, Earl. I knew she would."

  The Chief agrees to hold off recording the charges in the arrest log until Jack and Earl have left the jail and Jack has time to get home. As they leave, an exhausted Jack thanks Gunner as if Jack were a houseguest and Gunner the host.

  The sun seems unusually bright for six thirty in the morning. On the sidewalk, Earl offers to buy Jack breakfast. He declines, as Earl knew he would. Earl reminds Jack to keep quiet with the press.

  "This will be big enough without us fanning the flames." The two of them agree to meet the next day at Earl's office.

  Minutes later, safe in the confines of his car with its newly acquired fingerprint dust, Jack turns on his phone. He expects to see a number of missed calls from Claire. He's not sure if he's relieved or disappointed when he doesn't.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JACK SPENDS THE next couple of

  hours traveling aimlessly down Interstate 55. He simply drives, letting what has happened sink in and preparing himself for the inevitability of what is to come.

  When the Chief first broke the news, Jack didn't fully accept it as the truth. Of course it had to be; the city's Chief of Police wouldn't haul the city's District Attorney into headquarters for a practical joke. Especially a bad practical joke. But it was all so surreal. The way Gunner questioned him as if he was a common criminal, the solemn silence of the officer who booked him, the hours spent alone in the holding cell while he waited for Earl to arrive. The whole experience felt like a nightmare.

  But only now, when his brief stint in captivity stands in stark contrast to the open road in front of him, does he fully comprehend the raw reality of what Celeste has done to him: Her one lie, seemingly blurted out under

  circumstances or pressure he can only guess at, has the power to put him back behind bars for a long, long time.

  His eyelids become heavier as he drives.

 
He's tired, so tired. He thinks about what might happen if he never stops, if he just keeps driving. He's already long past the Festus and Farmington exits; ten more miles and he'll reach Cape Girardeau.

  Another three hours, and he could pull into Memphis and reclaim the anonymity he lost four years ago. Maybe he'd go even farther. New Orleans. He wonders if Claire would join him. He fantasizes about starting over with her. A real starting over. Going to a place where no one knows his past, the mistakes he made

  —no one except the two of them.

  And Michael.

  And then there's the small detail about his bail.

  His fantasies will never be anything more than that. Fantasies.

  He turns around at the Cape Girardeau exit and heads toward home.

  Claire sees the Caller ID and picks up the phone on the first ring. "Where are you?"

  she asks. "Or rather, where have you been?"

  "I'm in my car on the way home. Is it clear?"

  "Not anymore. Cars have been cruising in front of the house all morning." Her voice breaks. She waits for Jack to answer her second question, and when he

  doesn't, she says, "I've been worried sick about you. Earl said they released you just after six this morning. That was hours ago."

  "Where's Michael?"

  "He's here. There's no way I was going to make him go to school today. Jack, where—?"

  "I'd rather explain everything to you in person, if that's okay. Can we talk when I get home?"

  She's so angry with him. She's furious.

  On top of everything, how dare he not come straight home after his release? It's a ridiculous thought, but she wonders if he went to Jenny. But no, she has to believe he wouldn't do that. He's being so calm right now, so gentle with his words.

  It's not what she expected. "Okay." The line falls silent. She hears the noise of fast travel, tires on highway. She starts to ask how long he'll be, when he says, "Claire?

  She's lying. You know that, don't you?"