Keep No Secrets

by Julie Compton

  bedroom. Claire put Jamie to bed an hour ago but never came back downstairs. Jack assumes she went to bed, too. Michael has sequestered himself in the bathroom for a shower. Jack hears the water running and the rumble of the exhaust fan. As he passes Michael's bedroom, he sees his son's cell phone on the desk next to the computer.

  He hesitates only a moment before making his decision.

  He steps into the room and grabs the phone, presses buttons on the screen until he finds the text message history. The two most recent messages read, gtg take a shower cal u later from Michael, and then simply, ok, from Celeste. Jack scrolls back further to the first messages of the evening.

  Hes home

  Whatre u gonna do?

  Idk

  Does he try to talk to u

  He wil if i go downstairs

  Did u tel him u believe me

  Michael doesn't answer, and the next message comes from Celeste just ten or so minutes ago.

  U there . . .

  Yea

  Whered u go

  Dinner

  Was he there

  Yea

  Oh . . what happened

  Again, Michael doesn't answer the question. His next message is the one about taking a shower.

  Jack hears the water shut off, followed by the scrape of the shower curtain rings as Michael pushes the curtain aside. He quickly replaces the phone where he found it.

  Michael lied to Celeste. He claimed he went down to dinner, he claimed he saw his father. Even more significantly, he didn't answer her when she asked if he told Jack he believed her story. What game are they playing? What game is Michael playing?

  Claire watches Jack enter their bedroom from over the top of her book. He stands before the dresser and unfastens his watch, digs his wallet and loose change from his pockets, and deposits all of it into a shallow tray Michael painted for him in an art class many years ago. The actions are habitual and take no thought; his eyes stare trancelike at an empty spot on the dresser as he begins to unbutton his shirt, and she wonders where he's gone to.

  When he turns to the bathroom, she sees his bloodshot eyes register her presence, the fact that he's being watched.

  He gives her a small smile before closing the door behind him.

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

  She never answered him. She never said, yes, I know she's lying. She sees something broken in him and she knows Celeste didn't do it.

  She did.

  For her own sake, she should put it back together.

  He's still thinking about the text messages when he emerges from the bathroom.

  He's already decided he needs to see more. He also wants to see what Michael's computer might reveal, but he knows Claire will balk at the idea.

  When he reaches the bed, she quickly sets her book on the nightstand and switches off her lamp.

  He pulls back the covers and the

  motion releases the clean scent of the sheets as if they hung outside on a line to dry. He knows they didn't; the scent is artificial. He also knows the scent, artificial or not, is nonexistent in prison.

  "Is it okay to turn out my light, too?"

  he asks, just to be sure.

  She nods, but as he reaches for the lamp, she says, "Jack, wait." As badly as he needs sleep, he does as she asks. "I'm sorry, too. About this morning, about my reaction to everything. What I said was cruel, too. I just—"

  "It's okay."

  "I know you feel like you're been sent to a unique form of hell or something—"

  He laughs a bit, despite himself.

  "—and you don't need me to make it worse."

  "It's okay. It's an enormous amount of stress for all of us." He thinks again of Michael avoiding Celeste's questions. "It's okay, really."

  She slides deeper into the covers and motions for him to do the same. He turns out the light and they lie in the dark like two chaste nuns.

  And then she surprises him, twice.

  Since the night he told her about Jenny, she hasn't cuddled with him like she usually does before they go to sleep.

  Instead, the two of them have lain side by side, staring at the ceiling in the darkness.

  Sometimes, one or both of them would roll over toward their own edge of the bed. But tonight, she moves close, and he lifts his arm for her to rest her head in the hollow of his shoulder. Lying on her side, she presses the full length of her naked body against him, one leg flung over both of his. It's a nice surprise.

  He's about to caress her face, to gently lift it to kiss her. But then she asks, "Have you seen her again?"

  The question is the second surprise, but it's not so nice.

  "No."

  "Are you going to?"

  Is he? He might have covered for

  Michael, but he won't cover for himself, not anymore.

  "I don't know. I haven't decided. But if you've changed your mind, if you don't want me to, I won't."

  She sighs and shifts, a burrowing-in movement that tells him she's done for the night. Ever consistent, she's asleep within minutes. He lies awake, acutely aware of what she didn't say, of the assurances he needs to hear but that she refused to give.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ON MONDAY MORNING, the press

  follows Jack during his short walk from the parking garage to the courthouse.

  Their numbers are smaller, but they cling to him like mongrels waiting for scraps.

  He made a formal statement on

  Wednesday after talking to his staff, but these lingering reporters must still hope for a spontaneous comment. He ignores them and instead focuses on the screen of his phone to review the day's schedule.

  Once he arrives at the DA's office, he stops by the IT department and asks Nick, the office computer whiz, to come see him in fifteen minutes. He then sequesters himself behind closed doors and hits the speed dial to call his younger brother.

  "Hey, Jack," Mark says when he hears Jack's voice. "How're you doing? You and Claire holding up okay?"

  "We're good." He thinks they are, at least. Like he told Earl, as good as can be expected. After the brief discussion in bed on Wednesday night, Claire's anger has been replaced with resigned sadness.

  "But I need a big favor from you."

  Jack's brother Mark works as an

  independent sales rep for a toy company and runs his one-man business from a home office in his basement. His house, though modest in size, is located in a residential neighborhood of Clayton, one of the tonier, inner suburbs of St. Louis known for, among other things, the number of young, urban professionals who live there. His particular

  neighborhood is a moment's drive from the restaurants, shops, galleries and office buildings of Clayton's downtown

  business district, which makes it a perfect home base for Jack's single brother.

  Jack shows up at Mark's house just before lunchtime. They chat on the front porch for a good five minutes, just as they planned, and then Mark waves Jack in.

  The delay gives Jack's stalkers time to get a look at Mark's casual attire: sweatpants, sweatshirt, sneakers, baseball cap. Inside, Mark changes into a suit and tie similar to Jack's; Jack dons Mark's discarded sweats.

  The transformation is complete once Jack fits the cap on his head.

  "It's scary," Jack says.

  "Nah." Mark laughs. "It'd be scary if I had your gray hairs."

  Jack whips the cap off and leans closer to the mirror, runs his fingers through his mostly dishwater blond hair. "What gray hairs?"

  Mark laughs again, and the sound of it eases Jack’s tension. He wonders why he didn't call his brother sooner.

  Mark leaves first, driving Jack's car.

  Jack stands watching at the edge of the front window. Once he's sure the press has taken the bait, he grabs the suit he just shed and carries it with him to Mark's car in the garage. After raising the garage door and backing out enough to confirm that no one has returned, he makes his escape.

 
The joy of Mark's car, a Porsche 911

  Carrera, infects his veins as he maneuvers from the Inner Belt into the curve of the cloverleaf leading to Highway 40. Mark sold his BMW convertible only months ago. He owned the BMW for almost

  seven years, a new record for Jack's thirty-six-year-old brother, who goes through cars even faster than he goes through women.

  Twenty minutes later, Jack glances at his watch as he pulls into his own garage.

  Lunchtime traffic was light. He made it from Mark's house to home in record time, and he did it without picking up a tail.

  He didn't eat much all weekend, so before climbing the stairs to Michael's room, he scarfs down a couple bites of a leftover pork chop he's found in the refrigerator. He has several hours before Claire returns home from the university.

  He doesn't like doing this behind her back, but she would be steadfast in her opposition to violating Michael's privacy.

  He has to ask himself if what he saw in Michael's text messages Wednesday night justifies what he's about to do.

  He gazes around Michael's room as he waits for the computer to boot up. Dirty laundry spills out of the open closet. One closet door holds the same type of toy basketball hoop that hangs from the back of Jack's office door at work; they bought them together when Michael was eight and first showed an interest in basketball.

  The full-sized net in the driveway came a few months later.

  Michael's bed is unmade, and the sheets look as if they haven't been washed in months. Jack notices that Michael has taken down the pictures of Celeste he had stuck to a corkboard above the bed. Did Claire ask him to? And if so, was it on her behalf, or Jack's?

  He also notices that Michael has

  removed all of the pictures of the two of them—father and son. Most were taken some years back when Jack coached Michael's Little League baseball team.

  They weren't the typical team photos, with everyone standing stiffly in two rows, facing the camera. They were candids taken by the mom of a player. A professional photographer, she'd stood on the sidelines at games and captured the reckless joy and the spontaneous tears of the pint-size players and their coach.

  Her photos recorded a moment in

  Michael's life when he still worshiped his dad with awe.

  Jack turns back to the screen. With the mouse in his right hand, he clicks on the icon for Michael's desktop and watches as a box appears, waiting for the user to key in a password. With his free hand, he calls Nick from his cell phone.

  "Hey, Jack. You at the computer?"

  Nick's short greeting makes obvious he's been waiting for the call. In the few years he's worked in the IT department at the DA's office, he's shown himself to be not only a computer prodigy, but more importantly, trustworthy.

  "Yeah. I'm staring at the desktop signin as we speak."

  "Okay, hold on a sec." Jack hears tapping of a keyboard. "Look," Nick says with a sigh when he comes back, "I gotta ask you one more time before we do this, because once we're in, it's too late. Are you sure we won't compromise your ability to use whatever you might find?"

  "I own the machine, Nick. It's in my house. I can't violate my own rights.

  Anyway, I don't represent the State in this case. I’m the defendant, remember?"

  "Yeah, yeah, I know, but you lawyers always come up with creative arguments for why the regular rules don't apply.

  You're sure someone won't argue that your son had some sort of expectation of privacy that required a warrant, even for you?"

  Jack can't help but laugh. "You're good. Maybe you should go to law

  school."

  "I spend way too much time with you fuckers."

  "Anyone can make any argument he wants. But I don't think it'd fly."

  "Okay, you're the boss. Are you at the sign-in screen?"

  "Yeah, I clicked on the icon, and now it wants his password."

  For a moment, Nick is quiet. Then he says, slowly, "How many other icons are there?"

  "Two others. Mine and Claire's. It used to be our computer."

  Nick laughs. "Jack, who is the system administrator?"

  "Beats me."

  Nick sighs, the amused sigh of one frustrated by the ignorance of others who lack his expertise. "Click on your own icon, go into your desktop. Once you're there, click on Control Panel and then find the folder for Account Users."

  Jack does as instructed. "Okay."

  "Did you click on it?"

  "Yeah." He checks the screen. Now he laughs, too. "Oh, I guess I am."

  "That means you already have access to his files without the password. You don't need one to get in. Now, if he has his email password-protected, which he probably does, that's another story. And he might have individual files protected, too."

  "I'm in."

  "Let me know when you get to the email account sign-in."

  "Okay, found the email. Just a second, it's slow."

  "He's probably got his hard drive packed with videos and music, like most kids. They take up a lot of space and slow everything else down.

  "And games," Jack adds. "He plays a lot of video games." He clicks on the email icon and, just as Nick suspected, he's prompted for a password. "I'm there."

  Nick walks Jack through the necessary steps to hack into Michael's email account. In a few minutes, the inbox appears. Except for a few emails about homework assignments and others Jack would classify as junk mail, it's empty. A quick check of the "old mail" and

  "deleted mail" folders reveals the same thing.

  "There's nothing here."

  "Kids don't use email much anymore.

  They're into their texting and instant messaging. And Facebook, of course."

  Jack gets a kick out of Nick's frequent reference to what "kids" do and don't do.

  He's all of twenty-three years old.

  "So how do I see the instant messages?

  Can you get me into those? The

  investigators pull up those records for us all the time."

  "Yeah, well, they get them from either the service provider or the company that makes the software, because most of the instant messaging programs don't save the messages. You would need to install software for that purpose."

  "So you're saying I could see future messages if I get the right software, but I won't be able to see what's already been done unless I go the regular route of a subpoena to the company that makes the instant message program he's using?"

  "Yeah, basically."

  Jack makes a mental note to talk to Earl about a subpoena. Yet he's leery of having a subpoena issued for records that could expose not only Celeste but his son, too. "So what do you recommend?"

  "Web Watcher is good. Go online and Google it. You can buy it and download it in a few minutes. You'll be able to see everything he does going forward."

  Better than nothing, but Jack hoped to get a history of what's happened with Michael and Celeste these past few months. And maybe glean some clues to Celeste's state of mind.

  "Don't forget, Jack," Nick says, interrupting his thoughts. "Any messages they exchanged on Facebook might still be there, if he didn't delete them. I can help you hack into that, too, but you may not even need to. He may stay signed in."

  As Nick talks, Jack opens a window, types in the URL for Facebook, and sees that Nick is right. "Perfect."

  "And unless he's password protected his other files," Nick continues, "you have access to them, too. My guess is, he didn't.

  He wouldn't see a need since he thinks his desktop is protected."

  Of course. Jack exits email and minimizes Facebook to examine the subfolders in Michael’s documents folder.

  "Jack? You there?"

  "Yeah. I'm checking the names of all the folders, trying to see if anything looks promising."

  "Anything good?"

  "I'm not sure yet. He's got a bunch of subfolders. Hold on." He scans the names of the subfolders. School, iTunes, CDT.

  "CDT" has to stand for Celeste Del Toro, do
esn't it? He clicks and sees even more subfolders. Pix, Poems. Poems? Is his son a poet?

  "Well?"

  "Listen, let me hang up and look at some of these. I'll call you back if I need you, okay?"

  "Sure, whatever you want. I'll be here."

  Jack sets his phone on the desk without removing his eyes from the screen. He clicks on the Poems folder and finds numerous files. Most are well-known poems and one contains song lyrics to Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun." One file titled "Relief" doesn't ring familiar.

  He double-clicks on it.

  It's not a poem or song lyrics. It's a . . .

  what? A story? An essay? He's not sure.

  Yet he doesn't have to read past the first few lines to understand Michael didn't write it.

  I always lock the bathroom

  door behind me but I don't turn

  on the exhaust fan. If he comes

  home unexpectedly, I need to

  hear him.

  I wash my hands, and then I

  spread the hand towel flat

  across the counter next to the

  sink, smoothing it gently with

  both palms. I open the medicine

  cabinet and grab the rubbing

  alcohol and Band-Aids. I

  careful y set them in their

  assigned spots—the alcohol in

  the far left corner of the towel, because I need it first, and the

  Band-Aids on the far right. They

  come last. I then open the

  cabinet underneath the sink.

  The large box of cotton bal s is

  always near the front next to the nail polish remover and the can

  of Scrubbing Bubbles. I retrieve

  a fistful of bal s from the box and place them on the counter next

  to their partner, the rubbing

  alcohol. The last item on my list is the only one I real y have to

  keep out of sight. I get down on

  my knees and tug at the strip of