Pieces of Her

by Karin Slaughter

  “Anything that gives ownership to Paula Evans-Kunde’s actions. Like, if Morrow says he sent her to the farm, that’s enough. He doesn’t have to say he sent her to kill anybody, or kidnap your daughter. That’s the beauty of conspiracy. All you have to do is get him on tape taking credit for her actions.”

  The old Nick gladly took credit for everything, but Laura had absolutely no idea whether or not the present-day Nick had learned his lesson. “All I can do is try.”

  “Good to go.” One of the guards raised his thumb into the air. “The sound is coming through perfect.”

  Rosenfeld gave him a thumbs-up in response. He asked Laura, “Ready?”

  Laura felt a lump in her throat. She smiled at Andy. “I’m good.”

  Mike said, “Gotta say, it makes us all a little bit nervous, having you in the same room with this guy.”

  Laura knew he was trying to lighten the mood. “We’ll try not to blow anything up.”

  Andy guffawed.

  Mike said, “I’ll walk you as far as the door. You still okay with Andy hearing all this?”

  “Of course.” Laura squeezed Andy’s hand, though uncertainty nagged at her thoughts. She was worried that Nick would somehow sway Andy to his side. She was worried for her own sanity, because he had pulled her back in hundreds of times, but she had only managed to escape once.

  “You’re gonna do great, Mom.” Andy grinned, and the gesture was so reminiscent of Nick that Laura felt her breath catch. “I’ll be here when it’s over. Okay?”

  All Laura could do was nod.

  Mike stepped back so that Laura could follow the guard down yet another long corridor. He kept his distance, but she could hear his heavy footsteps behind her. Laura touched her fingers to the wall to stop herself from wringing her hands together. She felt butterflies in her stomach.

  She had taken a month to prepare for this, and now that she was here, she found herself terrifyingly unprepared.

  “How’s she doing?” Mike said, obviously trying to distract her again. “Andy. How’s she doing?”

  “She’s perfect,” Laura said, which was not that much of an exaggeration. “The surgeon got out most of the bullet. There won’t be any lasting damage.” Mike hadn’t been asking about her physical recovery, but Laura wasn’t going to talk about personal things with a man who had so openly flirted with her daughter. “She’s found an apartment in town. I think she might go back to college.”

  “She should try the Marshals Service. She was a damn good detective out there on the road.”

  Laura gave him a sharp look. “I would lock her in the basement before I let my daughter become a pig.”

  He laughed. “She’s ridiculously adorable.”

  Laura had forgotten the earbuds. He was talking for Andy’s benefit. She opened her mouth to cut him down to size, but any pithy comment Laura might have made was drowned out by the buzz of distant conversations.

  Her throat tightened. Laura still remembered what a visitation room sounded like.

  The guard worked his key in the lock.

  “Ma’am.” Mike gave her a salute, then walked back toward the monitoring room.

  Laura gritted her teeth as the guard opened the door. She walked through. He closed the door, then looked for a key to the next one.

  She could not help but start to wring together her hands. This was what she remembered most from her time in jail: a series of locked doors and gates, none of which she could open on her own.

  Laura looked up at the ceiling. She gritted her teeth even harder. She was back in the courtroom with Nick. She was on the stand, wringing her hands, trying not to look into his eyes because she knew if she allowed herself that one weakness, she would crumble and it would all be over.

  Trade him.

  The guard opened the door. The conversations grew louder. She heard children laughing. Ping-pong balls hitting paddles. She touched the plastic earbuds, making sure they hadn’t fallen out. Why was she so damn nervous? She wiped her hands on her jeans as she stood at the locked gate, the last barrier between her and Nick.

  Everything felt wrong.

  She wanted to rewind her day to this morning and start all over again. She had refused to dress up for the occasion, but now she found herself picking apart her choice of a simple black sweater and blue jeans. She should’ve worn heels. She should’ve dyed the gray out of her hair. She should’ve paid more attention to her make-up. She should’ve turned around and left, but then the gate was open and she was going around a corner and she saw him.

  Nick was sitting at one of the tables in the back of the room.

  He lifted his chin by way of greeting.

  Laura pretended not to notice, pretended that her heart was not trembling, her bones were not vibrating inside of her body.

  She was here for Andrew, because his dying wish had to mean something.

  She was here for Andrea, because her life had finally found purpose.

  She was here for herself, because she wanted Nick to know that she had finally gotten away.

  Laura caught flashes of movement as she walked through the large, open space. Fathers in khaki uniforms lifting babies into the air. Couples talking quietly and holding hands. A few lawyers speaking in hushed tones. Children playing in a roped-off corner. Two ping-pong tables manned by happy-looking teenagers. Cameras mounted every ten feet, microphones jutting from the ceiling, guards standing by the doors, the Coke machine, the emergency exit.

  Nick was sitting only a few yards away. Laura looked past him, still unprepared for eye contact. Her heart jumped at the sight of the upright piano on the back wall. The Baldwin Hamilton School Model in walnut satin. The fallboard was missing. The keys were worn. She imagined that it was rarely tuned. She was so taken by the sight of the piano that she almost walked past Nick.

  “Jinx?” He had his hands clasped together on the table. Improbably, he looked exactly the same as she remembered. Not in the courtroom, not when Laura was passing out in the bathroom at the farmhouse, but downstairs in the shed. Alexandra Maplecroft was still alive. None of the bombs had gone off yet. Nick was unbuttoning his navy peacoat as he kissed her on the cheek.

  Switzerland.

  “Should I call you Clayton?” she asked, still unable to look at him.

  He indicated the seat across the table. “My darling, you may call me anything you like.”

  Laura almost gasped, ashamed that the smooth sound of his voice could still touch her. She took the seat. Her eyes measured the space between them, judging that they were well within the three feet required. She clasped her hands together on the table. For only a moment, she allowed herself the pleasure of looking at his face.

  Still beautiful.

  A little lined, but not much. His energy was the constant, as if a spring was wound tight inside of him.

  Charisma.

  “Is it Laura now?” Nick grinned. He had always basked under close scrutiny. “After our hero from Oslo?”

  “It was random,” she lied, looking past him, first at the wall, then at the piano. “Witness security doesn’t let you set your own terms. You either go along or you don’t.”

  He shook his head, as if the details didn’t interest him. “You look the same.”

  Laura’s fingers went nervously to her gray hair.

  “Don’t be ashamed, my love. It suits you. But then, you always did everything so gracefully.”

  She finally looked him in the eye.

  The flecks of gold in his irises were a pattern as familiar as the stars. His long eyelashes. The flicker of curiosity mixed with awe, as if Laura was the most interesting person he had ever met.

  He said, “There’s my girl.”

  Laura struggled against the thrilling shock of his attention, that inexplicable rush of need. She could so easily fall into his vortex again. She could be seventeen years old, her heart floating out of her chest like a hot-air balloon.

  Laura broke off first, looking behind him at the piano.
>
  She reminded herself that, just down the corridor, Andy was in that small, dark room listening to everything they said. Mike, too. Marshal Rosenfeld. The six guards with their headphones and monitors.

  Laura was not a lonely teenaged girl anymore. She was fifty-five years old. She was a mother, a cancer survivor, a businesswoman.

  That was her life.

  Not Nick.

  She cleared her throat. “You look the same, too.”

  “Not much stress around here. Everything gets planned for me. I just have to show up. Still—” He turned his head to the side, looking at her ear. “Age is a cruel punishment for youth.”

  Laura touched the earbud. The lie came easily enough. “All those years of concerts finally caught up with me.”

  He carefully studied her expression. “Yes, I’ve heard about that. Something to do with the nerve cells.”

  “Hair cells inside the middle ear.” She knew he was testing her. “They translate the sounds into electrical signals that activate the nerves. That is, if they’re not destroyed by too much loud music.”

  He seemed to accept the explanation. “Tell me, my love. How have you been?”

  “I’m good. And you?”

  “Well, I’m in prison. Did you not hear about what happened?”

  “I think I saw something in the news.”

  He leaned over the table.

  Laura reeled back as if from a snake.

  Nick grinned, the glow in his eyes sparking into flames. “I was just trying to get a look at the damage.”

  She held up her left hand so that Nick could see the scar where Jonah Helsinger’s knife had gone through.

  He said, “Pulled a Maplecroft, did you? A bit more successfully than the poor old gal could manage.”

  “I’d rather not joke about the woman you killed.”

  His laugh was almost jubilant. “Manslaughter, but yes, I get your point.”

  Laura gripped her hands under the table, physically forcing herself to take back control. “I assume you saw the diner video.”

  “Yes. And our daughter. She’s so lovely, Jinx. Reminds me of you.”

  Her heart lurched into a violent pounding. Andy was listening. What would she make of the compliment? Could she still see that Nick was a monster? Or were these verbal volleys somehow normalizing him?

  She asked, “Did you hear about Paula?”

  “Paula?” He shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  Laura was wringing her hands again. She made herself stop—again.

  She said, “Penny.”

  “Ah, yes. Dear Penny. Such a loyal soldier. She always had it out for you, didn’t she? I guess no matter how glowing the personality, there are always detractors.”

  “She hated me.”

  “She did.” He shrugged. “A bit jealous, I think. But why bring up the old days when we were having so much fun?”

  Laura fumbled for words. She couldn’t keep doing this. She had come here for a reason and that reason was slipping through her fingers. “I’m a speech pathologist.”

  “I know.”

  “I work with patients who—” She had to stop to swallow. “I wanted to help people. After what we did. And when I was in jail, the only book I had was this textbook on speech—”

  Nick interrupted her with a loud groan. “You know, it’s sad, Jinxie. We used to have so much to talk about, but you’ve changed. You’re so . . .” He seemed to look for the right word. “Suburban.”

  Laura laughed, because Nick had clearly wanted her to do the opposite. “I am suburban. I wanted my daughter to have a normal life.”

  She waited for him to correct her about who Andy belonged to, but Nick said, “Sounds fascinating.”

  “It is, actually.”

  “Married a black fella, too. How cosmopolitan of you.”

  Black fella.

  About a million years ago, Agent Danberry had used the same words to describe Donald DeFreeze.

  Nick said, “You got a divorce. What happened, Jinx? Did he cheat on you? Did you cheat on him? You always had a wandering eye.”

  “I didn’t know what I had,” she said, keenly aware of her audience in the distant room. “I thought that being in love meant being on pins and needles all of the time. Passion and fury and arguing and making up.”

  “But it’s not?”

  She shook her head, because she had learned at least one thing from Gordon. “It’s taking out the trash and saving up for vacations. Making sure the school forms are signed. Remembering to bring home milk.”

  “Is that really how you feel, Jinx Queller? You don’t miss the excitement? The thrill? The fucking the shit out of each other?”

  Laura tried to keep the blush off her face. “Love doesn’t keep you in a constant state of turmoil. It gives you peace.”

  He pressed his forehead to the table and pretended to snore.

  She laughed, though she didn’t want to.

  Nick opened one eye, smiled up at her. “I’ve missed that sound.”

  Laura looked over his shoulder at the piano.

  “I heard you had breast cancer.”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t going to talk to him about that.

  He said, “I can remember what it felt like to put my mouth on your breasts. The way you used to moan and squirm when I licked between your legs. Do you ever think about that, Jinx? How good we were together?”

  Laura stared at him. She wasn’t worried about Andy anymore. Nick’s fatal flaw had reared its ugly head. He always overplayed his hand.

  She asked, “How do you live with it?”

  He raised an eyebrow. She had piqued his interest again.

  “The guilt?” she asked. “For killing people. For putting it all into motion.”

  “People?” he asked, because the jury had been divided over his part in the Chicago bombing. “You tell me, darling. Jonah Helsinger? Was that his name?” He waited for Laura to nod. “Ripped out his throat, though they blur that part on TV.”

  She chewed the inside of her cheek.

  “How do you live with it? How do you feel about murdering that boy?”

  Laura let a tiny part of her brain think about what she had done. It was hard—for so long she had managed to face each day by discarding the day before. “Do you remember the look on Laura Juneau’s face? When we were in Oslo?”

  Nick nodded, and she marveled at the fact that he was the only person left alive with whom she could talk about one of the most pivotal moments of her life.

  Laura said, “She seemed almost at peace when she pulled the trigger. Both times. I remember wondering how she did it. How she had turned off her humanity. But I think what happened was that she turned it on. Does that make sense? She was completely at peace with what she was doing. That’s why she looked so serene.”

  He raised his eyebrow again, and this time she knew that he was waiting for her to get to the point.

  “I kept saying I didn’t want to see the video from the diner, but then I finally broke down and watched, and the look on my face was the exact same as Laura’s. Don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” Nick said. “I noticed that, too.”

  “I’ll do anything I can to protect my daughter. Anything.”

  “Poor Penny found that out the hard way.”

  He raised his eyebrows, waiting.

  Laura left the bait on the line, though if she thought about it hard enough, she could feel Paula’s hot blood dripping down her hand.

  She asked, “Have you seen Jasper on the news?”

  Nick chuckled. “His grand apology tour. You know, it’s cruel to say, but I’m quite enjoying the fact that he got very, very fat.”

  Laura kept her expression neutral.

  “I suppose there’s been some kind of family reunion? A replenishment of the bank accounts from the Queller coffers?”

  Laura didn’t answer.

  “I will tell you, it’s been a pleasure seeing Major Jasper in person every fucking
time my parole comes up. He’s so eloquent when he explains how my actions caused him to lose his entire family.”

  “He was always good at public speaking.”

  “Gets that from Martin, I suppose,” Nick said. “I was very surprised when Jasper went liberal. He could barely tolerate Andrew’s addiction, but when he found out he was a raving queer—” Nick made a slicing motion across his neck. “Oh, dear, is that too close to Penny?”

  Laura felt her mouth go dry. Her guard had slipped just enough for him to wound her.

  Nick said, “Poor, desperate Andrew. Did you give him a good death? Was it worth your choice, Jinx?”

  “We laughed at you,” she told Nick, because she knew that was the easiest way to wound him. “Because of the envelopes. Do you remember those? The ones you said were going to be mailed to all the FBI field offices and all the major newspapers?”

  Nick’s jaw tightened.

  “Andrew laughed when I mentioned them. For good reason. You were never good with follow-through, and that’s too bad, because if you had kept your word, Jasper would’ve been in prison a long time ago, and you would’ve been on parole picking out furniture with Penny.”

  “Furniture?” Nick said.

  “I saw your letters with Penny.”

  Nick raised an eyebrow.

  The warden and the marshals who screened his mail had been clueless because they didn’t know the code.

  Laura did.

  Nick had made them all memorize the code.

  She said, “You were still stringing her along. Telling her that you would be together if only you could find a way to get out of here.”

  He shrugged. “Idle chatter. I didn’t think she’d actually do anything. She was always a bit crazy.”

  Mike had said that a jury would see it the same way. Even writing in code, Nick was still careful.

  It’s only paranoia if you’re wrong.

  Laura said, “When it all started to happen, I never once thought it was you.” She had to be careful about Hoodie because Mike would have questions, but she wanted Nick to know, “You never even crossed my mind.”

  It was Nick’s turn to look at the room over Laura’s shoulder.