Read Keep No Secrets for Free Online Page B

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 you, 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