Salem Falls

by Jodie Picoult

  “And this,” Addie said, her hand on a doorknob, “is Chloe’s room.”

  It was the only room in the house Jack had not seen. And as Addie slowly opened the door, he also realized it was the only room in the house that was not neat. Toys littered the floor like landmines, and clothes were draped over the back of a chair. A poster of a boys’ band that hadn’t made a record in nearly a decade was taped to the wall, peeling from one corner. On a shelf sat a parade of outgrown teddy bears, missing eyes and frayed at the limbs. The bed, a confection of pink ruffles, was unmade, as if Addie slept in it from time to time-a thought that tugged at Jack but seemed less heartbreaking than the alternative: that for eleven years, Addie had simply left this room as a shrine.

  Still, it was only a bed, and linens could be changed. Toys could be put away. “I could stay here,” Jack suggested. “Give you a little more privacy.”

  “No. You can’t.” She stood beside the chair, smoothing her hand over the fabric of an impossibly small white shirt.

  “Addie-”

  “You can’t,” she repeated. “You just can’t.”

  “All right,” he said softly, understanding that this was a line he could not cross. He followed her out and closed the door quickly, thinking all the while of Pandora’s box: of what he had let loose by breaching the seal of this room, and of hope, which might still have been trapped inside.

  * * *

  The scent of smoke was strong at the diner, but it didn’t bother Selena. “It’s like a barbecue,” she said, watching Jordan wrinkle his nose as he slid into the booth.

  “Yeah. Except it’s the facility that’s roasting.”

  Addie came to the table carrying two mugs and a pot full of coffee. “Cream and sugar, right?”

  Selena smiled at the waitress. “Can I get a cup of hot water, with lemon?”

  Addie nodded and went off toward the counter. “It’s disgusting, you know, the way you drink that,” Jordan said. “People use the same thing to wash their dishes.”

  “Then think how clean my insides are.” She took the steaming mug from Addie.

  “I had a customer who used to drink hot water,” Addie mused. “She lived to be a hundred and six.”

  “Get out,” Jordan said.

  “Honestly.”

  “How did she die?” asked Selena.

  “Another waitress here served her coffee instead one day.” Addie winked. “I’ll be back to get your order in a minute.”

  Selena watched her go. “She seems nice enough.”

  “She comes from good people, as they’d say around these parts.” Jordan shook out his copy of the paper. “Certainly doesn’t deserve all the flak she’s getting now.”

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, the fire. And the backlash about the fellow who works in the kitchen.”

  Jordan raised the paper to read the headlines. With a fork, Selena tugged down the edge. “Hello,” she said. “Remember me? I’m your breakfast date.”

  “Give me a break.”

  “Don’t tempt me. What’s the story with the guy who works here?”

  Jordan pushed the newspaper across the table. Folded to the editorial page, there were no less than six letters addressing the “unsavory influences” that had recently moved into town. Selena scanned the brief missives, all in favor of riding Jack St. Bride out on a rail. “What did he do? Rob a bank?”

  “Rape a girl.”

  Selena looked up, whistling softly. “Well, you can’t blame a community for trying to protect itself. You ask me, that’s the whole point behind Megan’s Law.”

  “At the same time, it’s prejudicial to the person who has to report in. If an entire community identifies a guy by his past convictions, how will anybody ever get past that to accept his presence?”

  Selena peeked under the table. “What the hell are you doing?” Jordan asked.

  “Making sure you’ve gotten off your soapbox. You know damn well that perps of sex crimes are repeat offenders. How do you think you’d feel if he targeted, oh, fifteen-year-old boys?”

  “Repeat offenders,” Jordan said, snapping the newspaper open again, “are good for business.”

  Selena’s jaw dropped. “That is quite possibly the most inhuman thing I’ve ever heard fall out of your mouth, McAfee, and believe me, there’ve been plenty.”

  “Ah, but defense attorneys aren’t supposed to be human. It makes it easier to sink down to everyone’s very low expectations.”

  But Selena didn’t take the bait. She was thinking that Jordan was human, far too human, and she should know, because she was the one who had broken his heart.

  “Come on,” Gilly urged. “What’s he going to do? Attack us right on the counter?”

  Beside her, Meg squinted at the neon sign overhead. The R had never been quite as bright as the other letters. She could remember giggling about it years ago, because back then the most hilarious thing in the world was the thought of a restaurant called the Doo Diner. “My dad would kill me,” Meg said.

  “Your dad will never know. Come on, Meggie. Do you want to be the kind of person who hides in the back when everyone else is fighting the dragon, or do you want to be holding the sword?”

  “That depends. What’s my chance of being burned to a crisp?”

  “If he molests you, I will selflessly throw my body over yours as a substitute.”

  Meg shook her head. “I don’t even want him to know what I look like.”

  “For God’s sake, Meg, this isn’t even about him. I’m thirsty is all. He probably won’t come out from the back. We’ll see Crazy Addie and get our milk shakes and go.”

  Slowly, Meg backed away. “Sorry, Gill. My dad said I shouldn’t.”

  Gillian fisted her hands on her hips. “Well, so did mine!” Meg was already halfway down the street. “Fine. Be that way!” Smarting, Gilly pushed inside the diner. It was virtually empty, except for an old fart at the cash register who was hunched over a crossword puzzle. She sat down and rapped her nails impatiently on the table.

  Within moments, Crazy Addie came over. “What can I get for you?”

  Gilly glanced at her dismissively. She couldn’t even conceive of living a life so small that you’d grow up in this nothing town and work and die there. Clearly, the woman was a loser. Who looked at the bright ball of her future and thought, Oh, one day I want to be a waitress in a totally dead-end job.

  “A black-and-white shake,” Gilly said, and then, from the corner of her eye, saw Jack come down the hallway from the bathrooms carrying a large trash bag.

  He didn’t notice her.

  “Actually, now that I think about it, I’m not hungry,” Gillian murmured, and walked out. The sunlight was blinding; she stumbled before slipping along the edge of the building, where a fence cordoned off the green Dumpster. Jack was moving around in there; she could hear metal clanging and the rustling of plastic as trash was hauled over its wide lip.

  Gilly sucked her lower lip between her teeth, to give it some color. She unbuttoned her jacket, then slid the zipper of her cropped sweatshirt low enough to show the rise of her breasts. Walking to the gate, she waited for Jack to notice her.

  He did, after a minute, and looked away.

  “Hey,” Gilly said, “what are you doing?”

  “Skiing the Alps. Can’t you tell?”

  Gillian watched his muscles flex as he lifted another bag of garbage high. She thought about him pinning her, grabbing her wrists in his hands. Hard. She wondered if the girl he had raped had liked it, even a little.

  “Food’s a lot better inside,” Jack said.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  God, his eyes were a color blue she’d never seen. Dark and smooth, like the inside of a fire. There should have been a word for it-Jackquoise, maybe, or-

  “Then why did you come here?”

  Gilly lowered her lashes. “To ski, of course.”

  He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe she was standing here in front of him. I
t only made her more determined. “Bet you were the kind of kid who used to poke crabs on the beach to get them moving,” Jack mused, “even if it meant they might snap.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means stick to the bunny slope, Gillian,” Jack said flatly.

  Her eyes darkened, caught somewhere between tears and rage. Jack started to leave, but Gillian was blocking the exit. For an uncomfortable moment, they danced around each other, Jack unwilling to let his body brush up against hers, Gillian unwilling to let him go.

  “Gillian.”

  At the sound of another voice, they jumped apart. Wes Courtemanche rounded the corner, dressed in uniform. “Something tells me your father wouldn’t be delighted to find you standing back here.”

  “Something tells me you’re not my father,” Gillian said testily. But she stepped away so that Jack could get by.

  “Going home now, aren’t you?” Wes said to the girl.

  “I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of anyone.” As if to prove it, Gillian turned on her heel, passing close to Jack. She blew a kiss as she sailed by, a gesture meant for his eyes only that might have been a promise, or might have a threat.

  7:40. Wes had twenty minutes left on duty before he could head home. Usually, this time of night, high school kids were hanging in small clots near the rear of the post office or idling in their cars in the parking lot, but these days Main Street looked like a ghost town, as if kids believed the closer they got to the Do-Or-Diner, the more likely they were to fall prey to the local criminal.

  The sound of footfalls behind Wes had him turning, his hand on his gun belt. A jogger approached, reflective markings on his stocking cap and sneakers winking in the glare of the streetlights.

  “Wes,” said Amos Duncan, slowing down in front of the policeman and drawing in great gulps of air. He set his hands on his knees, then straightened. “Nice night, isn’t it?”

  “For what?”

  “A run, of course.” Amos wiped the sweat off his face with the sleeve of his shirt. “God, though. You’d think there was a curfew, based on what this town looks like.”

  Wes nodded. “Dead, for about seven-thirty.”

  “Maybe people are eating later,” Amos suggested, although they both knew this was not the case. “Well, I’d better get home. Gilly’ll be waiting.”

  “You might want to keep a close eye on her.”

  Amos frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I saw her this afternoon, down by the diner. She was talking to St. Bride.”

  “Talking?”

  “That’s all.”

  A muscle along Amos’s jaw tightened. “He started talking to her?”

  “Can’t say, Amos.” He chose his words carefully, knowing that alienating Duncan would put him in the doghouse with the department for months. “Just seemed to me that Gilly . . . well, that she didn’t have a real strong sense of how dangerous he is.”

  “I’ll speak to her,” Amos said, but his mind was elsewhere. He was wondering how a guy could come into a town where he wasn’t wanted and act like he had a right to be there. He was wondering how many innocent conversations it took before a girl followed you home, a deer eating out of your hand. He envisioned St. Bride calling out his daughter’s name. Imagined her turning, smiling, like she always did. He saw what he wanted to believe had happened.

  Amos forced his attention back to Wes. “You off soon?”

  “Ten, fifteen minutes.”

  “Good, good.” He nodded. “Well, thanks for the tip.”

  “Just trying to keep everyone safe.”

  Amos held up his hand in farewell, already moving off. Wes headed back toward the green again. He never noticed that Amos had turned away from the road that led to his house and was running quickly in the opposite direction.

  Tom O’Neill swung the door open, surprised to find Amos Duncan on his doorstep, panting hard.

  “Amos, you all right?”

  “Sorry to bother you.”

  Tom glanced over his shoulder. In the dining room, his family was gathered around their dinner. “No, no problem at all.” He stepped out onto the porch. “What’s the matter?”

  Amos soberly met his gaze. “Well,” he said. “It’s like this.”

  April 30, 2000

  Salem Falls,

  New Hampshire

  Addie couldn’t get Jack out of her mind. Now, she leaned forward, kissing the nape of his neck in a blatant attempt to draw his attention from the TV set in her living room. The Formosa type of this tea is more famous than the Amoy, Foochow, and Canton varieties.

  “What is oolong,” Jack said, his elbows resting on his knees. Addie opened her mouth and licked the soft shell of his ear. “Cut it out! I’m on a roll.”

  “You could be on me.” Most hours of the day, Jack could be counted on to catch her gaze across the diner, hot enough to make her stumble, or manage to pass by her so closely their bodies brushed. But when Jeopardy! came on, she could have paraded in front of him completely naked without managing to capture his attention.

  Jack was addicted to Jeopardy! In three years, he had gone only one day without seeing the show, and that was because he was driving in a sheriff’s cruiser to the jail at the time. He was delighted that because he and Addie had taken the afternoon off to move his things, today he’d have the chance to watch at both 7 and 11 P.M. Addie, however, had a different agenda.

  She began to unbutton his shirt, but Jack brushed her away. “I’ll get you back during the commercial,” he warned halfheartedly.

  “Ooh . . . now I’m scared.”

  Demeter brought famine upon the earth after this daughter was abducted to the underworld.

  “I bet you know this one,” Jack said.

  In response, she slipped her hand down the front of his jeans.

  He jumped. “Addie!” he said, even as he swelled into her palm.

  “Who is Persephone?” the contestant said on the screen.

  Addie squeezed gently. “Aha. You missed.”

  Beneath her, Jack’s hips moved. “I knew the answer. I was just distracted before I could give it.”

  Jefferson said it “is no excuse in any country . . . because it can always be prevented.”

  Addie straddled him, blocking his view of the television set. Finally, Jack gave up fighting. He drew her face down and kissed her, slipping the answer into her mouth: “What is ignorance of the law.”

  “Ignorance,” Addie repeated. “A very nice segue to bliss.” She arched her throat, tilting back her head, and suddenly stilled. “Did you hear that?”

  But Jack’s famous concentration was now focused entirely on Addie. “No.”

  A crash, the sound of running. Addie sat up a little straighter. “There it is again.”

  “It’s an animal,” Jack suggested. “You live in the woods.”

  She pulled away from him, even as he grabbed for her hand and groaned at the loss of her soft weight on his lap. Peering out the window, Addie could only see the edge of the swing set, serrated by the moonlight. “Nothing out there.”

  “Then try looking here.” Jack stood up, his erection straining against his jeans. He took Addie into his arms. “It’s probably raccoons. Why don’t you go upstairs while I get rid of them?”

  “You’re going to miss Final Jeopardy?” Addie teased.

  “Never,” he said, all seriousness, and then he winked. “There’s a rerun at eleven.”

  Gilly could not get Jack out of her mind. She relived the moment outside the diner a hundred times, playing different scenarios like a slide show-things she should have said and done instead, images of Jack grabbing her and kissing her so hard her lips bled. Every time she stumbled over the part where Jack had treated her like a child, her stomach clenched, and she’d start to cry, dying a hundred deaths all over again. A moment later, she’d be spitting mad, itching for the next opportunity she might have to show him she wasn’t a child after all.

>   Her father had kept a hawk’s eye on her all afternoon and evening; then he’d gone running and made her swear she would be there when he got home. Now she was drowning her sorrows in the emotional angst of Sarah McLachlan and painting her fingernails bloodred as the phone rang. Whitney’s voice came on the line. “Gil, what time tonight?”

  Gillian sighed. She didn’t want to deal with her friends right now. She didn’t want to do anything but figure out how to keep her father from being such a goddamned warden, so that she could make Jack see what he was missing. “What time for what?”

  “The meeting?”

  “The meeting . . .”

  “I could have sworn I put down April thirtieth on my calendar.”

  Understanding bloomed. “Oh, Beltane,” Gilly said.

  “How could you forget?”

  Gillian hadn’t forgotten, exactly; she’d just been preoccupied with Jack. Her coven had made plans to meet in the woods behind the cemetery, at the base of the flowering dogwood tree. Meg was bringing Georgia fatwood to light a bonfire, Whit had been given the task of sewing herb sachets to hang on the tree as gifts to the God and Goddess, and Chelsea was going to figure out some kind of maypole. Gilly’s job had been the Simple Feast, the sharing of food and drink within a circle that had been cast.

  Her father would kill her if she sneaked out of the house.

  Her gaze lit on a small ceramic vase that had once been her mother’s. There was a sprig of pussywillows inside, but no water. Instead, hiding at the base, was the vial of atropine she’d taken from the R & D lab.

  “Eleven,” she said into the phone. “Be there.”

  They attacked him from behind. Jack had no sooner stepped out of the small halo of light cast by the lantern hanging beside the door than he was grabbed, his arms pinned behind him while fists slammed into his ribs, his belly, his face. Blood ran down his throat, tinny; he spat it back at them. He struggled to find their faces, to mark them in his mind, but they were wearing stocking caps pulled low and scarves tugged high; all Jack could see was an ocean of black, a series of hands, and wave after wave of their anger.