The Pact

by Jodi Picoult

  "How did you respond to that?"

  "I told her that she should tell the father, if only so that she had someone to lean on."

  "And when did the two of you next meet?"

  "October eleventh. That was the date that the abortion was scheduled. The counselor is present to offer support before, during, and afterward."

  Jordan walked toward the jury box. "Did the abortion take place?"

  "No, something upset Emily and she decided against having the procedure."

  Jordan leaned both elbows against the railing. "Was that strange?"

  "Oh, no. It actually happens quite a lot. People back out at the very last minute all the time."

  "What did you do after she decided not to abort the baby?"

  Stephanie sighed. "I counseled her to tell the father."

  "What was her reaction?"

  "She got even more upset, so I dropped the subject," Stephanie said.

  "When was the last time you met with Emily Gold, Ms. Newell?"

  "On November seventh, the afternoon before she died."

  "Why did you see her that day?"

  "We had previously scheduled the appointment."

  "Was Emily Gold upset about something that day?"

  "Objection," Barrie said. "Speculative."

  "Overruled," Puckett said.

  "Did Emily Gold seem upset to you?" Jordan rephrased.

  "Very much so," Stephanie said.

  "Did she tell you why?"

  "She said she felt like she'd run out of options. She didn't know what to do about the baby."

  "What did you tell her?"

  "I reiterated that she should talk to the father. That he might offer more support than she expected."

  "How much time did you spend talking about whether or not she should tell the father?" Jordan asked.

  "Most of the session ... an hour."

  "In your opinion, when she left that office, was she going to tell the father about the baby?"

  "No. Nothing I said could make her change her mind."

  "During the five weeks you met with her, did Emily at any time waver about whether or not she was going to tell the father about the baby?"

  "No."

  "Do you have any reason to believe that she would have changed her mind after that last session?"

  "No, I don't."

  Jordan sat down. "Your witness," he said.

  Barrie walked toward the witness box. "Ms. Newell, you met with Emily on November seventh?"

  "Yes."

  "What time?"

  "She had a four o'clock appointment. From four to five."

  "Are you aware that Emily Gold's death occurred sometime between eleven and midnight that night?"

  "Yes."

  "Between five and eleven is, let's see ... " Barrie tapped her chin. "Six hours. Were you with Emily during that time?"

  "No, I wasn't."

  "Did you ever meet Chris?"

  "No."

  "Were you party to any of their conversations together during the six hours before she died?"

  "No."

  "So, Ms. Newell," Barrie said, "is it possible that Emily did decide to tell Chris about the baby, after all?"

  "Well ... yes, I guess so."

  "Thank you," the prosecutor said.

  MICHAEL GOLD WALKED TO the stand with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man. He kept his eyes trained on the judge, deliberately refusing to see either Melanie, on his left, or James Harte, on his right. As soon as he was seated, his hand on the Bible, he looked at Chris. And he thought, I am doing this for you.

  In his heart, he could not imagine Chris murdering his daughter. The prosecution could have shown Michael a smoking gun with Chris's hand still on it, and he'd have had trouble believing it. But there was a small seed of doubt in his mind, one with the potential to grow to enormous proportions, which asked, How do you know? And he didn't. No one did but Chris, and Emily, and it was possible that Chris had done the unthinkable. Which was why he would not give Jordan McAfee what he wanted.

  Michael and Jordan had met four nights ago to go over his testimony. "If you tell the jury outright that Chris did not kill your daughter," Jordan had said, "then Chris will have a fighting chance."

  Michael had politely agreed to think about it. But what if? that little voice had said. What if?

  He stared, now, at the boy his daughter had loved. The boy who'd made a baby with her. And he silently apologized for what he would not say.

  "MR. GOLD," JORDAN SAID GENTLY, "thank you for being here today." Michael nodded. "It must seem strange to be testifying for the defense," he added. "After all, this is a murder trial, and the defendant is accused of killing your daughter."

  "I know."

  "Can I ask you why you decided to testify today, for the defense?"

  Michael licked his lips, his brain mechanically shuffling forth the answer he'd practiced with Jordan. "Because I knew Chris every bit as well as I knew my daughter."

  "I'll be brief, Mr. Gold, and I'll try to make this as painless as possible. Could you describe your relationship with Emily?"

  "I was very close to her. She was my only child."

  "Tell us about Chris. How did you know him?"

  Michael's eyes touched on Chris, sitting very still in his chair. "I've known him since the day he was born."

  "What was the age difference between Chris and Emily?"

  "Three months. In fact Chris's mother helped deliver Emily--I was a little late. Chris was in the hospital room with my daughter before I was."

  "And you watched them grow up together?"

  "Oh, yeah. They were inseparable, from the first day they shared a bassinet. Chris used to be underfoot in our house just as much, I guess, as Emily used to be underfoot at the Hartes'."

  "When did they move from being friends to ... something more?"

  "They started dating when Emily was thirteen."

  "How did you feel about that?" Jordan asked.

  Michael picked at the sleeve of his sportsjacket. "How does any father feel about that?" he mused. "I was protective; she was always going to be my little girl. But I couldn't think of anyone else I'd rather have Emily explore all that with. It was going to happen at some point, and I knew and trusted Chris. I certainly trusted him with the most important thing in my life--my daughter. In fact I'd been trusting him with her for years, by then."

  "What was your perception of their relationship?"

  "They were very, very close. More so than the average teenager, I think. They confided in each other all the time. God ... I can't think of anything Emily didn't tell Chris. He was her best friend, and she was his, and if that was moving onto a slightly more adult level, it was probably time for it."

  "How much time did she spend with Chris?"

  "Hours." Michael smiled faintly. "Every waking minute, it sometimes seemed."

  "Would it be fair to say that Chris saw Emily more than you did?"

  "Yes." He grinned. "I guess I saw her about as much as any parent sees a teenager."

  Jordan laughed. "I know what you mean, I've got one of them at home. At least I hope he's at home." He walked toward the witness stand. "So you didn't see Emily all that often, timewise, but you still felt very close to her?"

  "Absolutely. We always ate breakfast together, and we'd talk the whole time."

  Jordan softened the edges of his voice. "Mr. Gold, did you know that Emily was sexually active?"

  Michael turned red. "I ... maybe I suspected it. But I don't think any father really wants to know that."

  "Was it something Emily discussed with you?"

  "No. I think it would have made her as uncomfortable as it makes me."

  Jordan reached toward the railing of the witness stand, bridging the distance between himself and Michael. "Did she tell you she was pregnant?"

  "I had no idea."

  "To your knowledge, did she tell your wife?"

  "No."

  "She was very close to you and your
wife, but she didn't tell you?"

  "No." Michael looked up at Jordan, offering the smallest gift he could. "I think it was the sort of thing Emily wouldn't have told anyone."

  "So Emily didn't mention her pregnancy. Did she tell you she was depressed?"

  "No, she didn't." Michael swallowed, knowing it was coming to this. "And I didn't notice it myself."

  "You didn't see her all that often because she was with Chris--"

  "I know," Michael said, his voice hollow. "But that doesn't work as an excuse. She hadn't been eating very much; and she was under a great deal of stress, with college applications and everything. And I thought ... I thought that there was just a lot going on in her life." He reached for a glass of water set out for the witness and took a sip, blotting his lips with the back of his hand. "I keep thinking," he said softly, "that I'm going to find a note. One that I can use to make myself feel better. But I haven't.

  "It hurts to lose my daughter. It hurts more than anything else has ever hurt in my life. And because it hurts so much, it's very tempting to pass the blame. It makes it much easier for me, for my wife ... for any parent out there who this might happen to in the future, if we say, 'Oh, there were no signs to see. She wasn't suicidal; she was murdered.'" Michael turned to the jury. "A father ought to be able to tell that his daughter's suicidal, right? Or even depressed? But I didn't. If I can point a finger at someone else, then it's not my fault that I didn't notice; that I wasn't looking closely." He raked one hand through his silver hair. "I don't know what happened at the carousel that night. But I do know that I can't accuse someone else, just so that I won't feel guilty."

  Jordan let out the breath he'd been holding. Gold had given more than he'd expected, and--feeling optimistic--he decided to push a little. "Mr. Gold," he said, "we have two scenarios here: murder or suicide. Neither is something you want to believe, but the fact remains that somehow, some way, your daughter is dead."

  "Objection," Barrie said. "Is there a question before the witness?"

  "I'm getting to the point, Your Honor. Give me some leeway."

  "Overruled," Puckett said.

  Jordan turned back to Michael. "You say you knew Chris as well as you knew Emily. Having known Chris his whole life--and as a long-term witness to Chris and Emily's relationship--was it murder, or was it suicide?"

  Michael held his head in his hands. "I don't know. I just don't know."

  Jordan stared at him. "What do you know, Mr. Gold?"

  There was a long silence. "That Chris wouldn't have wanted to live without my daughter," Michael said finally. "And that even though he's sitting over there, he's not the only one who should be judged."

  BARRIE DELANEY DID NOT LIKE Michael Gold. She had not liked him at her first meeting, when he seemed absolutely incapable of grasping the fact that all the evidence pointed to the boy next door offing his own daughter. She liked him even less when she'd found out that he was testifying for the defense. And now, after his self-flagellation on the stand, she absolutely couldn't stand him.

  "Mr. Gold," she said, oozing false sympathy, "I am so sorry you have to be here today."

  "So am I, Ms. Delaney."

  She crossed in front of the witness stand, until she was aligned at the edge of the jury box. "You said you were very close to Emily," she said.

  "Yes."

  "You also said you didn't spend as much time with your daughter as Chris did." Michael nodded. "You said you didn't know she was upset."

  "No."

  "You didn't know she was pregnant."

  "No," Michael admitted. "I didn't."

  "You also said she told Chris everything."

  "Yes."

  "You couldn't imagine anything Emily didn't tell Chris."

  "That's right."

  "So she would have told Chris she was pregnant, correct?"

  "I ... I don't know."

  "Yes or no?"

  "Yes, I guess."

  Barrie nodded. "Mr. Gold, you said that you came here because you know Chris Harte so well."

  "That's right."

  "But this trial is about your daughter, and what happened to her. Either she committed suicide, or she was murdered. It's a horrific choice, just as Mr. McAfee said. It's terrible that it has to be your next-door neighbor who stands charged; and it's even more terrible that it's your daughter who is dead, but the fact is the jury has those two choices, Mr. Gold. And so do you." She took a deep breath. "Can you actually see your daughter picking up a gun, holding it to her head, and pulling the trigger?"

  Michael closed his eyes, doing what the prosecutor asked, for the sake of Emily and his wife and that strident voice inside his head. He imagined Emily's beautiful face, amber eyes drifting shut, the gun nuzzling her temple. He imagined a hand wrapped around that gun with confidence, with despair, with pain. But he could not say for sure that it was Emily's.

  He felt tears streak from the corners of his eyes, and he curled slightly on the stand, as if to protect himself.

  "Mr. Gold?" the prosecutor prompted.

  "No," he whispered. He shook his head, the tears coming faster now. "No."

  Barrie Delaney turned to the jury. "Then what," she asked, "are we left with?"

  THE ACT OF CHANGING from his trial clothes to his prison uniform seemed to Chris a shedding of skin, as if in peeling off the blazer and natty trousers he also removed a layer of civility and social grace, leaving him raw and primal back in his cell. For the first hour after returning from the courthouse, Chris wouldn't speak to anyone, and other inmates were careful not to approach him. He had to breathe in the stale air of the jail until it was all that filled his lungs, cramp himself to his accommodations, and only then could he move with the sure footing and indifference he'd cultivated after seven months in prison.

  He ventured into the day room of the medium security unit, aware of a buzz and disquietude. Several of the other men cast furtive glances in his direction, then looked at the TV or the walls or the row of lockers. Chris had been there long enough to know that people left you alone during your trial, but this went deeper. They were not ignoring him; they were keeping a secret.

  He walked over to a table surrounded by men. "What?" he said simply.

  "Man, didn't you hear? Vernon hung himself at the State Pen last night. With a friggin' pair of shoelaces."

  Chris shook his head to clear it. "He what?"

  "He's dead, man."

  "No." Chris backed away from the knot of inmates watching him. "No." He walked swiftly to the cell he'd shared with Steve a month earlier.

  He could bring Steve's face to mind more easily now than he could Emily's. He thought of what Steve had said before he was transferred, about what they did in Concord to convicts who'd killed children.

  By the end of the week, Chris could be heading to the state prison, too.

  He burrowed beneath his blankets, shaking quietly with grief and fear until he heard himself being paged to Control to meet a visitor.

  GUS THREW HER ARMS AROUND Chris the minute he came close enough for her to do so. "Jordan tells me it's going well," she enthused. "Couldn't be better."

  "You're not there," Chris said stiffening. "And what's he supposed to say? That you're not getting your money's worth?"

  "Well," Gus said, settling into her bridge chair. "He has no reason to lie."

  Chris bent his head, massaging his temples. "Saint Jordan," he muttered.

  There was nobody else in the visiting room. Usually Gus arrived earlier, but with the trial she'd had to get home to Kate and make dinner before she struck off again to visit Chris. Chris, who seemed awfully agitated. Gus peered at him curiously. "Are you all right?" she asked.

  He rubbed his eyes, and blinked up at her. "Fine," he said. "Peachy." He started to drum his fingertips on the table, and looked at the officer posted by the stairs.

  "Jordan says I'm the star witness," Gus said. "He told me that the jury's going to ride my emotion all the way to a not guilty verdict."


  Chris jerked. "Sounds like something he'd say."

  "You seem very edgy tonight," Gus said. "But from all accounts, Michael helped you tremendously today. Jordan's done a remarkable job up to this point. And certainly you know I'd do handsprings to get you free, Chris."

  "What I'm saying, Mom," Chris answered, "is that the jury may not want to see your handsprings. That they've already made up their minds."

  "That's crazy. That's not the way the system works."

  "What do you know about the way the system works? Is it right that I've been in jail for nearly a year, just waiting for a trial? Is it right that my lawyer's never once asked me, Hey, Chris. What really happened?" He leveled cold blue eyes on his mother. "Have you thought about it, Mom? This trial's going to be over in a day. Have you thought about what color you're going to paint my room when they take me away for the rest of my life? About what I'm going to look like, at forty and fifty and sixty, when I've been living in a room the size of a closet all those years?"

  He was quivering by the time he finished, and there was a wildness to his gaze that Gus recognized as the edge of panic. "Chris," she soothed, "that isn't going to happen."

  "How do you know?" he cried. "How the hell do you know?"

  From the corner of her eye, Gus saw the officer take a step toward them. She shook her head slightly, and he resumed his post at the stairs. Then she gently touched Chris's arm, carefully masking her own fear at seeing her son red-faced and trembling. She realized what a strain it must be to be eighteen, and listening to strangers decide your life. It was just as James had told her: Chris was wearing a mask in the courtroom. Simply being able to sit there without breaking down spoke volumes about his determination, and his character. "Sweetheart," she said, "I can understand why this is so frightening--"

  "No you can't!"

  "I can. I'm your mother. I know you."

  Chris's head swiveled toward her slowly, a bull about to charge. "Oh?" he said. "And what do you know?"

  "I know that you're the same wonderful son I've always loved. I know that you're going to get through this, like you've gotten through everything else. And I know that the jury isn't going to convict someone who's innocent."

  Chris was shaking so hard at this point that Gus's hand fell away from his shoulder. "What you don't know, Mom," he said softly, "is that I shot Emily." And with a muffled cry, he turned and fled up the stairs to the guards who would safely lock him away.