Tell Me No Secrets by Joy Fielding Read Free Book Online Page B

knew what harmful rays might be lurking about, just waiting for their chance to feast on larger game.
    Jess watched the microwave silently ticking down its seconds, then defiantly thrust her body directly in its path. “Come and get me,” she cried, then laughed, feeling almost giddy. Was she really standing in her small galley kitchen at three o’clock in the morning challenging her microwave oven?
    The timer beeped five times, announcing her pizza was ready, and Jess gently lifted the now hot pie into her hands and carried it into the large combination living and dining area. She loved her apartment, had from the first moment she’d walked up the three flights to its door. It was old and full of interesting angles, the bay windows of its west wall looking out onto Orchard Street, only a block and a half away from where she’d lived as a child, and a far cry from the modern three-bedroom apartment on Lake Shore Drive she’d shared with Don.
    It was the sharing part of her life she missed the most: having someone to talk to, to be with, to cuddle up next to at the end of the day. It had felt nice to share big ideas, small triumphs, needless worries. It had felt comforting to be part of a couple, safe to be part of
JessandDon
.
    Jess switched on a stereo that rested against the wall across from the old tie-dyed velvet sofa she’d found in a secondhand store on Armitage Avenue and listened as the ineffably beautiful strains of Cesar Franck’s violin and piano concerto filled the room. Beside her, her canary, his cage covered for the night, started to sing. Jess sank into the soft swirls of her velvet sofa, listening to the sweet sounds, and eating her pizza in the dark.
    “Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, have you reached your verdict?” the judge asked, and Jess felt a rush of adrenalinesurge through her body. It had been almost twenty-four hours since she had delivered her closing argument. The jury had deliberated for almost eight hours before deciding that no consensus was immediately forthcoming, and Judge Harris had impatiently ordered them to a hotel for the night, under careful instructions not to discuss the case with anybody. They had resumed their deliberations at nine o’clock this morning. Surprisingly, an hour later, they were ready.
    The jury foreman said yes, they had reached their verdict, and Judge Harris instructed the defendant to please rise. Jess listened, her breathing stilled, as the jury foreman intoned solemnly, “We, the jury, find the defendant, Douglas Phillips … not guilty.”
    Not guilty.
    Jess felt a pin prick her side, sensed her body slowly losing air.
    Not guilty.
    “My God, they didn’t believe me,” Erica Barnowski whispered beside her. Not guilty.
    Doug Phillips embraced his attorney. Rosemary Michaud gave Jess a discreet victory smile.
    Not guilty.
    “Damn it,” Neil Strayhorn said. “I really thought we had a chance.”
    Not guilty.
    “What kind of justice is this?” Erica Barnowski demanded, her voice gaining strength through indignation. “The man admitted holding a knife to my throat, for God’s sake, and the jury says he isn’t guilty?”
    Jess could only nod. She’d been part of the justice system too long to harbor any delusions about its so-called justice. Guilt was a relative concept, a matter of ghosts and shadows. Like beauty, it was in the eye of the beholder. Like truth, it was subject to interpretation.
    “What do I do now?” Erica Barnowski was asking. “I lost my job, my boyfriend, my self-respect. What do I do now?” She didn’t wait for an answer, fleeing the courtroom before Jess had time to think of a suitable response.
    What could she have said? Don’t worry, tomorrow is another day? Things will look brighter in the morning? It’s always darkest before the dawn? How about, what goes around comes around? He’ll get his? If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be? Of course, there was always, tough luck, better luck next time, heaven