VC04 - Jury Double by Edward Stewart Read Free Book Online

a fleeting mental image of two law students grappling under a quilt in a New Haven dormitory. She felt a kick of vestigial jealousy.
    Mark pushed up from the table. “See you at nine-thirty in court, okay?”
    “Leaving?” Kyra said.
    “Big day tomorrow. Thanks for feeding me. Good night, Anne. Good seeing you.”
    Kyra walked him to the front door.
    As Anne sat staring at her almost-empty wineglass, Juliana padded to the sink and rinsed out an empty Häagen-Dazs container.
    “Lucky Kyra. She has a lawyer who makes house calls. And in a weird way, he’s not bad-looking.” Juliana shook the excess water from the cardboard container and placed it upside down on a piece of paper towel. She observed recycling laws and it seemed to Anne she added a few of her own. “Kyra said you and Mark used to be lovers?”
    “We were engaged,” Anne said quietly.
    “What happened?”
    “Kyra happened. It wasn’t her fault.”
    “Really? Are they still—?”
    “They’re just friends now.”
    “Alone at last!” Kyra floated back into the kitchen.
    “Toby wants you to kiss him good night,” Juliana said.
    “Come on. We’ll both kiss him good night.” Kyra took Anne’s hand and led the way to her bedroom. With its coordinated colors and fabrics, the room looked like a fantasy from a magazine centerfold: king-size canopied bed with carved wooden headboard, heaped with silk pillows; beautiful old peachwood armoire and chest of drawers; walls decorated with signed, antique-framed photos of Kyra caught in intimate yet posed moments with the greats of the decade—the president, Liz Taylor, Mother Teresa.
    “Sorry about the mess.” Kyra shut the door. “My glorious career.”
    For three years Kyra had been photography editor at Savoir , one of a group of glossy magazines put out by the Norton Stanley Publishing empire. The tables were stacked with Stanley products: sports and celebrity weeklies, show-biz and antique and fashion and cooking monthlies.
    Kyra dropped onto the edge of the bed and began crying softly.
    Anne felt the first panicky stirrings of responsibility. “Sweetie—what’s the matter?”
    “I never told you everything about Catch—the way he used to shout and threaten—the brutal things he’d say. …”
    Anne sat on the bed beside her twin and smoothed the reddish-brown hair away from the trembling forehead. “Now, just take a deep breath and tell Annie all about it.”
    Kyra sniffled and reached for a Kleenex. “You can’t imagine what it was like, living that way.”
    “It’s over, sweetie—why dwell on it?”
    “Because he might get custody. I couldn’t bear for Toby to go through what I had to.”
    “That’s not going to happen,” Anne said softly, firmly, allowing automatic pilot to guide her. She was musing on the combination of annoyance and protectiveness that her sister’s problems had inspired in her since childhood; and wondering why protectiveness always won. It was odd, considering that Kyra had had the best life could offer—the storybook career, the storybook marriage, the storybook divorce; the beautiful son, the talented lovers, the famous friends; and money—and all Anne had was a failed marriage, a stalled concert career, and a modest reputation in a more-than-modest field.
    “But what if I get stuck on this jury thing tomorrow? The judge will give Toby to his father and I’ll never see him again.”
    “Come on. You heard Mark. He’s going to get you off.”
    “Oh, Annie—Annie-Pannie—there’s a rumor that Nort’s going to fold one of the magazines. What if he folds Savoir ?”
    “Now, stop catastrophizing.”
    “Our ad inches are way down. Newsstand sales have plateaued.” Kyra’s eyes came up, slow and moist. “Oh, Annie, I’m so scared—I’ve put three years into this job. I’ve done everything I could to give Toby a home and send him to a good school.”
    “You’re doing a wonderful job. He’s a great kid.”
    “But now this damned jury thing