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"It'll be the typical defense," Charlie responded wearily. "Jones will argue that Otis wasn't even there that night and find others who will verify it. Then he'll argue that even if Otis was there, he didn't say what's attributed to him. And even if he did say it, he'll say it was taken out of context."
"Will that work?"
Charlie sipped his coffee, knowing he still had more work to do. "No one can ever predict what a jury will do. You know that."
Brenda put her hand on Charlie's arm. "But what do you think?" she asked. "Honestly."
"Honestly?"
She nodded, thinking he looked a dozen years older than when he'd left for work that morning.
"Unless we find something else, Otis is gonna walk."
"Even if he did it?"
"Yeah," he said, no energy in his voice, "even if he did it."
"Would Miles accept that?"
Charlie closed his eyes. "No. Not a chance."
"What would he do?"
He finished the cup of coffee and reached for the file. "I have no idea."
Chapter 25
I began stalking them regularly, carefully, so that no one would know what I was up to.
I would wait for Jonah at school, I would visit Missy's grave, I went to their house at night. My lies were convincing; no one suspected a thing.
I knew it was wrong, but it didn't seem as if I could control my actions anymore. As with any compulsion, I couldn't stop. When I did these things, I wondered about my state of mind. Was I a masochist, who wanted to relieve the agony I'd inflicted? Or was I a sadist, someone who secretly enjoyed their torment and wanted to witness it firsthand? Was I both? I didn't know. All I knew was that I didn't seem to have a choice.
I could not escape the image I'd seen the first night, when Miles walked past his son without speaking to him, as if oblivious to his presence. After all that had happened, it wasn't supposed to be that way. Yes, I knew that Missy had been taken from their lives ... but didn't people grow closer after a traumatic event? Didn't they look to each other for support? Especially family?
This was what I had wanted to believe. This was how I had made it through the first six weeks. It became my mantra. They would survive. They would heal. They would turn to each other and become even closer. It was the singsong chant of a tortured fool, but it had become real in my mind.
But that night, they had not been doing okay. Not that night.
I am not naive enough now, nor was I naive enough then, to believe that a single snapshot of a family at home reveals the truth. I told myself after that night that I was mistaken in what I saw, or even if I was correct, that it didn't mean anything. Nothing can be read into isolated instances. By the time I got to my car, I almost believed it.
But I had to make certain.
There is a path one takes when moving toward destruction. Like someone who has one drink on a Friday night, and two the next, only to gradually and completely lose control, I found myself proceeding more boldly. Two days after my nighttime visit, I needed to know about Jonah. I can still remember the train of thought I used to justify my action. It went like this: I'll watch for Jonah today, and if he's smiling, then I'll know I was wrong. So I went to the school. I sat in the parking lot, a stranger sitting behind the wheel in a place I had no right to be, staring out the windshield. The first time I went, I barely caught a glimpse of him, so I returned the following day.
A few days later, I went again.
And again.
It got to the point where I recognized his teacher, his class, and I was soon able to pick him out immediately, just as he left the building. And I watched. Sometimes he would smile, sometimes he wouldn't, and for the rest of the afternoon, I would wonder what it meant. Either way, I was never satisfied.
And night would come. Like an itch I couldn't reach, the compulsion to spy nagged at me, growing stronger as the hours rolled on. I would lie down, eyes wide open, then get out of bed. I'd pace back and forth. I'd sit, then lie down again. And even though I knew it was wrong, I'd make the decision to go. I'd talk to myself, whispering the reasons I should ignore the feeling inside me, even as I reached for the car keys. I would drive the darkened stretch, urging myself to turn around and head back home, even as I parked the car. And I would make my way through the bushes surrounding their house, one step after the next, not understanding what had driven me there.
I watched them through the windows.
For a year, I saw their life unfold in little bits and pieces, filling in what I didn't know already. I learned that Miles continued to work at night sometimes, and I wondered who was taking care of Jonah. So I charted Miles's schedule, knowing when he'd be gone, and one day I followed Jonah's bus home from school. I learned that he stayed with a neighbor. A peek at the mailbox told me who she was.
Other times, I watched them eating dinner. I learned what Jonah liked to eat, and I learned what shows he liked to watch afterward. I learned that he liked to play soccer but didn't like reading. I watched him grow.
I saw good things and bad things, and always, I looked for a smile. Something, anything, that might lead me to stop this insanity.
I watched Miles, too.
I saw him pick up around the house, sliding items into drawers. I saw him cook dinner. I watched him drink beer and smoke cigarettes on the back porch, when he thought no one was around. But most of all, I watched him as he sat in the kitchen.
There, concentrating, one hand moving through his hair, he stared at the file. At first I assumed he brought his work home with him, but gradually I came to the conclusion that I was wrong. It wasn't different cases that he was studying, it was a single case, since the file never seemed to change. It was then, with a sudden jolt of comprehension, that I knew what the file was about. I knew that he was looking for me, this person who watched him through the windows.
Again, after that, I justified what I was doing. I started coming to see him, to study his features as he peered at the file, to look for an "aha," followed by a frantic phone call that would portend a visit to my home. To know when the end would come.
When I would finally leave the window to return to my car, I would feel weak, completely spent. I would swear that it was over, that I'd never do it again. That I would let them lead their lives without intrusion. The urge to watch them would be satiated and guilt would set in, and on those evenings, I would despise what I had done. I would pray for forgiveness, and there were times I wanted to kill myself.
From someone who once had dreams of proving myself to the world, I now hated who I had become.
But then, no matter how much I wanted to stop, no matter how much I wanted to die, the urge would come again. I'd fight it until I could fight no longer, then I'd say to myself that this would be the last time. The very last.
And then, like a vampire, I would creep out into the night.
Chapter 26
That night, while Miles studied the file in the kitchen, Jonah had his first nightmare in weeks.
It took Miles a moment to register the sound. He'd studied the file until nearly two in the morning; that, coupled with the all-night shift the evening before and everything that had happened during the day, had drained him completely, and his body seemed to rebel when he heard Jonah's cries. Like being forced to move through a room filled with wet cotton, consciousness returned slowly, and even as he moved toward Jonah's room, it was more of a Pavlovian response than a desire to comfort his son.
It was early in the morning, a few minutes before dawn. Miles carried Jonah to the porch; by the time his cries finally stopped, the sun was already up. Because it was Saturday and he didn't have to go to school, Miles carried Jonah back to the bedroom and started a pot of coffee. His head was pounding, so he took two aspirin and washed them down with orange juice.
He felt as if he had a hangover.
While the coffee was brewing, Miles retrieved the file and the notes he'd made the night before; he wanted to go over them one more time bef
ore heading into work. Jonah surprised him, however, by returning to the kitchen before he had a chance to do so. He padded in, his eyes puffy as he rubbed them, then sat at the table.
"Why are you up?" Miles asked. "It's still early."
"I'm not tired," Jonah answered.
"You look tired."
"I had a bad dream."
Jonah's words caught Miles off-guard. Jonah never remembered having the dreams before.
"You did?"
Jonah nodded. "I dreamed you were in an accident. Like Mommy was."
Miles went to Jonah's side. "It was just a dream," he said. "Nothing happened, okay?"
Jonah wiped his nose with the back of his hand. In his race car pajamas, he looked younger than he was.
"Hey, Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you mad at me?"
"No, not at all. Why would you think I'm mad?"
"You didn't talk to me at all yesterday."
"I'm sorry. I wasn't mad at you. I was just trying to figure out some stuff."
"About Mommy?"
Miles was caught off-guard again. "Why do you think it's about Mommy?" he asked.
"Because you were looking at those papers again." Jonah pointed to the file on the table. "They're about Mommy, aren't they?"
After a moment, Miles nodded. "Kind of."
"I don't like those papers."
"Why not?"
"Because," he said, "they make you sad."
"They don't make me sad."
"Yeah, they do," Jonah said. "And they make me sad, too."
"Because you miss Mommy?"
"No," he said, shaking his head, "because they make you forget about me."
The words made Miles's throat constrict. "That's not true."
"Then why didn't you talk to me yesterday?"
He sounded almost on the verge of tears, and Miles pulled Jonah closer. "I'm sorry, Jonah. It won't happen again."
Jonah looked up at him. "Do you promise?"
Miles made an X over his chest and smiled. "Cross my heart."
"And hope to die?"
