only saying, you werethere. There might be questions. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“Oh, God.” Jessica leans against the mantel over thefireplace for support.
“This is my fault, Jess. And I’ll do anything to protect youfrom this.”
Jessica’s eyes slowly move to her mother. “What do you mean,it’s your fault?”
Allison takes a breath. She was going to tell her anyway.There is some notion to not throwing fuel on a fire, but she thinks better ofit. Full disclosure seems warranted right now.
“Sam and I have been seeing each other, Jess,” she says.
Jessica’s eyes widen. “You and-and Sam?”
“I know that you approached him a few months ago. He toldme. You were interested in him. I can understand why.”
“You and Sam, Mother?” She retreats from Allison.
“Yes,” Allison says. “It happened after your father and Ihad split up. But yes.”
Jessica’s eyes cast about the room. This is overload. This,on top of everything else.
“This is my fault,” Allison says. “I’m the reason you werethere tonight.”
“What does that mean?” She walks toward her mother,emboldened.
“You were fired,” Allison says, “at the request of aninsecure, jealous woman who wasn’t thinking straight.”
Jessica angles her face, looks hard at her mother. “You toldhim to fire me.”
“I went down to the capital, yesterday, and made him callyou.”
“You told him-to fire me.”
Allison nods. “I realized, today, how stupid I was. I wasgoing to call you and talk to you about it. I swear to you, I was. You weregoing to get your job back.”
Jessica does not seem capable of a response, anotheremotional outburst. Where to put this, on the list of tonight’s events? Shetucks her hair behind her ear, a habit she formed during adolescence, a habitshe got from Allison.
Allison sees, looking at her daughter’s profile, theplatinum earring on her ear, the earring she purchased not long ago. No bigsurprise. Allison had even noticed them absent from her jewelry box, overChristmas, and figured as much. Not the first time her daughter raided herjewelry or clothes. She always took a small pleasure in it, actually.
Jessica is well dressed, Allison now notices. A violetblouse, black skirt and boots, more makeup than usual, however smeared acrossher face it may be now. And the earrings. She was dressed up to see Sam. Shesees with her own eyes now, for the first time, what Sam told her. Jessica wascarrying a torch for him.
“I’m so sorry about this, honey.”
Jessica continues to pace by the fireplace, fuming, theanger temporarily overcoming the horror.
She couldn’t have done it, Allison says to herself. NotJessica. She feels the heat burning in her chest, a moment of panic, howeverhard she tries to fight the logic working through her brain. She wouldn’t be sodistraught that she’d kill him.
They spend the remainder of the evening repeating thisconversation. Allison interrogates Jessica on what, exactly, she did in thehouse, where she went, whether anyone saw her. She tries to cast aside thegrowing realization that Sam Dillon is dead, because she must focus on theyoung woman who might be charged with his murder.
Jessica decides to have some wine, the first time she hasdone so in front of her mother, the legal limits of a twenty-year-old drinkingalcohol notwithstanding. It’s a rebuke, Allison realizes, but she willcertainly not object under the circumstances.
Because either way, whether she killed him or she simplyfears that she will be accused of doing so, Jessica needs to be calm now. Alittle wine won’t hurt. And Allison sees, finally, that her interrogation isbeginning to cause a panic in her daughter.
Oh, she is certainly behaving as if she were innocent. Ifshe killed Sam, she is very talented at acting otherwise. So no, she couldn’thave done it.
Right?
There is no remorse, not even a hint, which is what Allisonwould expect to see. It is horror, revulsion, but not remorse, or even fear.
So no, she couldn’t have done it.
Jessica is wiped out by eleven-thirty, and a bit tipsy,after nearly three hours of conversation. They may go to the police together,tomorrow, they decide. Explain all of this. Allison is not so sure. Sheenvisions a picture painted by local cops: a young, confused woman with a crushon a man; he dumps her; the woman goes to the house the next night andbludgeons him. There could be people, regardless of what Jessica thinks, whocould attest to each and every one of these facts.
She is not so sure how this will look. She considers goingto Sam’s home now. She admits that in part it is because she wants to see him,to touch him again. To say good-bye.
But that is not the only reason. She wants to see how herdaughter left things. She wants to see how things look before she marches herdaughter into a police station to admit that she was there tonight.
Jessica goes off to bed. Allison watches her daughter takethe stairs slowly. Jessica is utterly exhausted. Allison hopes that she will beable to sleep.
Allison returns to the living room and takes a bit of winefor herself. Yes, she wants so much to see him again. It hasn’t even registeredyet. He is gone. Like something she has read about someone else, the anonymousvictims in the news every day. Not Sam.
No, Jessica could not have killed him. No. Impossible.
“Oh, shit.” She hears her daughter upstairs. “Shit.”
Allison stands and moves to the hallway. Jessica rushes downthe stairs and through the living room, scanning the carpet, overturningcushions, cursing as she goes along.
“What?” Allison asks in a panic. “What?”
Jessica continues her inventory, moving from the living roomto the kitchen, running her hands over the counter-tops, even opening therefrigerator, then racing outside, leaving the front door wide open.
Allison follows, calling after her. Jessica runs to thedriveway, jerks open her car door, and looks through the car even morethoroughly than the house.
“Jessica, for God’s sake, what?” she asks. She sees the fearnow, for the first time, on her daughter’s face. She feels the fear in herself,too, followed immediately by a sense of calm. A mother’s defense mechanism. Sheknows how much she loves the daughter who has felt betrayed by her. She knowsthat she would do anything for her.
“Tell me it’s not at Sam’s,” Jessica mumbles urgently toherself, searching the floorboards of the car. “Please tell me I didn’t leaveit-”
“Jessica,” Allison says calmly. “Tell me.”
Jessica gets out of the car slowly and looks at Allison withtears in her eyes, searching her mother’s face for some kind of comfort, nodifferently than she has looked at Allison so many times, for so many reasons,over the years.
“Mother,” Jessica says, her throat full, “I’m missing one ofmy earrings.”
ELEVEN YEARS EARLIER
Ram Haroon squints into the light of the room, aftertraveling blindfolded in a dark sedan, then up several flights of stairs. Hisfather is next to him, patting his arm protectively.
“Everything is fine, Zulfi,” he says to him.
“Not Zulfi,” says the man behind the desk, an Americanspeaking the native Pakistani language rather well. “Now it’s Ram, I thought.”
“Yes, Ram,” says his father.
The man across the desk is wearing a light blue shirt andglasses. He is about Ram’s father’s age, but sun has
