Jury of One Read Online Free PDF Page A

through her keys until her fist held several metal spikes. Then she straightened up and looked them in the eye. Always look them in the eye.
    But they were no threat. They were two grim-looking men but they weren’t looking for a fight. The taller one, in fact, seemed to sense Shelly’s trepidation and raised a hand. He even addressed her by name, which told her all she needed to know. They knew her name and knew she was here.
    “Special Agent Donovan Peters,” said the tall man. He nodded toward his shorter colleague, the weight lifter. “This is Assistant United States Attorney Jerod Romero.”
    She held out her hand for their credentials. After she verified their authenticity—as best she could, anyway—she looked up at them. “Okay. What do you want?”
    But she knew the answer, and she was beginning to understand more than a few things. They wanted to talk about Alex. She was about to learn why she hadn’t heard from Alex for the last several months.

4
Never
    S EE THE PERFECT
family. She sees it from the threshold of the kitchen, looking in on the family after she has excused herself from dinner. Not feeling well, she told them, which was certainly true, but instead of taking the stairs to her room, she has sneaked back to look in on them.
    How can she tell them?
    The four of them are there. Edgar, the eldest, seven years her senior, who has graduated from school out east and is now completing a master’s degree in public policy, looking more like Daddy every day, the same thick, cereal-colored hair, prominent nose, squared jaw. He sounds like Daddy, too, if you close your eyes and listen. Thomas, still an undergraduate out east as well, takes after Mother, a smaller nose, darker eyes, wispy light hair. Mother is there as well—Abby is her name—her sweet, round face and soothing voice, her blond cropped hair, watching Daddy with such dreams in her sparkling green eyes.
    And Daddy, so proud as he watches his boys, as he dreams of greater things. He is a strong man raising strong men—and a lovely young daughter, a sweet, innocent little daughter! So aggressive and confident in all he does, the conviction with which he speaks, the old-school discipline with the boys, even the way he eats—mixing all of his food together, “like a dog’s breakfast,” before shoveling it all into his mouth.
    It has been four weeks since it happened. Twenty-eight days. The incident in the city. The rape, yes, it was rape, no matterwhat anyone said! And now this. Four weeks, two positive home tests, one missed period. She is only sixteen years old and this.
    How can she tell them? How, when her brothers are talking about master’s degrees and girlfriends, her father has some exciting news of his own, her mother is so proud of all the men in her family?
    The answer is obvious. She can’t tell them. Not ever. They will never, they can never, ever know that the baby girl of the family, the darling princess, is pregnant.

5
Pinch
    “W E PICKED UP Alex Baniewicz in December of last year.” Special Agent Donovan Peters pushed a file in front of Shelly. They were sitting in the federal building downtown, in a small conference room with a view of the state courthouse. The room, she thought, was quintessentially government—cheap furniture, modest artwork that seemingly was placed there only because something was supposed to go on the wall, thin carpeting of no discernible color.
    Shelly opened the manila file before her. Her heart sank as she viewed a mug shot of Alex, a black-and-white photo clipped to one side of the file. A summary report written by another federal agent was on the opposite page, explaining that, on December 5, 2003, Alex Gerhard Baniewicz was arrested in possession of seventy-four grams of powder cocaine.
    She closed her eyes. Oh, how it must look to the government. Seventy-four grams of cocaine! He looked like your run-of-the-mill purveyor of drugs. She wanted to come forth with excuses, that Alex only