Keep No Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page B

nothing more than a scent."
    It's late. Almost midnight. He just left the law library at the university. He approaches the pedestrian tunnel that will take him to the other side of Forsyth Avenue, past the dorms and to the spot where he parked his car. He glances at the blue light above the emergency phone near the tunnel entrance, but other than the simple recognition of the phone's existence, he doesn't think twice about it.
    His footsteps become louder inside the tunnel. The tunnel isn't lit, as it usually is, but he doesn't think twice about that either. He's not thinking at all, really, and it's nice, the respite from the usual noise in his head.

    If a hand unexpectedly reaches out of the dark and touches you at midnight on a deserted college campus, your first emotion is probably fear. Your first instinct is one of two—fight or flight. But not when the hand touching you has already left its mark. Not when, in the split second before you feel the touch and hear the voice, you smell the scent that has the power to weaken your knees and make any protective response impossible.
    No, in that case, your response is altogether different. It's still instinctive, but it's not the response that will save your life.

    "Jack, it's me," comes a voice from the past, barely a whisper, its owner unseen, but known.
    He's left with only one response. Just one.
    He turns to the voice.

    The hand slips down his arm and grasps his wrist. It pulls him, and he takes a step, allowing it to happen.
    "Jack," she says again.
    "Jenny," he says, but maybe he only thinks it. Maybe he remains mute.
    He hears her shallow breathing, and he realizes she's as nervous as he is.
    Everything is happening so fast, and yet he still has enough time to have this thought before the hand moves to the back of his neck and pulls his head closer.
    Before the lips touch his.

    The kiss doesn't last long. Not like the first one so long ago. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. And he's no fool.
    This time, he resists from the start.

    The lies come fast, also.
    Later, he climbs into bed, and Claire rolls over to greet him, barely awake.
    "Your skin is so cold," she says as she pulls him into her arms.
    "It's freezing out." That part is true.
    "You're shivering still."
    "Yeah," he agrees. But that part is a lie.
    He turned up the heat in the car on the way home, and the interior grew toasty in minutes. He's not shivering; he's shaking.
    And there's a difference.
    As Claire drifts back to sleep, he lies in the dark and wonders why she didn't smell it, too. Because even now, he still can. It settled on his coat and then, when the hand made its way to the back of his neck, burned its way into his skin.

    Morning comes and he's still awake. He still smells it.
    Her. He still smells her.

    He takes a shower but even afterwards, even after he's toweled off and dressed, he still smells her. In the kitchen, he drops a kiss on Jamie's head as he eats his Cream of Wheat at the table, and he hopes he didn't leave the scent on his son the way she left it on him. He kisses Claire, too, and she looks him in the eye for a long moment, and he looks back. He wants to say, "Please save me." But instead he's silent. She places a palm on his cheek in the same way she's done so many times before and says, "I love you, you know."
    He smiles, a genuine smile, and says, "I know." Because he does. He also says, "I love you, too." Because he does. The lies aren't what he says; they're what he doesn't say.

    After breakfast, he drives out to St.
    Charles, to the little motel off Highway 94 where she told him she's rented a room. He told her he'd only be willing to listen away from prying eyes. Yet even this, he knows, has its own dangers.
    He stands at her door and pulls his coat collar up around his neck. It's even colder today—26 degrees, with a light snow beginning to fall—but this isn't why he does it.
    Her hair is still wet when she answers.
    She invites him in