Tell No Lies Read Online Free PDF

Mendelsohn, Jack. I'm certain it was Alex and I can't deal with him right now, okay?"
     
    Before they finally left her office, he called for a taxi to meet him at Jenny's house in an hour. Plenty of time to get her car and drive her home. They walked along Broadway toward the garage. She was quieter now, but he knew from the skip in her step that the alcohol hadn't begun to wear off. She seemed to have forgotten the run-in with Mendelsohn and the call from Alex. The streets had dried, but a damp smell still hung in the air.
    They passed the open door of a sports pub, and Jenny tugged on Jack's sleeve to stop him.
    "Uh-uh, no way," he said.  "There's gonna be a cab wait—"
    She shook her head and put one finger to her lips to quiet him, then pointed into the pub, over the bar. Jack looked up to see his own face on the television screen above the bartender's head. The bartender had his back to the bar and had paused in the middle of pouring a beer to watch. The faces of the three patrons sitting at the bar turned up toward the TV at the same angle.
 
    "It's the eleven o'clock news. They're talking about your win today," Jenny whispered.
    Jack fidgeted under the neon light above the doorway. His face and gestures on the screen were animated—"approachable," Earl called it—as he answered the reporter's questions about the Adler case. Jack always enjoyed the interviews while they were happening, but watching himself afterward made him uncomfortable. Tonight was no exception, particularly because the next questions were about the recent arrest of Clyde Hutchins, the accused in the Barnard case. He'd known Jenny Dodson long enough to know where that topic would take them.
    "Come on, Jenny, I've already lived this episode," he joked, as Hutchins's photo appeared on screen. He took her hand and led her away from the doorway just as the reporter made the switch. But it was too late.
    "They should fry his ass," she announced. When Jack didn't respond, she stopped on the sidewalk. "Oh, come on, don't tell me you wouldn't like to see that creep get what he deserves. The guy tortured that little girl! And then he left her out in the cold to die a slow death!"
    Jack tugged on her sleeve to get her moving again. There was no use trying to have a serious discussion now, so he merely said, "Let's just get him convicted first, why don't we. Okay?"
    "But if there was ever the perfect argument for the death penalty, don't you think this case is it?"
    He sighed. "I don't think there will ever be the perfect argument for the death penalty."
 
     
    As they rode the parking-garage elevator to the fifth level, neither spoke. Jack watched Jenny; she kept her head down, looking at her hands. He wondered if the embarrassment of the bar dance was beginning to sink in or whether she was just thinking about Mendelsohn. Or Alex.
    He saw her car, a bright red Jeep Wrangler, as soon as they stepped off the elevator. It was one of only a few still parked on that level. They crossed the cement, illuminated by the yellow overhead lights on the ceiling and the ambient glow of the lights of surrounding office buildings that filtered in through the open sides of the garage. Their footsteps echoed, and for a moment they walked in step with each other. When they reached the car, he retrieved her keys from his pocket and started to unlock the door. She reached down and softly touched his hand.
    "Will you dance with me now?" she whispered.
    Jack remained still, his eyes on their motionless hands, but he felt his heart beating wildly, uncontrollably, in his chest. He knew, he just knew, what was going to happen, and he stood there frozen; he should just say no and open the car door as he had planned. But there was something in her voice, something that said, Don't reject me again, like you did back in the bar .
 
    "There's no music."
    She understood then that he had accepted. "That can be remedied," she said as she took the keys from him and, with much