21. Janet
JANET
"Janet." His voice is low. Careful. "Put the knife down."
I don't say anything because I am trying to think what to do.
"I'm not going to hurt you. If I were going to hurt you I would have done it already."
"You come near me and I'll kill you."
"I'm going to get my clothes and I'm going to leave. Okay?"
My hand is shaking. I tighten my grip. I don't answer.
He holds my eyes for another moment. He turns and goes back to the bedroom.
I stand at the counter and wait. Looking for something more than a knife.
He comes back out with his jacket over his arm. Pauses at the edge of the living room. Looks at me in my bra and underwear one more time across the island.
"How did you do it? Get the video? How did you know?"
"Does it matter?"
I want him to say something. Explain it. Confess. Give me something to throw back at him.
He goes to the door. Pauses. “Why didn’t you trash it, Janet?”
“Get out!”
He leaves. The front door clicks shut behind him.
I run to the door. Lock it.
The apartment is so quiet I hear the refrigerator hum.
My legs go.
I slide down against it and sit on the floor. Knife still in my hand.
The supermarket.
He was already there when I walked in.
I can feel the cart handle. The way he looked into it. Prosecution rests, he said. And I laughed. I actually laughed.
His hand in mine in the cab after Gramercy Tavern. The way he didn't push. The way he waited. Like he had all the time in the world, because he did.
The planetarium. I remember thinking this man is actually interested in the stars. I remember leaning into his shoulder and feeling safe. I remember thinking — when is the last time I felt this?
It was a Tuesday afternoon, and he took me to see the stars, and I thought it was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me.
He was working.
His hands sliding up my back. My name in his mouth. The weight of him. The way he used to go slow on purpose, until I?—
His thumb on my jaw, tilting my face up. The way I let him.
Waking up with his arm across my waist and turning into it. Turning into him. Like it was natural. Like I belonged there.
The things I said to him in the dark.
I press the back of my hand against my mouth.
How did he get the file? He'd have needed my password. He'd have needed — cameras. His apartment. I used my laptop there dozens of times. I sat at that desk and he — must have cameras and I never?—
I'm a prosecutor. I missed it.
The way I let him touch me. The things I said. The way I thought it meant something. The way I cried after, once, in the bathroom where he couldn't hear, because I thought I was finally?—
My stomach lurches.
The rage comes.
He used me. Ryan Keller sent his brother into my life and Mike Trent got into my bed, and my laptop, and my head and I told him things I haven't told anyone and he sat there and took all of it and sent it straight to Elliot Vance.
Every dinner. Every morning. Every time I thought I was finally?—
And now Ryan Keller walks out of prison. Maybe this week. Maybe next. He used his brother to get to me, and it worked. And now he gets to walk out of there, and I have to watch it happen.
As long as that video is a secret, they own me. Ryan Keller and his brother have something on me, and I am their victim for as long as I let them keep it.
I'm not letting them keep it.
I go to my laptop.
Rosemary emailed me the page with his name on it.
Mike Trent.
I read even though she told me. I need to see it myself.
Same mother as Ryan Keller. Different fathers.
I search him.
There he is. Nocturne's grand opening. Some charity gala in Tribeca. A profile in a downtown business magazine three years ago. Former Marine builds Lower Manhattan hotspot from the ground up.
I read the whole profile. Every word. His voice is in it — the same cadence, the same calm — and I sit there in my bra and underwear at two in the morning reading quotes from a man I thought I knew and hearing him like he's in the next room.
I wanted to build something that lasted; he says in the piece. Something real.
Decorated combat veteran. Queens, born and raised. No criminal record.
I read everything. Every piece I can find. An hour and a half. Maybe more. And the whole time part of my brain is still replaying — his card in my hand. Come to Nocturne. The way I held onto that card for days before I said yes. Like I was the one being careful.
Nothing was real.
I close the laptop.
I make it to the bathroom. Run the cold water and press both hands under it. Splash it on my face. Again. Again.
I look at myself in the mirror.
My mascara is everywhere. My hands won't stop shaking. I look like someone who had a knife in her hand, and I did.
I think about Joe.
I think about the way he used to say my name when I was spiraling. The way he could slow me down by saying it. Janet. Like that. One word.
I go to the bedroom. I take the knife with me. I get into bed.
I cry until there's nothing left.
I don't sleep. I close my eyes, and the supermarket comes back. His hands. His mouth. The planetarium dark and quiet, and his shoulder warm under my cheek. I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling. Close them again. His voice in the dark. The things I said back.
I don't know what time it is when I finally drift off.
I wake up, and my hand is wet.
I sit up. The sheets are dark on one side. My palm is bleeding — blood on the knife, on the pillowcase too.
I put the knife on the nightstand.
I get up. Run it under cold water in the bathroom until it stops. Find a bandage under the sink. Wrap it tight. Press a towel against it and sit on the edge of the tub.
I strip the sheets. Stuff them in the hamper. Lie back down on the bare mattress and watch the ceiling go from black to gray.
In the morning, I shower. I rewrap my bandage. I put on my suit.
I look at myself in the mirror for a long time before I leave.
The subway is packed. I find a spot by the door and hold the rail and stare at the floor. Someone's elbow is in my side. A man across from me is eating a bagel. A woman in scrubs is asleep standing up.
It feels like everyone is looking at me. Like they all know.
I keep my eyes down. I think about what I'm going to say. I think about how I'm going to say it. I've stood in front of juries and judges and said things I didn't want to say, and I've never once let my voice shake.
My stop comes. I take the stairs up into the gray morning and walk the two blocks to the building and go through security and get in the elevator, and watch the numbers climb.
Peter's assistant says something when I walk past her. I don't stop.
Peter looks up from his desk. "Janet. I wasn't expecting?—"
"The Keller video," I say. "I should have disclosed it to the defense, and I didn't. It was my mistake. I take full responsibility."
He looks at me for a long moment. Whatever he's feeling, he keeps it behind his eyes.
"Sit down, Janet."
I stay on my feet. "I want a gun permit."
A beat.
"How did you hurt your hand?"
"It was a kitchen knife accident."
"You've never wanted to carry a weapon before."
I hold his eyes. "Ryan Keller gets out in a week. He may want to harm me. I have a right to it."
He doesn't answer right away.
I don't move.
“You’re on leave,” he says.
"I’m still a prosecutor. I want a gun."