Tell Me No Secrets Read Free Page A

walls were the same dull white as the rest of the rooms, the carpet a well-worn beige.
    Connie DeVuono stood just inside the doorway. She seemed to have shrunk since the last time Jess saw her, and her black coat hung on her body as if on a coatrack. Her complexion was so white it appeared tinged with green, and the bags under her eyes lay in soft, unflattering folds, sad testament to the fact that she probably hadn’t slept in weeks. Only the dark eyes themselves radiated an angry energy, hinting at the beautiful woman Connie DeVuono had once been. “I’m sorry to be disturbing you,” she began.
    “It’s just that we don’t have a lot of time,” Jess said softly, afraid that if she spoke above a whisper, the woman might shatter, like glass. “I have to be in court in about half an hour.” Jess pulled out one of the small chairs for Connie to sit in. The woman needed no further encouragement. She collapsed like an accordion inside it. “Are you all right? Would you like some coffee? Some water? Here, let me take your coat.”
    Connie DeVuono waved away each suggestion with shaking hands. Jess noticed that her nails were bitten tothe quick and her cuticles had been picked raw. “I can’t testify,” she said, looking away, her voice so low as to be almost inaudible.
    Still, the words had the force of a shout. “What?” Jess asked, though she’d heard every word.
    “I said I can’t testify.”
    Jess lowered herself into one of the other chairs and leaned toward Connie DeVuono so that their knees were touching. She reached for the woman’s hands and cupped them inside her own. They were freezing. “Connie,” she began slowly, trying to warm them, “you’re our whole case. If you don’t testify, the man who attacked you goes free.”
    “I know. I’m sorry.”
    “You’re sorry?”
    “I can’t go through with it. I can’t. I can’t.” She started crying.
    Jess quickly drew a tissue from the pocket of her gray jacket and handed it to Connie, who ignored it. Her cries grew louder. Jess thought of her sister, the effortless way she seemed able to comfort her crying babies. Jess had no such talents. She could only sit by helplessly and watch.
    “I know I’m letting you down,” Connie DeVuono continued, her shoulders shaking. “I know I’m letting everybody down. …”
    “Don’t worry about us,” Jess told her. “Worry about you. Think about what that monster did to you.”
    The woman’s angry eyes bore deeply into Jess’s. “Do you think I could ever forget it?”
    “Then you have to make sure he isn’t in a position to do it again.”
    “I can’t testify. I just can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”
    “Okay, okay, calm down. It’s okay. Try to stop crying.” Jess leaned back in her chair and tried to crawl inside Connie’s mind. Something had obviously happened since the last time they had spoken. At each of their previous meetings, Connie, though frightened, had been adamant about testifying. The daughter of Italian immigrants, she had grown up in a household that believed fiercely in the American system of justice. Jess had been very impressed with that belief. After four years with the state’s attorney’s office, Jess thought it probably stronger than her own. “Has something happened?” she asked, watching Connie’s racking shoulders shudder to a halt.
    “I have to think about my son,” Connie said forcefully. “He’s only eight years old. His father died of cancer two years ago. If something happens to me, then he has no one.”
    “Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
    “My mother is too old to look after him. Her English is very poor. What will happen to Steffan if I die? Who will take care of him? Will you?”
    Jess understood the question was rhetorical, but answered anyway. “I’m afraid I’m not very good with men,” she said softly, hoping to elicit a smile, watching Connie DeVuono struggle to oblige. “But, Connie, nothing is going to happen to you once we