Keep Quiet(21)

“What? How?” Ryan’s eyes widened, glistening and bloodshot.

“I don’t have time to give you the details, and it doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t forget your coat in the garage—”

“I’ll take care of it, and I didn’t forget.” Jake knew what to do with the coat, but the car had taken priority. “I knew as soon as I heard that it was Kathleen, how you would feel, but you need to let me handle—”

“I just can’t believe it. I hate myself, I hate this—”

“I know how you feel, but we have to keep it together.” Jake squeezed his shoulder. “This is the time to stay calm. Let me handle everything. I know what’s best for you, I really do. I love you.”

“You said that I could get ten years in jail if they charge me as an adult, but what if they don’t?” Ryan began to calm down and met his gaze evenly. His bloodshot eyes were still wet, but he was no longer on the verge of tears. “What if they decide I’m a kid, a juvenile? I went online and did the research—”

“You can’t find an answer like that online.” Jake didn’t add that he’d tried.

“But I found these websites for lawyers, and if I go in the juvenile system, it looks like a lot less time—”

“No website can tell you whether you’ll be tried as an adult. Considering who your mother is, they might want to make an example of you.”

“But you don’t know that, you can’t tell that for sure. What if we went to a lawyer?”

“No, we need to keep it to ourselves—”

“We could go to a lawyer together and tell him what happened, and see what he said.” Ryan seemed to recover, sitting up straighter, his voice strengthening. “Maybe there’s a way we can still make it come out right. We could go to the police and make them understand.”

“No.” Jake stiffened. “There’s no way.”

“But if we could get, like, an expert opinion—”

“I know what I’m doing, son.”

Ryan blinked, and Jake knew he was remembering the year that his dear old dad got laid off, rejected for every job he applied to, dressed up for interviews that got canceled. Pam and Ryan had seen him every morning, leaving the house for his rented cubicle, wearing a tie and jacket like a costume. It had been the year that his family had learned Dad wasn’t infallible. Jake felt as if he could never live it down, but he had to try.

“Ryan, I do know what I’m doing. You have to believe me.”

“But the lawyer on one of the sites said that anything clients tell him is confidential. Is that right, that he can’t tell anybody?”

“Yes.”

“So then why can’t we go?”

“How are we going to go see a lawyer together? What do we tell your mother?”

“She doesn’t have to know. She has that dinner tonight, remember, for whatever? She has to go, she’s supposed to give a speech.”

Jake had forgotten that, too. He was so preoccupied with Kathleen and Ryan.

“Dad, what if she goes to the dinner, and you say you have to stay home with me because I’m sick, then you and me can go to a lawyer?”

“No, I don’t want to do that.” Jake’s every instinct told him to contain the information. Any lie he told, like the one about the hamburger, not only led to other lies, but greater exposure. “I’m not even sure you should go with me if I see a lawyer. Then we can’t tell him that I was driving.”

“Why not?”

“Because if we tell him that I was driving and it’s not the truth, he can’t represent to the court that it is.”

“How do you know that? You’re not a lawyer.”

“I know a few things, Ryan.”

“That makes no sense.” Ryan frowned in confusion. “You mean it’s okay if he keeps it secret that we committed a crime, but it’s not okay if he keeps the details secret, like who was driving?”

“Yes.” Jake realized it didn’t make sense, either. “Look, I admit, I don’t know the niceties, but I don’t like the idea and I doubt that we could get a lawyer that quick anyway.”

“What if I already got us one?”

“What?” Jake asked, dismayed. He could see Ryan’s life exploding, flying into a million pieces, right before his eyes. “What did you do?”

“Don’t be mad—”

“I’m not mad, I’m scared, for you! What did you do?” Jake tried not to raise his voice. Panic gripped his heart. “Ryan, this is a secret. Once it’s out, it’s out, and you can’t put it back.”

“Don’t worry—”

“Ryan, did you call? Did you use your cell phone?”

“No, I sent an email, but I made up a second new Gmail account under a fake name, John Kane. I didn’t use my own name. It’s safe.”

“Ryan, they can still find out it’s from your computer, if they trace that. You know every computer has its own ISP address.”

“The lawyer’s not going to look it up, and nobody else is either. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to, but I want to.”

“Wait, hold on.” Jake had to slow him down. “Tell me what you did. What did you tell him?”