Free The Pact by Jodi Picoult

seat belt and got to the baby's door, managed to unlatch her and drag her free as she heard the footsteps behind her again.
    “You bastard!” Gus yelled, for the first time fighting back in this nightmare. She kicked the tire. She looked into the back seat, expecting to see Chris's face as they squealed away, but instead she saw her husband reach into the rear of the car to set him free. And she wondered why it had taken so long to notice that all this time, James had been sitting in the passenger seat. November 1997
    I'm hiring a lawyer for Chris," James announced Saturday, over dinner. The words erupted from him, like a belch, and he belatedly covered his mouth with his napkin as if he could take them back and declare them more politely.
    A lawyer. The serving platter dropped the last few inches from Gus's fingers, clattering on the table.
    “You what?”
    “I spoke confidentially to Gary Moorhouse about this. Remember him, from the Groton reunion? It was his suggestion.”
    “But Chris didn't commit a crime. Being depressed is not a crime.” Kate turned to her father, incredulous. “You mean they think Chris killed Emily?”
    “Absolutely not,” Gus said, crossing her arms, suddenly shivering. “Chris doesn't need a lawyer. A psychiatrist, yes. But a lawyer . . .”
    James nodded. “Gary said that when Chris told Detective Marrone it was a double suicide, he implicated himself. Just by saying there wasn't a third person, that it was just Em and him, turns the suspicion onto him.”
    “That's crazy,” Gus said.
    “Gus, I'm not saying Chris did what they think,” James said softly. “But I think we ought to be prepared.”
    “You will not,” Gus said, her voice shaking, “hire a defense lawyer for a crime that never happened.”
    “Gus-”
    “You will not, James. I won't let you.” Her arms went tighter around herself, almost meeting at the middle of her back. “If they find out we've gotten a lawyer, they'll think Chris has something to hide.”
    “They already think that. They're doing an autopsy on Emily, and sending the gun in for tests. Look. You and I know what really happened. Chris knows what really happened. Shouldn't we get someone trained to let the police know what really happened?”
    “Nothing happened!” Gus yelled. She spun around, facing the kitchen. “Nothing happened,” she repeated. Tell that, her conscience murmured, to Melanie.
    She suddenly remembered the day Chris woke up and wound his arms around her neck, and she realized that he no longer had the breath of a baby. It was stale and ordinary, not sweet and milky, and she had instinctively reared back from him, as if this had nothing to do with the transition to solid food but instead with the fact that this small, toddling body was now capable of holding in its sins.
    Gus took several deep breaths, then turned back toward the dining room table. Kate was bent like a willow stem over her plate, her tears collecting in its pale reflection. The serving platter remained untouched. And James's chair was empty.
    Kate STOOD UNEASILY in the doorway of her brother's hospital room, one hand resting on the knob in case he totally tripped out and became some kind of head case, like that kid with the greasy blond hair who'd been skulking behind a gurney when she came down the hall with her mom. Actually, she hadn't even wanted to come visit. Chris would be home on Tuesday. Plus, the doctors had said something about surrounding him with people who cared about him, but Kate didn't think that included herself. Most of her interactions with her older brother in the past year had been hostile: fighting over time in the bathroom, over entering a room without knocking first, over catching him with his hands under Emily's sweater.
    It freaked her out to think about Chris in a rubber room-well, not rubber exactly, but still. He looked different, with dark circles under his eyes and this hunted look, like everyone was out to get him. Certainly not