Red hot lies, p.28
Red Hot Lies, page 28
T uesday morning, exactly one week after my fiancé disappeared, it was Mayburn who I spoke to first thing in the morning, not Sam.
“Where were you last night?” I asked when he answered, unable to prevent the demanding tone in my voice. I’d called him after my showdown with Dr. Li and it had gone to voice mail again.
“Remind me not to date you.”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously, I was working the phones and three computers on your case, trying to see if your boyfriend used those credit cards.”
“Oh. Thanks. Anything?”
Mayburn exhaled loudly. “A few red herrings. Nothing yet.”
I rushed through the details of my two conversations with Dr. Li. “What do you think?”
“I think Dr. Li is closing up shop because she knows she’s done something bad.”
“Should I call the cops so they can put out an APB?”
“They won’t.”
“But someone paid her to put those herbs in there.”
“She didn’t say that. You just assumed that based on what she was saying and doing.”
“And the fact that she’d cleaned out her office.”
“Yeah, and that, too. And I think you’re right. But what I’m saying is if you go to the cops, you’ve really got nothing-no admission, no real evidence. What they’ll think is you’re the slightly crazy girl whose boyfriend took off with her boss’s cash, and now you’re losing it and hoping to place the blame somewhere else. We’re working this case better than the cops could. When we have enough evidence-about anything, even if it’s something not so favorable about Sam-we’ll turn it over.”
“Well, what should I do now?” I said, agitated. I blinked against the glare of the bright streetlights. “I’ve got to do something. Tell me what to do.”
“Go to work. Be careful.”
Work, or what was left of it. When I got there, I found Q in my office sitting on one of the visitor’s chairs. His elbows were on his knees, his bald head hung low between his arms. He straightened when he heard me. He wore a white shirt under a black blazer, his khakis pressed to a fine point. And yet, despite the sharp outfit, he looked lost.
“It’s just about done,” he said, gazing around the office. “All the files are gone except the Jane Augustine contract.”
I closed the door and slid onto the love seat that was pushed against the far wall. That love seat used to be laden with files and stacks of depositions.
“I might have to start working for Tanner again,” I said.
“You couldn’t.”
“I don’t want to, but with Shane giving all the Pickett cases to his best friend, and with the fact that I really don’t know how to practice any other kind of law, what am I going to do?”
Q pursed his lips. “Tanner isn’t going to want you around, Iz. You’re too much of a threat to him, even with Forester gone. You know everyone at Pickett Enterprises. They all love you. I hate to say this, but…”
“What?”
“You’re going to be lucky if you have a job.”
His words trickled into my brain. Then they exploded, the enormity of them hitting me. “Oh my God. You’re right.” I felt the plates of my earth collide, screeching with a loud, painful noise.
I looked at Q’s stricken face. “You okay?”
“Not really.”
“Is it all this?” I waved a hand around the nearly empty office.
“Yeah. And it’s Max.” He looked down. “Max knows about my affair,” he said. “It’s over.”
“Wow,” I said. “So you were having an affair. How did it come out?”
“I told him. I had to.”
“The guilts?”
“Of course. I feel horrible. But mostly I wanted to tell Max because I’m in love with him.”
“Him, Max, or him, the other guy?” I couldn’t keep the surprise from my voice. Q had always had a hard time with monogamy, but I thought he’d be with Max forever.
“Him, the other guy.”
“But you love Max.”
“Not like I love this guy.”
“Who is this guy?”
“I’m not ready to talk about it.”
“You’re not ready to talk about it? But it’s me here. We talk about everything.”
“He doesn’t want me to say anything yet.”
“But it’s me,” I repeated. Q’s holding back was so very unlike him.
He shook his head.
“Why won’t you tell me?” I asked. “Is it because he’s involved with someone, too?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Maybe to someone else it is, but we can talk about anything.”
Q narrowed his eyes. “Give me a break, Iz. It’s not like you’ve let me in all that much this week.”
“Of course I have.” But my voice died off fast. He was right. I hadn’t told him about breaking in to Forester’s house or seeing Dr. Li yesterday. I hadn’t told him about working with Mayburn. Yeah, Mayburn had told me not to discuss that stuff, but there was something else…something seemed off between Q and me.
“I haven’t been confiding in you as much because things have seemed weird with us,” I said.
“How so?” he asked defensively.
“I don’t know. You’ve been evading some of my questions.” Dr. Li’s frightened face filled my mind. Who had paid her? It couldn’t be Q. It made no sense. Still…
“Relationships can’t stay the same forever, Iz. Not romantic ones or friendship ones. Or professional.”
A feeling of trepidation permeated my body. But then that was a familiar sensation. Lately, I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Why does this sound like a breakup speech?”
He stared at me, then looked around the office. “It’s time.”
“You’re breaking up with me?” I asked.
“Not from our friendship…”
The trepidation grew, forming a lead ball of anxiety in my sternum. “You’re not quitting…”
He nodded. “Not right now, but…but soon. Yeah.”
“But Forester just died. And Sam is…who knows where. And you’re just…” I searched the cacophony in my mind for the right word. “You’re leaving me?”
“Izzy, all this stuff that’s going on doesn’t just affect you. At the firm, you and I have been operating like our own team. Now, with you losing the Pickett work…You know I never wanted to be a damn secretary. And now that’s what I’ll be.”
“Is your new boyfriend part of this decision?”
“First off, he’s not my boyfriend.” He looked over me and out my window. “He’s not really even out of the closet.”
I leaned forward. “Excuse me?”
“Shut up.”
“No way. Are you telling me you’re in love with someone who isn’t even out yet? Is he married or something?”
His eyes returned to mine. “Don’t.”
I made myself sit back. “And is this guy, who is not out of the closet, part of this decision to quit?”
“It’s my decision, but yes, he’s been encouraging me to do something more with my life. Professionally, anyway.”
“And what is this person recommending? Would you go back to acting?”
“Oh, please. We both know I’m never going to make it as an actor. I’ve got to do something else.”
“What else would you do?”
“I don’t know, Iz, but it’s not going to be at Baltimore & Brown.”
Again, I felt a ripping away of the life I’d had such a short time before. I looked down at my engagement ring. The sparkle was definitely gone.
“So what are you going to do now?” Q asked.
I stood. “I might as well face it. I’m going to see Tanner.”
When the elevator reached Tanner’s floor, I hurried off. And ran smack into him.
“Oh!” I said. “I was just coming to see you.”
He gestured at the floor’s conference room. “I’ve got a meeting in twenty minutes, but we can talk in here for a second.”
The conference room was sunny and bright, the light-blue curtains open and showcasing the Sears Tower to the right, the sun glinting off it.
Tanner patted a high-back leather chair. “You want to sit?”
“Don’t be nice to me.” I crossed my arms.
“Hey, McNeil, I feel…well, I feel…bad.”
“You feel bad?” I had to admit, he didn’t look good. He was as tan as always, and the widow’s-peak hair was perfectly coiffed, but he was thinner than usual, his eyes more weary.
He put down his briefcase on the conference table. “Here’s the deal. I mean, let’s get right to it.”
I nodded.
“When you took the Pickett business away from me a few years ago, well…I’m not going to tell you it didn’t smart-and hard-and I’m not going to tell you I didn’t want the work back. But I’m really sorry about the way it’s gone down. I feel bad that it’s happened now, with Sam being gone and with him being possibly implicated in Forester’s death.”
“He is not being implicated.” I was getting really sick of defending Sam. I leaned against the wall.
“Well, he stole the bearer shares.” Tanner shrugged. “I mean, we’re not in dispute about that, right?”
“Don’t depose me.” I wish I could have said it with some force, but all I had wanted was to confront Tanner and get some semblance of an apology, and that had now happened. Too fast, in fact. There was nothing worse than getting yourself lathered up over something, but achieving your objective too quickly. “You could have waited for all this to settle down before you let Shane pull everything from me.”
“It’s business. There’s no waiting in business.”
“There is if you’re a good person.”
He shrugged again, his shoulders lifting high up to his ears and falling back slowly. “I never pretended to be that.”
That was true. Tanner never acted like anything but a jerk. An unapologetic one. And, if anything, he was less of a jerk now that he wasn’t bitter about me having the Pickett work.
“I could talk to some of the other partners,” he said, “and see who might need an associate.” In other words, you won’t be working for me. Q had been right.
I felt queasy at the thought of starting over, a young associate assigned to a new partner. I wasn’t above working hard, and I wasn’t above working for someone else, but I couldn’t simply make a U-turn and go back to the place I’d been at Baltimore & Brown so many years ago. And without Q.
I stood. “Thank you, but please don’t bother.” I left the room, went to my office, and I didn’t think twice about slamming my door.
53
I sat at my desk, doing nothing but muttering and swearing.
Mayburn called. “I’ve been checking out Dr. Li. She and her husband were in some deep financial trouble. Was there a store downstairs from her office?”
I recalled the store with jade rings in the window. “Yeah.”
“Well, her husband’s family opened that. They were from Beijing. Her husband took it over when his parents got older. After he did, the store fell behind on the mortgage payments. Looks like they were about to get foreclosed on.”
“So Dr. Li needed cash.”
“Bad. The husband was gambling, and they were in serious, serious debt.”
Q opened the door. “Jane Augustine is here,” he said.
“Really?” I had no appointment with her. Hell, I had no appointments with anyone.
“Call you later,” I said to Mayburn.
Q led Jane into the room, her Amazonian frame clad in a winter-white suit and cornflower-blue silk blouse that showed a peep of her perfect cleavage and made her eyes an even more startling mauve-blue.
“Hi, Iz,” she said sheepishly. She shook her long locks of black hair over her shoulders. “Got a minute for an old friend?”
“Not if you’re here to pimp me for information about Sam.”
“It’s not that.”
I nodded at my now-empty love seat. “Have a seat?”
“Nope.” She dug in a large black alligator bag and pulled out a folder. She placed it on my desk.
I opened it. Inside was her contract. “You’re back for more of my abuse?” I said with an attempt at a grin. I was feeling a little bad about my outburst yesterday.
“Look at the last pages.”
I did. She’d signed them.
“It’s the same contract you brought yesterday. I fired Steve Severny.”
“Whoa, Jane. I told you to get some balls, but I was just angry. You shouldn’t listen to me, especially not right now.”
She threw her arms up. “No, don’t you see, you were exactly right. I’ve been letting him run my professional life-forever-and I’m miserable. So I’m making some changes.”
“Wow.” I was impressed, but a little afraid for her. I’d learned to fear change in the last week.
My door opened, and Q stuck his head inside. “Joel Hersh called to say he’s on his way to see you,” he said in a low voice. “And Edward Chase.”
“Oh, boy.” Joel was the head of the firm’s estate-planning section and a member of the firm’s executive committee. Edward Chase was the head of that committee-the undisputed king of the B & B fiefdom.
I stood. “Jane, thanks for the contract. And congrats on the changes you’re making.” I went around the desk and hugged her.
“I’ll get out of your hair,” she said. “We’ll catch up later.”
She left my office. I heard Q introduce her to Joel, who said his wife watched her every night.
A second later, Joel Hersh stepped into my office. He was a short man, always well dressed. Today, he was in one of his “casual” outfits, which consisted of gray pants, a perfectly pressed navy jacket and loafers that looked so soft and supple you’d think they had just jumped off the cow. He was one of the nicest guys in the firm, but since the estate lawyers had offices two floors below us, I didn’t see him often except at the occasional firm outing.
“Izzy,” he said, an expression on his face I couldn’t read, “may I speak with you privately?”
“Of course.”
“Ed should be here in a moment.”
At that moment, Edward Chase appeared. He was a large, round man, originally from Texas, who compensated for his weight with lots of bling. Today he wore a Super Bowl-size ring on his right hand and a tie clip that appeared to be made of an ancient coin.
Joel shut the door and they both took a seat.
Joel crossed his hands in his lap. “We’re here about your mother.”
Now I was surprised. “You know my mother?”
“We don’t, but I understand she runs the Victoria Project.”
I nodded. “My mom started the Victoria Project about five years after we moved to Chicago. It’s a charity that helps widowed women who have children.”
The charity had been my mother’s sole passion for many years. Maybe Joel wanted to donate to the charity, or get the firm to sponsor an event. Joel was, I now remembered, on the firm’s charitable board. But then I glanced at Ed Chase, who had no reason to babysit such a conversation, and my stomach clenched.
“I understand it’s a wonderful organization,” Joel said. “But I’m concerned about a bequest that’s been left to the charity.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“I’ve been working on settling Forester’s estate, and Forester left a large settlement in his will to the Victoria Project.”
I felt myself relax. Wonderful, wonderful Forester. That he’d left the charity some money was such a sweet move. “Yes, Forester made donations to the charity before.”
Joel shifted in his chair. He exchanged a look with Ed. “Had he donated fifteen million before?”
“Fifteen million?” My mother’s charity was lucky if it raised two hundred thousand a year.
Joel nodded. “I’m concerned for a number of reasons, Izzy, which is why I’ve asked Ed to be here.”
Ed remained impassive, looking down, apparently studying his massive ring.
“Normally, I wouldn’t be discussing Forester’s will with you,” Joel said.
“I know.” Joel was one of the few attorneys I knew who didn’t gossip about his clients or his work.
“But there are a number of potential issues here that may draw litigation from the other beneficiaries of the estate. First of all, this is a very large bequest. Second, you were Forester’s attorney, so there may very well be a conflict of interest. I’ve got some people working on that.”
I knew what he meant. At this moment, two associates, probably one of them Erin, were scrambling to perform legal research about whether the mother of an attorney of a deceased client could be a beneficiary of the will. The law was full of sticky little questions like this, and I was sure Erin would be on Westlaw, searching high and low until the late hours of the evening.
“The last issue is the fact that your fiancé allegedly stole thirty million dollars of property from Forester,” Joel said.
“Thanks for the ‘allegedly.’”
Ed looked up now, a pissed-off expression on his face. “This is no time for sarcasm, Izzy. You’ve put us in a shithole of trouble here.”
“I wasn’t being sarcastic, but I do think it’s humorous that you’re asserting that I have gotten the firm in trouble. I didn’t do anything except represent Forester to the best of my abilities, and make you guys a lot of money in the process. I don’t know anything about what Sam has done.”
“What about this donation to the Victoria Project?” Joel said. “Did you have prior knowledge of this?”
“None.” I stood. “But if you guys will excuse me, I’m going to find my mother and get some current knowledge.”
Joel began to sit forward in his chair, but Ed didn’t move.
“Izzy, I think you need to take a leave of absence,” Ed said. “Until all this business with Forester and Sam and your mom is sorted out.” He twisted his ring around, but didn’t take his eyes from me.
I looked down at my desk for a moment, remembering just last week when that desk was littered with files and notes and phone messages. I looked back up and met Ed’s gaze. “I agree.”
