Guilt

And very little business.

Flaherty had led that abandonment. Somehow, sometime during the trial, the Archbishop had lost faith in his innocence. He had taken no joy in his acquittal; hadn't even called to offer his congratulations. In the weeks after the trial, the legal work from the Archdiocese had slowly but inexorably dried up, and with it had gone the ancillary contracts from the network of agencies, charities, schools, and businesses that were one way or the other tied to the Catholic Church in San Francisco.

McCabe & Roth held on without the Archdiocesan billings for seventeen months, though the layoffs began almost immediately. First to go were the word processors. Then the attorneys began having to double up on secretaries. Next the junior associates started getting their notices. Morale went into the toilet. A splinter group of four senior partners left with their clients to form their own firm, getting away from the Dooher stranglehold.

Christina went back to work but there was a lot of barely concealed resentment about her situation. Engaged, then married to the managing partner, she was avoided by the other associates and mistrusted by the partners.

Still, she was a game fighter and threw herself into her role of reestablishing her husband's credibility. She and Mark were together for the long haul. If none of the lead attorneys would assign work to her, then she would do business development, taking prospective clients to lunch or dinner, trying to help any way she could.

She fought the guilt that she had doubted him. Her actions must make that up to him. She would stand by him when the world had let him go. It was romantic and noble and filled her with a sense of mission and meaning. They would make what her parents had made – a life built on trust.

She told herself that she did not get pregnant to save the marriage. It had always been her dream to have children, a family, a normal life. But things with Mark had gotten difficult – his moods, darker than anything she had seen in their early going. But the failure of his firm, his power dissipated, that was devastating to a man.

A few weeks ago, it had come to a head.

'Mark, please.'

'Just don't touch me, all right? It's not working. It's not going to work.'

He violently threw the covers off the bed in frustration, then stood up and immediately snatched at his bathrobe, wrapping it around him. Turning, he grabbed the comforter from off the floor and threw it back on the bed, snapping at her. 'Cover yourself, would you, for God's sake!'

'I don't need to cover myself.'

His jaw set, his angry eyes ran down the length of her body, over the protruding belly, the swollen breasts. She could not believe he could look at her like that. She loved the way her body had changed in the past eight months.

'This just isn't doing it for me right now,' he said.

'What isn't?'

'Us, if you must know. You and me. All these doubts.'

'What doubts? I don't have-'

'You don't talk about them, but I see them. You think I don't see what you're thinking? You think it turns me on to see you trying so Goddamn hard?'

'I'm not trying anything, Mark. Come to bed. Just hold me. We don't have to do anything.'

'I know don't have to do anything. I want to do something, don't you understand that? But I can't. I can't with you! Nothing's happening.'

He swore and stalked out of the room.

He hadn't felt any guilt or regret. When he got arrested, it actually played into his hands. Christina was sympathetically drawn to the grieving spouse, who was tragically and wrongfully charged with murder. She would help defend him.

It had been beautiful. He couldn't have planned it better.

But now Christina was ruining everything.

She pulled a flannel nightshirt over her head and came downstairs, turned on the reading light next to where he sat in the library, then crossed the room and lowered herself on to the couch. 'I don't want to feel like it's not working with us when we're about to have this baby. I don't like you thinking I'm not attractive like this.'

'My problem is not how you look. I said it upstairs. It's us. The way we are.'

She settled back into the cushions. Her eyes flicked to the glass next to him, nearly empty.

'Yeah, I've been drinking. I might be drinking more. Is that a problem?'

She stared across at him. 'Why are you so hostile to me? What have I done, except stand by you, support you? Don't you want this baby, Mark? Is that it?'

Defiantly, he drained the rest of his drink before he answered her. 'No, that's not it.' He got up abruptly, grabbed his glass and went over to the bar. He poured another stiff one. 'I have always dealt from power, Christina. It's the only way I'm comfortable. What works is when you want me, and I see how you look at me now.'

'I don't look at you any way, Mark.'

But he was shaking his head. 'You loved who I was when you met me, when I was running the firm, when I had a big dick…'

'You don't have to talk like that.'

'I'll talk any way I want in my own house.'

She shook her head and stood up, thinking she'd tried her best tonight. 'Okay,' she said, 'but I don't have to listen to it in my house.'

She was all the way to the door before he stopped her with a whisper. 'Don't you hear what I'm saying at all, Christina?'

Taking a step toward him, she spoke evenly. 'I don't recognize you, Mark.I know the firm failing is hard and I don't know how you're dealing with it. But I'm not trying to take away any of your power. I've been here for you, I've kept trying even when-' She stopped.

'When what?'

'All right.' A few more steps, up to his chair. She eased herself down on the arm of it. 'Even when I found out you lied to me, even then.'

Narrowing his eyes, giving nothing away. 'When did I do that?'

She had to get it out. She'd come this far, maybe it would help. 'I ran into Darren Mills a month ago, two months, something like that. Over at Stonestown. Remember Darren, your old partner?'

'Sure, I remember Darren. What about him?'

'During your trial, Darren wound up doing a lot of work down in LA with Joe Avery. They got to be friends.'

'Good for them.'

She ignored that. 'Darren figured I'd be interested in how Joe was doing. He's still down there, you know. He got on with a new firm.'

'I'm happy for him.'

She paused. His venom was poisonous. She put her hand protectively over her stomach. 'Darren mentioned Joe's transfer down to LA, how it had come on so suddenly.' A beat. 'You told me Joe's transfer had been in the works for months.'

'I did?'

'Darren said that wasn't true. You sprang it on the Managing committee a couple of weeks before it happened. It stunned everybody. Joe hadn't even been up for partner for another year, but of course they did what you told them they had to – rubber stamp it.'

Dooher pulled a stool around and sat on it. 'That's my terrible lie? That's it?'

'Yeah, that's it. And it made me think…' She paused and started over. 'It made me remember your explosion in the courtroom, when you blew up at Amanda Jenkins, and then saying it had all been an act.'

'I got into the role.' He shrugged. 'And so what did the other lie – that whopper about Joe Avery – what did that make you think that you stopped yourself from saying just now?'

Swallowing, she met his gaze. He was unflinching, challenging her, casually sipping from his glass. He wanted her to get it out in the open. 'It made me think you got rid of Joe so he'd be out of the way. You knew it would break us up.'

'And then I could subtly court you? While Sheila was still alive? And if you responded, then I could kill her?'