“You were hurt and alone and scared. It’s a natural reaction.”
She raised herself up on her elbow and looked down at him. “Don’t belittle this. It’s not a weakness or a whim.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought about you a lot, too. I wondered about where you were, what you were doing.”
“I dialed your number a few times. I even packed my bag twice.”
“What stopped you?”
“Things that seem stupid to me now. At first I was still afraid. Then I didn’t want anybody to think I was a failure who couldn’t survive a month on my own—but mostly you, because you were the one who had taught me and helped me get away. I told myself that if I was gone for a year or so, you would think better of me. After a year, it didn’t seem enough. After a couple of years passed, it was too much time. I began to think that I had imagined that you felt anything for me. Neither of us had ever said a word. I thought that if I suddenly showed up at your office, you would probably say, ‘Oh, yes. I remember your case. You relocated. How is that working out for you?’ I would stand there with my suitcase in my hand and no place to go, and start to cry. Then I married Dennis Donnelly, and I didn’t have the right to come to you anymore.”
Till lay silent for a few seconds, not sure whether to say what he was thinking or not, but she knew the question was in the air.
“It’s okay, Jack. Dennis knew it in advance. Ann Donnelly was a hiding place, and when it stopped fooling anybody, it was over.” She hugged him and lay still. “If you and I were really young or one of us were really naïve, I would say that the marriage wasn’t real, or that Dennis was such a bad man that it somehow didn’t count. But he’s a nice, ordinary guy, and the marriage was probably as real as most of them are. We told each other jokes, saved for our old age, and had sex. The only difference was that we both knew it might have to end suddenly. Now it has.”
“Was yesterday really the end, or was tonight the end?”
“You have me figured out. Tonight was the end.”
“It’s a bit late to say that I didn’t want to harm him.”
“Want to give me back?”
“No.”
“I haven’t treated anyone as well as I wanted to—including him—but I told him the truth. I even told him about you. I didn’t tell him your name, but I told him that it could end in two ways: if the killers came for me, or if you did.”
“I’ve been wishing that this would happen since the first day six years ago. But I don’t know what’s after this.”
“I don’t, either. I’ve kind of given up on making that kind of prediction.” She kissed him, her leg came across his belly, and she shifted her weight over him. She closed her eyes and gave a deep sigh. They made love again, this time slowly and gently, enjoying each other without the frantic uncertainty of a few hours ago.
It was after ten when they were lying in the bed in lazy silence again. She sat up abruptly, and he said, “Something wrong?”
“There’s one more thing I wanted to say.”
“What’s that?”
“His name is Scott.”
“Whose?”
“Kit’s boyfriend. His name is Scott. I heard her say his name that night.”
32
MICHAEL DENSMORE stepped out of his office carrying his briefcase. It was late—after ten o’clock—but he wore his suit coat with the middle button closed and his tie straight. He was disciplined about the way he presented himself, even when he was only taking the elevator down to the parking level where his car waited in its reserved space. Over the years, he had found that even if the only person he met on the way was a young secretary working late or a janitor on the night cleaning crew, his appearance gave him an advantage. His look made it clear that he was the boss, not just because he had good clothes, but because his standards were not a facade that he let down at five o’clock. When he was in his private office making telephone calls or reading legal files, he always hung his coat on a proper wooden hanger behind the door—or at least a chair—so it would not wrinkle, but he put it on before he gave his secretary permission to admit anyone he didn’t know well. There was a padded hanger downstairs in the Mercedes that matched the interior of the car. He would use it to hang the coat behind him in the back seat while he drove.
He was a successful, wealthy man, and he wanted to look like one. He had been prosperous since he had become a partner in Dolan, Nyquist and Berne. He had saved money, and also, by degrees, broadened his offering of services, so his income had continued to grow. He had begun as a straight criminal-defense attorney specializing in white-collar crime. Then clients began to pay him for acting as negotiator or consultant in a few delicate business deals that needed legal adjustments to remain viable. A few times, it had meant drawing up papers for a limited partnership that did not list one of the partners because his name might attract the wrong kind of attention. There were a few deals in which getting the necessary permits and licenses had been expedited by his personal assurances and a few envelopes full of hundred-dollar bills. After that, he’d begun to arrange introductions, putting together people who had projects with people who had money to invest. Soon he was forming pools of investors who couldn’t explain where their dollars had come from, and wanted profits without having their names written down. Now he earned more money making these arrangements for clients than defending them in court.
Densmore was largely satisfied with his public self, but there were still certain parts of his private life that shocked and disappointed him. He was approaching the end of his fourth marriage, and that period was always a depressing and dispiriting time. Lawyers learned a great deal about unpleasant corners of the human psyche, but there was nothing like divorce to complete their education.
Being divorce-prone was like having a bee-sting allergy. The first couple of breakups had hurt a little. The third had been severely painful because he’d had so much more to lose, and he had gone into shock. He didn’t know how he was going to get through the fourth.
Densmore had met his current wife, Grace, five years ago, just as his third marriage had entered its guerrilla-warfare phase. His third wife, Chris, had begun sneaking around, looking at receipts and financial records. She had begun paying attorneys and private detectives to look into the size and shape of his fortune in preparation for her all-out attack.
Grace appeared in front of his eyes when he arrived at a charity event for arthritis at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and suddenly the divorce became urgent. Within a month, he had begun trying to expedite his divorce from Chris. He agreed to give in to some of her ridiculous demands just so he could get the process over, but appeasement was a foolish strategy. Chris and her lawyers became more greedy and inquisitive about what he was hiding. After a few months, their prying and spying alarmed a couple of Densmore’s most difficult clients.
Densmore went to the house to meet with Chris, who had by then learned he was spending every night at the Peninsula Hotel with Grace and had stopped speaking to him. When he arrived, he listened tolerantly to a long, irrelevant diatribe about what a bad husband he had been. Then he approached his problem carefully and delicately. “As you know, I am an attorney specializing in the defense of people who are charged with criminal infractions. Many of these clients are innocent. Others have, at some point or other, made serious mistakes, and I must guide them in their dealings with the legal system. My arrangements with them are, by law, privileged and confidential. Your snooping into my professional affairs in search of hidden money is upsetting some very important clients.”