Escape (34 page)

“Can they keep him in jail?” Amelia asked.

“At least until they return him to Massachusetts and a judge rules on it.” Into the phone, I said, “Extradition?”

“He’s fighting it. But at least he’s locked up now.”

I repeated the last.

“Am I safe, then?” Lee asked.

Amelia, never tactful, declared, “Assuming he’s the only one involved.”

“I doubt he was,” James said. “I can’t picture either Albert Meeme or those brothers being dumb enough to use only one not-so-bright guy. Whoever was in Bell Valley covered his tracks pretty well.
Besides, Bell Valley is as tight-knit as Manchester. Someone would have noticed a window company van with Connecticut plates.”

I didn’t repeat this. Lee looked frightened enough.

“It’s a first step,” I tried to reassure her. “They’ll question him about where he’s been, what he’s done, who he’s worked with. And they’ll get a photo to the Bell Valley police, who’ll show it around town to see if anyone here recognizes his face.”

“But what if there
is
a second person?” she asked. “What if he tries to burn me out here?”

“Anyone creeping around will set off cameras and lights.”

“I’m going to be afraid to fall asleep.”

Amelia said, “Jude will keep watch.”

Vicki must have believed that about as much as I did, because she said, “You can sleep here. We always have room.”

That would do double service, I was thinking—hide Lee and give Vicki a live-in helper.

“But I like my place,” Lee insisted.

“We can move things faster if Amelia’s willing to pay for an investigator,” James suggested. “My firm has a good one. He’ll get answers sooner than the police.”

“The firm won’t appreciate that,” I warned. Large firms—like James’s and Lane Lavash—kept the best investigators on retainer for their use alone. Competition was fierce, with the most highly sought bidding themselves up.

“It’ll be fine,” he said with such curtness that what I heard was
I don’t care if the firm likes it or not
, which gave me pause.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

There was too long a silence, then a reluctant “Nah. I’m off the Bryant case.”

“What?”
When everyone in the kitchen grew alert, I waved a dismissive hand and headed for the front hall. “Why?”

“Mark says the firm can’t afford it. They want me working on—on cases where—where I’m billing full price. So they’ll give the pro
bono case to a new associate whose hourly is lower, and I—and I lose the most interesting case I’ve had this year.”

I had been ambivalent about that case—doubting Mark’s motives, wanting James to hate
everything
about his firm. But I couldn’t not feel his pain now.

“I’m sorry,” I said, letting the screen door slam behind me as I crossed the porch. “When did you hear?”

“This morning. Barely had a foot in the door, when Mark was in my office.”

“You should have called me then.”

“You’d have only said I told you so. But you’re wrong, Emily. This was—was an economic decision. Mark had no choice.”

Startled that he could still defend the firm, I said, “Of course he did. A lower associate may charge less per hour, but he won’t be as efficient as you. He’ll either do a lousy job or spend twice as long at it, leaving the firm short on resources. Besides, Mark knew how much you wanted this. He could have lobbied for you.”

“It’s about the bottom line. Hey, I’m not the only one in this boat.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

His pause wasn’t as long this time. “Why did I know you’d say that?”

“Because it’s the truth.”

There was another pause, then a caustic, “Where are you now?”

“On the front steps of the inn.”

“What do you see?”

“The town green. Trees, benches.”

“My view is different. I see the tops of dozens of buildings, each of them filled with companies doing the exact same belt-tightening as my firm.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” I repeated.

“So what should I do?” he asked in a frustrated voice. “Go door to door complaining to every partner? Organize a grassroots protest among associates? You tell me, babe. What should I do?”

Chapter 21
 

I couldn’t answer his questions, neither then nor later that night when I called to see how he was. The conversation was short. He was still at the office. And I was discouraged. Baby or no baby, the rift between us had widened again. I was starting to wonder whether I ought to give in, go back to New York for good, and just let him do what he wanted. My escape wouldn’t be wasted. I would do things differently if I returned. In that sense, I was safe.

The baby changed things. I couldn’t stay apart from James now. And I did love him.

But I couldn’t force him to change. If he was to get to the place where I was, he had to do it himself.

There was one glimmer of hope. He continued to be interested in Lee’s case. I didn’t know whether he was just angry enough to defy his firm, or whether he simply needed a small victory of his own, but he pushed his investigator hard.

And the man was good. By Thursday morning, he had linked Rocco Fleming to Duane Cray, the younger brother of Lee’s late husband. There were no incriminating phone calls between them; that would have been too obvious. But the cell Rocco had been carrying at the time of his arrest was registered to a small construction company
owned by Duane. Conclusive evidence? No. Rocco might have stolen the phone. But it was a mighty strange coincidence.

Passing the information to the Manchester police, James felt a deep satisfaction. It gave resonance to his voice when he called me afterward, and I savored the sound, particularly when a very different one came the next day.

Friday afternoon. Two-forty. I had just processed a check-in and was refolding a map of the town for a pair of newbies, when my cell vibrated in the pocket of my jeans. As the guests walked off, I pulled it out.

The first things I heard were honking horns and James swearing.

Then he muttered, “Sorry. People are so friggin’ impatient. They can honk all they want, but if I can’t move and the car in front of me can’t move, what in the hell do they want us to do?”

“Where are you going?” I asked.
Out to lunch
was something neither of us ever did unless the lunch was work-related, which I assumed this was.

I heard another volley of horns.

“What is going on there, James?”

He exhaled loudly. “Know something? I’m too irritated to explain. I’m sending an e-mail.”

He clicked off before I could do much more than process his irritation, leaving me to wonder whether it was me he was angry at or the traffic, the city, even his cabbie.

His e-mail was the forward of one he had received two hours earlier, sent from the management of his law firm. I read it twice. Staggered, I called him. “A freeze on naming new partners? But this is
your year.
” Any lawyer would understand the relevance of that.

“Tell it to the judge,” James muttered.

“They named
twelve
partners last year. How can they not name a single one now?”

“You saw the e-mail. They say they can’t afford it. What they’re
not saying is that they could afford it if they put a freeze on their own incomes, but of course they won’t do that, the selfish bastards.”

I was livid. “Does Mark agree with this?”

“Mark? Oh, listen. This—this is rich. I get the e-mail, and the first thing I do is go to his office, and he’s gone. For. The. Weekend. Same with Rhine, Hutchins, and McAdams,” three other senior partners with whom James worked. “So I try Mark’s cell. Of course, he doesn’t pick up. I keep calling every two minutes until he does, and I go through all the arguments about how I’ve been promised this—I’ve worked my
tail
off for it. I even said my wife was pregnant. Know what he said? He didn’t say a damn thing about the pregnancy—no congratulations, no
Great news
,
James
. He said that if I kept up my hours, I’d be a shoo-in for partner next year. Another fuckin’ year of this pressure?”

There were three sharp honks that punctuated his words too perfectly to have been made by a cabbie. “Are
you
driving?” I asked, suddenly seeing that.

“You bet I am.” His tone was rash now. “I’m outta here. I need a break.”

Déjà vu
, I thought, but for James this time. “Where are you going?” I asked with a taste of the alarm he must have felt when he had received my note four weeks before.

“I’m going to see my wife. By the way,” he added, “they had Rocco Fleming in court an hour ago. He waived extradition. They’ll transfer him Monday morning.”

Traffic was bad, which didn’t improve James’s mood. He called me every few minutes to vent, and I was totally sympathetic. I didn’t talk about it being the start of a weekend at the height of summer, and when he spent an hour at a standstill, waiting for an accident to be cleared from the Hutchinson, I didn’t raise the issue of who might have been hurt. He knew all these things. His upset about the partnership was coloring everything else. I understood that.

By the time he reached Bell Valley, it was nearly ten. I was sitting in the dark on the front steps of the Red Fox, looking in the direction of the covered bridge. When headlights finally appeared, I rose. I was in the parking lot, at his door, when the car came to a stop.

I couldn’t make out his expression, but when he climbed out, he held me for a long time. Drawing back, he touched my belly. We didn’t talk. I imagined that if he had tried, he would have repeated too many words. Shouldering his bag, he slung his other arm around me as we walked to the gardener’s shed.

We didn’t make love. He was quickly asleep. I lay awake watching him for a time, thinking that he had taken a page from my book and wondering what this latest twist would mean. Then I fell asleep as well.

I swear, the coyotes knew what was going on. They let us sleep for several hours, just enough to take the edge off, before starting to howl. James bolted up.

“Coyotes,” I whispered in explanation.

His eyes shot to the window. “Where?”

“Up the trail a little.”

Dropping back to the pillow, he listened. They didn’t go on very long, only long enough to make sure we were awake enough to make love, and it was exquisitely sweet, even extraordinarily romantic to pleasure each other to the sound of the coyotes’ serenade. There was no fierce physicality now. James kept things slow and controlled, though whether because of the baby or his need to stop the world, I didn’t know.

The final yips were fading into the distance when, in the last throes of passion, we sank back to the bed. We didn’t talk then, either. James simply pulled me close and held me until we were both asleep again.

I would have given anything to sleep in. I wasn’t feeling great, and James was reassuringly solid beside me. But I needed toast to settle my
stomach, and besides, Vicki wasn’t magically better simply because James had arrived. The inn was full for the weekend. She needed my help. And James would sleep for a while.

So I ran over to the kitchen and nibbled toast while I set up for breakfast. Since no one would be checking out on a Saturday, I stayed to replenish the buffet and visit with guests. By the time I returned to the room with breakfast, it was nearly eleven. James was sitting up in bed, studying his BlackBerry.

If I’d had a camera, I’d have snapped a shot, though it could never have done him justice. The sheet was carelessly bunched at his hips, which I knew to be bare beneath. Dark hair fell on his brow and brushed the tops of his ears, and hair swirled on his chest. His shoulders weren’t heavily muscled, though they had a natural breadth. Strong hands, long fingers, memories of where they had touched me hours before—my breath caught.

“Hey,” he said, looking up.

I smiled. Putting the tray on a flat portion of sheet, I poured him a cup of coffee. Then, careful not to tip the tray, I sat beside him. Our arms touched, skin to skin. From this vantage point, I could see a full BlackBerry screen. “Anything interesting?”

“Tony is threatening to sue. Samantha wants to leave.” Both, like James, had expected partnerships in October. “Tom McKenna wants to know where I am. He’s a mid-level partner. They just put me on one of his cases.”

“Did you answer him?”

“Yup. I said I was away for the weekend. There’s also a plea for help from the associate they put on the Bryant case. She doesn’t know what in the hell she’s doing. I told her I’m not on the case anymore and that she should talk with Derek Moore.”

I leaned into him. “Good for you.”

“Not if they tell me to screw myself,” he said on a grim note. “Your walking out was different from mine. We can deal with one of us not working, but two?”

“We can get other jobs if we want.”

“None of the firms are hiring.”

“Not in New York, but maybe elsewhere, and maybe not in a firm. Maybe we have to open our mind to other possibilities.”

“With you pregnant?” The BlackBerry dinged. He thumbed to his in-box and smiled. “Your dad.”

“
My
dad?” I asked in alarm.