Strangely, I was fine with this thought. Drunken debauchery I could handle right now. I could even forgive it. Yesterday, the thought of Sam cheating would have sent me careening around the city on my Vespa, a kitchen knife tucked in my faux-crocodile clutch. Now, I actually found myself praying that my fiancé was throwing up too much beer into a gutter, his arm still around a big-boobed blonde. Because then he wouldn’t be hurt. Because then, somewhere, he would be okay.

I scrolled through my phone to see if I had any numbers of the rugby guys, but there were none. There’d never been a reason to call them before.

I flicked the lights back off, went into my bedroom and stripped off my clothes. I pulled on a Jeff Beck-concert T-shirt of Sam’s and crawled under the thick duvet. It seemed wrong to lie down, to be doing nothing, but the urge to escape the day was overpowering. Behind the grief of losing Forester and the worry about Sam, I felt inconsolably guilty. Today, I’d felt overwhelmed with my job-with everything Forester had given me. And I’d felt overwhelmed, too, with the wedding, with Sam, I guess. And now, they were both gone.

9

Day Two

I never slept. The phone never rang. I finally got up at 6:00 a.m. I got on my computer and checked my e-mail. The usual batch of messages appeared in my in-box-notes from other lawyers, one from Maggie about tickets to a concert at the Vic, announcements from local clothing stores where I spent too much money-but nothing from Sam.

I showered but couldn’t deal with my hair and so I pulled it back in a low ponytail, and decided to go to the office where Q would help me, where I could figure out what to do next.

I had always liked the crisp quiet of Baltimore & Brown when the gray-white early-morning light filtered in the windows and hung there before all the troops descended. But at 7:05 it was too quiet. I texted Q and asked him to get in as soon as possible. I tried Sam’s numbers again. And again. And again. This insanity was seriously fucking with my calm. I mean, flubbing with my calm. Flubbing.

I looked at my watch. It was too early to phone Sam’s mom or sisters in California. I called the police and was told Sam hadn’t been arrested and I could fill out a missing persons report if I came to the station.

“What would you do then?” I asked.

“We just take the report,” the officer said.

“And then what?”

“We just take the report,” he repeated.

I tried Northwestern hospital, along with Michael Reese, Illinois Masonic and every other hospital I could think of. Nothing. I tried his best friend, R.T., again, who answered sleepily and said he still hadn’t heard from him.

From down the hall, I heard the swishing sound of a key card and then the click of the door opening.

“Q?” I yelled.

No answer.

“Q?”

Not a sound. It was too early for assistants to be here, and most of the attorneys didn’t start arriving until at least eight. Goose bumps rose suddenly on my arms.

I stood from the desk and hurried to the door.

“Oh!” I said, colliding with someone turning in to my office.

Tanner’s slicked-back hair had its usual sheen, but his blue eyes looked as tired as mine.

“You scared me,” I said, a hand on my chest.

“Sorry.” It was the first word of apology I’d ever heard Tanner utter. To anyone. “I saw your light on. Guess you couldn’t sleep either?”

“No. You heard about Forester?”

He nodded. “Can I come in?”

“Of course.” I sat at my desk, watching Tanner sink into a chair.

“I thought the old guy would live forever,” he said.

“Me, too.” I choked a little as I uttered the words.

Tanner shook his head, and we sat in a silence that felt both mutual and poignant. I wouldn’t have thought Tanner capable of such a moment, and I never thought I’d share one with him, but grief, I suppose, makes for unusual buddies.

“Have you talked to Shane this morning?” I asked.

“I just got off the phone with him. He’s a mess. Thank you for being at the hospital last night.”

“Of course.”

“I was at the opera. I didn’t get the message until late.”

I heard the outside door click again, then I heard Q’s voice yell hello from down the hall.

A few seconds later, Q stepped into my office then stopped suddenly when he saw Tanner.

“Hiya, Mr. Hornsby,” he said in his fake-effeminate voice.

When neither of us responded right away, Q’s eyes swung from me to Tanner and back.

“Q,” I said, “Forester died last night.”

A beat went by. “What?”

“Yeah. Heart attack.”

Q slumped against the back wall and put his head in his hands.

My phone rang, and I snatched it up.

“Izzy?” I heard a man’s voice say.

Damn it. Not Sam. “Yes?”

“It’s Mark Carrington.” Sam’s boss. I sat up straighter. “We’ve got a problem over here.”

“Mark, is it Sam?”

“Yes.”

Something sour and rotten twisted in my stomach. “Is he there?”

Mark paused. “No, he’s not. Do you know where he is?”

I looked at Q and Tanner. Both were watching me curiously. “No.”

“Well, there’s something else that’s not here. A series of bearer shares from Panama, owned by Forester.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“I was supposed to fly to New York this morning for another client, and I came in early to get something from the firm’s safe. I saw that Sam had logged in to it last night.”

“Sam logged in to the safe last night? You’re sure?”

“Positive. We each have our own codes, so we can tell exactly who’s been in there. I couldn’t think of anything he would have needed, so I looked around the safe, and Forester’s bearer shares are missing. They represent ownership of a corporation that holds about thirty million dollars of real estate in Panama. Whoever’s in possession of those shares essentially owns them, and they’re as good as cash.”

My mind skittered back and forth. Panama. Missing. Thirty million.

“Something is screwed up here,” Mark said. “Really screwed up. Because those shares aren’t the kind of thing we usually keep in our safe. Just a month ago, Sam came to me and told me Forester wanted to move them from the safe-deposit box where he kept them. Something about switching banks and it being a temporary thing.”

“Really?” Sam and I tried to be good about not discussing Forester’s legal work or his financial holdings. I had an attorney-client privilege to protect, and Sam had a duty as his wealth manager not to discuss his portfolio. But there was something called the spousal privilege, and although we weren’t married quite yet, Sam and I exercised it on a regular basis discussing Forester. It was impossible not to when Forester was the center of both of our professional worlds. But Sam hadn’t mentioned anything about Forester changing banks or moving thirty million dollars of shares into the safe.

“Yeah, really,” Mark said, his voice angry. “This is serious. You sure you don’t know where Sam is?”

“I don’t have any idea.”

Mark exhaled loudly. “I called Forester, but he hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”

“Mark…Forester died last night.”

“Are you kidding?”

“He had a heart attack.”

“Oh, God.”

“What time did Sam log in to the safe?” I asked.

I saw Tanner’s eyebrows rise. I wanted to ask him to leave, but I couldn’t wait even a minute to get some answers about Sam.

“Around eight-thirty.”

A half an hour after I’d talked to the lobby security guard.

“What time did Forester die?” Mark said.

“I’m not sure. I guess around six or seven.”

“When is the last time you saw Sam?”

“Five-fifteen or so.”

We were both silent.

“Izzy,” Mark said. “I think I’d better call the cops.”