“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.”