Gail Bowen - The Brutal Heart

She lowered her voice. “I’ve been eating,” she said confidentially.

“So you’re feeling better?”

Her eyes scanned the room, then she leaned towards me. “I’m fine. I really am fine. I’m just not telling the doctors and nurses.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m safe here. Could you take my flowers? I’m supposed to finish colouring my picture before lunch.”

“So the colouring book is therapy.”

“They’re worried that I’m not focusing my mind. My mind is exactly the same as it was before I got hit on the head, but I don’t want them to know that, so I just keep colouring.”

“So you do remember what happened that night?”

“I remember everything.” Bree’s eyes were sly. “I don’t know his name, but I could pick him out.”

“Tell the police. They’ll arrest the man who attacked you, then you’ll be safe.”

The scorn in the glance Bree levelled at me would have curdled milk. “Right,” she said. “Could I have my table please?”

I slid the table back in front of her, and she picked up a crayon and began colouring in the ball gown of one of the indistinguishable Disney princesses.

“Bree, you can’t stay here forever.”

She cocked her bandaged head. “Do you have a better plan?”

“No.”

“Thanks for the flowers. I think the pink ones are the prettiest. What are they called?”

“Tulips,” I said.

“Tulips,” she repeated. Then, with the tip of her tongue extended catlike from between her teeth, she returned to her colouring.

Keith and I didn’t manage a last lunch. There were many loose ends from Ginny’s campaign that needed tying, and in the absence of the candidate, Keith stepped in. I picked him up at Ginny’s constituency office, and we barely had time to make it to the airport. On the drive, we talked about Maddy and Lena. I told him about Lena’s variation on the theme of cinnamon toast, and he told me that when he was a child, his mother had pencilled faces on each of the family’s morning boiled eggs and he missed it still.

“Next time you’re here, we’ll have you over for breakfast. Lena will do the toast, and I’ll draw the face on your egg.”

“Next time,” Keith said softly, but we both knew.

As I turned towards the airport parking lot, Keith touched my arm. “Don’t bother parking. Just pull into the five-minute zone over there. If I’m going to catch my plane, I have to make tracks.”

I took his hands in mine. “This is no way to say goodbye.”

He brushed my cheek with his lips. “For us, it’s the only way.”

I popped the trunk, Keith went around to the back of the car, took out his laptop and suit-bag, and headed towards security. He didn’t look back.

Sean Barton had agreed to meet me at his office at four o’clock. As I stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for the fifteenth floor, I caught sight of myself in the mirrored walls. What I saw was not encouraging. I’d chewed off my lipstick, my hair needed attention, and the coffee I’d bought at a drive-through after Keith disappeared into the terminal had leaked onto my skirt. When the elevator doors opened onto the hard-polished perfection of the reception area, I felt like a woman who’d arrived at the wrong party. But Denise Kaiswatum had a way of making everyone feel that they were in the right place.

“Sean is anxiously waiting, but if you’d like a moment to freshen up, here’s the key to Zack’s bathroom.”

“Thanks,” I said, pocketing the key. “I’ll need more than a moment. Could you let Sean know I’m here, and I’ll be along?”

“Will do,” Denise said. She opened her desk drawer and found a container of instant spot remover and held it out to me. “Interested?”

“Very,” I said.

Denise handed me the tube. “Zack’s at home, you know.”

“I know,” I said. “I wish I was there too. It’s been a long day.”

Sean was sitting on the edge of Denise’s desk when I came back. He jumped up and offered his arm. “Can I get you anything before we start, Joanne?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “So, are you still in your old office?”

“Nope. Moving on up. Come have a look.”

I followed him down the corridor to the office next to Zack’s. He opened the door and stood aside so I could get a clear view. It was impressive. The room was probably half the size of Zack’s, but a floor-to-ceiling window gave it great natural light, and it had been decorated with surprising inventiveness for a business. The walls and furnishings were in complementary shades of brown and taupe, but the ceiling was a bracing asparagus green.

“What do you think?” Sean said.

“I love it. Who did the decorating?”

“I did,” he said.

“That colour on the walls is gorgeous. I’ve been looking for a brown that shade for our bedroom at the lake. What’s it called?”

“Moleskin,” Sean grimaced. “Terrible name, I know, but I went through a hundred decorating books till I found exactly what I wanted.”

“You were just named partner a few days ago,” I said. “How did you find the time?”

“I’ve always known what I wanted,” he said. “It was just a question of waiting until I got it.”

“Well, congratulations,” I said. “On being patient, on the partnership, and on the decorating. I’m going to send Zack around to take notes.”

“Please do,” he said. “Right now, just make yourself comfortable.” He pointed to a reading chair covered in café au lait leather. “That particular chair is very restful.”

“Another time,” I said. “If I settled into that, I’d never leave.”

I walked over to his desk and pulled out the leather client chair. His framed law school diploma was on the seat. I picked it up. “You don’t want to lose this,” I said.

Sean coloured and grabbed the diploma from me before I’d had a chance to really notice anything but the date.

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” I said.

“Zack says if you need to have a diploma on your wall proving you’ve mastered the law, you’re in the wrong business.” he said tightly.

“You’re a partner now. Put whatever you want on your walls. Besides, you know Zack. He doesn’t care what you do with your office. All he cares about is that you love the law the way he does.”

Sean’s eyes met mine. “The only thing I’ve ever loved is Falconer Shreve,” he said. His face was blank; it was clear he had no idea how much he had just revealed. I felt a chill. “Let’s talk about Ginny’s campaign,” I said.

“It was like everything else,” he said. “Just a series of trade-offs.”

“I thought you believed in Ginny.”

“Not really,” he said. “But I needed leverage to get what I wanted at Falconer Shreve.”

“Ginny was just leverage?”

Sean’s baritone was smoothly reassuring. “Everyone is leverage, Joanne. You invest in a person, hoping that the potential return from your investment is great. Sometimes it is, but sometimes people disappoint us. When we realize that our investment is worthless, it’s time to move along.”

“And that’s what happened with you and Ginny?”

“Among others,” he said.

I thought of how Sean had suddenly spurned my daughter. “So what do you do when an investment doesn’t pay off?” I asked.

“Like any other investor, I cut my losses,” he said. “Now, let’s talk about the future. I can’t tell you how excited I am to be part of the Falconer Shreve family.”

Friday morning when I flipped through the business section of our local newspaper and saw Falconer Shreve’s announcement that Margot Wright and Sean Barton would be assuming new positions with the firm, I knew Sean would be over the moon at being publicly acknowledged as a member of the Falconer Shreve family. The pictures of Margot and him were equally flattering; more importantly, they were of equal size and side by side. By his own assessment, Sean was a patient man. It was only a matter of time before his name would be added to the letterhead of Falconer Shreve.