“But not for the baby, honey. You’re not doing what’s best for the baby.”
“Yes I am!” Mary said, taken aback. “The doctor didn’t say I had to sit still all day long and stare out the window. And besides, what am I supposed to do? Anthony, you tell me. Did you see Machiavelli on TV today? He called me a murderer. He’s telling the world that I killed John. I have clients calling me about it and I didn’t have a spare second to return one of those calls. I’m avoiding my email because it will be more of the same. So you tell me, what would the doctor say I’m supposed to do, a pregnant person accused of a colleague’s murder? Maligned in public, freaking out my parents? Really, these are extraordinary circumstances.”
Anthony sighed slowly, his breath shuddering from his lips, and Mary could even feel it on her face. Her nasal superpowers told her that he had his favorite late-night snack, a glass of red wine, roasted peppers, and black olives. Somehow the image of Anthony eating his snack by himself softened Mary’s heart.
“Look, Anthony, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pop off.”
“Babe, I’m sorry too. I wasn’t trying to criticize you.”
“But you did.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Mary knew she should let it go, but she couldn’t. “You told me I’m running around too much.”
“But you are,” Anthony shot back, without hesitation. Or rancor. “It’s just the truth. I have to be able to tell you the truth.”
Mary considered it. “You’re right, you do. But I have to be able to tell you the truth too, and I think I just laid a truth bomb on you.”
“You sure did.” Anthony chuckled slightly, and Mary’s anger began to ebb away.
“Maybe I just feel like I need more breathing room now. We’re obviously in a crisis at work.”
“O-kay,” Anthony said slowly. “But you’re also in a crisis here. Not with me, but with your home life. With the baby.”
“I would never do anything to hurt the baby, you know that.”
“But I’m worried what you’re doing could hurt the baby, or you.”
“And if I don’t do it, it hurts me.” Mary felt as if she were thinking clearly for the first time in seven months. “I’m doing everything I said. I cut back my cases. I’m going to stay home when the baby comes. But I just can’t ignore what’s happening around me. John, Judy, now William. Machiavelli. London Technologies.”
“So what do you do? What do we do?”
“Trust me to sort it out and handle it the way I see fit.” Mary thought hard, trying to wrestle with it in her own mind. “You don’t know what it’s like to be pregnant. It’s really, in some ways, strange. My body is doing things I never thought it could do, it’s completely out of my control. It’s hijacked, in a way.”
“Hijacked?”
“Honestly, yes. I don’t own my own body anymore. It’s obeying its own rules and rhythms. The baby’s calling the tune.”
Anthony groaned. “That’s a negative view, honey.”
“Well, it’s true,” Mary told him, torn. “And I’m not negative about the pregnancy, not really. I’m excited about it, but these other things are also true, so it’s a mixed bag. And just now, with so much happening, I have to be able to deal. I want to come home and not get grief.”
“You’re not getting grief, you’re getting truth.”
“I’m getting both,” Mary said, though she knew that he was partly right. But so was she, which might have been why marriage wasn’t easy.
“All right,” Anthony said, his tone newly final. “I won’t give you grief or truth anymore. I’ll let you do what you’re doing, your own way.”
“Thank you.”
“But I want you to remember what I’m telling you tonight. Because you aren’t who you used to be. You’re pregnant now, and anything can happen.”
“Nothing is going to happen.”
“Mary, you were rushed to the doctor yesterday—”
“I wasn’t rushed.”
“Honey, come on.”
“I wasn’t rushed,” Mary repeated. “I was sitting in a meeting and I had to leave the meeting.”
“All I’m saying is, you don’t want anything to happen to the baby and neither do I. Because that would be unthinkable, and you would never forgive yourself.”
“Nothing is going to happen to the baby.” Mary felt nervous even saying so, as if she were jinxing something. Herself. Her pregnancy. Maybe even the baby.
“Okay, good night.” Anthony leaned over, kissed her quickly, and lay back down, throwing an arm over her. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.” Mary looked at the ceiling, knowing she’d never get to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Mary and Judy stepped off the elevator the next morning, ready for the day, or as ready as they would ever be. Mary hadn’t been able to sleep after the conversation with Anthony, then had finally given up and read through the London Technologies file, so she was prepared to defend the deposition, at one o’clock. Judy hadn’t been able to sleep either, so she had been up early, too, calling funeral homes to arrange a memorial service for John.
“Mary, Judy, hurry!” Marshall called from the reception desk, with a frown. “I was just about to text you guys.”
“What’s up?” Mary hurried/waddled to the desk, and Marshall leaned over, keeping her voice low.
“Jim and Sanjay from London Technologies are in the conference room.”
“Why?” Mary asked, taken aback.
“I don’t know, but everybody just went in. You’d better go.” Marshall handed Mary and Judy thick packets of phone messages. “Also these are for you, mostly the press but some clients. They say they’ve been trying to reach you but they haven’t been able to.”
“Thanks.” Mary and Judy took the messages, then Mary said, “Marshall, I need you to do something. I want you to go through John’s email on the firm server and search under the name Michael Shanahan, a supervisor at Glenn Meade, the group home where his brother William lives. Print all of them for me. I’m looking for anything about Shanahan’s care of William or a complaint about William’s care that John was intending to file with the DHS.”
“Okay.” Marshall made a note.
“And look through his desk and file cabinets, too. We need to know what the cops took, if anything. I’m looking for a file of his personal papers, like anything relating to his guardianship of William.”
“I got it.”
“Where’s Lou?”
“He came in but he went out again. He said to tell you he’s on it.”
“Thanks.” Mary and Judy took off, hustled down the hallway, and reached the conference room, where Bennie and Anne looked up, smiling in a professional way.
“Mary, Judy, perfect timing!” Bennie said lightly, from the head of the table.
Anne gestured at the clients. “Hi, please, meet Jim and Sanjay.”
Mary and Judy shook hands as Anne introduced the two men taking their seats. Jim was a tall, lanky forty-year-old, with hipster glasses, a scruffy haircut, and an unstructured black jacket and jeans. Sanjay was in the same cool-guy outfit, but handsome, with thick dark hair and melting brown eyes, generally crushworthy if Mary had been in the mood, which she wasn’t.
Mary flashed them a smile meant to inspire confidence, which was her job. Unfortunately, she could see the men alternately staring at her belly or trying not to stare at her belly, even though she had worn a navy blazer over her maternity dress. There were a lot of things they didn’t teach in law school, and lawyering while pregnant was one of them. Most male clients wouldn’t generally feel protected by a lawyer whose belly had a mind of its own.
Bennie sipped coffee from her I CAN SMELL FEAR mug, speaking to the client side of the table. “Gentlemen, I’m so glad you came in this morning. This gives you a chance to meet your new team, after the tragedy of John Foxman’s murder.” Her expression fell into grave lines, and Mary knew that much of her feelings were genuine. “We are devastated, as I know you must be.”
“Absolutely,” Jim said, frowning. “You have our sympathies. It’s a terrible tragedy. I spoke to him on the phone last week.”