Red Hot Lies. Laura Caldwell

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.”

      10

      The day I met Sam I made him bleed.

      We were at Forester’s house in Lake Forest, at the annual end-of-June barbecue he threw for all his employees and business associates. Everyone was invited—from the execs to the valets.

      The weather was crisp and sunny, a brand-new summer day with everyone conscious of how the Chicago climate would soon give way to sticky humidity and biting mosquitoes. Families were invited to the party, and many people rowed their children across Forester’s pond or whacked the croquet balls across his rich, green lawn.

      I had already spent the better part of a painful hour sipping a mimosa and listening to Tanner Hornsby talk at his pack of sycophants. Technically, I was one of those sycophants. I was a year out of law school, and although Forester had thrown me a couple of cases, he wasn’t yet giving me the bulk of his files. I understood that my job as an associate was to perform grunt work, to smile about it and to murmur comments of thanks to Tanner for the great opportunity.

      Tanner was repeating a story I’d heard ten times before about a caddy who’d given him bad advice on a putt. This story was always told with scathing