

The Moment Max Forgot Me

By

Emily Ann Benedict

Wishing Wellies Publishing

Smashwords Edition

All Rights Reserved

Also by Emily Ann Benedict

Only Angels Are Bulletproof

The Father Christmas Confessions

The Father Christmas Profession

Visit emilyannbenedict.com for more information.

Chapter One

I was standing on the sidewalk at the moment Max forgot me, helpless to stop the car heading straight for him. My screams went unheard, even to my own ears, as it struck him. At that moment I was stripped of everything I'd built up over the past ten years. I lost all sense of the high power career girl who wore suits that cost more than the rent my mother use to have to come up with every month and lived in an apartment with closets bigger than any bedroom I'd ever slept in as a child.

In that moment I returned to the desperate eighteen year old girl I'd been when I walked into Max's office ten years earlier. On that day I was wearing the only suit my mother ever owned. I'd synched up the fabric of the skirt in the back with safety pins so it wouldn't fall off me. I couldn't think of a way to make the jacket look like it fit, so I just pretended not to notice that it hung on me like I was nothing more than a hanger.

The minute I walked into Max's office I knew it was hopeless. There was no way on earth I was going to be hired to work for so much as a court appointed lawyer, let alone an up and coming defense attorney. I told myself to turn around and walk out, but desperation made me move over to one of the chairs in the waiting room and carefully sit down. If I sat down too quickly the safety pins would have popped open and stuck me in the back.

I looked around at the other applicants. They had credentials. It was apparent just looking at them. They were avoiding looking at me. I felt like an idiot, but I had one thing they probably didn't have. Ever increasing debt.

It was an hour before Max stuck his head out of the door and wearily called out, "Next," in my direction. I stood up, tried to straighten out my skirt, and walked into his office on legs exhausted by a day's worth of job searching. This was the fourth company I'd hit that day.

Max walked straight over to his desk and sat down. That's when I got my first good look at him. He was relatively young, thin, and had blonde hair floating a little above his head in a way that suggested it was rapidly falling out. His clothes were certainly expensive. Everything in that office was expensive looking. But, as my mother would have put it, he was obviously a man who didn't know print from pattern. His suit was pinstriped and his tie was diagonal stripped. My mother would have cringed.

He sighed softly as he straightened his chair and then looked up at me. I recognized the expression that crossed his face. It plainly said, "You've got to be kidding me." I'd already seen it three times that day.

Swallowing down the embarrassment and nerves, I eased myself into one of the leather chairs across from the desk and forced up a smile.

Max cleared his throat and began to speak, but the phone on his desk interrupted any conversation. He glared bitterly at the phone, then yanked up the receiver and said, "Hello."

His eyes rolled. "Mrs. Benson, we've discussed this. Your appointment is tomorrow. I'll go over everything with you then. I really can't talk right now." There was a pause. "Yes, I am aware you are paying me good money, but if I stay on the phone all the time I won't be able to put together—" He waited a moment with gritted teeth. "Okay, I'll call you back later this evening, will that do? Fine. I'll talk to you then."

He glared at the receiver for a moment longer before putting it back on the cradle. "My secretary retired without notice last week, leaving me without a shield." He looked back up at me and realized he was talking to someone who was obviously under qualified. He probably thought I didn't know what a secretary was. "Well, then, Miss..."

"McKenzie. Maddy McKenzie." I promptly kicked myself. Madeline McKenzie would have sounded so much more professional. Why did I have to be so hopeless?

Ah, well, Miss McKenzie—"

Then phone rang again. Max flinched like he'd been lanced through the heart and reached for the phone again.

"Hello. Oh, hi, Mr. Aaron." His head wilted a touch. "I'm sorry to hear you have a scheduling conflict, but I need you here as soon as possible." He closed his eyes tightly. "Yes, of course I've checked to see if the answering machine is plugged in. I've done everything I possibly could think of. It's not working." Again, he paused. "Fine. Just get here as soon as you can. I need something to deal with these calls."

He gave me a side long glace and shook his head ever so slightly as if he was suggesting there wasn't much hope of finding someone to answer them.

At last he hung the phone up and returned his attention to me. Me. An eighteen year old girl, thin as a rail, raven black hair all the way down her back, wearing her mother's old suit, who actually thought she could walk into a legal office and get a job.

"Do you have any qualifications?" he asked gently.

For some reason my reaction was to rear up and hold my chin high. "I'm a quick learner."

Max smiled slightly. "Well, Miss McKenzie, a legal secretary needs a little more than that."

My posture started to deflate. I knew the speech that would shortly follow. It appeared he was going to be gentle, but there was no stopping sentences like, "This just isn't the right job for you," or, "Have you thought about college?"

Occasionally I had an impulse to tell them about the debts my father's untimely death had left us and the new ones my mother's illness was rapidly racking up, but what little self-respect I had left forced me to stay quiet. Still, facing that same speech for the fourth time wore my nerves so raw it hurt to breathe. Maybe that's why I answered the phone. Maybe I'd just taken a little too much that day. My patience just all out fled when that phone lit up again.

Before Max had the chance to groan I stood up, snatch the receiver, and said, "Hello."

There was a pause. "Where is Max?"

"He's busy. Can I take a message?" I was painfully aware of the New Jersey tinge my voice held. It sounded so unsophisticated next to Max's soft tone.

"This is Mrs. Benson." The voice on the other side of the line became stiff and, frankly, arrogant. "He'll take my—"

"Mrs. Benson, he's already told you that he'll call you back this evening." Maybe the exhaustion was making me a little giddy.

"Now listen—"

"No. He's busy right now. He won't be able to pay full attention to you anyway, so there's not much point in trying to talk to him. Wait until he's got the chance. Okay."

"Well—"

"Has he got your number?"

"Yes, but—"

"Good. He'll call you back tonight." I promptly hung the phone up then froze as the full recognition of what I'd just done hit me. I looked down and realized I was sitting on the edge of his sold mahogany desk like it was my mother's little pressboard one at home.

With cheeks now warm and red, I slowly stood back up and faced him. "Well," I choked out. "I'll just be go—"

"You're hired," he said calmly, though his eyes were wide. The thick glasses he was wearing made them look like they were practically ready to fall out of his head.

I stopped and stared at him for a moment then back away a little. "I'm what?"

"Hired." He stood up and held his hand out. "Peter Maxwell. Everyone calls me Max. I'd appreciate it if you would too."

I weakly took his hand. My arm flopped rather limply as he shook it. "Just Maddy," was all I could say in return.

"A pleasure to meet you—"

"Did you just say I was hired?" I have a good feeling my face was scrunched up in an unflattering way.

"Yes." Max yanked a wallet out of his back pocket and pulled out several bills. "Here. Go buy yourself some clothes. That's enough to handle a suit and a few shirts. Grab a pair of shoes too. I'll make sure you have enough to buy a full wardrobe by Monday. Show up at nine." He gave me a flinch of a smile.

I was immobile for quite some time, but I finally found the strength to back my way out of the office.

Just as I was about to cross the threshold when he called out, "Tell the rest of the girls out there the position has been filled." That time he flashed me a larger smile then turned his head back down to a form of some sort on his desk.

When I made it out into the hallway I finally looked down at bills he'd tucked into my hand. I counted it four times before my mind would willingly accept I was holding eight hundred dollars. I'd never even touched a check worth that much.

I ran right to the side of my mother's hospital bed, chattering like a mad woman. She thought I was having a fit at first. Then she thought I was outright delusional and tried to call the nurse. Finally she saw the money and just stared at me with her jaw hanging open.

I was waiting at the door Monday morning, feeling a little delusional, at eight thirty, suited up in clothes more expensive than I could fathom...and I'd only spent half of the money Max had given me. I was a little afraid to spend it all, just in case I showed up and it was a joke.

Max walked straight up to me and looked me up and down. "How much did you spend?" he asked as if he could tell I hadn't spent it all.

"Half," I said weakly.

"You're going to need to get your suits tailored. You'll never find a suit off the rack that will fit you." He smiled softly and opened the door.

That's how my first day with Max started. The whole situation was crazy as far as I was concerned and I'm sure people on Max's side of the world would have called it outright stupid. But it worked. In a matter of weeks I wasn't just his secretary. I was his Girl Friday.

I made sure he never missed an appointment or court date, that he was dressed in something coordinated, that he had all his files, his facts, his wits, and something to eat along the way. He meanwhile taught me how to spend money like a mad woman on the proper clothes and furnishings, made sure I was living on the good side of town, and never let anyone look down on me. When someone suggested he really should hire employees with college educations he would reply, "Why? She has me." It was true. I practically got a law degree under him.

"Besides," he would always add, "Maddy has something they don't teach in school." He never said what that was, but people understood. We worked well together. And it all went well for ten straight years.

I'm sure it would have continued on well if my best friend, Georgia, hadn't gone and stuck her foot in my mouth by saying, "Why don't you just admit you love him?"

Chapter Two

We were sitting on a bench in the middle of Central Park, just like we did on every Wednesday of the year since I'd moved out of the neighborhood we'd grown up in together. Max didn't like me going. He didn't think it was safe for women to be alone in Central Park. Every week he'd suggest I make a reservation at a restaurant nearby, but Georgia and I both needed those few moments of fresh air after a week of living in New York. It was the only place in the city that didn't smell like rotting garbage on hot days and exhaust on cold days. I think part of Max's problem was he didn't like having to eat lunch alone on Wednesday.

But visiting with Georgia was my special time, so I always went and I always had a good time. Until the moment she said that.

I was half way through a hotdog. It promptly got stuck in my throat and left me coughing.

"Don't give me that," Georgia said like she was my mother and shook her head of auburn curls authoritatively. "You're just trying to avoid my question."

I took a long gulp of water. "No," I said hoarsely. "I'm really choking."

"Avoiding." She leveled her gaze at me. Somehow she always assumed that because she was taller that meant she was older and in charge.

I huffed loudly and took another sip of water. "In in the first place, I don't know what you are talking about. And in the second place, your compassion is underwhelming me."

"Don't know what I'm talking about?" she cried and threw up her arms. "Madeline McKenzie, you are head over heels in love with Max and you know it."

It was my turn to toss my head back like an authority figure sending the locks I'd long since cut short soaring. Georgia was better at it than me, but I pressed on. "Georgia, you're being sill—"

"For heaven sakes, Maddy! Open your eyes!"

I sat up straight. "That reminds me. I need to schedule Max's eye appointment. His glasses really need to be changed."

Georgia suddenly latched onto my shoulders and shook me. "Stop thinking like his appointment book! You're a real woman, Maddy. One who's verging on thirty and spends every waking moment of life working. You haven't had a date in....in...longer than I can remember."

That tinged my cheeks red, but more from anger than embarrassment. What did Georgia know? She married her high school sweetheart. I never even had a high school sweetheart. Pursing my lips in a very apparent display, I yanked myself away from her grip, stood up, and straightened my skirt suit in a dignified manner.

"Listen, Georgia," I began, holding my hands out like I was about to officially educate her.

"Tell me you don't love him," she cut in and chocked her head.

A severe sense of frustration battered itself against my chest. "Why?"

"If you can say you don't love him, I'll know I interpreted all the signs wrong and leave you alone." She shrugged causally.

I straighten up. That seemed easy enough. I found it remarkable that she was letting me off so easily, but I was going to take the opportunity. So, I opened my mouth and said, "Max isn't interested in a relationship."

While Georgia smiled triumphantly, I gawked at myself. I honestly intended to say I didn't love Max, but instead I repeated what I knew his opinion on the matter was. Max was married to his work. I knew that. I was okay with that. Wasn't I?

"You can't say it, can you?" Georgia prodded.

I wanted to say it. At that moment I wanted to say it desperately. Anything to shut down that all knowing smile she was giving me, but the only thing I could come up with was that sense of frustration butting its head against my insides.

"It doesn't matter," I said. I think I twitched when I said it, but at least I'd come up with something. But instead of finding relief, a sigh of sadness traveled through me. Georgia's smile melted into motherly concern.

"Why don't you just tell him?" she suggested.

I was looking down, staring at the tips of my patent pumps, but my gaze was inward. Did I love Max? I'd never thought of that before. No, I'd never allowed myself to think of that before. A twinge of pain touched my chest in response.

"Can't you just try?" George continued to press.

I finally sank back down to the bench. "I couldn't. He wouldn't respect me anymore and frankly I don't think I would respect myself."

I couldn't decide if I was actually admitting to myself that I loved Max or just thinking of this in a hypothetical sort of way. Maybe that was it.

"That's ridiculous," she shot back.

"You don't know Max."

"I feel like I do from the way you talk about him."

Did I really talk all that much about Max? I quickly shook my head. "Well, anyway—"

"Couldn't you just hint it to him?"

At that I had to laugh. "What do you want me to do, Georgia? Drop my hankie as I walk by him?"

"It worked for me."

"You were sixteen!" I made a face at her and she returned it.

"All I'm saying is—"

"No more." I quickly got back up and held my hands in front of her. "The fact that I love Max is really unimportant at the moment. We've got a ton of work right now and he probably wouldn't even notice if I smothered him in hankies."

Georgia's face lit up with an ear to ear smile. It made me feel lost and confused.

"What?" I asked.

"You just said that you loved him."

The ground felt unstable. I was sure Central Park was experiencing a freak earthquake.

With a little laugh, Georgia added, "It's not a bad thing, Maddy."

My eyes burned just a touch as I looked back up at her. "Yes, it is," I replied softly. "Because he'll never understand."

I picked up my purse and spun around. Georgia was calling out for me to wait, but I was making too much headway to turn back now. It's remarkable how easily I'd adapted to walking in heels. I could practically run in them. And that's just what I did.

I made it to the bus stop in a record amount of time and hopped aboard without making eye contact with anyone. I didn't want them to see that my eyes were swimming. Not that anyone noticed. New Yorkers were blessed with a peculiar peripheral blindness. If something wasn't in their immediate focus, it didn't matter. I was grateful for that, but just in case there was some West Coast touchy-feely tourist on board, I kept my head down.

The whole ride was spent trying to put my feelings back in line. It was like trying to fit every shoe I ever owned into a Tupperware container. But at least my eyes weren't blurry by the time I stepped off the bus and started the walk to the building our office was in.

The building was a bit brownstone like. Old in the glorious sort of way. We liked it better than the shimmering towers of cold glass some offices called home. I'd say it had character and Max would laugh and agree.

Max had been invited to join larger law firms from time to time over the years. He was quite successful and having his name attached to a partnership would have made his career even more illustrious, but he always turned it down. He said he liked things the way they were. That always made me happy. I was a part of the way things were.

I stood outside of our building and stared up, counting off the windows until I came to the one I knew was his.

"It doesn't matter," I whispered.

The wind seemed to pick up the words and whip them through the trees over my head, scattering a slight shower of dead leaves on me. I sighed and brushed them off my shoulders. It was time to go back to work. So, I headed up the steps, unaware that tragedy was about to strike my life in such a strange way I wouldn't be the same person the next time I walked through those doors.
Chapter Three

I slipped into the office and pealed my suit jacket off, just barely looking in the direction of his private office. The door was slightly ajar. I unbutton the cuffs of my shirt and rolled them up. The rest of the day was going to be devoted to paperwork. I didn't think I needed the jacket on for that.

"Is that you?" he called out from beyond the door.

Everything inside of me jumped. "Yeah." I cleared my throat. "Yeah, it's me."

"How was lunch?"

My heart fluttered. "Fine."

"See, I told you so."

"What?"

"If you had gone to Shay's like I told you to, you would have had a good time. Not just 'fine.''

I had to laugh. "Max, sometimes I think you've got issues."

He laughed and I felt unstable once more.

Clearing my throat again, I pressed forward. "Did you eat the lunch I gave you?" I asked as I sat down at my desk and began clearing through the stacks.

Max moaned. "It was cold."

"It was a sandwich. It was supposed to be cold."

"I don't like cold lunches."

"Did you eat it?" I continued, trying not to sigh too loudly. Honestly, sometimes he was such a child.

"Yes, I ate it." He sighed louder than necessary for dramatic effect.

"Thank you. I'll make sure they send up a hot sandwich next time."

There was silence between us for a while. My nerves settled down and I kept working. It seemed like everything was going to be okay. Even if I did have feelings for Max, we could still go on with life. He didn't need to know and I didn't need to think about it anymore.

"Maddy, could you call Mr. Lucas for me?" his voice said so close my concentration shattered.

I started violently and I shoved my rolling chair back into the wall.

"Whoa, I didn't mean to scare you," Max said, honestly sounding concern.

I looked up to find he had walked out of his office and was leaning over my desk. "I-I just didn't notice you'd come out," I stammered and blinked hard.

He laughed softly. "You're too focused for you own good sometimes, Maddy."

I couldn't have told him what I was focused on the moment before. I probably couldn't have counted to ten at that moment. All I could do was stare at him. Max. My Max.

Ten years had thinned his hair a lot more and thickened his glasses. Almost nobody saw him without those glasses. Just me, on nights we worked so late we didn't bother going home. His eyes would start to blur around two AM. They always did. He'd take those glasses off and rub his eyes and for that moment I could see how perfectly blue they were. Usually I would lean over and take his glasses so he couldn't start reading until he took a few minutes break. He'd come complain at me, then smile and say he'd probably be blind if I wasn't there. He was right.

That's when I realized it was true. I really did love Max. And it wasn't the sort of love I could just ignore and tell myself it really didn't matter. It was the sort of love that needed a response, affection, something more than just the acknowledgement of my secretarial skills.

Max smiled as if he didn't realize I was staring at him like I'd never stared at him before and said, "Anyway, can you call Mr. Lucas? I have a few minutes to spare tomorrow morning so if he doesn't mind I'd like to move his appointment up." He didn't wait for my reply. Just turned around and headed back to his office.

"I quit," I said rather flatly without the slightest thought. The words shocked me right to the core.

Max stopped walking and slowly turned around. He looked like I had just attempted to conduct a conversation in Spanish.

"What?"

I was silent for a long moment, trying to decide why I'd said those words. Why? I knew pretty quickly why. I couldn't stand the thought of working alongside him, same as always, knowing how I felt. It would drive me crazy.

I sighed loudly as the urge to curse at Georgia like my father use to curse at the television every time a political candidate came on over took me. It was official. Georgia had ruined my life.

"Maddy," Max said slowly. His eyebrows rose.

My eyes ran back and forth between the door and Max. A sudden burst of energy propelled me out of my chair and towards the hook I'd hung my jacket on.

"I quit, Max," I said and tried to avoid his gaze.

"Quit?" he said as if he wasn't sure what the word meant. "As in, not work for me?"

"Exactly." I pulled my jacket off the hook, but he reached over and took it out of my hands, coming remarkably close to me. His presence had never bothered me before, but suddenly the closeness threatened to throw my sanity over a cliff.

"Maddy, you can't quit." There was a tone in his voice that suggested he thought the idea was amusing. "I mean, what else would you do?"

Indignation started to surge in my gut. It was as if he was saying I wasn't capable of doing anything else but care for him. I pushed back, effectively knocking into him and shoving his presence away from me. When I turned to look at him his eyes were bugging out like that first day when I'd answered the phone. He couldn't believe I'd actually gone so far.

"Stop it, Max," I said. "I can leave if I want to." I sounded every bit like the child I'd often accused him of being.

Still looking disorientated, he actually had the audacity to say, "Is this one of those emotional issues females have?"

That snapped any semblance of self-control I had left. "No," I shot back and stamped my foot. "Why do men think women are incapable of logic? Women don't run entirely on emotion!"

Of course, at that particular moment I was running purely on emotion, but I wasn't about to let him get away with that line.

"Fine, then explain this sudden...strange behavior." He squared his shoulders and stared at me with the look I'd seen him use on witness he thought were lying in the courtroom.

I swallowed hard and stared back, fully aware that I couldn't explain it. Not without saying, "I love you Max and I can't go on like this." If I did, I'd lose everything I had built up over the last decade. Well, I was going to lose it either way, but if I walked out on my own at least I'd have a shred of dignity left. No sanity, but dignity.

I took a deep breath and turned toward the door, but before I could take another step it swung open and cracked into the wall. I involuntarily stepped back at the sound, but eased forward again when I saw the man walk in.

He was tall, but not extreme. Dressed in wrinkled, but clean clothes. His was face was vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it at the moment. All I could think about was the strange ash color his skin held. It was almost like he was half dead.

I straightened and assumed my professional stance. "I'm sorry, sir, we don't have any appointments today."

The man's eyes barely brushed over me then settled on Max. "I want to talk to you," he said.

Max gently shook his head. "If you'd like to schedule an appointment my secretary can help you with that, but I'm busy today."

"No, today." His voice was almost ghost like. Deep and flat. There seemed to be a soft echo in it, but then again I wasn't in my right mind.

"I'm sorry, but—"

A flash of red hot anger hit the man in the face. I barely saw him twitch, but there was a gun in his hand, pointed straight at Max, an instant later.

Chapter Four

Max and I both went stiff as planks and backed away.

"Whoa there," I said. My eyes were fixed on the gun. I'd seen guns before, but they'd always been in plastic bags, laying on one of the tables in the courtrooms. Every once in a while Max would pick one up during the closing argument and wave it around for dramatic effect. I would laugh softly and shake my head. But not at that moment.

"Sir," Max began, "I don't think that's really necessary." He turned to me. "Maybe we could find a slot for him today."

I nodded eagerly, trying to control the tremors racking my body. "Oh, yes. We could wait until tomorrow to file that brief. How about we fit him in right now?"

"Good idea. We'll—"

"Shut up," the man growled. "I'm not an idiot."

He stepped forward. Max and I put our hands up on impulse.

"What is it you wanted to talk about?" Max said politely. He sounded calm, but his hands remained up.

"Matthew Stewart." His teeth ground together as he said the name then he used a curse word even my father wouldn't have used. My mother would have smacked him into the next century if he'd even thought about it.

Max cocked his head. "Matthew Stewart?"

My mind spun backwards, searching for the name's place. It struck on a case that ended six months ago. We'd defended a young man named Matthew Stewart. I was trying to remember what he'd been charged with when the man said, "You got him off. A murderer, and you let him go." The ghostlike echo was gone, replaced by a snarl similar to a buzz saw.

Max tossed me a confused look then returned his gaze to the man. "I did defend the boy and he was found innocent. I'm afraid I don't understand the issue."

"He was guilty. That's my issue."

"The jury thought otherwise."

"Only because you're a slick, slimy talker who mesmerized them." The gun shook.

Max, meanwhile, suddenly looked angry as well. He hated it when people suggested lawyers did nothing more than con the jury.

"Listen," he snapped. "All I did was my job. The jury agreed with me. The evidence was ridiculously flimsy. And furthermore—"

"Max," I cried and held my hands a little higher. I could see the man's jaw tightening with each word Max spoke. "This isn't a good time, okay."

Max ruffled. "I am merely explaining the process."

"This isn't a good time."

"If he wishes to discuss the case—"

"He's holding a gun on you, Max. He does not wish to discuss the nuances of the law." I couldn't believe he was honestly that idiotic.

"How would you know? Have you ever been held up before," he snapped back at me.

"What are you two? Married?" the man cut in.

"No!" we both yelled back in unison. I bristled violently. Max said "no" far too fast and too passionately. I might have as well, but that wasn't the point.

"Well, you argue like you are," he returned and shook his head.

I balled my fists. "What are you? A relationship counselor?"

There was a flash of movement in my peripheral vision. I realized it was Max right about the time I saw him smack the man's wrist. The gun hit the ground with a thud. I thought Max was going to go for it, but instead he kicked man's knee in sending him flat to the floor right at my feet.

That was our first bad break. He didn't hesitate to grab me by the ankle and yank the floor right out from under me. I came down on my tailbone hard, sending a sharp pain up my spine, but there was no time to think about the pain.

A hand was on my collar, yanking me up again a second later. Then there was an arm around my waist, holding me up and a hand completely around my throat with a thumb pressing hard into my jugular.

"Any closer and I snap her neck," he growled.

The sound echoed through my eardrum as his sour breath curled my nose.

My eyes focused on Max. He gritted his teeth like they were tearing into someone's flesh. "Let her go."

I'd never heard that tone of voice come out of him. It made me shudder.

The man started to drag me backwards. "Stay where you are."

Max moved forward anyway. He no longer looked like a slightly geeky lawyer. He was a warrior ready to kill his enemy.

My captor responded to the move by clenching down so hard on my throat I whimpered. Max stopped in his tracks.

"If you hurt her—"

"Like you have a heart for anyone," he spat back and continued to move.

I tried to make myself dead weight, dragging and digging in with my feet, but he moved like I weighed nothing more than a skipping stone.

"Please," I softly begged, but I could barely hear my own voice.

My feet tripped over the threshold, knocking both of my shoes off as I tried to grab hold. As soon as we were through the doorway he threw me down to the floor. I wrenched around in time to see him grab the door and slam it then an instant later fling it back open. I couldn't understand what he was doing until I heard the smack and Max cry out.

He'd known Max would come running after us and had opened the door right into his face to slow down any attempt to pursue.

"Max," I screamed, but the big hand had me by the collar again and yanked up, cutting off my vocal cords.

Chapter Five

He pulled me down the hallway so fast I could barely keep up. My stocking feet stumbled on the carpet, but my captor caught me before I went down and shoved me through a door. We were running up the emergence stairway before I realized what was going on.

"What are you doing?" I cried, but he just kept moving me forward, latching onto my collar every time I threatened to slip on the cold concrete steps.

Two dizzying flights of steps up, he pushed me through another door. We both stumbled into the foreign hallway slamming into the opposite wall. I thought he was giving me a moment to catch my breath, but he was really looking desperately for a place to hide us.

I was trying to think of an effective way to beg for my life when he grabbed my collar again and pushed me toward the end of the hall where nothing more than a window appeared in front of me. In one swift movement he shoved me into the sill and flung open the window, letting in a rush of foul Manhattan air.

"Out," he barked.

"W-what?" I pulled away, but he knocked me back.

"Climb out or I toss you out."

Survival instinct kicked in, forcing me to mechanically climb through the window on to the roughly eighteen inch stone ledge outside. For some maddening reason I leaned forward and looked down. My vision blurred and my stomach lurched. I must have tried to back up, because I felt his hand nudge me forward.

I screamed and tried to push back more.

"I said climb!"

Sensing he really would knock me forward, I clung to the bull-nose of the ledge and inched forward on hands and knees, whimpering the whole time.

I'd made it out about three feet when I heard him grunt as he pulled himself out. Then the window slammed close behind me.

"Keep moving," he commanded.

I did, even though my stomach was telling me that hot dog I'd forced down my throat was about to come back up.

"Okay, stop."

Once again, I obeyed then carefully looked back. We'd made it out about six feet. He was trying to sit back and position himself steadily on the ledge. I tried to do the same. I would have liked to sit Indian style, but that blasted pencil skirt only allowed me to sit up on my knees and lean my side against the stone walls. I focused my eyes on the window. He was blocking the route back.

"What are we doing?" I asked, trying to control my shaking voice.

"They won't think to look for us out here." His voice was shaking wildly.

I finally noticed how hard he was pressing himself against the wall and how tightly he was holding his eyes closed.

"You didn't think this one through very well, did you?" I said. Anger started to bubble up again. "I mean, really, is this the best you've got? Burst into an office, make cryptic statements then grab the secretary and force her out onto a ledge."

He tried to toss me an annoyed look, but the moment he opened his eyes he panicked and gasped. His eyes shut again.

"Ah, come on!" I yelled. "You're afraid of heights? Really?"

"Would you please shut up," he snapped.

"Why? Would that make you braver?"

"Shut up or I'll push you off." He seemed to shudder.

"Well, fine! Shove me off," I cried flippantly. "That will be the perfect end to this day."

"Has anyone ever told you to not to agitate someone who is threatening your life?"

"Well, excuse me. You just happened to threaten me on the day my personal and professional life got into a train wreck."

The wind whipped the tips of my hair into my eyes, stinging them. Without thought, I flung my hand around and tried to rub them. The motion sent me off balance. Yelping like a puppy, I practically threw myself back against the face of the building and tried to dig my nails into the stone.

"Can't you just stop moving?" he pleaded with me.

Still pressing my face up against the wall, I opened my eyes and looked at him. The expression on his face suddenly struck a chord. I'd seen that desperate expression before. He was wearing it the day the jury came back. He'd been sitting in the front row, right behind the prosecutor. As far as I could remember, he'd been there every single day of the trial. At least every day I'd been in the courtroom.

"Jim Wagner?" I whispered.

He wrenched his head in my direction and slowly opened his eyes. "You remember me?"

"Sarah Wagner was your wife?"

I saw both the sorrow and the anger splash on his face and knew I was right. The victim's husband. I remembered him sitting in that courtroom. He always looked desperate. I'd wondered if they would call him as a witness, but they never did. He'd been gone the day his wife was murdered, working a late shift. It was a neighbor down the hall from their apartment who had noticed the door open, who had found Sarah Wagner's body lying on the floor of the kitchen in a pool of blood.

Jim took a deep breath. "Now do you understand? Your boss got her murderer off."

I shook my head.

A shot of blood rushed to his face. "Yes, he did." Each word was enunciated with such force it shook his chest.

"No," I replied just as confidently. "My boss pointed out that there wasn't enough evidence to convict a nineteen year old kid of murder."

"A kid?" he yelled. For a moment he forgot himself and leaned toward me then just as quickly gasped and smashed himself back against the wall so hard I heard his head crack.

"Are you okay?" I asked. Part of me was sympathetic. The other part wanted to scream, "This is what happens to idiots!"

He carefully rubbed the back of his skull. "Yes. And he wasn't just a kid. He was a cold-blooded killer."

Matt Stewart was obnoxious. That was what I remembered about him most. Not just your average nineteen year old kid obnoxious. He was a whole new level that made me frequently want to smack him on the back of the head and say, "Act a little like you care!" He never did act like he cared that he was being tried for murder.

"If he hadn't had a rich dad to pay a high power lawyer he never would have gotten off," Jim snarled at me.

I snarled back. "And you think that's all right? You think it's okay for a kid to go to jail for life just because he can't afford a good attorney?" I tried to take a deep breath and cool down. Well, cool down inwardly. Outwardly the breeze was beginning to chill me straight through. "Listen, I don't want to retry the whole case out here on the ledge. So why don't we just calm down and—"

"Your slimy boss actually talked the jury out of an eye-witness. An eye-witness!"

I probably should have just ignored him, but I was in high throttle mode and feeling very protective of Max. "Witness?" I shot back. "That's what you call a witness? That's what I call a slim ball."

I'd seen witnesses like Harold Winters before. Generally, they were dirty, low-lives who enjoyed being the primary witness because it was a shot to soak up some spotlight time. Harry struck me that way the moment we met.

"He identified Stewart as the one crawling out of our window. You know that."

It was probably a good thing so much of his attention was focused on staying balanced. He likely would have been shaking me by the shoulders otherwise. And I probably would have been kicking at his shins if I wasn't still attempting to bend the stone walls to the wills of my finger nails.

"Harold Winters said he saw a kid coming out of the window," I pressed on.

"He gave the police a pretty good description of that kid."

I always wondered if Harry's description of the person he saw climbing out the window was all that good until after he'd seen Matt in the lineup the next day. Matt wouldn't have been in that lineup if he hadn't been out drinking and gotten himself a night in jail and I personally didn't think he would have gotten Harry's attention if he hadn't been wobbling so badly.

But either way, Harry had pointed out Matt as the one he saw crawling out of Sarah Wagner's window. A rich kid like Matt killing a woman so he could steal money and jewelry never made much sense as a scenario from the beginning, even when the prosecutor pointed out that Matt frequently ran away from home and might be in need of cash. Convicting him on the grounds of the testimony of someone like Harold Winters would have been a travesty.

The prosecutor set it up nice. He made Harry look real good and then gave us all a snide, triumphant sort of look as he turned the witness over to Max. It made him look like such a jerk compared to Max's calm, unaffected manner.

Max stood up, walked right to where Harry was sitting in the witness box, and asked him to repeat the time he'd supposedly seen the defendant climbing out of the Wagner's apartment.

"Just after eight," Harry said and smiled confidently. It was a big moment for him.

Max nodded easily. We'd done our research on Mr. Winters. "Just one more question, Mr. Winters. How many drinks did you have by that time of the night?"

I was sitting next to Harry's drinking buddy in the courtroom. He'd promised to testify if Harry didn't admit to anything, but Harry did. He'd had four beers by eight o'clock in the evening.

"He wasn't drunk," Jim said to me as we teetered on that ledge.

I tried not to roll my eyes. "At the very minimum he was buzzed. You can't convict a kid on the testimony of a guy on four beers."

"The guy drank all the time. Four beers wouldn't have affected him all that much."

I huffed loudly. "You cannot be serious."

"Stewart was guilty." His voice began to rise. "He didn't even have an alibi."

"I didn't have an alibi for that night either. It's not enough to convict." I took another deep breath. "What on earth did you think you were going to accomplish by bursting into the office like that?"

Jim suddenly looked weary, almost as if he'd forgotten about our current position, the wind that was blowing through our clothes, and the police that were most certainly looking for us. He just looked like a tired, lonely man.

"I didn't plan on that. Things...have been going bad lately." He rubbed his eyes. "Sarah was the only good thing I had in my life."

I softened, which turned out to be a bad thing because I momentarily forgot to lean hard to the left. After another round of gasping and throwing myself against the wall, I offered him an, "I'm sorry."

His gaze shot to me like he was throwing a dart. "You think that's enough?"

"No, but it's all I've got when I'm being forced to cling to the side of the building." I gave him a crossed eyed look and he pulled back again.

"I didn't mean to involve you."

"I still don't know what you meant to do."

He sighed. "I'm not sure either. I just...if the great Peter Maxwell ever admitted that Stewart was actually guilty...." His voice dissipated into another sigh.

"It wouldn't make a difference. He was acquitted. He can never be retried."

"No, but maybe it won't be so easy for him to kill again."

It wasn't that the idea was particularly novel, but it surprised me a little. It made it seem like Jim Wagner wasn't out for revenge, or even necessarily justice, just the hope that someone else could be spared the tragedy he'd suffered. Of course I had no way of knowing the truth beneath the man's skin. He had, after all, technically kidnapped me.

"Why do you defend him so passionately?" Jim said, looking over at me. "It is him you're defending, not really the case."

"You mean Max?"

He nodded. I struggled around for something cohesive to say. I did whole heartedly believe Max had represented the case properly, but I was honest enough to admit to myself that I probably wouldn't have been fighting it out under the circumstances if it wasn't Max's character at stake. Being honest with myself was apparently a new talent of mine.

"Aren't you just his secretary?" Jim continued.

I didn't like the word "just." It hit me in the heart like a barb, but I shook it off. "Yes, I'm his secretary, but that doesn't mean I can't defend both Max and our work."

Jim's eyes narrowed. "He must pay you an awful lot."

I impulsively inched toward him. "I should smack you for a comment like that."

His eyes widened then averted from my face. "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."

"Yeah, it was."

I wanted to say more, but I couldn't think of anything, so I just tried to wrap my arms around my shoulders and rub off the chill.

"Sarah use to defend me like that," he said after several long moments of silence. His head lilted back against the wall. There was a short, hallow laugh and small smile. "Her family didn't think I was worth much, but she wouldn't let them say a thing about me. She had a comeback for every one of their arguments." His head leaned a little in my direction. "Is he really worth it?"

I nodded without hesitation. "He's a good lawyer, but he's a lot more, at least to me. He's listens so well to everyone, hears each person out, hears things that nobody else does. And he won't let anyone take advantage of others. He's always on the lookout for people." I rattled on about his work ethics for who knows how long, then suddenly found myself saying things like, "And he found me an apartment in a safe area, with a doorman to check on me. And he let me cry on his shoulder for two solid hours when my mother died. And if I wasn't there he would walk out the door looking like a country French restaurant with a blue suit and bright yellow tie and..." I finally looked up and swallowed the rest of it before I came off as a total idiot, finishing my ramble off with a sorry little shrug.

Jim looked at me for a while and then said, "Oh, so that's what you meant when you said your personal and professional life got into a train wreck."

My cheeks flashed hot. I tried to shake my head, but found my neck impossibly stiff.

"What happen?" he continued on. "Did he reject you?"

"No," I returned. "Can you please stop assuming the worst of Max?"

"So then what did happen?"

"I don't think it's any of your business and for that matter nothing happened. He doesn't even have a clue."

Apparently logic and reason had totally abandoned me by that point.

Jim's eyes widened in surprise. "Wow, he must really be blind."

I reared up in a burst of indignation. "You know what? I am really getting tired your commentary on my life."

I turned away with a display of dignity and offense and doing so completely threw my balance off. The sense of falling consumed me as I flung my arms out in hopes finding something to grab hold of. There was nothing but cloudy Manhattan air.

A hand clasped around my wrist and yanked me back. My shoulder hit the wall, followed by my head and the world started to spin in a wildly unpleasant manner. I closed my eyes and tried to pull myself back from the brink, but I couldn't tell if it was the brink of the ledge or just consciousness.

After several long minutes I felt the air filling my lungs evenly and my head clear. Slowly, I opened my eyes only to find myself huddled up against Jim. His arms were tightly wrapped around me.

"Are you okay?" he asked, obviously frightened.

"Are we still sitting on the ledge of a building?"

"Yes."

"Then, no, I am not okay."

I slowly eased myself out of his arms and into an upright position, finding my legs dangling over the edge.

"Let's not fight anymore," Jim said cautiously.

"I like that idea," I added with a quick nod and closed my eyes. There was a strong urge to look down, but I knew if I did I'd probably go down with my gaze. "Can we go back inside now?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"It doesn't seem right yet."

"Would you mind elaborating on your plan a little bit more so I can at least be aware of what to do next?"

He huffed. "I didn't plan any of this. I think I just snapped."

"You think?"

"I thought we weren't going to fight any more." He narrowed his eyes.

"I'm just establishing a few facts here." My hands curled around the cold concrete edge of our perch as I looked over and met him eye to eye. "I really am sorry about your wife. I-I've gone through a lot of loss in my own life, but I can't imagine the sort of grief you've face."

Jim looked down and nodded softly. "Thank you."

We were silent again for a while. I just watched him because I was too afraid to look down.

"You aren't going to jump, are you?" I finally asked.

"I've thought about it several times over the past few months," he replied in all honestly.

My stomach lurched again. "Please don't. After all that's happened today I really don't think I could handle seeing you scraped off the pavement, okay."

Jim looked up at me and laughed a little. There was actually sincerity in his smile. "What did you say your name was?"

"Maddy. Maddy McKenzie."

He smiled and nodded in an introductory sort of way. "Well, Maddy McKenzie, it is a pleasure to meet you. And I don't think he deserves you."

I laughed that time. "I don't know what Max deserves." I waited a moment, staring again at the drawn out features of Jim Wagner. "But I bet I could talk him into dropping this whole business and telling the police it was just a misunderstanding."

That really did strike surprise into his face. "You can't be serious."

I nodded and was relatively confident.

Jim looked down for a minute then shrugged. "I guess trusting you is really the only option I have for the time being. Just do me one favor, okay?"

"What?"

"Don't call your boss right away. Make him worry for a bit."

"To what purpose?"

"Maybe if he thinks he might lose you he'll come to his sense."

He smiled while I shook a bit. The idea was preposterous. Make Max think I was in danger in hopes of awaking feelings for me? It sounded terrible. It also sounded like something Georgia would approve of.

"Let's just get going."

We may have only been a few feet away from the window, but the inch by inch crawl felt like miles. I'd waver back and forth between wanting to close my eyes so I couldn't see how far I'd fall and realizing that if I closed my eyes I probably would fall.

I heard the window open, but I couldn't tell how close I was. My hands were ice cold on the concrete and they seemed to be rapidly freezing to the stone.

Jim's hands wrapped around my waist and yanked me in. I knew I was being pulled back into the building, but for a moment I was sure I was going to fall again.

Then my feet, now in torn stockings, touched down on the industrial carpet and I went a little light headed. I think Jim did too because we both propped ourselves up against the wall and took several long breaths of stale office air. I found a whole new affection for the scent of old coffee and dust.

The sounds of feet scurrying along the hallway snapped me back to attention. I pulled upright and looked for the source of the noise as I tried to quickly unroll my cuffs and make myself mildly presentable.

A short, plump man rounded the corner looking a little giddy. I recognized him as one of the accountants in an office two floors above us, though for the life of me I couldn't remember his name.

"Maddy," he cried and scurried over to me.

"Hi," I said weakly.

"What are you doing here? Haven't you heard the office has been evacuated?" He was as excited as he was serious.

"Then why are you in here?"

"Forgot my Blackberry in the rush. Had to come back and get it." He smiled. "Besides, this is the most excitement I've had in my life since my fraternity snuck a goat onto campus."

"Wow," I said dryly. "I didn't know you were a wild man." I returned his smile. "Well, anyway, I'm heading out. Besides, I don't think this business will turn out to be anything more than a misunderstanding."

He shrugged. "Hey, a half day off is a half day off." His eyes trailed up and down my shameful appearance. "What happened to you?"

I didn't even bother to look down. Instead I forced out an apathetic laugh. "Bad turn on the stairs." I waved him off and said goodbye. Happily he didn't seem to be interested in staying around or figuring out why my stockings were snagged from toe to knee and my skirt was twisted and smudged with dust.

I pretended like I was going to turn the corner, but as soon as he was in the elevator I spun back around to see if Jim had disappeared. Whoever the man was, he didn't seem to pick up on anyone else.

"Jim?" I called out softly. The building certainly felt empty, but I couldn't be sure of that. There might be police officers still roaming about.

"Here," he replied, just as softly.

I jumped and turned around just as he slipped out from around the corner. "You're fast."

"And you're as cool as they get. I would have stammered my way through that."

I shrugged. "I'm a legal secretary."

"What does that have to do with it?"

"I'm not sure, but I've survived." I gave him a little smile. "Now, I'm going down to my office and see if I can find my shoes. I doubt anyone is down there. Why don't you just go home? I'll make sure everything's all right. Do you have a number I could reach you at?"

Instead of answering he chewed his lip and let his gaze slip down.

My shoulders fell. "You don't have a home, do you?"

"No," he sighed. "I lost that somewhere along the way."

Apparently once logic has evacuated a person, it doesn't matter how deep they go into insanity. I should know, because after a moment or two of thought I said, "Fine. Why don't you come to my place? I'll get Max to come over there and talk things out."

The second I said those words his eyes jumped to life, but I didn't have the time to try to read them. I was having enough trouble trying to convince myself that I hadn't lost my mind.

We slipped back down the emergency stairs without incident. I left him in the stairwell and crept down to my office. It really was evacuated. Max was gone and apparently so was everyone else. I didn't linger on the thought of where they were. For all I knew Max was passing out descriptions of me to the police. I just didn't want to think about it right then and there.

My shoes were still where they'd been knocked off my feet and my jacket was lying in the middle of the room where Max had dropped it when Jim pulled the gun out. There was an eerie sort of quiet in the place. It wasn't the quiet itself that gave me a chill. Max and I often worked in silence. There was a deeper sort of emptiness surrounding me. I stared at my desk for a second.

Did I really intend to quit? I shook the thought away. It didn't matter for the moment. I just needed to get out of the building.

After peeling the stockings off and tossing them in the trash, I smoothed out my jacket and pulled it on, dusting myself off along the way. The shoes didn't fit as well without the stockings, but I shoved them on anyway, grabbed my purse, and headed into the hall without looking back.

The minute I slipped back into the stairwell, Jim gave me an appraising look and then shook his head like he didn't approve. "Don't you look smart," he drawled. "What did that suit set you back?"

I recognized the tone. It was one I'd heard from several people in my old neighborhood when I moved out.

"Don't start with me," I said and put my hands on my hips. "If I can afford to buy nice suits, I can buy nice suits, okay?" In moments like that my New Jersey accent would come on strong, no matter all the time I'd spent trying to make it sound mild. In my ears, I sounded like a gangster's girl.

Jim put his hands up in surrender. "Sorry, I just—"

"Yeah, I know." I rolled my eyes, but gave him a shrug and a smile. "Come on."

Chapter Seven

I started down the stairs as fast as my shoes would allow.

"Where are we going?"

I didn't need to look back to know he was following me. The heavy thuds of his steps echoed through the stairwell just a little slower than the click of my heels.

"Basement. There's a door to the trash dump area. I've had to use it once or twice when I locked myself out of the building. Max and I don't keep the usual hours sometimes."

"You don't think they'll be watching there?"

"We'll just have to see."

I didn't think they would be, considering almost nobody working in the office knew of that door. I'd only discovered it out of desperation. Besides, as long as we'd been out there on that ledge I didn't think they were waiting around for us to come out doors. I was right.

We slipped out the door and were on street level without picking up any notice. I led him to my usual bus stop and hopped on like it was any other day. Obviously I was losing my mind, but I didn't have the gumption to deal with that at the moment. I just needed to get things ironed out as soon and as neatly as possible. I could have called Max at that point. My cell phone was easily assessable, but instead I sat there on the bus, pretending to look out the windows with every other person on board. Why? I still don't know.

The bus stopped just a block from my building. There was still plenty of daylight left, which made my doorman's eyebrows rise. "Early today, Miss McKenzie?"

I laughed as I continued to the elevator. "I'm living in the Twilight Zone today, Nate."

He laughed heartily and asked no more questions. Jim was with me and that was enough for him.

The posh hallway leading to my apartment was quiet. That didn't surprise me. Everyone had to be at work still. In mechanical fashion, I pulled my keys out and unlocked the door, fully aware that I was letting a man who had just kidnapped me into my apartment. I was still blaming Georgia at that point.

Jim let out a low whistle as I pulled my jacket off and hung it on the coat rack in the entrance.

"Did he pick this place out for you?" he asked. I could detect the slight edge of disapproval, but I believe it was directed at Max, not my living space.

"I told him I wanted a place with a nice sized bedroom, bathroom, and closet. The kitchen didn't matter. Cooking just isn't in the genes. It's not like I entertain anyway."

I surveyed the room like I hadn't done in years. Max did well for me. The kitchen and general living space were "Manhattan sized," otherwise known as small, but my personal space was nice and that was all that mattered. Of course, there wasn't a finish in the place that wasn't stainless steel or granite and the furnishings came straight out of a magazine. Max and I had to have something non-work related to occasionally discuss during lunch and dinner and furnishings was a regular one. For a man who couldn't figure out that nobody should be wearing a polka-dot tie, Max did know décor.

My purse and keys safely deposited on the sofa table, I headed to my nook of a kitchen. "You want something to drink?"

"What's the strongest thing you've got?" he said with a dry laugh.

"Cranberry juice," I replied and pulled out the bottle.

"Cranberry juice?" he repeated incredulously.

I grabbed two glasses, traveled the five necessary steps to get to the dining table, and set them all down. "Yeah. I grew up Baptist. Some things you never get over." I smiled and started pouring.

"But you did get over religion?" he asked as he took the glass I offered.

I stalled. That wasn't what I meant. To be honest, I wasn't exactly sure what I meant, other than I didn't drink.

"Did I say the wrong thing?" Jim asked.

I shook my head and returned my gaze to my glass. "No. I just haven't thought about it much lately."

My mother would have had a fit if I'd said that to her. My father probably would have too, but Jim just nodded and drained his glass.

"Well," I began with a sigh. "I guess I'd better call Max."

"Make him wait," Jim replied and leveled his gaze in a knowing sort of way.

I was about to roll my eyes and tell him I wasn't going to play games when someone suddenly knocked on the door. I jumped a little.

"Who's that?" he asked.

There were only two people Nate would have let come up without checking with me first. Max and...

"Georgia?" I said when opened the door.

She heaved a huge sigh of relief and threw her arms around me. "You're okay! I knew you would be! Oh, thank God, you're okay."

My ribs started to crumble under the power of her embrace. "Georgia," I gasped and shoved her back.

Her apologies were joined with stroking my hair and looking me over with soppy eyes.

"Okay," I said calmly. "Why are you acting crazy?"

"You can't blame me," she returned. "When Max called me—"

I shoved back even more. "Max called you?"

Georgia nodded manically. "Yeah. I guess you listed me in his phone as an emergency contact number. Anyway, he called in a panic and said you'd been kidnapped and wanted to know if someone had been in contact with me concerning you and it was all a little strange because the voice on the other end of the phone was totally freaking out and from everything you've told me about Max he doesn't really freak out about stuff, but he was really—"

"Breathe, Georgia," I cried.

She gratefully obeyed and leaned back against the door, taking several deep breaths before continuing. "Sorry, it was the ride over here. If I'd just been able to teleport myself over I would not have had time to think about all the terrible things that might have happened. Honestly, I never believe you were kidnapped in the first place. I just had time on the ride over to consider the possibility." She took another long breath.

"You didn't think I was really kidnapped?" My eyes darted back to Jim.

"Well, the with way things ended at the park today, I figured you went back to the office, had some sort of fight with Max, and whatever he was trying to tell me over the phone wasn't coming out the way it was supposed to. I thought I'd come here first and see if you'd actually just stormed out and, see, here you are. All is well in the universe." Her bright smile dimmed when she finally looked up and saw Jim sitting at my dining table. "Who's that?"

"I'm the guy who kidnapped her," Jim replied flatly, before I could answer.

Georgia went weak kneed and I just barely caught her wrist in time to yank her up and forward.

"Police," she cried hoarsely as I shoved her into one of the chairs. "We need to call the police."

I put the glass of juice I hadn't sipped yet in her hand and forced her to take a drink.

"Everything's okay," I said calmly then glared at Jim. "Did you have to do that?"

"Sorry, it just came out." He shrugged shamefully and pursued the last drop in his glass.

I slid into my chair and folded my hands, trying to look calm and, well, sane. "It was just a bit of a misunderstanding."

Georgia looked stunned for a while then finally threw her head back and her hands up. "This story better be good because I wasted about a year's worth of my life span worrying about you on the way over."

"Okay," I began calmly. "This is Jim Wagner. He's—"

There was another knock on the door. My spine went board straight again. That had to be Max. My mind promptly told me I couldn't face him, partly because I was sitting calmly in my dining "area" while he was panicking over me.

"Aren't you going to answer it?" Jim prodded.

After collecting myself, I forced out a nod. It was my door after all and consequently my responsibility. Attempting to steel my quivering stomach, I walked over to the door again and wrenched it open before I could back down.

"Oh," I said dully when, instead of finding Max, I discovered Georgia's husband Dave standing on my threshold.

He laughed. "It's great to see you too, Maddy. Thanks for the welcome."

"I'm sorry, Dave," I replied, rubbing my fuzzy feeling head. "I just—"

"Oops, I forgot I told him to come over," Georgia called out.

"Wow," Dave said dryly as he walked in. "I'm starting to feel the love around here."

He walked over and gave Georgia a little hug as she tried to find a way to explain without having any of the facts to do so. I'd known Dave since we were sixteen. He'd transferred to our school to play for the basketball team. Georgia always did have a thing for athletes. I thought Dave was nice, but guys who were so tall I didn't even make it to their shoulders were always hard for me to connect with.

Max, on the other hand, was only about six inches taller than me. I'd never really thought about until Dave walked past. With a deep sigh, I shut the door.

"So," Dave began and sat down. "Why did I leave work early?"

Georgia shot me a look of suspicion then another at Jim.

Once again, I sat down at the table, tried to look composed, and told the facts of the story very calmly and straight forward. I didn't make eye contact with anyone while I was talking. I didn't make eye contact with anyone for several long seconds after I'd finished, but I finally willed myself to look up.

"You're kidding me, right?" Georgia said the minute our eyes met.

"No."

"And we're not calling the police because?"

"I don't know," Jim cut in. He looked very shameful, as if he'd only just fully realized what he'd done.

Georgia gave me a crazy girl look and then said, "At the very least, why haven't we called Max? He's probably gone mad by now."

"I told her to wait," Jim said, before I could come up with a good reason.

Georgia's eyebrows rose. "Oh, you did? I thought you weren't actually holding her against her will."

"It's not like that," I said, sounding a little more desperate than I wanted to.

"Yeah," Jim continued. "It's not like that. I told her to wait to call him because that's a good way to get him to realize she means something to him."

My cheeks flashed red and my mouth ran dry. Up until that point I didn't think things could get any more twisted. Apparently, I was wrong.

Georgia slowly turned her head to me. "You told him about your feelings for Max?"

"No. Of course not."

"It was pretty easy to figure out," Jim said and shrugged.

I wanted to crawl under the table.

"Well, I'll give you that," Georgia said.

"Georgia," I cried. "Isn't anybody on my side?"

"We're all on your side," she said. "We're trying to help you wake Max up."

"Leaving him hanging is a good way to do it," Dave added. "Georgia did that to me a couple of times." He laughed. "She still does it to me when she thinks I'm working too much."

Georgia nudged him with hers elbow, but laughed anyway.

Then Jim laughed and said, "When Sarah and I were dating we got to the point where I should have asked her to marry me, but I just couldn't decide if I was ready for that big of a commitment. Know what she did? Didn't answer my phone calls for a whole week. I suddenly realized how much I didn't like being without her."

Dave smiled and pointed to Georgia. "Did the exact same thing to me twice."

Georgia rolled her eyes. "Can you believe it took him twice to push him over the edge?"

"I was eighteen. Going over the edge was a really big deal."

They continued sharing stories and I began sinking down in my chair. I didn't want to hear about things I'd probably missed out on. Plus the longer it went on more I was sure I could never talk to Max again. How could I face him without thinking like a high school girl crushing?

I probably would have made it all the way under the table if my cell phone hadn't started going off.

Everyone in the room stopped and looked at me.

I waved them off. "I'm expecting a call from a prosecutor on one of our current cases. I told him if he couldn't reach me at the office number to call my cell."

They all nodded and returned to reminiscing while I got up and started running the questions I needed to ask through my head. True, I wasn't planning on continuing to work for Max, but talking to a boring as dirt prosecutor was better than listening to, "And the first time I tried to kiss her she shoved me back so hard I thought she was a linebacker."

"Hello," I said flatly into my phone.

"Maddy!" Max yelled so loudly l jumped.

Chapter Eight

"Max?"

"Yes, Max," he snapped. The panic and the anger were loud and clear. "Where on earth are you?"

I swallowed hard. "M-my apartment."

"Wh-I..how...I don't understand!" He huffed loudly. "I came back to the office in case someone called and all your things were gone. I don't understand."

"I-I stopped by the office to pick my stuff up. I couldn't ride home barefoot." There is no way to describe how idiotically lame I sounded.

A frustrated whine rang through the connection. "Maddy, I'm about to have a heart attack over here, thinking you're being held hostage by a madman."

"Okay, that was a bit of a misunderstanding."

"A misunderstanding?" he cried. "Which part was a misunderstanding?"

I'd never heard him this upset before, but considering everything that had happened it didn't surprise me. Still, it did annoy me.

"Why are you mad at me?" I shot back. "I didn't do anything but get dragged out of the office. I'm thinking I'm the one with more right to be hysterical here."

There was a pause and then a long deep breath. "I'm sorry, Maddy. I just..."

"I understand." I added my own long breath.

"Just tell me you're all right." The anger was gone.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

He sighed in relief. "Good." There was another pause and then his voice level jumped again. "What happened?"

Again, I swallowed hard and looked back to my table. Everyone was riveted to me. It wasn't the most comfortable position to start my explanation, but it was the best I had.

"Did you recognize him?"

"No."

"It's Jim Wagner."

Another pause. "Sarah Wagner's husband?"

"Yeah."

He let out a low whistle. "Well, that explains a lot. I'm assuming he still thinks Matt is guilty."

"That's the gist of it. I think he wanted you to admit you believe that too."

"Great. That would have been really credible."

"He wasn't thinking straight. I'm pretty sure life has fallen apart on him over the past few months."

I stole a glance at Jim. He looked stricken.

"How did you get away from him?"

That snapped me back to attention. "Um...I didn't."

"What?" he cried. "I thought-I thought, oh my word, Maddy. Hold on, I'll call the police back—"

"It's not like that, Max," I yelled, hoping to drown out his new level of panic.

"What do you mean?"

"We talked it out and he's okay now." The lameness returned full force.

He paused again. "I didn't think Stockholm syndrome set in this fast."

"Don't be ridiculous, Max," I huffed.

"I don't think I'm the one being ridiculous right now, Maddy."

"Listen, can't you just come over and talk to him? I don't want to press any charges."

What followed was unintelligible. He seemed to be attempting to form words, but failing at every turn.

At last he choked out, "Are you telling me that you're all alone at your apartment with a guy who kidnapped you?"

"No, of course not. Georgia and her husband Dave are here."

"You've got friends over too? What are you doing? Throwing a party?"

"No."

And that's the moment when Dave decided to call out, "Hey, Maddy, do you have any salsa?"

I looked up to find him in my kitchen, rummaging through my refrigerator while clutching a bag of chips.

"Salsa, Maddy?" Max said like he was indicting me. "Really?"

"Would you just get over here? It will make more sense when you're here." That was a real stretch, but I added, "And no police," anyway.

"Maddy, I—"

"Please, Max."

There was a long pause, then another frustrated whine, then a, "Fine. I'll be right over. But if he kills you between now and then...I can't believe I'm doing this."

The connection ended and I sighed deeply. I felt so drained I had to lean up against the wall.

"I'm assuming he's coming over," Georgia said cautiously.

"Yeah."

"Is he upset?"

"Oh, yeah."

They continued to converse and I chose not to participate. I just leaned against the wall right next to the door and tried to think of something to say. Every once in a while I'd look over at Jim, but I couldn't read the expression on his face. There was something going on his head. I just had to hope it wasn't another plan that would prove Max's fears right.

The knock on the door made me stumble to attention. I grabbed the handle and yanked it open. He was just standing there, staring at me with those magnified eyes. I opened my mouth to say something, but he shut me up by advancing forward and taking hold my shoulders.

He held them tight and looked me up and down for any hint of injury. Meanwhile, I was trying to keep myself from screaming, "Oh, please, please hold me!"

With a small shiver, I pulled back and he released me with a bit of an exhausted sigh.

"You're really okay?" he asked softly.

"I'm not sure 'okay' is the exact word I'd use, but so far I'm uninjured."

He closed his eyes and nodded. "Fine. Now can I hear an explanation?"

His eyes opened, then widened. I knew what that meant.

"You!" he roared and advanced on Jim.

I took hold of Max by the arm and dug my heels into the plush carpet. "Max, wait. You said you'd let me explain."

"I can't believe you're actually here," he continued to rant, trying to shake me off.

Jim just ducked his head down.

"Max," I yelled and yanked him back so hard he spun to face me.

His eyes and nostrils flared at me.

"Please," I said calmly.

It almost seemed like he was trembling, but he pulled back and straightened his suit in a way I'd seen him do a thousand times before. He was attempting to collect himself. Usually he did it in the courtroom right as he was coming to the finish of his closing arguments. It was an easy, unconscious movement that suggested the final lines were well thought out.

Standing there in my apartment, however, he was obviously having trouble with composure. It unnerved me, but I nodded gratefully.

Max sharply turned back to Jim and huffed. "I've been informed as to who you are." It was cold, but I don't think anyone blamed him.

"Yeah," Jim said then looked him the eye. "I'm sorry. I just lost it for a moment." He cleared his throat. "You still think the kid is innocent?"

If possible, Max straightened his posture even more. "I need you to understand something. It is not my job to 'think' about what my clients may or may not have done. It is my job to look at the evidence and decide if there is a real case against him. The case against Matthew Stewart was a sad attempt at justice."

"Did you ask him if he did it?" Jim continued, sounding dull.

"Yes," Max returned clearly. "He denied any guilt. Since there was no evidence to suggest otherwise, I took the case and did my job."

Jim shook his head. "It's not right."

"Jim," I said and stepped in front of Max. "You understand, right?"

He looked at me long and hard then finally nodded. "Yeah," he replied, barely audibly. "I understand."

"Thank you." I turned back to Max. "I don't want to press any charges."

Max's eyes flared again. "And what do you plan on telling the police?"

"Can't we talk through it with them? I'm sure you can convince them it was a misunderstanding."

"Maddy, I can't just—"

I grabbed him by the olive green tie I'd picked out for him and dragged him over to the furthest corner in my apartment. Everyone could probably still hear us, but it was an attempt at privacy. After the conversation that had gone on earlier, I wasn't going to pull him into my bedroom.

"Max," I said in a low voice and forced him to look into my eyes.

"Don't give me that look, Maddy."

I gave it to him anyway. It was my, "You know I'm right and I'm going to be gracious and give you a chance to admit it," look. At least that was what Max called it.

He pursed his lips. "Maddy, what he did was a serious crime."

"We can't imagine what he's been through, Max. Really, can you imagine your wife being murdered?" For some reason saying the word 'wife' struck something hollow in my heart. I couldn't think of what to say next, so I just continued to stare at him.

"Maddy..." He stared back for a while then finally sighed and tried to rub his eyes. "How do you do that?"

"My dad asked my mom the same thing every time she convinced him to go shopping with her."

He crossed his arms and shook his head. "Honestly, I think I'd make more money if I just bought you a cheap suit and set up a used car lot."

I smiled and shrugged.

Max straightened his suit again and advanced on Jim. They stared at each for several long moments. The rigid expression washed over Max's face made me doubt my capacity to convince him.

"Assault," he suddenly said and held up one finger. "Carrying around a gun in New York." He held up a second finger. "And let's not forget kidnapping is a Federal offense." He enunciated the words "Federal offense" in a way that made them echo around the room. "Do you understand?"

Jim nodded. "How many years am I facing?"

That answer seemed to satisfy something in Max. "Hopefully, if I play my cards right, none." He breathed in a little more dramatically than necessary. "I'm going to work to convince the police it was a misunderstanding. I may have to settle for something that will get you community service at worst."

"And how much is that going to cost me?" There wasn't a hit of anger in Jim's voice. It was entirely flat.

"Nothing. I'm doing this because Maddy will nag me if I don't."

He cast me an indignant look. I smiled back. My heart squeezed, but I ignored it.

Jim was still for a moment then nodded. I smiled a little wider.

"Good. Let's get going. The sooner I stop the police from continuing to search the entire city the more likely they will be willing to forgive and forget."

Max turned and headed for the door with an air that made everyone involuntarily get up and follow him.

"Sorry," I said to Georgia and Dave as I picked up my purse.

"You owe me a whole lot better than a hotdog in the park," Georgia replied and shook her head. "Do you have to go down with them?"

"I should. I don't think I trust them to be alone together."

We walked out into the hall where Max was already waiting with Jim silently by his side.

"Hey, Max," Georgia called out as if she'd known him as long as I had. "Maddy is going out to dinner with Dave and me tonight. I figure she needs a little time off. Are you coming?"

I froze. Max looked confused. He turned his gaze from side to side then finally back to Georgia. "Um, I'll see how long it takes to get this done."

"We'll wait for you."

She winked at me then took Dave's arm and started down the hall. I wanted to snarl at her, but all I could do was blush.

"She and Dave had to get off work early to come see if I was all right," I said to him as if that explained everything.

He continued to look confused, but we walked on down to the elevator without another word.

The acidic smell of traffic struck my nose as we pressed through the doors out onto the street. It may have been chilly while sitting on the ledge of the building, but down on street level the waning afternoon sun was comfortable.

I nodded at Georgia and Dave, but refused to give either anything more. While Max stepped forward to hail a cab, I stepped over to Jim.

"It's going to be okay," I said.

Jim's eyes were fixed on the rush of unending traffic. The slow clog of lunch hour traffic had cleared away to the frantic pace of cars passing by as if there wasn't anyone else on the road. "I don't know," he said.
Chapter Nine

I looked up at Jim, but the glare of the sun made it hard for me to read his expression. "No, really. Max will fix everything."

He shook his head, eyes still stuck on the traffic flow. "It will never be fixed. Even if I make it through today."

Something about the tone of his voice scared me. "Jim, let's just get through today, okay?"

"I can't help thinking about what tomorrow will be like. And the day after. And the day after."

Max came walking back over to us, mumbling about how taking the bus might be easier than trying to get a cab's attention.

"I can't do it, Maddy," Jim said as if he hadn't heard.

I tugged on the sleeve of his jacket, hoping to get his attention on me, but in an instant he'd pulled away. The moment he took off I understood. Just a few steps more and he jumped out into traffic. He was throwing himself in front of oncoming cars.

I screamed. Everyone screamed. Everyone but Max. He was right in front of me when Jim pulled away from my side. He didn't even hesitate. He just spun around and went right out into traffic after him.

It happened so fast I would have missed it if my eyes weren't stuck open in horror. Jim jumped in front of a big black Buick and stopped, but Max reached him a fraction of a second later, shoving him out of the way with all his might. Jim went tumbling down right on the yellow line as the cars on the other side started to screech to a halt.

Max almost made it. He was so close to jumping out of the way, but that black Buick just couldn't stop in time. It caught him on the right side of his body, flinging him around and slamming his head right into the passenger side window. The glass splintered. His body crushed back to the pavement, bouncing as if there wasn't a solid bone left in him.

A concert of screeching tires and colliding fenders filled the next few moments as the cars tried to avoid the bodies in the road. The flux of people on the sidewalk ran out into the streets and I was the frontline. I had to run around the Buick, whose driver was trying to get out without slamming into the waves of people.

I found Max lying between two of the cars. The position he was laying in didn't make sense. His arm was pointing a direction I knew wasn't humanly impossible. But as I fell to my knees the only thing I saw was his head.

There was an angry crack from his eyebrow to his scalp. Blood was splashed across his forehead and streaming down his face like red hot tears.

"Max?" I whispered.

The ensuing crowd filling in behind me was throwing us into deep shadows.

I put my hand on his chest. "Max?"

He didn't move. I started screaming his name at that point, loud enough to wake the dead, but Max just laid there.

Two hands wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me to my feet, shoving me back into the crowd in the same movement. I wanted to fight back, until I saw the paramedic uniforms descending on his body. I still had to fight the urge to get back to him.

The bodies around me moved and shoved then suddenly a pair of hands was attached to my wrists, trying to pull me away.

I tried to pull back as I turned around to find Georgia holding onto me. The tears in her eyes struck me still. I shook my head, but she kept pulling me.

"I have to go with him," I whispered and looked back. They had Max on a stretcher.

"Dave will go. He'll call us as soon as he gets there."

"No." My voice was weak. My body must have been as well because she easily yanked me through the crowd and back to the sidewalk.

I wrenched around and saw the ambulance. They were loading him in.

"Max," I yelled, but Georgia wrapped her arms around my shoulders and pinned me in place.

I understand now, of course. Even if I had made it as far as the emergency rooms, I would have gone hysterical as soon as I got there. She knew about the negative reactions I had to hospitals, to the chemical smells, the noxious food, the blaring white walls that only made sense if the staff thought they were trying to get the patients use to the shinning white of the Pearly Gates. She was trying to protect me.

But, as I balanced on the edge of the curb, all I could feel was how weak I must be if I couldn't even fight Georgia off long enough to get to Max's side. All I could do was stand there with tears pouring out of my eyes.

The ambulance pulled away with a squeal, leaving me searching the streets for anything to give me hope. I saw a lot of stunned faces. A lot people were shaking their heads.

My gaze turned up a little and there, on the other side of the street, I saw Jim. He was just standing there, staring at me, but my head was so foggy I'm not even sure I understood anything.

Georgia finally succeeded in wrestling me back into the building. I didn't think I was doing anything except standing there, but she told me later I was putting up such a fight she almost considered knocking me out. Apparently, I screamed until she got me through the door.

Nate came running over to me as she pulled me to the elevator. There must have been something about the expression on my face that told the whole story, because the moment he made eye contact his color drained and his mouth fell open. The elevator doors slid shut, cutting off my last view of the street and the chaos. A hollow feeling latched onto my body, as if there wasn't anything left inside of me. I was just a black hole.

Georgia sat me down on the leather sofa in my apartment and that's where I stayed. She tried to talk to me every once and a while, but I never was able to respond. I could barely hear her. I couldn't feel a thing.

It was six hours before Dave called. I thought it had been days. Georgia made it to the phone first. My legs were stiff from barely having moved. She'd stayed limber by pacing.

"Okay," she said and handed the phone to me. "He's going to put the doctor on to talk to you."

I nodded and took the phone. It felt so heavy. "Hello."

"Um, hi, my name is Dr. Phillips." He cleared his throat. "We usually like to talk to the next of kin. I'm told you are his secretary. Can you get us in contact with them?"

"I'm all he has," I replied.

"Are you sure—"

"Please," I begged. "Tell me. Is Max all right?"

"We're not sure yet."

Half of me soared. He wasn't dead. Half of my crashed. He wasn't all right.

"His arm is broken," the doctor continued. "But we haven't found any internal injuries. That's a good sign."

"What about his head?"

"Yes, that's the problem. At best, he has a major concussion. He lost a lot of blood as well. We're sending him through another CAT scan in an hour."

"Another?"

"The first one was inconclusive."

I didn't know what that meant and I decided I didn't want to know. I'd wait for conclusions.

"Has he said anything?"

"He woke up a few times, but we've been forced to put him into a drug induced coma. He was delusional, raving mostly. It shot his blood pressure up."

I clutched my chest and tried to force the air in while trying to force the images in my head out. "What did he say?"

"I don't know. It didn't make any sense."

"Can I see him?"

"He's in ICU right now. He'll stay there until we get more testing done."

"When can I see him?"

He hesitated. "It is really is supposed to be the family—"

"I'm all he's got," I repeated, aware that my voice was beginning to sound monotone.

There was a pause. "All right. I'll make sure the nurses know. You won't be able to see him any earlier than tomorrow afternoon. Call and make sure before you come down, okay?"

"Okay."

He gave the phone back to Dave and I gave it back to Georgia.

I slept on the sofa that night. I don't know why that felt better than sleeping in my bed. It just did. Maybe I couldn't stand the thought of being comfortable when I knew Max was suffering. Still, he probably slept better than I did.

Georgia was still asleep in my recliner when I woke up the next morning. It didn't take me long to remember what had happened and turn my attention to not thinking about it. I showered, dressed in my favorite suit then grabbed a banana and headed for the door.

"What do you think you are doing?" Georgia said. She was trying to sound stern, but the yawn was making it hard for her to get that across.

"Going to the office," I replied and kept my eyes on the door.

"Maddy, don't be ri—"

"I'll die, Georgia," I said quickly then looked back at her. "If I stay around here all day I'll die. Okay? There are things for me to do at the office. For one thing I need to find stand-ins for Max."

"Being there will only remind you."

"I'll just pretend he's at an appointment." I held up my hands. "Don't tell me that's bad for my psyche. I know it is. All I've got to do is get through this day."

Georgia stared at me for a while then slowly nodded. "When are you going to call the hospital?"

"They said I could call after noon."

"So, about a minute after twelve?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Keep your cell on. I'm going to call you every few hours."

I nodded in returned and headed out the door.

Chapter Ten

My cell phone was in my hand and in action the moment I sat down on the bus. I started calling the list of clients we were handling at the time and gently explained that Max had an accident and would be out of commission for a little while.

By the time I'd been in the office for five minutes I was pulling out lists of other lawyers we'd been in contact with over the years and started calling, offering perspective clients.

Both client and fellow attorneys wanted to know exactly what happened to Max. I became remarkably good at telling them very few details that included a stay in the hospital and then brushed onto the next topic.

I didn't want to talk about Max. At least not until one minute after twelve. By then I'd found solid replacements for two of our clients and got a delay in one of the trials.

The moment the clock ticked past twelve, I snatched up the phone and dialed the number. The answer on the other line was, "Hello, this is the front desk of New York Community Hospital. How may I direct your call?" I slammed the phone down. My hand clenched around the phone for a minute, then I let go and went in search of a phone book. Max was at St. Luke's Hospital Center. I'd dialed my mother's hospital out of habit.

"Hello," I said when the correct receptionist answered. "I'm checking in on Max...I mean, Peter Maxwell. He came in yesterday after a car accident."

The previous day I'd been numb to the core. Now I found myself trying to achieve that numbness again. Anything to block out the stinging sensation certain words like "accident" caused.

I was transferred several times until I heard a voice say, "Who am I speaking too?"

"Madeline McKenzie. I'm calling to check on Peter Maxwell." My breath outright evacuated in suspense.

"Oh, yes. I see you here on the list. Mr. Maxwell has been transferred to a room on the fourth floor."

"That's good, right?" I asked.

"Well, yes. He is out of ICU, but we're keeping him sedated for the moment."

I didn't want to ask, but I had to. "Did they find anything conclusive on his CAT scan?"

"Yes."

My heart squeezed so hard I gasped.

"There was some swelling on his brain," she continued as if this wasn't someone I was emotionally attached to. "But that has gone down considerably. We tested him again this morning."

I choked in a breath. Swelling in the brain sounded really bad, but the fact that it was going down sounded good. "So, where does that leave him?"

"Sedated, at least until tomorrow."

I forced in another breath. "Can I see him?"

"Well...in this stage we usually only let family—"

"I'm all he has. I explained that to the doctor last night and he said it was okay."

"He won't be responsive to you in any way."

"I don't care. I just want to see him."

I could sense her nodding. "All right. You can come down anytime between now and eight. Just check in with me first." She told me where I could find her and I was out the door a minute later. Georgia called me as I was riding over to the hospital. I explained everything in as few words as I could and then turned my phone off. She understood, even if she was worried about the prospect of me in a hospital.

Walking into that hospital was like walking into a time warp. It might not have been the same one my mother had spent most of the last two years of her life in, but it felt the same. Same sour smells, same cold air, same white walls and speckled linoleum floors. My breathing started to become irregular. I'd tried to visit one of my friends in the hospital a few years back and couldn't make it past the entrance way. But I was determined not to fail this time. I had to get to Max.

Ten minutes later I was standing right beside him, trying my best not to break out crying. I wasn't even sure it was him at first. He was so pale, almost clear. Buried beneath oxygen tubes, heart monitors, and a bandage across half his head, it was hard to tell if the mass beneath those sheets was human, but I forced myself closer and I saw his features.

I'd seen Max sleep before. I would walk into his office with a message and find him sprawled out on his sofa with a file spilled on top of him. Sometimes I'd wake him up and sometimes I'd let him sleep. If I let him sleep he'd complain about it later and then I'd threaten to make him go home early and he'd say no more. But he'd always smile and roll his eyes.

The person lying in that hospital bed did resemble the Max I'd worked with for ten years, but there was something missing. Life.

I collapsed into the chair next to his bed, folded my arms on top of his sheets, and tried to think of a reason to keep the tears in.

"Max..." I said, but I couldn't say any more. I wanted to say more. I wanted to hope if he heard my voice he'd wake up and everything would be okay, but I just couldn't get anything else out of my throat.

My eyes trailed down to his hands. One arm was completely incased in a cast. The other was free. On impulse I reached over and wove my fingers into his then tried to will the numbness back.

I don't know what bothered me more, the fact that Max was in this state or that I couldn't bring myself to pray that he would be healed. I'd say "God..." and then choke up and falter.

Prayer hadn't worked for my mother, but that's not what bothered me. I knew it gave my mother comfort to pray and hear me pray and so I willing did. For some reason, I'd never begrudged God taking both of my parents from me so young. Maybe it was because they were so sure they were going to a better place. It made me feel warm whenever I thought of them.

What was between me and God...I couldn't say. We'd just drifted apart over the years and now that I found myself really needing something on the Divine level all I felt was guilt.

So I just sat there until eight o'clock at night when the nurse came in and gently told me visiting hours were over. I had to unwind my fingers from his and leave. The hole-like feeling inside of me came back.

I returned the next day as early as possible. He wasn't awake. In fact, they still had him under the power of heavy medication. I could tell he was a little closer to the realm of consciousness. He stirred every once in a while, but nothing more.

I sat down and once again said, "Max..." and once again nothing more would come out. I'd try to say something every few hours, but could never get past his name. Finally, I just clung to his hand, put my head down on the sheets, and sobbed my heart out. I'm sure the nurses heard me, but they were gracious enough to let me alone until I could dry my eyes enough to assume a stance of dignity.

The next day I went to work in jeans, a sweatshirt, and sneakers. Max wouldn't have approved, but I couldn't see wearing the suit when the only interacting I was going to have was over the phone. All I needed to do was go through his appointments and cancel them.

After seeing Max in the state he was, I'd gotten more serious about clearing his schedule long term. He wasn't going to be able to do anything for quite some time. If I knew Max he would be trying to go back to work the minute he was mildly conscious, but I wasn't going to let him.

At ten I called the hospital to see if it was all right to come down and once again take up vigil at the side of his bed. Georgia was threatening to make me stay fewer hours, but I knew her threats weren't quite serious yet.

"Wait until noon," the nurse on the other end of the line said.

"Why?" My heart rate started to rise. I was sure they were going to start listing off tests or procedures they suddenly decided he needed.

"We've been pulling him off the sedatives since early this morning. He'll probably be totally awake by noon. Maybe even able to talk to you."

My blood pressure shot up so fast my head started pound. "O-okay," I stammered. "I'll be there at noon."

I was trembling by the time the phone was back on the base. How they expected me to wait two hours I'm not sure, but I got up that minute and ran down to the bus stop. I was standing in front of the hospital by ten thirty and then I just paced back and forth in front of the entrance.

I didn't want to upset the staff or make them think I was going to be a problem, so I stayed outside. Surprisingly the time rushed by, probably because a considerable amount of time was spent trying to avoid the people walking in and out of the hospital as I continued to pace. At eleven forty-five I figured it was okay to start in.

I walked up to the glass doors and caught site of myself in the reflection. My shoulders fell. Here I was, going to see Max for the first time since he regained consciousness and I was in a sweatshirt and jeans. That just looked bad. There wasn't any other way of putting it. I didn't think Max even owned a sweatshirt.

With a deep breath, I walked into the entrance, determined to move on. I wasn't going to go back to my apartment just to put on something more professional. Besides, he might not be able to see me all that well anyway.

His glasses had been obliterated in the accident. I'd left one of his spare pairs with the nurses the previous night, just in case he woke up, but I wasn't sure I'd given them the most recently updated pair.

I made it up to the desk on the floor and got a hold of the nurse I usually talked to.

"Is he awake?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yes, he's up. Even had something to eat. But I'm glad you're here. He's a little confused about where he is and what happened. I figured you might be able to explain it to him a bit better. He's probably going to be more comfortable with you anyway."

I nodded quickly and she shoved me in the direction of his room. I didn't think much on the way down there, just moved as quickly as I possibly could without knocking anyone down.

My sneakers squeaked a bit as I came to quick halt in front of the door. It was open. After another deep breath, I walked in.

Chapter Eleven

He was sitting up in bed with the hospital blue robe wrapped around him. The oxygen tubes were gone, but the wires of heart monitors were still sticking out of the collar of his gown. There was still a bandage on his forehead that looked like it was attempting to swallow his head whole.

"Hi," I said, barely able to force my voice to audible.

"Hi," he replied and smiled cautiously.

It was Max's voice, Max's smile, but I heard an underlying current of nervousness.

I walked a few steps into the room. "How are you feeling?"

"Um, Okay. My head hurts a little." He then unconsciously rubbed the cast around his arm.

I moved all the way over to his bed and smiled. "I'm not surprised."

Max looked at the cast on his arm, then pulled his gaze to me and outright stared into my eyes with an expression I couldn't read.

I was trying to think of something to say when he suddenly blurted out, "Are you my wife?"

The words went through my ears, but didn't connect with my brain. "What?"

"My wife? Are you my wife?"

They connected that time and I physically shook. "What?" I gasped. "No, I'm not your wife." Something inside of me ached, but the confusion overwhelmed it.

Max shook his head and bit his lip. "My girlfriend then?"

My jaw bobbed up and down. "No." I couldn't think of something else to say. I really couldn't understand what was going on. It almost seemed like Max couldn't remember who I was.

His head cocked hard to the right. "I-I don't understand. Aren't you the girl who sits by my bedside, crying and calling my name and holding onto my hand?"

That shook me again. "Y-you could hear me? I thought you were drugged."

"The stuff they gave me..." He shuddered. "I don't know. I could hear things. Sometimes feel things. But, I couldn't will myself to move." His eyes met with mine again. "I'm sorry. I did try to talk to you, but my body just wouldn't work with me."

"That's okay. I had..." My hands went to my hips and my shoulders tightened up. "What on earth is going on, Max? Why are you asking me if I'm your wife?" That probably wasn't the best approach, but at the moment I was lost.

Max pulled back a bit. His eyes moved side to side then back to me. "I-if you could just tell me who you are, I think that would make things a lot clearer."

My knees went so weak I had to grab onto the end of the bed to stay up. Max blurred a bit as I tried to blink rapidly. "What?" My voice was finally that soft, gentle tone I always wanted it to be.

Max started to blink hard as well. "I'm sorry. I don't know how you are." He actually sounded devastated. "I'm guessing you are someone I should know."

I had to clutch my chest, just in case I needed to stop my heart form beating right out of my body. "Max, it's me, Maddy."

"Maddy?" he repeated as if it was a foreign word.

I pulled close to him, hoping it was just the glasses that were failing him. "Yes, Maddy. You know me." I was begging him to agree.

He shook his head.

"Max, I've been your secretary for ten years."

That seemed to strike him funny. "My secretary? Since when do secretaries cry over me? Are you sure you're not more." He bit his lip, looking as if he was trying to think hard. "I'm not aware of any other relatives." His gaze shot up. "Both my parents are dead, correct?"

"Yes," I replied, hoping he just needed a little prompting.

"My father died when I was fourteen, right?"

"Yes."

"And my mother died of cancer last year."

I had to grab hold of the bed again. "Max, your mother died over fifteen years ago. I think you were twenty-one at the time."

His eyes flashed wider than I'd ever seen before. "What?" He grabbed his throat. "What do you mean, fifteen years ago?"

A thread of understanding started to run through my mind. "Max, what is the last thing you remember?"

My fingers started to curl into his sheets. I wanted to hear, "I was hit by a car just outside of your apartment," so desperately.

He looked like he was thinking the question over, then finally said, "My first year of law school. Well, the first few months. I am...was twenty-two." His eyes widened again. "How old am I?"

I had to force the air into my lungs and just pray oxygen made it to my brain. "Max..." I whispered. "You don't remember anything later than when you were twenty-two years old?"

He shook head. "How old am I?"

"You turned thirty-seven last month."

We both needed a long moment of silence after that. Well, I didn't say anything, but my brain sure was running fast. The ramifications of the type of memory loss we were talking about couldn't process properly. Fifteen years? A good crack on the skull and he lost fifteen years? It seemed impossible.

"Maybe it's temporary," I said quickly.

"Do you think so?" His voice bounded with hope.

"Let's hope so." I nodded.

"Maybe you could tell me some things," Max said, a small smiling crossing his face. "Maybe you just need to tell me a few facts and then it will all start coming back."

"That's good!" I might have jumped up and down with excitement just a little.

Then we stared at each other for a moment.

"Well..." He was trying to prompt me, but my mind went blank.

"What do you want to know?" I said.

He looked blank for a moment. "Um...why don't we start near the beginning? What about Chuck?"

I had to think for a moment before I could place the name. "Your stepdad?"

"Yes. He was heading out on the cross the country tour he and Mom always planned on taking. Is he still traveling? I know after he saw the country he wanted to see the world."

"Um, as far as I know, Chuck has long since settled in Florida. At least that's where I send the Christmas card."

Max's nose wrinkled. "The Christmas card? Don't I have any more contact with him than that?"

"No. Not that I know of."

He sat back in the bed hard. "But why?"

"I-I don't know. You just don't."

"I don't understand." He held up his hands. "Chuck and I got along all right. He was pretty broken up about Mom so we were keeping in touch on a relatively regular basis. And you're saying we never do more than Christmas cards now?"

All I could do was shake my head. "Max, I really don't know. I started working for you ten years ago. By then you never did more than occasionally talk about him. I just send out the Christmas cards to everyone in your address book. Mostly clients—"

One of his hands jumped up in front of my face to keep me from going on. "Wait, wait. You send out all my Christmas cards?"

"Yes, well, I thought it would be a nice gesture." I gave him a weak shrug.

He took in a ragged breath and then began looking around the room. "Where's my wife?"

"Max, why do you keep assuming you have a wife?" My voice sounded a little rougher than it should have.

"Why wouldn't I?" His return voice was very rough. "For heaven sakes, I'm thirty -seven."

"So?"

"So, I should have a wife and family by now."

I had to pull a chair over at that point and sit down. It was more efficient than grabbing the edge of the bed every time he came up with something to bowl me over with.

"I don't have a wife and family, do I?" he asked slowly.

I shook my head.

"Have I ever had a wife and family?"

"No." I was so thrown off kilter I went ahead and said, "I got the impression you never wanted either."

Max looked both shocked and hurt. "Why not?"

I held up my hands. "Max, you are really freaking me out right now. I don't know what's gotten into you or out of you, but you've never once talked about wanting a family and when it came to matrimony I got the impression you were...less inclined." I covered my eyes for a moment. "And this is frankly really uncomfortable." Thankfully I didn't add, "Because it hurts to say things like 'wife and family.'"

"Tell me more," he said. His voice and expression teetered between hope and devastation.

I hesitated, but nodded. "What else do you want to know?"

"Is there anything valuable about my life?"

"You're a very good lawyer," I answered unequivocally.

The corners of his mouth pulled down. "Don't I have any type of personal life?"

My hands clenched around the arms of the chair. Since when did Max care about having a personal life? All I could say was, "I don't know what you mean?"

He laughed, but it was a shaky, uncomfortable laugh. "A personal life. A life beyond the office."

I stared blankly at him.

When I didn't responded he said, "Well, at least tell me I have a house somewhere so I don't stay in the city all week long."

Again, I stared blankly at him.

"Where do I live?" he said darkly.

"Upper East Side. You've got a nice condo in a thirty story there."

He clutched his throat again. "That's it?"

"It's very nice." My voice sounded weak, almost as if I was pleading with him to agree.

"Tell me at the very least I have a dog."

It was my turn to clutch my throat. "You wanted at dog?" I was officially not using my "inside voice."

"Who doesn't want a dog?" he cried.

"Peter Maxwell doesn't want a dog!"

"A cat then?" He was begging me.

"No."

He even raised his broken arm to his throat that time. "I'm so void of emotional responsibility I can't even own a cat? A cat practically requires nothing and I can't even take care of that?"

I got out of the chair, leaned over, and took hold of the collar of his robe. Trying to be gentle, I pulled him close. "Max, calm down. Obviously you've had a very big head injury and things don't seem the way they should. I'm sure—"

"Don't seem the way they should?" he repeated. "I just woke up to realizing my life is absolutely vacant. Apparently, all I do is work. The only one who even cares if I live or die is my secretary. Does that sort of life seem right?"

I really didn't like the way he said secretary. He made it sound so meaningless. For all the gentleness I was trying to display, that made me give him a little shove back into his bed.

"You're a good lawyer," I said forcefully, unaware of how that made anything better.

"I work about eighty hours a week, don't I?" he returned.

"Sometimes." I crossed my arms and tried to keep the words, "Most of the time," inside.

Rubbing his temple with his good hand, Max slid down in the bed and sighed. "What firm do I work for?"

"You don't work for a firm," I replied and held my chin up.

He sat bolt upright. "Don't tell me that."

"Why not?"

There was a wild look in his eyes all of a sudden. "Don't tell me I work all on my own."

"But you do."

And that time he had to grab his chest. "I'm a control freak," he cried and started to borderline hyperventilate.

"No, you're not." I drew closer to his bed again, trying to think of something to say that would make him calm down.

"Yes, yes, I'm a control freak." He grabbed my sweatshirt and pulled me so close we were practically touching noses. Gasping for air, he said, "You don't understand. I probably never told you. I probably never told anybody anything. My dad did this! He had his own firm. Just him. Why? Because he was a control freak." I could feel him shaking. "And he had to work endless hours because he had to be the one to handle everything. Control freak! And apparently I couldn't even get as far as he did in his personal life." The wild-eyed look came back. "Why don't I just lie down and have a heart attack now?"

He let go of me and fell back in his bed, gasping for breath and repeating, "Oh, my God," as if he actually meant it.

"What is going on?" a voice said from behind me. "Your blood pleasure is going through the roof!"

I turned to find two nurses standing in the doorway. One advanced on Max, while the one I usually spoke with took me by the arm and dragged me out into the hallway.

"Listen," she said sternly. "You can't get him excited. I—"

"You don't understand," I said. My voice seemed to have an echo. Either that or I was suddenly hollow again. "He's not just confused about what happened. He's totally lost all memory of the last fifteen years."

The stern look melted into surprise. "You're kidding. Completely lost?"

"Yes." I grabbed hold of her shoulders. "Is this permanent? I mean, will he get it back?"

"I don't know." She shook her head. "This doesn't happen very often." After looking back into the room a second, she grabbed me by the arm again and pulled me to the nurses' station. "Come on. I'm going to have you talk to the doctor."

The doctor was very concerned. I told him everything I could remember. Almost word by word. Apparently, I was too shocked to be uncomfortable anymore. He just shook his head.

By that point they'd had to sedate Max again and I'd lost all hope of getting to see him for the rest of the day. More tests were ordered.

After the doctor walked away, having given me no answers, I just stared at that nurse.

"There's not much you can do right now," she said.

I nodded. "Can I come back and see him tomorrow?"

"Call first, okay. I'll try to make sure he's up." Apparently she felt sorry for me.

For a while I stood outside the hospital just trying to decide what to do. The numb feeling started to come back, but my mind kept racing through the options. One option was running back into Max's room and shaking him until his brain started working, but I was pretty sure that wasn't going to go over very well.

The office no longer sounded palatable and my apartment seemed like the worse idea in the world. For one thing, I'd have to walk past the spot "it" happened.

By the time I took my next breath my sneakers were pounding the pavement in the direction of the subway. I assumed my well honed New York skills and plowed through the people like I was the only one on the sidewalk and they returned the gesture.

Chapter Twelve

Forty minutes later I was off the subway and walking to the cubbyhole of an apartment Georgia and Dave lived in. They'd moved into it a little over a year ago when he got a job in the city. I think both were still suffering from urban culture shock.

I knew neither would be home from work for a few more hours, but sitting on the floor right outside their door didn't seem so bad. True, it did look like no one had cleaned the hallway in a year, but I was wearing my jeans. They were sacrificial.

"Maddy?" Georgia's voice said.

It seemed like I'd only been sitting there for a few minutes. "What are you doing home from work so early?"

She balanced a grocery bag in one hand and put the other on her hip. "Maddy, it's Saturday."

"It is? That's why I'm getting so many voice mails."

Georgia huffed. "Get up off the floor."

She unlocked the door and shooed me in like a mother hen. I sighed and sat down on their love seat. The apartment didn't have room for a full sized sofa.

"Is that you?" Dave's voice called out from the bedroom.

"Yeah," Georgia called back as she headed for the refrigerator. "Did you get the faucet working yet?"

"Define working."

"Water comes out."

"Then no."

Georgia shook her head and began shoving her groceries into her already over packed refrigerator. It was the approximately the size of my dishwasher.

That finished, she turned and looked at me. Her eyes narrowed. "Maddy, you're shaking."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

She came over and sat down beside me, taking both of my hands in hers. Only when she tried to hold me still did I realize that I was shaking hard. I held my eyes down and tried to will my hands quiet.

"Okay, what happened?"

I couldn't stop shaking. No matter how hard I tried. Without a word, I jumped up and started pacing, hoping that would hide my uncontrolled nerves. It might have worked better if their apartment had been a little wider than the closet in my place.

"He's awake?" I finally said, still avoiding her eyes.

"That's great," Georgia gasped. I could hear the smile in her voice.

"No, it's not."

"It's not?"

I bit my lip and tried to find the words. Honestly, a part of me didn't want to say anything, as if keeping silent might make the problem go away all together.

"Maddy," Georgia prodded.

I stopped, but didn't look up. "He's forgotten me, Georgia." The words made me feel like the air had been knocked out of me.

"What-what do you mean?"

I started to pace again. "He's lost his memory. Fifteen years of it. The last thing he remembers is being a twenty-two year old first year law student."

She gasped again, but there was no smile that time. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." My voice was a whole lot louder than it needed to be. "I just talked to him. He's completely freaking out over it and I am completely freaking out about it too." I finally stopped and looked at her. "Nothing, Georgia. He doesn't remember a thing about his career or his life or me. It's all gone."

Georgia started to shake.

"Oh, hey, Maddy," Dave's said as he came out of the bedroom. He was wiping his greasy hands on one of the spa towels I'd given Georgia for her birthday. I could have cared less.

He stopped in his tracks as we both looked at him. "Whoa," he said slowly. "What happened?"

"Max has amnesia," Georgia replied and stood up.

That was the word I'd been searching for. I knew there was official term for what he was experiencing. I just didn't know if that made it treatable or terminal.

"Amnesia?" It was his turn to gasp. "You're kidding me. You mean, he can't remember who he is?"

"No, he can remember who he is, just not what has happened for the past fifteen years."

Dave's jaw dropped.

"Yeah, exactly," I added.

I didn't even see Georgia move, but a second later her arms were around me, holding me tight like my mother use to do. I wanted to submit to the embrace, but I couldn't. It felt like there was so much excess energy pent up in my bones I was going to explode if I didn't keep moving.

"There's more," I said as I pushed away and started to pace again. She was blocking my route, so I started rounding the love seat.

"More?"

I nodded quickly, but hesitated as the words started to come out. How could I possibly explain what had just happened? What words could convey the scene that played out in that hospital room?

"He thinks he's a loser?" I cried. That wasn't what I expected.

Both Georgia and Dave cocked their heads.

"What?"

"A loser! Apparently the life he wanted when he was twenty-two years old is completely different from the one he has now and he's decided he's a total failure. I mean, you'd think a man in his situation would be a little more worried about the gap in his memory, but no!" I threw my back against their cardboard thin walls and ran my hands through my hair. "No, Peter Maxwell is freaking out because he's not living in the suburbs."

"I-I don't understand," Georgia said. I think the volume of my voice was starting to worry her.

"He wanted to know if I was his wife. And when I said no he wanted to know where his wife was because certainly a man his age should have a wife and family by now."

Worry for me melted. Georgia might have only met Max once, but she knew him well through me and she knew how crazy the idea of Max insisting he wanted a family was.

"Max?" she replied. "Max wanted a family?"

"He even wanted a dog!" My grip on my scalp tightened.

"A dog? You've got to be kidding me!"

"Whoa!" Dave called out and tried to wave us quiet. "Calm down. Why is the thought of Max wanting a suburban lifestyle freaking you out?"

"Because it's Max," Georgia and I cried in unison.

I shoved off the wall and advanced on him, failing to see the mini-side table in my path until it was cutting in to my shin. The contact dumped me right on the floor with a thud. I heard Georgia scream and run to my side, but all I could do was lay there and rub my shin, trying to calculate how big of a bruise I was going to have.

"Are you going to get up?" Georgia asked.

I looked up at her. "I think I like it better down here."

"I haven't vacuumed in a week and you're making me feel guilty about it."

I allowed her to help me up and set me on the sofa, all while holding on to my screaming leg. If it looked as bad as it felt I wasn't going to be able wear a skirt suit for a month. Of course that wasn't taking into account that at the moment there was no reason for me to wear a skirt suit.

After I refused the offer of medical attention, Georgia sat down next to me and began petting my head like I was an abused puppy.

"I still think we're all overreacting," Dave said and sat down carefully on the coffee table. "This could be completely temporary."

I took a sharp breath. "I certainly hope so. Do you realize what will happen if it is long term? If Max really only remembers the first few months of law school, I know more about practicing law than he does."

Georgia gasped once more. "He'll lose his practice, won't he?"

"We'll lose everything. Who would hire a lawyer with this kind of head injury?" Just admitting the possibilities made my head start throbbing.

"Oh, good, Lord," Georgia whispered.

The statement made me bristle from head toe. As guilty as it made me feel, I wasn't sure I would apply the word "good" to the Lord. I couldn't think of anything Max or I did that would deserve this sort of devastation. At least that's what my head was rattling off at God while my heart ran through a list of mistakes I made that day. What if I hadn't been so nice to Jim? What if I'd had Max bring the police instead of coming over alone?

"I don't know why," I continued without thinking. "But it's bothering me just as much that the Max who just woke up is so different than the Max I knew. I-I just can't understand."

"There's got to be something wrong there," Georgia said with a wrinkled forehead. "Maybe...Maybe the night before this all happened Max watched some sappy family movie and he's just confusing that with his memories."

As much as I would have liked to have grabbed onto an explanation, that idea immediately made me shake head. "I don't think Max even knows what a sappy family movie is. In fact, I'm not sure he knows what sappy means. It's questionable if he even remembers what a movie is." I would have gone on about Max, if Dave hadn't leaned forward, making the coffee table creak loudly.

"Well," he began. "Maybe it's not a movie, but Georgia might have a good point. He might be confusing something outside of his life with the minimal memories he has left."

I thought about that for a while. "I don't know. He kept talking about his father and how similar they were." I looked up at them. "Max never told me much about his father. I just thought that was because he'd died when Max was pretty young. Do you think it was really because he didn't like his father?"

"How old was he?"

"About fourteen. Heart attack." I finally let go of my throbbing leg and ran my hands over my face. "I just wish I had someone who knew him back then. Who could tell me about what he was like."

"He doesn't have any family left?"

I started to shake my head then it struck me. "Chuck!" I cried and stood up. Pain shot through my leg, but I hobbled over to where I'd dumped my purse.

"Chuck?" Georgia called after me.

"Yeah." I sat down on the floor, turned my purse over, and spilled the contents onto the four linoleum squares that were supposed to represent the entrance to the apartment. "Max's stepfather. Max kept talking about him today."

I snatched up my Blackberry as it skidded across the floor. Most of the applications were ignored, but I did use it to keep my address book. Scrolling through furiously, I finally found my Christmas list and began searching for a Chuck, while repeating, "Please let me have a phone number. Please let me have a phone number."

"Yes!" I cried and waved the phone around in triumph. "Got it!"

"What are you going to do?"

"Call him," I replied as I pushed the button.

"And say what?"

"I don't know." I heard the ringing start. "I'm not even sure if the number is right or if he's still alive."

"Hello," a deep, soft voice said across the line.

I froze.

"Hello," he repeated.

"Hi," I replied quickly then cleared my throat. "I-is this Chuck Rolland."

"Yes."

"Peter Maxwell's stepfather?"

He let out a long breath. "Wow, it's been a long time since anyone has said that."

"But that is you, right?"

"Yes."

I sighed in relief. One hurdle cleared.

"Who is this?" he asked before I could come up with the second hurdle.

"My name is Madeline McKenzie. I'm Max's secretary." Identifying myself as Max's secretary always involved touch of pride for me, but in this circumstance it felt awkward and, well, a little empty.

"Is Max all right?" Chuck continued, suddenly sounding concerned.

"He's..." My throat ran dry of words, unsure of what exactly to say. "He's had an accident."

"What?" The concern level rose. "How bad?"

"He..." It seemed like I was starting to shake again. "He's okay...but he's having some, um, memory problems."

"You mean, like amnesia?"

"Yeah, something like that." Well, it was exactly like that, but I couldn't quite get it out. "It seems he can't remember much beyond when he was twenty-two."

A low, long whistle crossed the line. "You're kidding me. Not a thing after that? He must have been hit bad."

For some reason I breathed a laugh. "Buick."

"Oh, man." He took a deep breath. "Well, um, is there anything I can do?"

"Yeah...well...You're really all he's got."

"What?"

I wasn't exactly sure what I was trying to say, but I had to come up with something. "Chuck, considering he can only remember things that happened fifteen years ago...um...you're pretty much the only person left he remembers."

There was prolonged silence followed by a deep, shaky breath. "This is terrible. I mean, he's forgotten everyone else?"

"Yes."

"I...It...This is so strange. Does-does he have a family?"

I winced. "No."

Again, a pause. "But...his Christmas cards...they always seemed to be made out by a woman's hand."

"That was me."

"His secretary sends out his cards?" There was mixture of disapproval and shock in his voice that made me cower.

"Yes."

Another pause. "Oh. I'm sorry. I guess I should have known that. I just always sort of hoped that things turned out better."

"Better?"

"Well, you know. A nice sort of life. Better than he had."

And that's when I lost all the decorum Max had built up in me over the years. "Okay, this is what's weirding me out at the moment. The Max I've always known was a very professional, career oriented man. One who is very successful. And yet, all he's raving about right now is a lack of a personal life. I-I just...don't know this Max." It had to be said.

There was yet another pause. I was about to ask the man to stop doing that when he said, "Listen, I married Cheryl when Max was about seventeen, so I can't claim to have known him like a real father, but we got along all right. It always sort of struck me that he wanted something better than the life he had. I mean, what kid who grows up in the concrete jungle of a New York apartment lined neighborhood with a broken family doesn't want the Leave It To Beaver sort of ideal life? He wanted better."

It was my turn to pause as I processed the information. "What do you mean by, 'a broken family'?"

There was a bit of a, "Hmmm" before he got to, "It's not really my place to talk down about Max's dad. I only know what Cheryl told me."

My stomach lurched. "Please tell me. I'm trying to piece Max back together."

"Ah...well..." The discomfort was obvious, but I couldn't let go. "The marriage wasn't great from what she told me. She started calling herself a single parent by the time Max was three years old. From what I gathered Pete was a control freak, at least when it came to work. When it came to his personal life he was just sort of absent."

There was that term again. "Control freak." I'd never thought of Max as a control freak. Just a dedicated man. Could his decisions to remain away from partnerships really be based on an inability to relinquish control? Everything I knew about him suddenly started to appear in a new light.

I mean, he was insistent about the type of clothes I wore, where I lived, and how I furnished my house. But then I told him how to wear his clothes and bossed him around about his eating and sleeping habits. We got into each other's lives like we were...married.

With a long, ragged breath I said, "I appreciate your help. I-I'm still a little confused, but..."

"Would it help if I came up and visited it him?" Chuck's voice was eager and that honestly made me feel warm. Someone else cared about Max.

"Yeah, I think that would be good."

"Okay, sure. I've been having blood pressure problems, so I can't fly anymore. Um, give me a couple of days and I'll see if I can find someone to drive me up."

"Good. I'll tell Max. That will probably make him feel better." I hesitated for a second, but there was one last question I knew I had to ask. "Chuck, why did you and Max stop talking? What happened?"

"Nothing." He laughed wearily. "That's best way to describe it. Nothing happened. He got involved in law school then building his practice. I moved down here and started my life over. We just lost touch after a few years. Trust me, it's something I've felt guilty about often. I'm sure Cheryl wanted better for both of us." The guilt was indeed audible in his voice.

So that was it? Life just progressed and everyone lost themselves? How could it possibly be that, well, for lack of a better term, lame?

I gave him my cell phone number and asked him to call me as soon as he knew when he could come up. He told me it would be soon and he really was looking forward to seeing Max. I didn't have the heart to tell him Max wasn't looking so good.

Chapter Thirteen

By nine the next morning I was standing outside the hospital again, trying to decide if I could face him. I barely got through the previous night with Georgia crooning all over me and Dave trying to get me to look at the practical side of things.

Nine was way too early to show up, but I did it anyway, all the while thinking how much I didn't want to face him again. What would I say? "Hi, I'm the girl who devoted the past ten years to you and your practice, both of which are in serious jeopardy."

I moaned and forced myself through the door before I entirely lost my nerve and advanced to his floor with way more aggression that was necessary. I practically approached the nurse's desk like I was ready to lay siege on it.

The nurse looked wide-eyed at me. "Oh, you're a little early."

I shrugged and looked at the flecked patterned Formica countertop like it was interesting.

"You were supposed to call first?"

My eyes trailed up. "I could just wait here until he is ready to see someone." I then leaned up against the counter in the way that suggested when I said "here" I meant right there at the desk, staring at the nurses like they were the main attraction.

"I'll see if he's ready," she replied promptly and headed down the hall.

Five minutes later she was lecturing me on not getting him upset as she walked me back down to his room. After an encouraging breath, I slowly walked into his room. Well, actually, I practically crept into his room, barely lifting me feet up. There was really no point in doing that. He was sitting up in bed, staring at me the whole time.

"Hi," I said awkwardly and stationed myself just inside the doorway.

Max cringe. "I'm sorry about yesterday. I-um-I..."

"Had a meltdown."

"Yes, I suppose that would be one way of describing it."

I smiled just a bit and moved a few feet into the room. "That's okay. I had one too."

He worked his mouth back and forth, roaming his eyes around the room before finally saying, "So, what's your name?"

I winced hard, but held my chin up in defiance of the tide of emotion. "Madeline McKenzie." I'd gotten pretty good at remembering to at least start off an acquaintance by giving my full first name. "But everyone calls me Maddy."

Max nodded. "Hi, Maddy." It sounded like he was test running the name, just to see how it felt crossing over his tongue.

"Hi," I replied then sank into an uncomfortable silence. What else was I supposed to say? "By the way, I'm the closest thing you've got to family and that's a pretty sad reflection on your life?"

"I've been thinking a lot about you," he suddenly said, cutting into my train of thought.

"Really?"

He nodded again. "It seems really weird."

"What does?"

"This whole set up. I mean, you're just my secretary, right?"

"I wish you would not tag the word 'just' on to that statement," I replied, then kicked myself. I didn't want to slide down that road.

"See, that's just what I mean," he said, almost triumphantly.

"What?"

"You're not just my secretary, are you? What kind of secretary stays by your bedside, crying because you're in the hospital then continues to come back, day after day, to check on you? I can't possibly pay you that much."

Against any good sense, I was standing right next to his bed a second later with my hands on my hips. "Are you suggesting I'm acting like I care about you just because you pay me a lot?"

He held up his good hand. "No, just the opposite. That-that didn't come out quite right."

"You bet it didn't." I realized my tone wasn't very appropriate and pulled back. "That is, um...what were you saying?" My eyes practically crossed.

"I just meant to say...we were much more to each other than that, weren't we?" He waited expectantly for my answer.

Flopping down in the chair, I threw up my hands and growled. This was really, really not the subject I wanted to be on. "No, Max. We were not. We were just lawyer and secretary. Worked well together, but no more. Can we move on now?"

Max growled loudly in response and threw up his hands, which apparently hurt his broken arm.

"Now look what you did," I scolded.

"I just can't understand this." He rubbed the cast vigorously. "How could I possibly have work closely with a beautiful girl who obviously felt something for me and never done anything about it? How?"

"You think I'm beautiful?" I quickly held up my hands. "Never mind. We're getting off this subject now. Okay? What else do you want to know about your life?"

"I never once suggested we should be more than coworkers?"

"Max," I snapped, thoroughly aware that my cheeks were starting to warm.

"Are you always this bossy?" he asked.

"Yes." I crossed my arms like toddler.

His shoulders fell. "I always liked bossy girls," he sighed.

I snarled, stood up, and spun around. I wanted to walk out then and there, but any further plans were halted when Georgia and Dave cautiously walked through the door.

"Georgia?"

She smiled sheepishly and held out the customary vase of flowers people saw as the ticket price for visiting someone in the hospital. I could tell she thought it was a silly gesture.

"Hi," she said, too softly for the Georgia I knew. "I just thought we'd come over and...you know...see how you guys were doing."

Dave accentuated the statement by coughing uncomfortably.

I slowly turned to face Max.

"Do I know these people?" he asked.

With a clearing of my throat, I shrugged. "This is my best friend, Georgia, and her husband, Dave."

Max nodded in introductory. "So...we were acquainted?" There was hope in his voice and expression.

Georgia's head rocked back and forth as she tried to think of an answer. I hoped she was going to say, "Yes." Instead she said, "We met once."

"Oh," Max replied flatly as his shoulder fell once more.

Sensing she'd said the wrong thing, Georgia quickly moved forward and said, "But Maddy talked about you all the time."

I'm not sure why she thought that would make Max's personal life seem better.

"Oh," he repeated and sighed. "So you knew that she cared for me and I never did anything about it."

Georgia shot me startled glance. "You told him?"

"No!" I cried. My cheeks were so hot I could have spontaneously combusted.

She looked back at Max. "Then how did you know?"

"It's a little obvious," he replied.

Georgia nodded. "That's what I told her, but she usually avoids the subject."

"So, it's always been obvious?"

"For years."

"Great." He tossed himself back into the pillows.

I, meanwhile, spun back around, covered my face with my hands and worked on not hyperventilating.

"It's all right, Maddy." Georgia's hand came down on my shoulder.

Wrenching away, I turned, grabbed her arm, and pulled her into the corner.

"Are you trying to embarrass me into oblivion?" I whispered harshly. "This is worse than when Mom called around the neighborhood until she could find someone who would take me to the prom."

"Hey, remember, we all had a really good time at that prom."

I growled with all my might and shoved past her, intending to official run for my life. Embarrassment blinded me to anything other than the direction of the exit, so I didn't see the man coming into the room until I'd crashed face first into him.

"What is this?" I yelled as I tried to right myself. "Party central!"

Intending to tell him to get out of my way, I looked up and came face to face with Jim Wagner. All the furry melted for a moment. He looked exactly like he did when he'd walked into the office just a few days ago. Clean, but wrinkled. Tall, but somehow stooped as well. A skin tone that could only be described as ash. The only thing different this time was the expression. There was anger last time. Now there was something that could almost be described as confusion.

"Jim?" I gasped then shook myself. "What on earth are you doing here? For heaven sakes, why did they let you in?"

He looked down at me with soft eyes. "You didn't tell the police my name apparently."

I only vaguely remembered the telephone call with the police. I wasn't even sure when it occurred. At that point I was in the numb zone and frankly was having so much trouble remembering the name of the man who'd kidnapped me I just said I didn't know. Afterwards, when I could think a little straighter, I told myself I wouldn't have given them the name if I did remember. A part of me still felt so sorry for him.

That was then. Seeing him in that hospital room made my skin crawl. "You have no right to be here," I said quietly and stared into his eyes the way I did with clients who were late on their payments.

Jim still had a walking dead quality to him that apparently made him immune to my powers of intimidation.

"Do I know this person too?" Max called out.

"No," I answered on impulse, but I couldn't turn and face him. I was sure my cheeks had scorch marks on them.

"You saved my life," Jim said and brushed right past me. There was no gratitude in his voice. There was barely any emotion. It was a statement of fact.

I turned on my heels and walked right in Jim's wake, coming up on his back just as he came to the side of the bed. I have a tendency to forget that I'm on the petite side and I definitely forgot that Jim towered over me.

Latching onto his arm, I pulled back while using the momentum to swing myself in front of him. "Jim, leave," I said. My voice was calm, cool, and as powerful as a gale force wind, but he didn't acknowledge me. "Jim, he doesn't remember anything about you. He has amnesia."

"Yes, they told me that at the desk," he replied, still keeping his eyes Max.

"Then just go—"

"What does he mean?" Max cut in.

My shoulders jumped and went ridged. Jim finally looked at me and at last responded to the expression I was giving him. It had to be borderline lethal at that moment. He backed up a step or two.

With a deep breath, I turned back to Max. I was going to have to tell him now, but I was sure I could do without getting into the mess Jim had brought down upon us. If only Jim would just shut up.

"Did they tell you that you were hit by a car?" I asked him. My gaze was lowered just enough that I didn't have to look him in the eyes.

"Yes."

"Anything else?"

"No."

I sighed deeply. Why couldn't one thing be at least a little easy? "Max, you ran out into the road and shoved this man out of the way." I thought the explanation would be hard to cover, but after the words were out, I decided it was a good thing. Maybe it would make Max feel better if he knew he was a hero.

"I did? But, what happened? I mean, why was he in the road?"

"I was trying to kill myself," Jim replied.

I looked up to find Jim was now standing on the other side of Max's bed. In the corner of my eye I saw Max go ridged.

"Why?" he asked.

I went stiff as a corpse. Every fiber of my being was hoping that Jim wouldn't get into the whole story. He couldn't. He just wouldn't be that stupid.

"My wife was murdered," he said dully. "My life has been slowly unraveling ever since. I didn't think I could go on with it any longer."

That was all Jim had to say. Max looked appropriately horrified. Anything else wasn't necessary, especially considering the condition Max was in.

"You defended the guy who killed her. Got him off," Jim continued.

"Jim," I cried desperately. "What is wrong with you?"

"Well it's the truth," he replied, the first tinge of emotion lighting in his voice.

"This is really not the time or the place." I was begging him to stop, but it was too late.

"What does he mean?" Max asked me.

I tried to compose myself. Avoiding was apparently not an option. "The kid accused of killing his wife was your client, Max." I finally looked him in the eyes. My anger momentarily quelled. This was still Max. His voice was the same. His expressions were still the same. Even his tendency toward blunt conversation was there. His essence was still there, but it was as if someone had cracked away the outer shell that kept his posture so incredible upright and his demeanor regularly calm. And to everyone's surprise he was soft in the center.

"The evidence was impossibly weak," I pressed on. "Getting an acquittal would have been an easy task for most lawyers."

Jim scoffed. "No. That was all Peter Maxwell."

"Don't start with me, Jim Wagner," I warned and pointed my finger threateningly at him.

"They had a witness."

And that's when we began to fight out the whole case, line by line, just like we had on that ledge. Only this time we somehow assumed a much more official stance. He was the calm, but certain of his case prosecutor. I'd hazard to say he was better than the prosecutor for the real case. I, on the other hand, had all the passion of a defense attorney who was appalled that his client was being subjected to this sort of trial when the evidence was so obviously lacking. Of course everyone knew I was really defending Max.

We practically made closing arguments at the end, then turned and looked at Max like he was the jury. For several moments his big, blue eyes just bounced back and forth between the two of us while his mouth hanging slightly open.

Then his eyes finally stopped on me. "You're good. Did you go to law school?"

"The Peter Maxwell School of Law," Georgia piped up in the background. I'd forgotten she was there for a moment, but I wasn't about to give her a nod of acknowledgement. I was still considering never speaking to her again.

"Wow," Max said slowly.

"You were good, Max," I said and held my chin up with a slight swell of pride. It was pride in him.

Max looked over to Jim. "The evidence was pretty weak," he began tentatively. "But you seem so sure."

"He killed her," Jim replied without wavering. "You could tell it just by looking at him. He practically reeked of smug guilt."

"That is not evidence," I replied.

"You think I just want someone convicted of her murder?" Jim shot at me. "What good would that be? I want her real killer. I sat in that courtroom every single day. He was guilty."

"Did I ever say anything to you about my sense of him?" Max asked me before I could reply.

"No," I said. "You remained strict to the evidence and the law."

Max paused and looked down in confusion. "Yes, of course, but I must have gone a little by intuition. That is an important part of the legal system from a defense attorney's standpoint. We are not obligated to defend anyone, therefore it is completely legitimate for us to rely on some sort of intuition when deciding which clients to represent." He looked up at me. "Did I ever talk to you about that?"

My mouth bobbed open. This wasn't Max.

"No," I whispered. "You were always the letter of the law."

That seemed to irk and disappoint him.

Jim then decided to clear his throat and add, "Her case is also built up by the fact that she'd defend you to the death."

I gasped in shock and anger. "That is so condescending."

"It's the truth."

Max threw his hands up. "I can't believe this. Her feelings were apparent the husband of the victim but not me?"

"That's it!" I yelled. "Jim Wagner you march yourself out into that hallway right now."

"But—"

"I said now!"

Jim ducked his head like a misbehaving choir boy and moved to the door. Shaking with anger and outright horrified embarrassment, I stomped out after him without a word to anyone else.

I bullied him down the hall several feet before I ground my shoes into the floor and promptly stomped one foot. "What is wrong with you?" I tried to maintain a whisper.

"I'm sorry." He held up hands. "That was uncalled for."

"Your entire existence here is uncalled for! How could you do that? He needs time to heal and you waltz in there accusing him getting a murderer off." I stomped my foot again. "I don't care if you believe he did it. Max can't even remember last week. He doesn't need you coming in there making him feel guilty and confused about something he can't defend himself against."

Jim's hands went up higher and his ash color paled. "I'm sorry. I know you're right. I didn't come here with any intention of bringing that up. It just came out."

"Would you mind telling me what your intentions were? So far they are a total mystery." My hands went to my hips and my foot began tapping.

"I-I...I just." His faltering voice suddenly turned on strong. "I just don't understand."

"Understand what?"

"Why I'm alive. Why he even bothered to save me. Why this has happened to him, and to you, and why it ever started in the first place. I-I just don't understand why I'm not dead."

I pulled back. "And badgering Max is going to help you understand?"

"No...I just thought if I could talk...Oh, I don't know anymore. Fate has become such a menace to me I just wanted it all to be over with. But here I am." He hit his chest as if to testify there was still a heart beating in there.

Jim Wagner's internal struggles were of no interest to me. I had plenty of my own and as far as I was concerned he had a lot to do with the current problems. I knew if I dwelled on him for much longer I really would combust.

"I don't ever want to see you here again," I said darkly. "Do you understand? You don't go anywhere near Max. End of story."

I flicked myself around and headed back to the room before he could protest. It didn't take me more than a second to make it back to the doorway, and there I stopped as all three people in the room looked up and stared at me awkwardly.

We stayed that way for a moment and I decided I had all I could take. "I've got to get going," I said quickly then turned and ran.
Chapter Fourteen

The first thing I did when I made it back to my apartment was fling open the curtains. I had a view a lot of people would kill for. The rise and fall of New York's skyline glittered in front of me as the sun bounced from window to window. At night it looked like a jeweler's case, sparkling with lights. "The city that never slept." Max had picked out that view for me. Now it seemed it was a view he'd never wanted.

I pressed my hands up to the cool glass and tried to focus as far in the distance as my eyes could, all the while envisioning him standing there, telling me how great the view was. I'd laughed at his exuberance, but now I wondered if it was real. Had he really stood in front of the view wishing, somewhere deep inside, it was a suburban spread of lush lawn? Or by that time was he completely dead to any hope he'd have an idyllic version of a picket fence life? Had he really lost hope or just decided that life wasn't for him? Was it a specific event that had changed him, or just the passage of time?

What changed it for me?

I jumped a little when that question crossed through my brain. I didn't know where it had come from and didn't intend on dwelling on it. Turning around, I looked over my apartment in hopes of seeing something to occupy my time. Instead I heard the question, "Is this what you really wanted?"

I leaned entirely against the glass and tried to think of what to tell myself. It seemed the most logical thing to do was answer the questions and move on, but I didn't exactly know what the answers were. Was this what I wanted? It wasn't what I expected. I never thought I'd be a successful career woman living with a view that would bleed out the lifesavings of most people. But that didn't mean I wasn't relatively satisfied with it. Relatively?

I shook my head and pulled away from the window, intending to go in search of something to eat, but that first question nagged me. What changed it for me?

It nagged me because there was an answer. An event. It changed any dreams I'd had in high school into a need for a good job.

It was the moment when the foreman of the jobsite my dad was working on showed up at the door to tell us there had been an accident. That's where life had become about surviving day to day.

I yanked a water bottle out of my fridge then went in search of something with at least a little nutritional value.

Someone knocked on the door and I instantly knew who it was. "It's open, Georgia!" I called out and returned to my water bottle.

She opened the door with a little grunt. "I didn't think I had to tell you that it's not safe to leave your door unlocked in New York."

"The killers know I'm too obnoxious to bother with," I replied dryly and took a sip.

"Well, it's good to see you're still talking to me."

"Wait until tomorrow when my senses come back. I'll tell the doorman I don't ever want to see you again."

Georgia leaned up against the stubby half wall that was supposed to delineate the end of the living room and the beginning of the kitchen. "I'm sorry, okay. That didn't go...as well as I would have hoped."

"I'm not even going to acknowledge that statement."

She nodded. "I wouldn't either."

I pulled another bottle of water out and tossed it to her. "Where's Dave?"

"At his mother's." She unscrewed the lid, but just swished the contents around. "We were supposed to visit her. I told him I should check on you first." She shrugged and finally took a sip. "She wouldn't approve of what I'm wearing anyway. Supposedly purple doesn't suit me."

"Tell her Dave bought you the sweater."

She gave me a slight smile. "He'd probably assume he really did and play right along."

I leaned back against the counter and crossed my arms. "You'd better get going then."

"You really want to be alone?"

I nodded.

"Okay." She hesitated, but finally pushed away from the wall. "Call me if you need to talk."

I nodded and watched her walk to the door, but just before she opened I called out her name.

"Yeah." She turned back, obviously attentive.

"Did you lose something?"

Georgia's forehead wrinkled. "What?"

"As the years passed, was there something in particular, some dream, that you lost?"

I watched as she bit her lip, then a small smiled crossed her features. "Well, I still hope we'll have children someday."

And I knew she meant it. That was the difference. She still hoped. I couldn't. It had been too long.

Chapter Fifteen

I woke up the next morning to realize I'd fallen asleep in my clothes. My head told me to just lay there for the rest of the day, but I forced myself to get up, shower, and pull something clean on, all while ignoring the giant bruise on my shin.

Breakfast seemed like a good idea, even if I wasn't the least bit hungry. After putting a piece of toast on, I grabbed the paper off my doorstep and plopped it down on the table. Butter was about all I could handle as far as toppings went, so I scraped the bottom of my margarine tub.

Toast in hand, I headed to my table and sat down. Coffee sounded reasonably good, but I always got mine from the shop across the street and going out didn't sound like a very good idea. The way things were going the sky would probably fall in.

Still licking the butter from my fingers, I snapped the rubber band off the paper and unrolled it. The face in the picture on the front page struck me the minute my eyes fell upon it.

Matt Stewart?

I recognize that face immediately. I recognized the defiant expression as well. What was new to me was the picture itself. It was a mug shot, but it wasn't the one I'd seen when he was arrested for the murder of Sarah Wagner. It appeared to be an entirely new one.

My throat tightened so hard I could barely breathe, but I jumped right into the story, word by word, line by line. I blazed through the entire article in minutes then went right back to the start and read it again.

The circumstances were so similar to the ones that had been reported in the same paper a little over a year ago. A woman was found in her apartment, bludgeoned to death. Her roommate had walked into the apartment and found her lying there, just a few feet in front of the door. But there was a glaring difference this time. The roommate also found Matt Stewart leaning over the body.

Just like last time someone saw him climbing out the window and down a fire escape. But this time that someone had chased Matt down and pinned him to the sidewalk. They found the woman's jewelry in his pocket. Her blood was all over him.

I didn't have to set the paper down. My hands were shaking so hard the pages fluttered from my fingers as I tried to read the story for the third time. I couldn't actually see the letters by that point. The lack of oxygen in my lungs was blurring my vision.

Telling myself to breathe wasn't enough. I had to manually force the air in and out.

I wanted to doubt. I wanted to believe it wasn't true. But how could I? It seemed it was now an undeniable fact. Matt Stewart was a killer. But was he the killer of Sarah Wagner? I almost literally slapped myself when that thought crossed through. Of course he was her killer! A miracle worker couldn't convince people otherwise.

I clutched my head as my skyrocketing blood pressure brought on a monster headache, but the guilt didn't have long to settle. I looked up at the clock over my microwave. Nine-thirty. The whole city had to know by now. Jim had to know.

All the possibilities came crashing down. Jim would undoubtedly blame Max, but what would he do about it?

Grabbing my sneakers, I ran out the door and to the elevator, slamming the down button. By the time the doors slide open, I had both sneakers, but only one tied. My doorman mentioned that as I ran off the elevator and shoved through the doors, but I didn't take the time to explain. I just needed to get to Max before Jim.

The dance I did on the side of the road to flag down a cab could have rivaled the best cheerleader, but I caught the attention of one quickly. As soon as he pulled away from the curb, I pulled open the purse I'd thought to grab as I was running out. I was grateful to see it actually did have enough money to pay for the fare, but my cell phone was nowhere to be found. I threw it down with a growl as I remembered sticking the stupid thing on its charger the night before.

"Something wrong?" the cab driver asked.

"Yeah," I replied, but said no more. I just dropped my head into my hands and tried to hold off the pounding.

The eternity and an half it took to get to the hospital was pure torture. I kept thinking about Jim walking into Max's room and throttling him to death. I was sure I'd make it there and find nothing more than Max's lifeless body.

"Have there been any visitors for him today?" I asked as I rushed to the nurse's desk, stumbling and tripping on my loose laces the entire way.

My apparent state of insanity earned me a look from the nurse on duty, but she gave me what I wanted. A "No."

I heaved a tremendous sigh of relief and ran to his room with all my might. The loose sneaker slipped off as I slid into his room, but I didn't notice. I just stood there, staring at the empty bed.
Chapter Sixteen

The sheets were thrown off the bed. The tray that held his uneaten breakfast has been shoved aside, obviously by someone agitated by something far more than stale food.

The absence of anyone created a vacuum feeling, pulling me into the room and chilling my bones.

"Max?" I whispered.

From the corner of my eye I could see the bathroom door was open. He wasn't in there. He wasn't anywhere. I took a few more steps forward. Something beneath my feet crunched.

I knew what it was instantly, but I still forced my eyes to look down. The newspaper. The pages were lying in an unorganized heap beside his empty bed.

"Max!" I yelled as my body began to shake. "Max please come out."

The silence racked my body even harder. I turned to run back to the nurse's station, by a slight movement caught my attention. I looked back and saw the blinds over the windows were moving just a touch in the wind. They'd been pulled up further than they were yesterday, revealing an open window. The morning chill rolled in.

My stomach rolled along with it as I ran to the window and leaned out, praying I wouldn't see what I was afraid I might. I leaned as far forward as I could and looked down at the street. Standing four stories up, I saw the ant colony of New Yorkers scrambling through the streets, but no body was flattened against concrete. Once again, I sighed and began to pull back in. And that's when I saw him.

Slowly turning to my right, I found Max, standing on the ten inch stone ledge that wrapped around building. He was pressed up against the wall, eyes shut, trembling.

I did what could probably be counted as the stupidest thing to do. I screamed, "Max!"

He jumped, swayed forward then tilted back against the wall. Gasping violently, he opened his eyes and looked in my direction.

"Maddy? What are you doing here?"

"Who cares what I'm doing here? What are you doing there?" I cried. "Never mind! Just get back inside."

He quickly shook his head and tried to look down, shuddering as he made eye contact with the street. "Am I afraid of heights?" he asked as he leaned back and squeezed his eyes closed again.

I smacked my palm on the sill. "I don't know, Max. I've never stood on a ledge with you. Just get back in here."

His looked back at me with a wrinkled forehead. "You say that like you've been on a ledge with someone else."

"It just so happens I have, but that doesn't mean I want to with you." And then without thinking, I climbed up onto the window sill and slid one leg out.

"Maddy, what are you doing?" Max asked.

"I don't know," I replied and pulled my other leg out. "Just get back inside."

"No."

My insides twisted into a knot as I watched him throw himself forward. I didn't have time to scream, but everything inside of me did as his heels came up. Then all of a sudden he looked down. Terror shot through his eyes and the survival instinct kicked in, involuntarily slamming his body back against the wall. I suddenly understood. He was trying to kill himself. All of the things to feel at that moment, I got angry.

"Peter Maxwell, you get back in here right this minute!" I yelled.

He just shook his head.

Growling, I clutched the frame of the window and pulled myself up, slipping on the sock of my now shoeless foot. The tremendous gasp that ripped through me as I swung out got him to open his eyes and look over.

My eyes met the pavement as I pulled myself back against the window and my imagination saw my body smashed and broken.

I turned back to Max and scowled. "Come on."

"No," he shot back.

I stamped my foot, effectively throwing myself off balance again. That time I practically squealed with furry. "Max, so help me, if you throw yourself off I'll throw myself off too!"

"Oh, Maddy, don't be ridiculous." He frowned at me, apparently trying to look reproachful.

"Ridiculous? I'm not the one trying to get over a fear of heights just long enough to throw myself off a building. I don't think I'm the ridiculous person here. Now, get back inside."

"I can't," he yelled so loud, I stepped back. He took a sharp, painful breath said, "Didn't you see the paper?"

The words brought up such a rush of sorrow my anger started to melt. Mechanically, I forced myself to nod.

"Then you know." His voice fell to a soft tone.

I'm not sure if the wind intensified at the moment. All I knew was as I stood there, looking into his tormented face, I suddenly felt like my skin was frostbitten from head to toe.

"Max..." I began and held my hand out.

He wrenched his body away. "I can't, Maddy. I can't face what I am any longer."

"You're a—"

"A murderer!" he wailed. I saw the tears fill his eyes. The sight shook me so hard I almost let go of the window.

"A what?"

"Maddy, don't you understand? I got that kid off. Not only did I let him get away with one murder, I allowed him to commit another. I might as well have killed that girl last night."

"Max, don't—"

The look he gave me squeezed my throat shut. "Tell me, Maddy. Tell me if you think I did the right thing?"

It took me a moment to clear the fear in my throat, but even then my mouth would not cooperate with my heart. I wanted to soothe him. Instead I said, "I-I don't know."

He nodded. "Yes, you do. You know deep in your heart I was wrong."

"How could you have known he was the killer?" I cried desperately. Guilt started to strangle me.

Again, he shook his head, almost savagely. "I bet I knew. I bet I could tell just looking at him. I use to be good at seeing into people. I bet I knew and didn't care. Just like my father." He slid down and sat back on his heels, burying his head in his hands as he did. I could hear the sobs racking his throat. "Oh, God, fifteen years!" He hiccupped. "You know, when my dad did come home, he would talk about his cases. He would tell me how he could easily tell when someone really was guilty, but that wasn't the point. The point was to look at it from the view of the law. If the guy could legally be gotten off, my father would do it." Disgust and anger surged. "My mother and I hated him for it. I swore I'd never be like him, but look at me now! I might as well be his clone.

"I've given up relationships I should have held onto. Ignored chances I should have taken. Allowed killers to go free. And dragged others down with me."

He looked up at me with his watery eyes and I understood what he was saying. I felt like a dead, gutted fish. Everything inside of me drained.

"Tell me why I should keep going," he said softly.

I tried, but failed to answer because there wasn't anything left in me. It seemed like my entire life was a blank. All that dawned within the darkness was a very faint, "Please, God. Please."

"Don't do it," a clear, strong voice said from behind me.

I went ridged and looked back. There, standing just outside the window on the same ledge, was Jim Wagner, looking like he'd never feared heights in his life. He just stared at us with intense eyes. Eyes that, for the first time since I'd become acquainted with Jim, held something bright, something alive.

Max looked up at him, tear stains running wildly down his cheeks, and shook his head. "You should push me off."

Jim took in a deep breath and shook his head. "Maxwell, if you were meant to die, I think that car would have finished you off."

"What are you talking about?"

Jim shook his head again, but in a retrospective sort of way. "Maxwell, I've never put much faith in providence or some sort of Divine plan, but all I've got to say is I'm here. I should be dead. I tried my hardest to die, but here I am." He locked eyes with Max. "And here you are."

"But—"

"I forgive you," Jim cut in.

The words literally shook the air and loosened all my joints. I could have slipped off the ledge at that moment, but Jim put a hand on my shoulder to steady me.

"Why?" Max cried, curling his fingers into his skull.

The frown lines around Jim's mouth, so deep they looked like he must have had then since childhood, lengthened. "What's done is done. We can't go back. What would be the point in holding it against you? Especially since you can't even remember."

My head snapped back to Max, who seemed to be visibly falling apart in front of me, and in that instant the dim light inside me turned to a complete dawn. He couldn't remember what he'd done for better or for worse. All he had was an itemized list of things he done over the past fifteen years that he could compare and contrast to all his hopes and ideals. There were no present day moments to muddy the issues or hide behind. Just a bare analysis and basic understanding.

That's when I saw it made sense. The God I so shamefully neglected was not destroying my life. He was giving me a, "Second chance," I whispered then met Max in the eyes and raised my voice. "A second chance!"

"What?"

"Don't you see, Max?" I called out. "We've been giving an opportunity like few people ever get. You can't remember any of your mistakes or justify making them. All you know is what you did."

"And that's good?" he cried in desperation.

"Yes!" I'm sure I sounded a little giddy. "You'll have to start your life completely over, entirely from scratch, ground up. But you'll go in knowing all the mistakes you're capable of making. You can now see the hard-lines, the dangers, the realties. It's like facing life with a cheat sheet." I took a deep breath. "Don't you see, we've been given a chance to start over? Things could have gone on forever the way they were and we both would have lived without fulfilling anything." I reached out my hand as far as it would go. "But God is giving us a second chance, Max." I must have started crying because my eyes were burning badly. "I want that second chance. Please, Max."

He eyes remained fixed on mine, but his body started to lean toward the edge.

"Max, no," I whispered, but the leaning did not halt.

I opened my mouth to scream then suddenly his hand was in mine, grabbing onto it for dear life. I felt my body move forward, but I yanked back with all my might. It seemed he was off the ledge entirely by that point, but I had closed my eyes and put all my focus on staying up. Then Jim's hand tightened around my waist. I felt him reach out his other hand past me for Max.

An instant later we were all standing in a huddle on that ledge, each clinging to each other, breathing in sporadic fits and gasps. We must have stayed that way for a while because Jim finally said, "Can we go back inside now? It's getting kind of cold and I never really liked heights anyway."

I actually had a single laugh left in me for that.

We edged back enough to slide into the window one by one. Linoleum floors never felt as good as they did at that moment. Max came down beside me and then stared at me for a minute.

I smiled and a second later he was holding onto me, crying like I didn't know a man could cry. That's when I knew for sure that the Max I'd lived and worked with was really and truly dead. This wasn't going to be the sort of happy ending that people who allowed themselves to dream envision. But maybe it was something even better. A new beginning.

Max never has remembered me or any of those years. That is fine as far as I'm concerned. I guess that's how forgiveness works. Once God gives it to you, the past no longer matters.

Sometimes when Max holds me I can't even remember that decade, or who I was back then. I become an ordinary teenager from New Jersey who still believes and dreams.

The End

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