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 ye
lled 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.”
&nb
sp; 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.