'You're packing,' she said.
'That, too,' he told her.
Casey felt a bolt of energy dance up her spine.
'Why?' she said, unable to hide the note of panic.
'Business.'
'Where?' she asked, relieved and now angry with herself for the way she felt. If he was leaving her, why should she care? She'd come home after a grueling but successful trial, only to spend her evening with a book. He wasn't a real part of her life. If it wasn't evident before this trial, it certainly should be now.
' San Francisco,' he answered.
Casey ran through the possibilities in her mind. There was an old flame of his in San Francisco, a society girl who fancied herself an artist. Taylor also owned a small ball-bearing factory outside the city. Why should she care what the trip was for?
'How long will you be gone?' she asked. She got out of bed and made her way toward the bathroom as if she didn't care.
'I'll be back Sunday night,' he told her as she passed him.
'Business on the weekend?' she said.
He shrugged. 'Some bankers from Hong Kong want to golf in Carmel.'
Casey brushed her teeth, secretly watching him in the mirror. In her mind she knew it didn't matter. But a great fear had seized hold of her heart. She couldn't help it. If it didn't work, it would be a failure. She despised failures. She lived to win. She'd won him, and although in her mind she knew he wasn't worth winning, a sick but powerful part of her couldn't let go. Casey spit the paste into her sink and rinsed her mouth. She disappeared into her closet.
When she came out, Taylor was closing the suitcase. He looked up and saw her standing with one hand high on the wall and the other resting firmly on her milky- white hip. Her hair spilled down around her small, muscular shoulders in tangles of red. She wore nothing but white lace and heels, a spicy little setup he'd given her one Valentine's Day. It was something she rarely wore, maybe after some champagne and an evening of rubbing her foot up and down his leg underneath a particularly formal table.
Taylor looked at her hungrily and stopped right where he was. Without a word he undid the tie and began unbuttoning his shirt. He crossed the room and met her lips with his own. Without breaking the voracious kiss, he stripped himself naked and moved her hands toward his waist. When she found him, he emitted a guttural groan and began to grope her with adolescent desperation, finally lifting her off her feet and taking her across the room to their bed.
Ten minutes later, Taylor was back at the mirror adjusting his dark blue windowpane suit. Casey lay sprawled out on her back, watching him from the bed. When he was dressed, he picked up his suitcase and kissed her on the lips.
'That was good,' he said.
'It was,' she said, trying to believe. 'We need to talk.'
'Everything is fine.' He flashed that million-dollar smile. 'I'll be back before you know, but I've got to go now.'
'All right.'
'I'll call you,' he said. 'I've got to go or I'll miss my plane. I love you.'
'I love you,' she said.
Then he was gone. Casey lay alone for a long while, feeling worse about herself than she had the night before. Now, on top of feeling confused about the trial and her entire career, she felt cheap and suddenly helpless. Her life had been all about taking action, knowing what she wanted and getting it. She had gotten the husband she wanted. She won the cases she wanted. What was the saying?
'Be careful what you ask for,' she whispered out loud, staring at a wedding picture that sat in a silver frame on the mantelpiece above the marble fireplace. 'You might get it.' Did she want him or didn't she? One thing she had to admit to herself as she dressed for work was that she didn't want to be cast aside. If it wasn't going to work between them, she'd be the one to pull the plug.
The garage underneath her office building was still nearly empty, but that was nothing unusual. Casey was usually one of the first people in the entire building to arrive. She parked in her spot, and as her heels clicked along on the concrete floor, echoing through the silence, she had an eerie feeling that someone else was in the garage. She spun around and blinked her eyes. Had she seen something move in the shadows behind an empty van? Or was it something within the van itself? She took two backward steps toward the elevator.
The van was tucked up near the bottom of the ramp on the opposite side of the garage. Casey looked around for someone else, but there was no one. Slowly, she edged toward the elevator without taking her eyes off the van. When she reached the elevator and the door opened with a quiet ding, she turned and entered the building, disgusted with her own squeamishness.
The day didn't get any better for her upstairs. The coffee wasn't made, Patti was late, and the first call of the morning was from Simon Huff. His voice was as loud as it was crass.
'Where the hell is my client's computer?' he demanded.
'What are you talking about?' Casey asked venomously.
'You know just what I'm talking about, lady!' Huff bellowed. 'My next call is to the bar association. That computer is privileged material. This is more than unethical. It's criminal. What is this? Some kind of fucking shakedown?'
Casey was seething. 'Don't you accuse me of being unethical!'
'If the shoe fits, wear it, hotshot,' Huff remarked. 'I want my client's computer back, and I want it back today! You got that?'
Casey slammed down the phone. When it rang back, she told Gina to say she wasn't available.
'Get Patti in here,' she added.
Two minutes later her associate came in with an apprehensive frown.
'Did you deliver Professor Lipton's computer to Simon Huff 's office?' Casey demanded.
'I…' Patti began hesitantly.
'My God, Patti,' Casey growled. 'How the hell could you? You think being a lawyer is cross-examining a witness? It goes a lot deeper than that, my friend. It's details! Attention to details! That means when you have something you have to do, something you said you were going to do, you do it. Is that so hard?' she demanded, her voice one note below a shriek.
'No,' Patti said, keeping her chin high but visibly fighting back a wave of emotions. 'I'll get it over there right away. I-'
'No you won't!' Casey cried. 'You won't take it over there. I will. Your chance to do the job is by the board. That's all.'
Patti stared back just as fiercely before walking out the door. Tony Cronic passed her in the hall and wondered at her unresponsiveness to his cheery hello.
'I wouldn't go in there if I were you,' Gina warned him.
'Hey,' Tony said to Gina with his easy, disarming smile, 'it's me.' He opened the door and greeted Casey with more of the same.
'Hey,' he said, dropping casually into a chair opposite her desk, 'congratulations on the win.'
Casey scowled at him. 'I don't need your sarcasm today, Tony.'
'What?' he said, opening his hands and raising both eyebrows in a gesture of peace. 'I meant what I said. You won. Right? Or did they get it wrong on the news?'
Tears filmed Casey's eyes, and her mouth turned down. If Tony hadn't known her better he would have thought she was going to cry.
'Yes, I won the case,' she said bitterly. 'But I think I may have been wrong about him.'
'Lipton?'
She bit her lower lip and nodded.
'You don't mean you think he did it?' Tony asked with a flippant laugh.
'He told me he did.'
'What?' Tony was incredulous. 'When?'
'Just before the jury read the verdict.'
'You're kidding.'
'I wish I were.'
Tony looked at her in disbelief, then turned his eyes to the floor.
'I'm sick about it,' Casey said.
'Maybe he was kidding,' Tony suggested hopefully. 'You said yourself that he was difficult the whole time you were getting ready for trial. Maybe it's just some kind of bizarre mind game.'
'I hope that's what it was,' she told him, 'that he was kidding. He could do that. You're right. But I just don't know. What you said to me about tearing apart the father just sticks in my mind. I mean, Tony… I suggested he had an incestuous relationship with his dead daughter.'
'You did your job,' Tony reminded her. 'Don't go soft on me now.'
'I never had my client confess to the crime two seconds before the jury acquitted him,' she said.
'But he might not have really done it,' Tony pointed out. 'Don't think about it, Casey. You never have before.'
She looked wounded.
'I didn't mean it like that,' he said quickly. 'Come on, Casey. This is the reason you and I are defense lawyers. It's the process. Everyone needs an advocate and you gave him one. The state has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and if they can't, then the accused goes free. Our system would rather have ten guilty men go free than one innocent one be punished.'
'I know that's what we both say.' She nodded. 'I know. That's what I keep telling myself, but it isn't helping. And to make it worse, I got a call from Simon Huff this morning accusing me of withholding Lipton's computer to blackmail him.'
'Simon Huff?' Tony asked.
