Love Starts with Elle(6)
NEW YORK CITY
The knock on the door didn’t inquire but demanded. “Tell me it’s not true.”
“Okay . . . it’s not true.” Heath dropped a copier-paper box on his desk and peeked from under his brow at Catherine Perry, who powered her way across his office in her blue, retro-eighties power suit.
“Heath, be serious.”
Ah, her retro-eighties power voice. He’d miss her brilliant mind on a day-to-day basis, but not her I-am-woman-hear-me-roar inflections.
“You talked to Rock, I take it?” Heath gathered the pictures from the credenza without reminiscing over the images behind the glass. He’d been packing up little by little since last summer.
“If you leave the firm, even for a few months, it will kill your career.” Catherine whacked the desk with her knuckles. “Rock’s fought for you against the other partners, especially last summer when your life got complicated and they wanted to throw you over. Is this how you thank him? By resigning?”
“I’m not resigning. I’m taking a leave of absence—there’s a difference.” He regarded her with a hard glance. “I can’t stay in Manhattan, Cate.”
“Then move to White Plains, Poughkeepsie, or Connecticut, for crying out loud. Leaving a successful boutique firm like Calloway &Gardner is career insanity, Heath.” She sounded like she did when key evidence wasn’t going her way.
“Right now, I care about my personal sanity. Did you know I was late for the Glendale arraignment because I thought I saw Ava walking down Lexington Avenue?” He stared into the box. “I chased a scared, skinny teen boy with great hair for ten blocks.”
Catherine covered her mouth. “Oh, Heath.”
“Laugh. It’s funny.” Heath shoved the box with a fast pop of his palm. “But also very sad.”
What he didn’t confess to his prying co-counsel was how Ava’s fragrance lingered in the apartment, no matter how many times it was cleaned. Or how he felt claustrophobic and chained up, how hope felt like a dirty little four-letter word.
He didn’t confess to Catherine how he longed to be in a place that held no memories of her. Perhaps then he could draw a breath without a million pin-sized flames burning his lungs.
“Healing takes time, Heath. It’s only been a few months.” Catherine straightened the papers lying on the corner of the desk. “Rock said you weren’t leaving right away?”
“Not until March.”
“What about Tracey-Love?”
“I thought I’d take her with me.” He put the lid on the box and walked it over to his closet, where dozen of other boxes waited. Some with case work, others with personal items and records. While Catherine watched, he emptied another drawer into another box and shoved on the lid, anchoring it with a crooked piece of tape. “This is for her as much as anyone.”
“Really? Moving her to Hooterville, South Carolina?”
“It’s Beaufort, and really, Cate, you should open your mind sometime and see what junk falls out.”
As she clucked and fussed, trying to come up with one of her cunning replies, Rock Calloway entered without knocking and plopped into one of the matching leather club chair’s opposite Heath’s desk. “Cate, give us a minute.”
Besides his father, Heath respected no man more than Rock Calloway. The sixty-four-year-old lawyer believed in the rule of law, in finding truth and dispensing justice. Behind his clear gray eyes, he still clung to the idea that right would always win.
“Just left Doc and Tom. They’re concerned about the Glendale case, consider you leaving as a slap in the client’s face and disloyalty to the firm.”
“They can choose to believe what they want, but the truth is I haven’t been an asset in months. Art Glendale would get life without parole if I tried his case.”
Rock’s rich white grin denied his years. “They’d hoped you’d kick in, fight this thing with Ava by throwing yourself into your work.”
This thing? “Sorry to let them down, but until any of the partners have walked in my shoes . . .”
Rock surrendered with a flash of his palms. “I’m on your side, Heath.”
“Tell them I’ll do all I can on the case before I leave in March.” Heath sat in his chair, facing Rock. His office matched his mood, barren and empty except for the basic necessities.
“I suppose you’re going to tinker with novel writing again.”
“Thought I might use the downtime to write, yes. Maybe come up with a novel that’ll sell this time.” Rock muffled his grin, but Heath caught the humor behind his eyes. “Go ahead, I know what you’re thinking.”
Rock chuckled. “Your first novel was . . . well, I’d read legal briefs more riveting.”
Heath grinned, remembering how he’d passed his first novel, Remove All Doubt, around the office, convinced he’d bested Hemmingway. Made him the brunt of office jokes for months. But since then, he’d studied, improved, finished two more novels, and convinced Nate Collins, his old Yale classmate turned high-powered agent, to represent him.
“This thing”—now Rock had Heath saying it—“with Ava caused me to realize I can’t always count on tomorrow. The sun may rise, but not for me.”