The Moment Max Forgot Me

by Emily Ann Benedict

  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 personal
ly 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 no
d 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 sm
art,” 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.”