Utterly Charming by Kristine Grayson Page B

then she decided he wasn’t. Men who were interested in her always asked her out, and they had never been men she had known from class. They had always been men she’d met at basketball games or in supermarkets. And those men had lost interest so fast, she sometimes wondered if she unintentionally insulted them.
    Her father always teased her, telling her that was what she got for dating men whose IQs were lower than hers. Her mother had said that Nora was hiding while she waited for her one true love. Sometimes Nora wondered whether both interpretations were true.
    Nora and Max had been the only two members of their class who had come to Portland, and they had promised to keep in touch, which they had, but by phone, not in person. She had often fantasized about him, not just during law school, but after, fantasizing that he would call, not on business, but to ask her out. Max was the only man—until Blackstone—who Nora had ever fantasized about. Ruthie had told her she thought that Max was shy, but who had ever heard of a shy defense attorney? Ruthie had said that some people weren’t shy on the job, but they were shy in person.
    Nora wished, just once, that Ruthie was right.
    A waitress wearing too much lipstick and not enough blush found her way to the table. Nora ordered a beer, and Max did the same, then insisted on paying for everything. When she protested, he shook his head. “You got me the case.”
    “You asked me to buy on the phone,” she said.
    “I’ve just made more money for doing nothing than I’ve ever made for doing something,” he said. “I’ll buy.”
    He had to shout slightly to be heard over the din.
    “Let’s move to a booth,” Nora said. The booths had high wooden walls and their own lights, which meant that she could see Max better and hear him without worrying about what anyone else would hear.
    He nodded. They took the only open booth and had to signal the waitress when she came looking for them at their table. After she left, Nora said, “What do you mean, you did nothing?”
    He held up a slim hand. “I’m as confused as you,” he said. “Maybe more confused.” He grabbed his beer like it was a lifeline. “I cashed one very large check on the way back from the jail this afternoon, and I verified funds before I did. It’s good. I’m supposed to give some to you. Finder’s fee.”
    She had her own very large check waiting to be cashed. She was about to protest when he slid another check across the table. She gasped at the amount. The check Sancho had given her would pay her monthly expenses for fifteen years. This one was big enough for her to invest and live off the interest. “Max—”
    “No,” he said. “Don’t argue. After what I saw today, don’t argue.”
    She rubbed her eyes, not wanting to ask the next question, but knowing that she would have to. “What did you see?”
    “You know where the coroner’s office is?”
    “In the basement of the main police station. Why? Did you see something?”
    He shook his head. Then he stopped, nodded, and shook his head again.
    “Max,” she said. “What did you see?”
    He drank the entire beer in one long gulp. Then he slammed the stein on the table, and signaled for another round. She hadn’t broken the head on hers yet.
    “Max?”
    “I saw,” he said slowly, staring at his empty stein as if he were wishing it was full, “the police forget a crime had been committed. I saw a dead body get up and walk. Your friend Blackstone promises me I’ll remember all of this, but he said no one else will. No one else—except you.”
    “Tell me,” she said.
    And so he did.
    ***
    When Max arrived at the police station, he pulled into the parking garage behind an ambulance traveling with its lights off. The ambulance parked in front of the double glass doors that led into the coroner’s office. Max found a parking space nearby and kept his gaze on the ambulance. From what he’d heard on his police band radio, he guessed