She got back to Ollie, who apparently was engaged in conversation with somebody else. “Oh, Sunny. Yeah. Look, I may stretch this trip even longer. Don’t expect me back until Tuesday, maybe Wednesday. Call me if anything comes up.” He cut the connection almost before he finished the sentence.
“I’m going to miss this,” she told the cat as she kneaded the oil around the pads on his paw. It had turned into a nice little ritual. Whenever she got out the bottle of oil, he’d come right over and present his paw.
“Are we having supper soon, or is the whole night going to go toward pet physical therapy?” Mike asked, coming into the kitchen. “Because there are human beings around here who are sort of hungry.”
“I’ll be starting in a minute, Dad,” Sunny told him. “And, yes,” she went on as he opened his mouth, “I’ll wash my hands first.”
They watched a couple of Mike’s favorite programs on the TV, but Sunny didn’t pay much attention, playing with Shadow. As soon as the news came on, she stood up, yawning. “I’ll hear about the weather tomorrow,” she said, heading up to her bedroom. “I want to get up a little early.”
It was just as well she turned in a bit ahead of time, because the area was covered with fog when she got up. Sunny hurried through the morning routine and crawled into work with lousy visibility. She could hear foghorns from the harbor as she unlocked the office door.
The fog didn’t lift until noontime. Sunny barely noticed. She hurried through the day, trying to accomplish any bit of work that might slow up her escape. She’d even brought a sandwich from home so she could work through her lunch hour.
When quitting time rolled around, she already had her computer off and her parka on. For once the phone didn’t ring with some last-minute disaster. Sunny killed the lights and locked the door. She saw a pair of headlights make the turn onto the street and then glide to a stop. It took a moment for her to make out Jane’s gray BMW in the darkness. Sunny walked to the curb and climbed aboard.
Jane made nervous small talk all the way across the bridge and into Portsmouth. “I know you probably think I’m silly,” she said, “but I’m going to end up talking about some pretty serious stuff with a complete stranger. It will be good to have a friendly face in the room.”
They managed to find street parking not far from the address on the business card. It turned out to be a renovated six-story brick building. According to the board in the lobby, Crandall, Sherwood, and Phillips was on the fifth floor. Luckily, part of the renovations had included installing an elevator.
The door opened onto a reception area paneled in dark mahogany instead of the blond wood in Martin Rigsdale’s office. That wasn’t the only difference. This receptionist actually smiled at them, and the place was obviously jumping, even at six o’clock. The young woman’s desk was covered with piles of paper, and behind her Sunny could see people scurrying around with still more papers in their hands.
It took a couple of minutes to get hold of Mr. Phillips, and the receptionist apologized. Finally, a tall guy came down the hall in his shirtsleeves, a conservatively patterned silk tie pulled loose at his collar, and a cup of coffee in his hand. “Please forgive me for the delay.” He gestured with the cup. “I had to refuel.”
When he got to within ten feet of them, though, Mr. Phillips stopped and stared. “Jane Leister,” he said in disbelief, “and Sunny Coolidge!”
Sunny stood looking into a semifamiliar face. Knock off a few inches of height, make the hair longer and messier, wind back the clock so the boyish face was actually a boy’s . . .
“Toby Philpotts?” She and Jane blurted out the name almost in unison. Sunny hadn’t thought of Toby Philpotts in years—well, not until she’d suggested naming Mrs. Martinson’s incontinent pup after her grammar-school classmate with the weak bladder. And here he was, all grown up.
The man in front of them didn’t quite grimace—he’d had a lawyer’s training in controlling his expressions. “It’s Phillips these days,” he said quietly. “And I prefer Tobe.”
He led them through a maze of cubicles to his office. It was a pretty modest space, although the bookcases were the same mahogany as the paneling outside. So was the desk. And he did have a door that shut and a window with a view toward the harbor. Toby Philpotts, a.k.a. Tobe Phillips, glanced at the empty desk outside his door. “My assistant is busy jockeying around the copying machine,” he explained. “We’ve got to get a filing ready by the opening of court on Monday.”
