Final Option

phone. I’ll just see if I can find a ladies’ room and wash up. Then I’ll stop in and see Jane,” I said. “Don’t worry. I won’t mention this other thing. Come and get me when you’re finished.”
     
    Jane sat propped up in bed, addressing birth announcements. “When James was born,” she explained, “I was terribly superstitious. We didn’t do anything beforehand. I remember, I wouldn’t even let Barton put up the crib. He had to do it all himself while I was in the hospital. By the third time if you don’t at least order the envelopes in advance, you’ll end up sending the announcements out right before the kid starts kindergarten.”
    “The third and the fourth,” I pointed out.
    “I still can’t believe it,” sighed Jane. “Do you know how unusual it is these days to deliver unanticipated twins? You should have seen everybody in the delivery’ room—it was a madhouse. I don’t think that Barton figured out what was happening until they handed him the second baby. I’ll never forget the expression on his face as long as I live.”
     
    Elliott and I walked a few blocks north from the hospital to a Japanese restaurant called Hatsuhana. We sat in the serenity of blond wood and paper screens near the sushi bar, drinking Tsing Tao beer, eating California roll, and trying to figure out who wanted me dead. After three beers and half an ocean’s worth of sushi, we still didn’t have any answers.
    “The problem,” concluded Elliott, “is that when someone decides that it’s necessary to crack your skull, they usually don’t give up when they don’t succeed the first time.”
    “So what do you suggest? I can’t very well spend the rest of my life hiding under my desk.”
    “I don’t want you to go home tonight. Your roommate probably shouldn’t either.”
    “I’ll call her. She can spend the night in the on-call room at the hospital.”
    “Is there somewhere you can go? A friend you can call?”
    I excused myself and used the pay phone in the drafty entryway. Stephen’s assistant, Richard Humanski, reminded me that Stephen was in New York until late the following afternoon. I went back to the table.
    “Any luck?” asked Elliott.
    “I think you’re overreacting,” I protested.
    “Kate, you still have dried blood in your hair,” Elliott pointed out.
    “I’ll check in at the Marriott down the road,” I conceded.
    “You’ll spend the night at my place.”
    I shot him a look.
    “I’m inviting you in my role as Sir Galahad,” he insisted. “Do you really think you’re going to be able to get any sleep alone in a hotel after what’s happened today?”
     
    Elliott lived alone in the top half of a pretty restored brownstone in the neighborhood near DePaul University. It was a well-proportioned residence with a large living room, two dormered bedrooms, and a turreted room that Elliott used as his home office. The kitchen was small, bright yellow, and looked as though someone actually cooked in it. I felt strange to be there, and Elliott, usually so at ease, seemed stiff and strangely unlike himself.
    It helped that it was late and we were both tired. I admired his apartment while he scrounged up clean towels, a new toothbrush, a fresh cake of soap, and an extra T-shirt for me to sleep in.
    “What time do you need to be in the office in the morning?” Elliott asked, his hand on the doorknob of the extra bedroom. The room was very neat and comfortably arranged with a bedspread on the bed and curtains on the windows. It even had its own bathroom, from which a shower beckoned. A whole new domestic side of Elliott presented itself to me.
    “I’d like to get an early start. I still have to produce an answer for the CFTC by Friday. But don’t worry, I'll just catch a cab in.”
    “Absolutely not. Until I find out what’s going on, I’m walking you to your office door. What if we plan on leaving here at seven-thirty? Is that too early?”
    “That would be fine,” I replied.
    “Well, good night then,” said Elliott.
    “Good night.”
    He closed the door behind him, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Even under the most innocent of circumstances, there is always an element of tension between a man and a woman. I’d noticed it whenever I traveled on business with one of the male attorneys at the firm. Nice men whom I liked, men whose wives I was friendly with, men who would never, in a million years, cross the lines of propriety with a colleague. And yet, there was