He Locked Me Out and Let Her In novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Happy Anniversary

Maddie ends it in Dean's firm lobby in front of his boss and plays the door clip, and then Eastside's owner emails that a client named Stroud has filed a complaint against her.

I didn't sleep.

At eight the next morning I walked into the lobby of Hargrove & Finch with a grocery bag in one hand and my phone in the other.

Dean's firm took up three floors of a tower on LaSalle.

The reception desk was white marble, and behind it sat a young woman with a headset.

"I'm here for Dean Pullman," I said.

"Is he expecting you?"

"No."

"I can call up and..."

"Please don't," I said. "I'll wait."

I sat down in a leather chair facing the elevators.

At eight-forty the doors opened and the lawyers started to arrive in twos and threes, holding coffee.

At eight forty-five, Dean stepped out with a white-haired man in a navy suit, laughing at something the older man said.

The older man was the senior partner, whose firm's name was on the wall.

I had heard about him for three years.

Dean saw me and stopped laughing.

I stood up.

"Maddie," he said, smiling the careful smile he used in court. "This is a surprise."

"I brought your things."

I set the grocery bag on the marble counter.

It held a gray hoodie, two paperbacks, a phone charger and the razor he kept in my bathroom.

Everything Dean had ever left at my place fit in one bag.

Everything I had ever left at his place was nothing, because I had never been allowed to leave anything.

"We can talk about this tonight," Dean said, low.

"You said Sunday."

"Maddie."

"Happy anniversary," I said, loud enough for the whole lobby.

Eight or nine heads turned.

A man waiting for the elevator lowered his coffee.

"Three years," I said. "I brought you a cake, and a woman let herself into your apartment with her thumb."

"That's enough."

"She has a cat, Dean. You have a cat."

I held up my phone and pressed play.

On the little speaker you could hear the lock click.

You could hear the cat.

You could hear Lydia's voice, warm and clear: "Daisy, you silly girl. Did you miss me?"

Then Dean's, shaking: "Go wait in the hall."

The clip ended on the sound of the door slamming.

Nobody in the lobby said anything.

The senior partner looked at the phone and then at Dean.

"Dean," he said, quietly. "Whose cat is that?"

"It's Lydia's." Dean's voice came out too fast. "She's my oldest friend. She had a rough year. She keeps some things at my place."

"You told me you were allergic," I said.

"I am. To other cats."

A woman by the elevators made a small sound that she turned into a cough.

Dean put a hand on my arm.

I pulled it away.

"Sir," Dean said, turning his whole body toward the older man. "I'm so sorry. Maddie has been under a lot of stress. Her mother passed, and she hasn't really..."

"My mother died nine years ago," I said.

My voice did not shake, and I was proud of that.

"I'm not stressed. I'm informed."

Somebody laughed, one short bark, and stopped.

"We are done, Dean," I said. "Don't text me. Don't come to my building. Don't tell anyone I'm unwell."

"Maddie..."

"I know what the door sounds like when you close it."

I turned around and walked to the glass doors.

Behind me I heard the senior partner say, in the same quiet voice, "My office, Dean. Now."

I felt every eye in the lobby on my back, and for the first time in three years I did not feel like I was waiting for anyone.

Outside, the morning was bright and cold.

I stood on the sidewalk with my hands shaking at last, and Bea's van pulled up to the curb.

She had been parked across the street for half an hour.

She rolled down the window.

"Did you do it?" she said.

"I did it."

"Did he cry?"

"He told a room full of lawyers he's allergic to other people's cats."

Bea hit the steering wheel with both palms and screamed.

I climbed in, and for four blocks we both laughed until it turned into something else, and she handed me napkins from the glove box without saying a word.

At the red light on Wacker, my phone buzzed.

It was a text from Dean.

Dean: You just humiliated me at work. I hope you're happy. Lydia is going to be so upset.

Lydia is going to be upset.

He had not asked if I was all right.

He had not said sorry.

He was worried about her.

I put my phone face down on my knee.

It buzzed again, and this time it was an email from the owner of Eastside Animal Hospital, who never wrote to anyone.

Subject: Complaint, client L. Stroud. Please call me before your shift.

Below it, one line: A client says you followed her to her home and filmed her.

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