Heat Wave Read Online Free PDF Page A

all…?” She rose to her feet.
    Stuart stood, too. “That’s all,” he said.
“I’m sorry this happened.”
    “Believe me, so am I.” She nodded, pivoted,
and marched out of his office.
    She felt herself deflate as soon as she
reached her car in the faculty lot behind the school building. She
unlocked it and slumped onto the seat. Having baked in the summer
sun for the past seven hours, the Prius’s interior was hotter than
a blast furnace. She turned on the engine, cranked up the air
conditioning, and tried to think.
    What if Mr. Solomon’s
cryptic text meant something other than that her case was done?
What if it meant he’d done his best, but her fate remained in the
hands of the police department? What if it meant he’d given it a
shot and now was done with her? What if it meant she was done?
    If her car didn’t cool down soon, she’d be
well-done. She studied her hands, half-expecting to see her fingers
crisping up like strips of bacon in the scorching heat. Closing her
eyes, she tried to conjure a vision of this parking lot last
February, when the plows had left four-foot-tall heaps of snow
around the lot’s perimeter. The image failed to cool her down,
however. As soon as she visualized the snow, she visualized herself
wrapped in layers—turtleneck, cardigan, wool slacks, fleece-lined
boots, a down jacket, a knitted scarf, insulated gloves. She
quickly opened her eyes.
    Done . What if it didn’t mean what she’d thought?
    She pulled out her phone, reread the
attorney’s message, and then pressed the icon next to the phone
number from which he’d sent the text. His phone rang four times,
and then his voice broke in: “Caleb Solomon here. I can’t take your
call right now. Leave a message.”
    She bit back a curse, then scrolled through
the phone’s contact list until she found the number for his office.
He must have sent the text from his personal cell phone. Surely his
receptionist would answer the office phone.
    She did. “Chase, Mullen and Solomon,
Attorneys-at-Law,” she sing-songed. “May I help you?”
    “I need to speak to Caleb Solomon,” Meredith
said.
    “He’s with a client right now,” the
receptionist told her.
    Meredith almost retorted that she was a
client, too. But for one thing, she figured she couldn’t possibly
rank high among his clients. For another, she was a well-bred
southern woman. Even under threat of death, she’d be hard-pressed
to make rude demands. It just wasn’t in her.
    “Would it be possible to
talk to him when he’s finished with his client?” she asked. “Can I
call him back, or have him call me? It’s important.” She stumbled a
bit on that last word. It was important to her , certainly, concerning not just
her tenure but also her status with Stuart Kezerian, who seemed to
think she was the star of some students’ X-rated fantasies.
“Perhaps I could stop by his office—”
    “He’s not in his office right now,” the
receptionist said. “He’s…well, I guess they’re still setting up.
He’s holding a press conference on the steps of Town Hall. But I
don’t think he’ll want to be disturbed. I can have him call you
tomorrow, Ms…?”
    “No, that’s fine,” Meredith said, then
disconnected the call. He was holding a press conference on the
steps of Town Hall? Well, that sure put her in her place. The
client he was with right now was apparently worthy of a press
conference. Her trivial citation most definitely was not. Top
lawyers like Caleb Solomon had bigger fish to fry—and they weren’t
crawfish.
    Still, her tenure was
important to her, if not to anyone else. If by done , Mr. Solomon had meant he was
done with her, she needed to find someone else to help her get her
public indecency charge dismissed.
    Her car had cooled down enough for her to
drive. She ought to go straight home, take an icy shower, wrap
herself in a robe, and fill a glass with something simple and
potent. Chilled white wine would do.
    But her hands on the