Water's Edge Read Free

The first person Tom saw was a middle-aged paralegal who spent half her time working on Crutchfield files. His firing wouldn’t be the only fallout crashing down from the thirty-seventh floor. He resisted the urge to grab the woman and suggest she clock out early so she could take her ten-year-old son to Chastain Park and play catch with a Frisbee. Tom avoided making eye contact with anyone until he reached his office and shut the door. Plopping down in his chair, he swiveled to the side and looked out the window. Stone Mountain hadn’t moved; Tom’s world had crumbled like a dried clump of red clay.

chapter
TWO
    O n the corner of Tom’s desk was a glass paperweight, a gift from his father, shaped like a miniature rainbow trout. Beneath the paperweight were John Crane’s last words, a typically cryptic message delivered to Tom’s administrative assistant. The phone call came in while Tom was out of town taking depositions. Before Tom could return the call, he’d received the news that John Crane had drowned. Tom removed the paperweight and, for the hundredth time, read the note:
    I’ve been fishing in a new spot, and the water is too deep for me. Can you come home for a few days and help me out?
    Tom crumpled the note and threw it in the trash. It was time to get rid of the worthless stuff he’d accumulated during his time at the firm. A message from his father that didn’t make sense was a good place to start. Tom had emptied two drawers of his desk when the phone buzzed.
    “Clarice is on line 750,” his assistant said.
    Tom’s girlfriend worked in the marketing department of a major soft-drink manufacturer. In her world, success was measured by a half-percent increase in sales to the Brazilian market.
    “I’m trying to decide the best colors to include in a pie chart,” she said in her slightly shrill voice. “Do you think it’s tacky to put magenta next to yellow? The new outfit I bought last week, you know, the one with the magenta top and yellow sweater, looks nice, doesn’t it? That’s what gave me the idea.”
    “They go well together. And you look super in the outfit.” Tom paused for a second. “I just got fired.”
    “Fired from what?” The natural tension in Clarice’s voice ratcheted up a notch.
    “My job. They called it a staffing consolidation, but the end result is the same.”
    “What did you do wrong?”
    “Nothing.”
    “That doesn’t make any sense.”
    Tom told her about the meeting with the senior partners without revealing the names of the clients involved.
    “At first I thought you meant you’d been fired by one of your clients,” Clarice said in a more subdued voice when he finished. “Where are you now?”
    “In my office.”
    “They didn’t seize your computer and escort you out of the building? That’s what happens here when someone gets axed.”
    “No. McGraw asked me to work to the end of the day.”
    “Do you think they’re letting you down easy? I mean, there had to be something you messed up.”
    So far, Clarice was failing miserably in the comforting words department.
    “No.”
    “Didn’t Brett Bollinger recommend you for his position?”
    “Yeah, but I guess his influence ended when he left the firm. I don’t have a clue why I became a target.”
    The phone was silent for a moment.
    “Did you miss a statue of limitations? A girl in our legal department did that last month and got canned on the spot.”
    “It’s statute of limitations. And no, I didn’t.”
    “Don’t try to make me look dumb,” Clarice replied with a snort. “I’m doing my best to help.”
    “Of course you are. Look, I’m pretty shook up. I’ll see you at home.”
    “I have to work late, so don’t forget to pick up dinner. I’m in the mood for Chinese again. You’ll feel better after you drink a glass of wine and eat a couple of spring rolls.”
    Clarice ended the call. Tom placed his phone on the desk. It was going to take more than wine and spring rolls to get