A/N: Sincere apologies for the length of time between updates. I blame chronic eye problems and Microsoft. Please excuse if spacing is wonky. Had to repair and reinstall Word, which messed up my files. The story is complete, and will be posted as chapters are edited. Thank you for your patience and comments! ~ OED

Chapter 14

"Was it as bad as you thought it would be?"

"Yes," Della nodded. "It was painful for Hannah and for every single person in the courtroom."

"Baby, I –"

"I don't understand why you cross examined her like that," she interrupted quickly, "aside from the fact she had a very good reason to hate her uncle."

"Then mission accomplished?"

She stared out the window for a moment before replying, elbows propped on the ledge, chin resting in her hands. "It's nothing to be proud of, Perry. You destroyed Hannah to save Kaitlynn." Della suspected that for most of her life poor Hannah Hawkes had been destroyed by one thing or another.

"I don't know about that. I thought she was swell. For the record, Hannah knew exactly what I was doing. And also for the record, our client happens to be Kaitlynn, not Hannah."

She didn't want to talk about Hannah Hawkes any more. Lately there were a lot of things she didn't want to talk about, and as always he was more than happy to remain quiet about those things."I couldn't believe how much latitude both Judge Macauley and Robert Norrell allowed you in regard to the reputation of Lon Hawkes."

He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, primarily to stifle a yawn. "It was a surprise when Judge Macauley overruled the objection to Hannah's statement about Lon Hawkes being a violent man. Did you notice Norrell's frown after he failed to object when Hannah said Kaitlynn didn't kill Lon Hawkes?"

She let out a vocal yawn while he battled to suppress his. "I noticed. If he could have kicked himself, he would have."

He finally gave in to the yawn. "I think he'll receive that kick from the DA himself. Stop yawning."

This time it was she attempting to hold back the inevitable yawn and failing miserably. "You kept me up too late last night."

"I kept you up? I didn't start it."

Della had the grace to blush. "Your pacing made me restless." She had come across some interesting information about Sam Wald, the best man and employee of Max Parrish that she hoped would deter Perry from going after Hannah, but all it did was give him another angle of the case to obsessively pace over until she had literally tackled him.

He grinned. "Add to the record I like it when you're restless."

She didn't want to talk about last night almost as much as she didn't want to talk about Gary's overlooked, overshadowed sibling Hannah. If they continued to talk about their private escapades it would only make the remainder of the day unbearably uncomfortable in so many delicious ways, and it wouldn't be in Kaitlynn's best interest for him to be distracted in court. "You might have been able to extract what you wanted from Hannah, but in my opinion it wasn't your best courtroom moment."

"You're not happy with me at all today, are you?" He glanced at his watch. They only had fifteen more minutes of recess remaining, and the conference room they were in was two floors above the courtroom. Sensing how disappointed she was about Hannah's cross examination, he had avoided the Parrish clan by announcing he and Della needed to confer on the next witness. Too bad they couldn't 'confer' the way they had the night before...

"Not in regard to the trial," she replied very softly, eyes lowered. "In other matters I'm extremely happy. Considering what we have on Sam Wald, I hoped you would leave Hannah alone."

"Darling, I didn't enjoy cross examining Hannah. It was something I had to do in order to present the best defense for Kaitlynn, even in light of the information you found on Sam Wald. You of all people should understand that."

Della heaved a huge sigh. "I do understand. But I don't have to like it." She suddenly stood and grabbed her purse from the window ledge. "I need to visit the little girl's room."

"Make it snappy," he called after her. "We have exactly twelve minutes to get back to court."

She turned, snapped her fingers loudly three times, and stuck out her tongue.

They hadn't seen each other in nearly four months and he was nervous anticipating the moment she would walk through the doors of the cocktail lounge. He had arrived fifteen minutes early, freshly showered and shaved; wearing a new navy suit, a crisp white shirt, and paisley silk tie embellished with a gold tie bar.

Because she was a sucker for tie bars.

He held no illusions that this meeting would be anything but a full stop punctuation mark on their wonderful, messy, painful, joyous twenty-seven year adventure of a life together, and he owed her civility after months of embarrassingly bad behavior. He still didn't understand why she insisted they both should explore other possibilities, and had in fact introduced him to a handsome possibility named Bryce Hummel, so he needed to put his best foot forward.

To say he was traumatized by their separation was understatement on a gargantuan scale. He immersed himself in alcohol, which he sincerely believed kept him sane after long days trying to hold emotions in check at work and not let slip anything was amiss, but what it really did was turn him into a raving lunatic – a veritable Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He shouted abominable things from his pulverized soul whenever they spoke; and sometimes she actually shouted back, which she had never done before, ever. She threatened a restraining order when he showed up unannounced at her house for the third time, tanked to the gills, because she didn't answer her phone. He caught the red-eye back to San Francisco with the harshest words she had ever uttered seared into his barely functioning brain.

The next day when several fellow judges chastised him for his unkempt appearance and the conspicuous cologne de bourbon that wafted from his person he had to admit he was in trouble.

"You need a haircut," Her Honor Alice Hemmings critiqued.

"You need to eat better," Her Honor Martha Johnson recommended.

"You need a Turkish bath," His Honor Horace Ingraham advised.

"You need to have that suit pressed," His Honor Alexander Coffey suggested.

"You need sleep," His Honor Edward Newman counseled.

They all meant well, but none of them knew what he really needed: he needed the love of his life.

He didn't want to confide in anyone what was happening in his personal life and sincerely appreciated that his descent into slovenliness had been noticed, but not thrilled that despite his best attempts to act as if everything was just dandy he was the topic of gossip for weeks. All of his associates had met the best part of him and socialized with her on many occasions, which is why he was keeping the break-up to himself until she convinced him there was no hope.

He stopped drinking, got a haircut, took all his suits to the cleaners, treated himself to a four-star meal, and didn't call her for a week. It was she who broke the silence because she was worried about him. Their conversation was awkwardly pleasant, and for the past four months they had spoken with pleasant awkwardness several times.

He was completely alone in the lounge with the bartender, a good-looking young man who was either a college student or an aspiring actor, and who wore an engraved name badge that read 'Troy'. He had spoken innocuously with the young man as he seated himself at the end of a long, curving bar and ordered two Bloody Mary cocktails with pickle and olive garnishes to be served when his companion joined him.

She arrived precisely on time, which was late for her. It was Friday, and she had left work to meet him at this relatively early hour of 11:00 a.m., admitting to him she was taking the afternoon off for appointments and errands.

Should he give her a quick hug? Innocently peck her on the cheek? Impersonally shake her hand? Take her in his arms and grind her against the bar? He settled for sliding off his stool and pulling out another for her, which she seated herself upon with sublime grace.

She was very business-like in a smartly cut brown suit, and ecru collarless blouse, hair pushed behind delicate ears, exposing those incredible cheekbones, her jewelry familiarly old and gold. "Hi." It was the only thing he could say in the face of her beauty.

"Hello," she replied.

Troy placed two tall glasses in front of them and silently withdrew to the middle service station of the bar where he busied himself polishing glassware.

"Thank you for ordering. This is exactly what the doctor ordered."

He glanced sideways at her, admiring her fine profile. "Tough day?"

"No more than usual." She stirred the lusciously spicy cocktail before taking a hearty sip. "It's always hectic when I try to take time off for appointments."

He admired how adroitly she reminded him there was a limit on their time together, letting him know she was in control of the meeting. He was fine with that. "Would you like something to eat?"

She shook her head. "I have a luncheon engagement at one."

A luncheon engagement. It was unlike her to use such a formal phrase, which meant she actually had a 'lunch date' and was trying to spare his feelings. His stomach flip-flopped. She would have a cocktail with him and lunch with Bryce Hummel, the possibilities guy who'd replaced him in her mind, in her heart, and in her...he forced his mind not to finish the thought of where else he may have been replaced. "I'm glad you could work me into your schedule." He almost said 'busy schedule', but thought it might antagonize her.

"I didn't ask you to meet for small talk," she said a trifle sharply, turning to face him. "Now that we can speak civilly to one another I thought it was time to establish some ground rules."

"Ground rules for what?"

She returned her attention to the Bloody Mary, which was two-thirds gone already. "For how we go forward from here...for the...future."

He lifted his index finger ever so slightly and Troy magically appeared with two fresh drinks. "So...we have a future?"

She noisily crunched the pickle from Bloody Mary number one. "We both have futures."

"Do you see these futures intersecting at any time?"

She started on Bloody Mary number two. "Perry, nothing has changed."

She had been telling him myriad versions of the same thing for months. She wasn't happy with him and hadn't been for some time. The glimmer of hope he'd subsisted on since agreeing to see her sputtered. "I don't know how to live without you."

"You've managed to survive in San Francisco without me for several years." She hoped he understood her pointed response.

"Surviving isn't living. And I wasn't ever really without you until recently. I love you. I need you." It really was that simple for him. It used to be that simple for her, too.

She lowered her eyes. "I don't love you like that anymore, Perry. I'm no longer your secretary or your companion...or whatever I was." It struck her suddenly that in all their years together they had never actually defined exactly what 'they' were. Publically they were employer/employee; to friends and family they were one and the same with no separation: DellaandPerry; privately they were friends and lovers. An argument could be made, which he did often, that they were affianced; Exhibit A his mother's emerald; Exhibit B the antique amethyst; Exhibit C the pinky ring.

"You were everything." She elevated his life from black and white to vivid Technicolor like Dorothy stepping over the threshold to Oz with just one smile. It had taken a breathtaking ten seconds to fall hopelessly in love with her; two long years to tell her; and twenty-seven exhilarating years to eventually make her unhappy enough to leave.

"So were you," she admitted quietly. "But the last few years...it wasn't enough. I wasn't happy. Maybe what we had really was just –"

"Don't say it –"

"The work."

"You won't let me make things right," he argued, his temper getting the better of him, his deep voice rising because she'd said it, the one thing he had always been afraid of. "I tried to make things right for five years. I tried to make you happy. Right is you and me, Della. Happy is you and me. I know it was the mistake of all mistakes to serve out Harvey's term. But I made a promise."

Her eyes were bright with tears as she looked at him. "You made a promise to me first," she reminded him.

"And I kept that promise!" he fairly shouted, her tears distressing him now every bit as much as they ever had.

Troy quickly moved further down the bar from them.

"Maybe we're not talking about the same promise, Perry. Do I need to formally release you from the all the promises you made? You don't owe me anything. It was a hell of a ride...but it's over. If we're honest with one another it was over the moment you accepted serving out Harvey's appointment." She paused. If she was honest with herself, it actually ended the evening she picked up the telephone and spoke to his 'friend' Laura Parrish.

"I may have bent a couple of promises, but there is one promise I will never, ever break. I love you more than anything in my life, Della Katherine Street." His voice was a husky whisper. "You weren't the first I said that to, but you are the last."

"Perry, that promise…the reason behind it doesn't exist anymore. The promise doesn't exist anymore."

He rubbed one hand with the other, the anxious habit she knew so well. "Don't do this, Della."

She idly twirled the pickle of Bloody Mary number two in the dregs of vodka-infused tomato juice. "We need ground rules," she repeated.

"You said that already." He bobbed his head once and Troy was there with round number three within seconds.

"We've shared a lot. It won't be easy untangling everything. We need..." she looked up at the ceiling, searching for the right word. "Parameters."

"Parameters? Like a contract?"

She cocked her head to the left and tried to focus wavering vision on his oh, so handsome face. "A contract. Yes. A contract would be perfect."

"Should we engage an attorney?"

She frowned. "That seems excessive given the fact you are an attorney."

"Ah, but an attorney who represents himself is foolish."

She laughed. "Or something like that."

"Or something like that," he agreed, signaling Troy, who was quickly at their disposal. "Troy my man, do you know who we are?"

Troy regarded the exceptionally attractive couple seated at the bar with serious blue eyes. "Sir, I recently graduated from the Stanford School of Law and am taking the bar exam next month. I wouldn't be my worth in salt if I didn't know who you are. However, I wouldn't admit it, even under oath."

He scrutinized the young man through the giddy effects of two-and-a-half relatively strong cocktails after having abstained from alcohol for several weeks. "How did you do in contracts?"

Troy stared the renowned attorney in the eye. "Well enough to want to make them my specialty."

The most famous legal secretary in California lifted Bloody Mary number three in a toast as her former employer pulled an expertly fanned stack of cocktail napkins toward him and uncapped the expensive Waterman Safety fountain pen she had given him early in their relationship when he had nearly spoiled everything. "Well, this is certainly a fortunate circumstance. We are in desperate need of a contract attorney." She beckoned Troy to lean closer and jerked her thumb sideways. "He pays very well. I speak from experience."

Troy could barely contain a smile as he indicated the empty cocktail lounge. "I'm at your disposal."

Ken Malansky and Gary Hawkes were seated at the Defense table when Perry and Della returned to court, with five minutes to spare.

Ken jumped to his feet. "Perry! We thought you'd never get here."

"I'm here now," Perry replied impatiently. "Have you heard from...what's her name?"

"Rocky," Ken supplied. "No, I haven't been able to get hold of her."

"Ken," Perry growled, "we need to find the girl on that concert pass."

Ken held up his hands. "I know, I know. The bad news is that so far Rocky's club has turned out to be a dud. I've called a dozen times and there is no answer. Either Rocky's not there or the phone is unplugged."

"Have you considered actually dropping by the club to find out?"

Ken's face grew red. "I have," he began defensively, "but there are so many other things...the good news is I think I know what was in that envelope Lon Hawkes was waving around at the wedding."

"Go ahead," Perry said with a hint of sarcasm to his voice, "we're all friends here. You can tell us."

Gary Hawkes pursed his lips, stared at the ceiling, and whistled tunelessly to himself, uncomfortable with the exchange between his fiancée's attorney and the attorney's arrogant associate. He would have liked to tell Perry Mason what they had found out about the bootleg cassette tapes himself but Ken had been adamant that he be the one to deliver the report.

Della sat down and busied herself with making certain documents for the next scheduled witness to be called were in the proper order, unperturbed by a typical conversation between Perry Mason and Ken Malansky.

Ken's face turned almost purple. "It was his wedding present to Gary. One hundred thousand dollars extorted from Kaitlynn's record company, paid by Jake Lubin, head of the record company."

"What!" Della exclaimed, looking up from the paperwork spread out in front of her.

Ken nodded. "That's what Lon probably meant when he said his gift would show everybody he was just as good as Max Parrish. Max and Laura Parrish gave Kaitlynn and Gary fifty thousand dollars for a down payment on a house."

Perry stroked his chin thoughtfully, eyes steely blue staring at Gary Hawkes, as the young man continued to avoid looking at anyone in particular. No one had mentioned a gift of fifty thousand dollars from Max Parrish. Why did clients never seem to understand when their attorney says he needs to know everything, it means everything? "One hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. So, we have another motive for murder and another suspect." Perry sat down heavily. "All right you two. Find that girl on the pass before he does."

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