MONDAY, OCTOBER 8
Monday morning Jaime arrived at work later than usual. Her sleep had been interrupted by her parents’ doubts and disbelief, making her ignore her alarm. Then Caroline had jumped in front of her for the bathroom, and Jaime had let her.
Shouldn’t she feel better after the long conversation with her parents, that the barrier between them had been exposed? She had tried hard not to blame her mother in her retelling, but the woman had left the apartment looking like she’d been gutted.
The work was piled up on her desk, another three cases added over the weekend and more coming. Looked like the police had been busy.
Her intercom buzzed, and she jerked from the file she was reviewing. “Yes?”
“The boss wants to see you. I’d hurry.” The urgency in Gina the receptionist’s voice caught her attention.
“All right. I’ll be there as soon as I’m done with this file.”
“He said immediately.” Gina’s voice lowered. “I think he’s serious, Jaime.”
“Okay. On my way.” She clicked the intercom off and collected a notepad and pen. A minute later she rapped on Grant Joshua’s door. “You wanted to see me?”
He looked up from a document he was holding. “We have a problem. Take a seat.”
“All right.” In her job a problem could be any of a dozen things. “What happened?”
“Read for yourself.” He handed her the papers.
She took them and scanned the letter on top, and her hands began to tremble as she absorbed the heading. “An ethics complaint? Really?”
Why would the Virginia State Bar threaten to steal what mattered most to her, what she had worked so hard to create? She could sense her legal career teetering on the brink.
Grant spoke. “This leaves me no choice.”
She jerked her gaze from the form to her boss. “What do you mean?”
He leaned back, hands clasped over his trim middle. The man managed to run mini-marathons while operating the Alexandria County Public Defender’s office on a shoestring budget. The caseload alone should have him reaching for a Krispy Kreme every chance he got, but he directed all his energy into his work and his running.
“This ethics complaint forces me to put you on leave. It’ll be paid for two weeks while we wait to see what direction it goes.”
“Two weeks? That’s not even time for them to decide what kind of investigation this will get.”
“It’s that or resign.”
Jaime opened and closed her mouth, but no sound escaped. She swallowed and forced back the fog gathering in her mind. She had worked too hard to get where she was. She wasn’t walking away without a fight. “I have a trial next week. In fact, I should be preparing for it right now.” She thrust the paper back at him, but Grant stayed infuriatingly distant behind his desk.
“I’ll give the trial to Evan Reagan. He can get a continuance.”
“But it’s my case. I’ve spent six months wrangling with the prosecutor and preparing witnesses.”
“Give your notes to Evan. He’ll be fine.”
Evan was so wet behind the ears; she didn’t know how he afforded this job with the years of student loans he must have. “But . . .” She sputtered to a stop as Grant raised a hand.
“Grab what you need for two weeks. Consider it a paid vacation. Get a good attorney, fight the disciplinary action, and we’ll talk when it’s settled.”
“That’ll take more than two weeks.” Her shoulders slumped as she read the hard determination along his jaw. He wasn’t budging.
“We’ll reevaluate later.” He finally leaned forward, as if engaged in the conversation for the first time. “Jaime, you’re one of my best defenders. The fire you have is something I wish I could give all my attorneys, but you can’t do your job while you’re distracted by this. Take care of the charge, then come back ready to protect the innocent and provide a fair trial for the guilty.”
She studied him another minute, then pushed to her feet. Nothing she said would matter, so she might as well get started with a plan to salvage her career. “Yes, sir.”
She turned toward the door. If she was really going on this “sabbatical,” then she needed to get the Parron file ready to hand to Evan. All six banker boxes of it.
“Jaime?”
She sighed and turned back. “Yes, sir.”
“Better take this with you.” He fluttered the stupid packet in his fingers.
She snatched it from him, trying to hide the darkness that wanted to snarl out of her. Why had he seen it before her anyway? It had been addressed to her and should have landed on her desk.
“Jaime.” There was warning in his tone.
“This wasn’t addressed to you.”
“Take a break.” The words were a hard order.
“Yes, sir.”
Whipping around before he could see the moisture edging into her eyes, she gritted her teeth and strode toward her office, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. When she reached the safety of her office, she slammed the door behind her. Let them hear.
She leaned against the closed door, all the fight leaching away. Her battered desk was ancient gray metal of some sort that had surely seen service during World War II, but it was hers. Or had been. She sank into her chair, fingers stroking the arms where the fake leather had rubbed away to soft nubs.
Her mind felt as blank as her computer monitor, dark in sleep mode. She should pull up her trial notes on the Parron matter for Evan, but she didn’t want to. This was her case. She reread the letter from the Virginia State Bar. Disciplinary proceedings? Her?
She was careful, meticulous, committed to giving her clients the best defense possible. She stared at the figurine of Michelangelo’s David where it sat next to her phone. Few people realized that the seemingly perfect statue came from an unfinished, marred block of Carrara marble. Even fewer realized there was a fault in one of David’s feet that could cause the entire statue to crumble, one reason he had been placed precisely in position at the Academia in Florence—to minimize vibrations.
That’s how her life felt: one fault line away from fracturing into a million pieces that could never be recreated into a shadow of who she’d become.
A rap at her door pulled her head from her study of the replica.
Evan Reagan stood there, looking lanky and untried in his off-the-rack suit that hung on his frame. “Grant told me to see you about Parron.”
She gave him the first of the boxes and promised to email him anything else he might need. As he walked away, her gaze landed on the ethics letter again. She needed help, so she called the person she could rely on. “Savannah, do you have a minute?”
“I was getting ready to call you. I need your perspective on a potential client.”
“You’ve already got a team of good attorneys there.” Some of the best Jaime knew.
“Yes, but if what I’ve heard is correct, this case needs you. Can you get away?”
There was the tone that communicated Savannah needed her and knew she’d respond. What else could she do for the woman who had helped her survive law school and find a practice she enjoyed?
“This client is one you won’t want to miss. We meet in twenty minutes.”
Jaime sighed, but it was worthless to argue. And besides, she suddenly had a completely free schedule. “Actually, I can come, but I don’t know about twenty minutes.”
But Savannah had already hung up in that abrupt yet endearing way of hers.
She knew Jaime would come because Jaime understood Savannah wouldn’t ask if she didn’t mean it. Savannah didn’t waste anyone’s time, least of all her own.
The heavy box Jaime carried as she left the office was filled with the things she thought she might need, but its weight was nothing compared to the heaviness of heart. The elevator took her down to the lobby. She needed to step out, carry the box to her car, and drive away from the only job that mattered to her. Despite assurances, she knew the paid leave wouldn’t last. Her days at the public defender’s office could end if the ethics charge stuck.
The elevator doors began to slide shut, but she didn’t move.
Why not ride back up?
Then down.
She had no reason to stay.
No reason to leave.
The doors opened again and a man in a suit, someone she vaguely recognized from some meet and greet, entered. “Which floor?”
“First.” She refused to make eye contact. This wasn’t a day in which she could hoist her shield and keep people from seeing how shattered she was. A stranger could take one look at her and read her soul.
And today that would not be a pretty sight.
Then she inhaled, and her breath froze as the man’s cologne tickled her nose. That scent. She was instantly back in her uncle’s apartment and felt the pressure of blackness. She tried to tell herself that the man in the elevator wasn’t her uncle, even if he wore the same cologne.
The doors opened, and she couldn’t move.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded because she couldn’t find a drop of saliva in her throat to lubricate words.
The man held the door for her, and Jaime reluctantly exited. She placed one foot in front of the other, her heels clicking against the fake marble as she made her way across the lobby, through the door that led to the parking garage, and then down the second elevator to where her old sedan was parked. She opened the trunk and set the box inside. Then she scurried to the driver’s side, climbed in, and locked the door. Her breath gushed in and out, and she tried to slow down.
This wasn’t the way her life was going to play out. In a broken-down car leaving a broken-down career. She had a vision and purpose.
It didn’t matter that the ethics claim was fabricated. Her boss had no tolerance for anything that might undercut his authority in the courtroom. Today that “anything” was her. Tomorrow it could be some other unsuspecting attorney who was faithfully doing the job.
She tossed her purse into the passenger seat and then lowered her head until it hit the steering wheel.
The scent of the stranger’s cologne still lingered in her nose.
She wanted to be brave, to pretend her world wasn’t crashing around her head, but she couldn’t. She stayed where she was, wishing she could cry. Instead, she gulped huge lungfuls of air and tried to calm her thoughts and pretend she was in control.
The problem was she wasn’t.
She hadn’t been this out of control since she was eight years old.
She’d vowed to never place herself in a vulnerable position again. Well, she wouldn’t. Her jaw tightened and her fingers clenched. There had to be a way to make this whole mess disappear.