Irreparable Harm (A Legal Thriller)

by Melissa F. Miller

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Sasha hadn’t expected to see many people in the office at this hour. Someone must have called some trusted secretaries to come in early because a tight cluster of veterans gathered in front of the reception desk. The room was heavy with their shock and sadness. Lettie caught her eye as she walked by and freed herself from the hushed conversation.

  “Sasha, wait.” Lettie’s eyes were red and puffy. Sasha felt like crying herself just looking at her.

  “Lettie.”

  Lettie rubbed Sasha’s arm, “Are you okay? I know you and Noah were ... close.”

  Sasha ignored the unasked question about her relationship with Peterson. “It’s unbelievable. His poor wife.”

  Lettie nodded. “Listen, Mr. Prescott asked me to help out with contacting Mr. Peterson’s clients and getting his files in order. He gave Jenny the day off.”

  That sounded like something Charles Anderson Prescott, V,—Cinco, behind his back, and to his friends, too, for all Sasha knew—would do. Cinco had inherited his place in the world, despite a complete lack of legal talent. He was the chair of the firm, responsible for managing more than eight hundred lawyers and staff. That was his excuse for not practicing law. The truth was Cinco couldn’t find a persuasive legal argument with both hands and a flashlight. This bad fact was compounded by his regal bearing, which had an unfortunate tendency to enrage judges, who were the only kings in their courtrooms —even the female ones.

  It worked out, because Cinco busied himself with running the operations and dealing with the staff. He left dealing with the lawyers and their demands to the various firm committees on practice development, professional development, business development, and whatever other kind of development could be identified and governed by committee. The staff seemed to like him fine, probably because he did things like give a secretary the day off when her boss of twenty-some years died.

  Sasha figured he was at least partially responsible for the free coffee, so he was okay by her, too. Even though he had introduced himself to her at no fewer than four firm events, to the point where she was thinking she might give him a fake name the next time she “met” him.

  Losing Lettie for the day was not going to work, though. Peterson’s death would throw the Hemisphere Air team into disarray, not to mention the other cases Sasha was handling with or for him.

  “I can’t . . .”

  Lettie cut her off, “I got Flora to sit for you. I left very detailed instructions for her. It’ll be fine.”

  Lettie’s gray eyes were set. Sasha could see this was a matter of loyalty to the firm for her secretary. There was no point in arguing with her. It was only one day.

  “Okay. Thanks for getting me coverage.” She turned to leave.

  “He told me to have you come to his office when you arrived.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Prescott.”

  Cinco had summoned her? That was not how things worked at Prescott & Talbott. There were several layers of insulation between Cinco and someone like her. Her stomach tightened and she wondered what he wanted.

  Only one way to find out. Out of habit, she headed for the stairs instead of the elevator. She used the time hoofing up the eight flights to gather her thoughts.

  She stopped in the hallway outside his personal secretary’s office and realized she was not sure exactly how one announced oneself for a meeting with Charles Anderson Prescott, V.

  She rapped on the walnut-paneled door.

  “Come in,” called a refined voice with a hint of a English accent.

  Sasha pushed open the door. Caroline Masters, Cinco’s secretary, had her own small but tasteful office outside his. It was decorated in warm colors. A pair of formal, striped chairs sat in front of a burnished walnut desk. Classical music played, just barely audible.

  Caroline smiled, “Good morning, Ms. McCandless. Mr. Prescott is expecting you. Can I offer you a drink?” She waved a manicured hand, weighed down by an emerald ring, over a tray that held a tea service and a coffee carafe.

  She looked exactly like a secretary to a man like Cinco would look. Trim, pretty, and ageless, not flashy or memorable. Sasha realized the description also fit his wife.

  Sasha resisted the impulse to hide her own unpolished, unadorned fingers behind her back. “No, thank you.”

  “Very good.” She pressed a button on her telephone and announced, “Sasha McCandless is here, sir.” She waited a moment and then said, “Please go in.”

  Sasha eased open the door to Cinco’s inner sanctum and stepped through. She blinked. Prescott & Talbott lore had it that Cinco’s office was over the top and had to be seen to be believed, but she had never gotten a description. She had expected to walk into a moneyed attorney’s office, full of dark, gleaming wood, oriental carpet, loads of bookshelves and gold-framed certificates, diplomas, and pictures of the neglected family. Something in keeping with the décor of Caroline’s space and the rest of the firm.

  But Cinco’s office was one of a kind. The walls were painted bright orange and there was not a diploma, certificate, or family portrait to be seen. A single piece of art hung on the long wall to the right of the door. It was an enormous black and white print of a nude woman’s backside. It focused on the curve of her hip, the rise of her butt, and a long tangle of hair streaming to the small of her back, nothing graphic.

  She turned from the picture to where she expected Cinco’s desk to be. But, instead of sitting behind the standard-issue hulking executive desk, Cinco stood behind some sort of lectern or podium. Two enormous white leather captain’s chairs flanked it. She saw no computer, no books, and no phone, although his secretary had just buzzed him, so he had to have a phone hidden somewhere in the office.

  “Sasha, please have a seat.” He moved out from behind the podium and sat in the chair to the right of it, waving her into the one on the left.

  She complied. The seat was so high that her feet dangled several inches above the floor.

  They looked at each other.

  “You wanted to see me?” She didn’t know what else to say. Obviously, he wanted to see her; associates didn’t just pop in for a visit with the chair of the firm.

  “Yes. While the partners are still grappling with the loss of our friend, our duty to the firm and its clients means we need to put aside our grief and take care of Noah’s caseload.” He nodded, as if to say, and that is that.

  Sasha found herself nodding along, her feet swinging as she did.

  “At the risk of seeming. . .,” he paused and pursed his lips, “crass, I note that you will be a candidate for partnership in the spring.”

  She nodded faster, keeping time with her heartbeat now. Jesus, these guys were shameless.

  “You’re highly regarded by the litigation department. Not only did Noah trust your judgment, but others speak well of you also.”

  He glanced at his lap and she noticed that he was holding a notecard. “Mmm. Kevin Marcus called you a rising star.”

  He met her gaze and then the eyes went back to his notes. “Several clients, including UPMC and Myron Construction have shared glowing reviews of your work.”

  None of this was news. Marcus was the deputy managing partner for the litigation department. She’d worked with him on several matters, and he was responsible for giving the associates their annual reviews. The in-house attorneys in the clients’ legal departments—big firm refugees who knew how the system worked—had blind copied her on the laudatory e-mails so she’d have a set when the partnership decision was made. She waited for him to get to the point.

  He frowned. “In fact, Hemisphere Air has asked that you take over responsibility for the crash litigation.”

  That was news. “Bob Metz asked for me?”

  “No.” Another frown. “Vivian Coulter asked—no, insisted—that you take over.”

  Viv? Sasha turned that one over in her mind as he went on.

  “As a former partner, Vivian well knows that it is simpl
y not done here. Associates, no matter how senior and valued they may be, do not run large cases like a multidistrict litigation without partner supervision, guidance, and oversight.” No need for his notes for this part, she noticed. “This policy is out of concern for associate professional development, not to mention malpractice exposure.”

  He fixed Sasha with another long look, then he stressed, “We would never do that.”

  She remembered a conversation she’d overheard between two of her brothers when they were in college. She couldn’t have been older than twelve, maybe thirteen. She’d passed by the door to the bedroom they shared when they were home on breaks and heard Ryan laughing at Patrick.

  “Ry, you don’t get it. She says she never does that.”

  “No, Patrick, you don’t get it. Lydia does give blow jobs. She gave you one.”

  Sasha had frozen in the hallway, her stomach fluttering at the news that sweet Lydia, Patrick’s girlfriend was that kind of girl.

  Now, she focused on keeping her expression neutral while Cinco worked to convince both of them that he really wasn’t a slut.

  “But, Hemisphere Air is a very important client, so we’ve decided to honor their request. You need to understand that the firm will be watching closely. This case will impact your prospects—for good or for ill.”

  He flashed a tight smile.

  In the past twelve hours, she’d beaten up a federal agent, found a corpse in a dumpster, learned that her mentor and friend had died, and driven two hundred and fifty miles, give or take. She was being stalked. There was a good chance whoever had blown up Flight 1667 would strike again. And she was pretty sure the plaintiff’s attorney across the street was responsible for all or most of it.

  Now, Charles Anderson Prescott, V, from the comfort of his captain’s chair, was telling her she was going to run a multimillion dollar class action defense and the firm would use it as an excuse to deny her partnership if anything went wrong.

  She wondered if the job description for Cinco’s secretary included protecting him from bodily harm. She gave herself a minute to imagine delivering a solid palm heel strike to his chin.

  Then she smiled back and said, “Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Prescott.”

  He waved the gratitude away, “I’m sure you’ll acquit yourself well.”

  It sounded like she was being dismissed. She slid off the chair. Cinco stood to see her out, checking his notecard one last time to make sure he’d covered everything.

  “Oh, yes. There’s a class certification hearing this morning in another of Noah’s cases. The caption is Jefferson v. VitaMight, Inc. My understanding is Noah and plaintiff’s counsel had reached an agreement in principle to settle. You just need to appear to let the court know about Noah’s death, assuming news has not already traveled, and explain that the parties are working out the details of the settlement. Noah had apparently been intending to file papers to that effect yesterday afternoon but never got to it.”

  “Got it.” It sounded pretty simple.

  He walked her to the door and said, “Good luck.”

  Caroline had the VitaMight file ready to hand to Sasha as she walked through the outer office and returned to the real world.