Irreparable Harm (A Legal Thriller)
Page 54
Chapter 39
The offices of Prescott & Talbott
There was an actual line outside Sasha’s office door when she and Connelly arrived just before eight.
Naya, Parker, Joe, and—for reasons that escaped Sasha—Flora were leaning against the wall in that order.
“Should have installed a deli ticket machine,” Naya cracked as she followed them into the office and shut the door behind her.
Sasha could hear the hushed conversation on the other side as the knot of people tried to figure out who Connelly was.
“What’s up?”
Naya winked. “This fax came in for you this morning,” she said in a too-loud voice. “Looks like Mickey Collins is going to file an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order to ground some of Hemisphere Air’s planes.”
She handed Sasha a faxed copy of the motion and brief she had written the night before.
“He faxed it?” Nobody faxed anything anymore. Everything was scanned and e-mailed as a PDF. Or, if it was really big, put up on an FTP site.
“I guess he wanted word to spread, right?”
“I guess. Okay. I’ll take it from here. I don’t want you to be involved if it blows up.”
Connelly and Naya both winced at her choice of words.
“Sorry. You know what I mean.”
“What can I do?”
“See what Parker and Joe need. Then, send an e-mail around to the whole team and tell them I have to be in court today, but they can see you if they have any problems or questions.”
“I always get the crap assignment. You get to go argue against a motion that you wrote while I babysit.”
“Want to trade?”
“Hell, no. Hey, I had the copy center scan those papers. There’s a PDF in your e-mail, so you can forward it to Vivian.”
“You’re the best.”
“I really am, aren’t I?”
She walked out into the hall and told Parker and Joe to follow her to the workroom.
Flora grabbed the door before it closed all the way.
“Sasha?” she said from the hallway, poking just her head in, “Can I talk to you? It’ll only take a minute.”
“Come in. Where’s Lettie?”
“Uh, she’s here,” Flora said, shuffling into the room with her eyes down and her hands behind her back. “But, she and I thought, um, I should talk to you about something.”
Sasha noticed Flora had left the door ajar. Probably hoping that, with the door open, Sasha wouldn’t yell at her about whatever inane secretarial dispute she was coming to complain about.
“Flora, I’m really busy. Is this important?”
It was out of character for Lettie to involve her in the territorial squabbles that arose from time to time amongst the support staff.
Flora wrinkled her brow, confused, and glanced over at Connelly, as if he could help her. “I don’t know, I thought it was.”
From behind her back, she produced a UPS letter envelope.
“What’s that?”
The words poured out of Flora in a rush. “It’s the package you were waiting for yesterday. It must’ve come while I was at lunch or away from my desk helping someone. I didn’t notice it until last night when I was leaving, and you were on the phone.”
“You knew this was here last night and didn’t tell me?”
Flora appeared to be on the verge of tears. “I’m really sorry.”
She thrust the envelope at Sasha, eager to get rid of it.
Sasha was still for a minute, focusing on tamping down her temper. She took the package from Flora’s outstretched hand and looked at her, considering her response.
Flora waited.
“Just get out,” Sasha said in a soft voice.
Flora opened her mouth to speak.
“Out,” she repeated. Louder this time.
Flora got the hint and scurried out the door.
Connelly shut the door and they both stared at the envelope in disbelief.
Sasha used her letter opener to slice the envelope open. On Tuesday, Warner had addressed it to her. Hours later, he was in a dumpster in an alley.
She turned it upside down over her desk and a thumb drive fell out. A handwritten note fluttered out after it. She scanned it. It said nothing of import, but Warner had had neat, even handwriting.
She looked at the clock. 8:10.
She booted up her laptop and handed the thumb drive to Connelly. “Plug it in and just print everything out, we’re going to have to take it with us.”
“Can’t Naya or one of the attorneys . . .”
Sasha shook her head. “I don’t want anyone else to be implicated.”
She took a breath and dialed Vivian’s number. Please let it go to voicemail.
No such luck.
“Vivian Coulter.”
Sasha guessed her assistant didn’t start until nine.
“Good morning, Vivian. It’s Sasha McCandless.”
“Oh, hello, Sasha.”
The voice on the other end of the phone was polite and calm, in stark contrast to the last conversation she’d had with her client. Sasha knew that would be short-lived.
“I’m calling because I just received an emergency motion from Mickey Collins. He’s going to ask Judge Cook to grant a TRO grounding certain of Hemisphere Air’s aircraft. Uh, all planes that have the same make and model as Flight 1667 and were put into service within a three-year period of Flight 1667.”
That was the best she and Naya could do to include all four of the compromised planes without making it obvious. By their count, the order would affect eleven planes.
Silence.
Sasha plowed ahead. “I’ll send you a PDF of the motion. I have to head over to the court right away, but I assume you want to fight this.”
Vivian’s response was quick.
“Yes, I want to fight it. Why wouldn’t I?”
Sasha could hear suspicion in Vivian’s voice. After all, just yesterday she’d suggested Hemisphere Air should ground some of its planes. She had to meet that head on.
“Of course, you would. Yesterday, as I am sure you recall, I raised the possibility that you might want to take similar action on your own accord, but this is an outrage. Any decision to keep planes on the ground is a business decision that should be made by the company.”
“Do these papers mention the purported RAGS link?”
“No, they simply state that the cause of Monday’s crash is unknown but believed to be mechanical in nature.”
“Well, that seems like a rather speculative basis for grounding some percentage of our fleet.” She pronounced rather the way the wealthy do. Rah-ther.
“It looks like eleven planes.”
“Regardless, I expect you to shut this down.”
“I understand. I have to tell you, though, that, speculative as the papers are, we’re probably going to have an uphill battle getting Judge Cook to deny the order.”
She figured she might as well try to manage her client’s expectations given that she fully intended to lose.
She was about to hang up when Vivian added, “You do realize I fought to have you made the responsible attorney on this matter after Noah died?”
“I do. Thank you for the opportunity, Vivian.”
“Don’t thank me; prove me right. From everything I’ve heard, you’re a younger version of me, a rising star. Act like it. I’ll meet you at the courthouse.”
Vivian hung up.
Sasha was left with two thoughts. One, she hadn’t considered that Vivian might want to attend the argument. And, two, she wasn’t like Vivian. Not at all. Or, at least, she hoped she wasn’t.
“Did you print?” she asked Connelly.
“Yeah, it’s not that much. Two hundred pages, maybe less. Where’s the printer?”
“It’s on our way out. We’ll grab them and read them while we wait for the argument to start. We need to go now.”
“Do you want to bring this?” Connelly
gestured toward the thumb drive, still inserted in her laptop.
Sasha considered it.
“No, leave it there. Who’s going to notice a thumb drive in a law firm?”