The Deposit Slip (12 page)

“This will do,” he said over his father’s final protest and headed back upstairs to the front door.

“I’m glad I’ll have a chance to see you more the next few weeks,” Samuel said, following him onto the front stoop.

Jared asked himself again whether he would have taken the case had he known this would be necessary. “Yeah, Dad. That’ll be great” was all he answered.

M
ick leaned across the front seat of the D.C. taxi and handed the driver three twenties for fare and a ten percent tip, neither too high or low. He didn’t want to be remembered.

The cab was parked in front of a white six-story office building. Mick waved away the change offered by the driver and stepped onto the sidewalk. With a quick look around, he shouldered his bag and strode past the building to a coffee shop at the far corner of the block. It was mostly empty, and Mick glanced at his watch. His contact should be here any minute.

There was a booth near the back of the coffee shop, close to the rear entrance. From that seat, Mick knew he had a clear field of view of the main entrance on the street side closest to the office building. He ordered a cup of coffee at the counter and then settled into the booth to wait.

It wasn’t long. His contact entered the shop five minutes later. He was tall and slender, with a pale face, long fingers, and a thin neck rising from a stiff collared shirt. The man made worried eye contact and headed directly to the booth.

“What’s happening?” he asked, sliding onto the bench across from the investigator.

Mick wanted to make this quick: businesslike. That’s why he’d chosen a public place to talk. He blew across the surface of his cup. “Patience,” he replied.

Color came into the contact’s face. “Patience? What are you talking about? Three plus years isn’t patient enough?”

Mick shook his head, nonplussed. “Keep your voice down. Three more months. That’s all.”

“You said that six months ago.” Mick didn’t reply, but leaned down to sip his coffee.

“You came all the way here to tell me that? Patience? How do I even know the money’s not gone already?”

“Because I’m here, aren’t I? Nobody’s that stupid.”

The contact shook his head rapidly. “They’d better not be. I’ve got all the records on the check. Multiple copies. I
will
get my share.”

“Yes, you’ll get your share. Just a little longer.”

The man shook his head in disbelief. “They said this would be handled in a year. We’re going on four.”

“Just three months more.”

The contact stood up, pressing the table with a single finger. “Three months. That’s all. Three months. Or my next audit will be a little more detailed.”

Marcus stood in the great room of his cabin overlooking the lake. He watched as the sky, abandoned by the sun setting over the far ridge, faded from orange to deep purple. Beautiful, he thought.

Whittier sat on the couch behind him, reviewing some papers; allowing Marcus this quiet. Good. Maybe someday he’d live up to his potential after all.

Marcus reflected on how seldom he stood in this room these days, or even visited his cabin just an hour south of Ashley. He looked down to the broad yard that swept to the lakeshore, fading into shadow. His eyes were drawn to the corner of the yard where the swing set used to stand.

He never understood why his wife failed to ask for the cabin in the divorce settlement. Was she afraid he would fight for it, like he fought for everything else in his life?

He told himself he wouldn’t have. Generosity suited this place steeped in the memories of their daughter and son—four and two when the divorce was finalized. He’d never know. She asked for little, and he offered no more than she asked. Mostly, she asked for the children. He agreed. It was the only battle he could ever recall declining. Why? The one time he relinquished control. Look how it ended. Now they were gone.

Marcus felt the weight of his thoughts settling over him. Not now, he told himself and rejected the train of images vying for his attention. He needed to focus.

Marcus cleared his throat. “I’ve decided we need to try a different tack with Neaton than we did with Goering.”

“How?”

Marcus turned and strode to the table in front of Whittier. Neaton’s letter was lying there, and he picked it up. It listed thirty bank witnesses his opponent wanted to depose starting in a week. The letter also demanded production of any documents the bank had not previously sent to Goering.

“We’re going to give Neaton what he wants on the documents,” Marcus said. “In fact, we’re going to give him every document we can gather that’s even remotely relevant to this case.”

Whittier shook his head. “I thought the strategy was to stall—make them work for everything they wanted in the case.”

“That was the strategy with Goering. Neaton’s different. But I didn’t say we’re going to roll over on the witnesses. I said we’ll give him documents.”

Franklin’s face remained blank. “Why do anything different with Neaton? He dropped out of Paisley. His father was a felon. Doesn’t paint an intimidating picture.”

Marcus swallowed his growing impatience. He hated explaining himself. “I didn’t say he was intimidating, Franklin. I said he was different from Goering. Last night I spoke with two attorneys Neaton worked with at Paisley. They both said Neaton is a workhorse. He prepares meticulously, seldom delegates. He reviews every document in a case himself—never relies on others’ legal research. Even preps his own witnesses.”

“So he’s got a big ego.”

Marcus shook his head. “I think it’s safer to assume that Jared Neaton is a perfectionist. So we use it against him. We give him all the documents he wants; we back a truck up to his place with every piece of paper we can drum up. He’ll be swimming in work and he’ll drown in it—especially if he’s still dragging from the Wheeler trial.”

A smile emerged on Whittier’s face. “A document dump.”

“Yes. Work with Sidney to gather up documents from the bank. Everything you can lay your hands on. Have them copied and numbered to drop on Neaton a few days before the depositions start.”

“You know,” Franklin began tentatively, “I won’t have enough time to review the documents well before giving them to Neaton. What if I miss something critical?”

Marcus shook his head in the negative. “I already told you. There’s nothing to miss. Just get him the documents. Now, the witnesses—that’s another matter. Send Neaton a letter telling him we won’t cooperate with so many witnesses so close to trial. Let’s give him a fight on that front.”

The junior partner nodded. “Got it.” Whittier cleared his throat. “Uh, Marcus, I had another idea too.”

“What is it?”

“There’s a Paisley secretary, Yvonne Taylor, who’s still friends with Jessie Dickerson—the paralegal who went out the door with Jared two years ago. Dickerson is very loyal to Neaton. Taylor thinks she’s maybe got a thing for him. Anyway, Taylor sensed from recent comments that Neaton is extremely tight on money now.”

“So?”

“So, after we took those steps to cut Neaton off from Clay Strong, I had an idea that I followed up with Accounts Receivable. Neaton took some Paisley clients with him when he left, including a few business clients. What if we had the commercial group on the twenty-fifth floor take a run to get back those clients? Offer some lowball rates. If Neaton’s still mending fences since his trial, there may be some ticked off clients we could take away. Up the pressure on him.”

Marcus was impressed. “Excellent, Franklin. Do it.”

As Whittier gathered up his papers, Marcus thought he looked like a puppy who’d just been thrown a treat. Good. He had some long days ahead collecting documents and preparing for the inevitable motion Neaton would bring to force them to produce the witnesses for depositions. Maybe this would energize him to get through it without too much whining.

Ten minutes later, Marcus could hear Whittier’s tires crunching gravel as they retreated down the driveway. He stepped back to the great room window and gazed out into the dark.

Keep on the pressure. Don’t let Neaton breathe. Use his strengths against him. Lessons of a lifetime of litigation. It was going to be fine.

But would it be enough? When it was over and he had the prize in this case, would it be enough to focus on setting things right?

Looking out into the moonless night, into the trees beyond the faint light cast from the picture window, Marcus could imagine the sound of lapping waves on the shore. His attention drifted for a moment, and more sounds emerged—the laughter of children around a long disused fire pit just beyond the tree line. The familiar pain began to descend upon him again, like a suffocating blanket. Only this time, instead of struggling, he embraced it—preferring it to his aching solitude.

Just a little while longer, he assured himself. Just a little while longer and he’d have what he needed to clean things up, to recover the only thing he ever regretted letting slip away.

It was never too late if you had the will to act. He’d convince her she was wrong. He’d convince her to come back.

J
essie drove the dark road in silence. She usually listened to the radio when she drove. Here, outside of Ashley, fifteen minutes of searching hadn’t yielded a single station that suited her. She finally gave up and focused on watching for the next turn on her drive to the Larson farm. Besides, it gave her time to think things over.

This whole thing was moving quickly out of control. When Jared had told her his plans for her to stay with Erin, her first silent reaction was anger—serious anger. But she held her peace and said she understood. It was Jared she didn’t understand.

Jessie had spent most of her twenties working with lawyers. Most attorneys ranged a narrow spectrum from the banal to the boring—usually predictable, seldom interesting. At Paisley, they all
thought
themselves interesting because they were driven and ambitious. But ambition wasn’t interesting. Ambition just had its own standards of conformity and conventionality.

Jared was that rarity for Jessie—an
un
predictable attorney. Jessie didn’t really know many unpredictable men. She’d always been good at forecasting how they would react to things. Jared was less easy to calculate. And in the years she had worked with him, Jared had never yet seriously disappointed her in how he treated a client—another rarity at Paisley. But she’d never figured out its source.

Still, integrity, unpredictability: neither of these attributes were what really attracted Jessie to Jared. Jared was attractive because he was
unfinished
.

She’d had her share of suitors in the halls of Paisley. She was young and she knew she was pretty enough. They were drawn to her energy, as well as her utter lack of awe around the power brokers.

But Jared was different. He’d worked the long hours, serving his mentor, Clay. But his ambition was more raw, less self-conscious. In their quest for partnership, the others contorted themselves into icons of success to impress the partners. Jared withheld more of himself in the process, as though the money and status were a means, not an end. He was . . . unfinished.

The hand-lettered sign came into view in the headlights, and Jessie turned onto the gravel driveway. As the bright lights spotlighted the farmhouse amidst the glimpse of gray and brown fields, Jessie felt as though she were seeing a castle surrounded by a moat. Jared mentioned that Erin was lonely at this place growing up with her father. The isolation was palpable in that brief image.

Erin greeted Jessie at the door and welcomed her in. The client was courteous, slim—and very pretty, of course. She showed Jessie to the office that doubled as a guest room on the second floor, next to her own bedroom. Jessie stowed her bag before coming down to the kitchen, where Erin was making some decaf coffee.

Jessie apologized again for intruding, and Erin brushed it aside. After all, it saved costs, didn’t it? Jessie wondered for a moment whether she had any idea how rapidly Jared’s resources would disappear once the depositions began.

As she chatted with Erin over coffee at the kitchen table, Jessie searched for clues to Jared’s attraction to this client and her case. True, there was a hint of vulnerability—and a sincerity he would find appealing. It couldn’t be as simple as appearances, could it?

They chatted for nearly an hour. At last, when Erin offered Jessie more coffee, she declined, saying she needed to get to bed. Jessie excused herself and headed to the guest room.

All that—vulnerability, sincerity, beauty—was all too easy, she thought as she closed the bedroom door behind her. Jared wasn’t just attracted to this woman. He was putting everything on the line for her and in the process ignoring danger signs about the case. He may want to make some money on this, but he’d passed up rich cases before based on risk.

No, there was something special about this woman—or this case—to Jared. Sitting on the bed, the door closed, Jessie felt near to tears. She shook it off. Even alone, she seldom gave in to that reaction.

Maybe staying here was for the best. Maybe it would give Jessie the clue to understand what was really driving Jared. Before things were irretrievable. If they weren’t already so.