by Cara Putman
Something felt odd about her office.
As she scanned the surfaces and then quickly unlocked and opened her desk drawers, she decided she was overly tired. Nothing seemed out of place. Not that she was meticulous enough to know for sure, but she didn’t see anything clearly wrong. Then she noticed the Rodriguez case file tucked in alphabetical order in her files. She’d left it in the front of the drawer, so she could easily grab it. She walked to her doorway.
“Leigh, did you move the Rodriguez file?”
“No ma’am. Just set down your tea and cake.”
“Thanks.” Maybe she remembered wrong.
The morning passed in a blur while she fielded questions about different cases. Most revolved around answering discovery in a couple of them. She spent lunch working on a summary judgment motion in a government contracts dispute in between bites of a slightly stale sandwich.
She stood and stretched her arms over her head and then twisted side to side trying to ease the feeling she’d melded to her chair. Mid-stretch she noticed Seth standing in the doorway, grinning. Heat climbed her neck.
“You’ve never needed to stretch?”
“Not with my door open.” He pushed from the doorway and walked to a chair. “Got a minute to brainstorm?”
“Want me to get Angela?”
“Not this time. It’s about one of her cases.”
An even better reason to get Angela in the room. Hayden frowned and wondered what he was really up to. “Okay. You should probably explain.”
“Remember the Barnes case from last winter?”
“Sure. Angela slaved on the summary judgment motion and hearing.” A summary judgment motion was one way to kill a case or part of it before it went to trial. It was a key strategy and tool for narrowing a case’s scope, and Angela excelled at building a solid foundation for them.
“The other side filed a motion to correct errors with the appellate court, alleging she falsified an affidavit. It’s not signed by the attesting witness.”
“A key witness?” Had to be.
He nodded. “Without the affidavit there’s no evidence to support the motion. The motion falls apart.”
“You’ve confirmed the allegations with the affiant?”
“Yep. Claims he never heard from Angela, let alone gave her information for an affidavit. Swears it’s not his signature.”
Hayden leaned back in her chair. This was not good on any level. “You have to let Angela know.”
“She does. Gave me the file today. Maybe she wanted to cover it up and then decided she needed help.”
That didn’t sound like her friend. “Then she came to the right person.”
“But I have to tell Garrison.” Paul Garrison was a straight-laced partner who sat on the Virginia ethics committee. He would be horrified that one of Elliott & Johnson’s star associates would do something so underhanded.
“Can you wait until tomorrow?”
Seth leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees, his gaze intent. “I’m not going down with her.”
“I’m not asking you to.” Then what was she doing? She glanced at her watch. Almost four. Seth really only needed to hold off an hour. Which must be what he really wanted to do, or he’d be in Garrison’s office right now. “Give me a chance to talk to Angela. See what happened. There has to be an explanation.”
Hayden refused to believe Angela had done something unethical. At the same time, part of her mind whispered she’d believed the same of her father. She needed to evaluate Seth’s claim, see whether there could be any merit to it. “I need a little time.”
“I won’t contact him until morning, but if he asks, I’m not lying.”
“Thank you.”
Seth nodded, then pushed to his feet. Hayden’s phone rang, and he left her office as silently as he’d arrived.
“Hayden McCarthy.”
“Did I catch you at a bad time?”
She realized that her words had held a hard edge—not her usual warm welcome-to-the-best-firm-in-town tone. “Yes. No. What can I do for you, Andrew?”
That was the golden question. Andrew watched the group of young men playing a loose game of American touch football in the field along the George Washington Parkway, their Spanish mixing with English. A jet taking off from Reagan National roared overhead, and he cleared his throat.
“I haven’t heard from Emilie in a couple days.”
“Why don’t you call her? She’s talked about you this week.” There was a hesitant note to her voice, as if she couldn’t figure out his real purpose. Not a question he could answer.
“Here’s a quick hypothetical. Is it a crime to send someone a threatening e-mail?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Intent. How did the sender expect it to be received? How did the recipient perceive the e-mail? The state sent from and received in could also impact the outcome.”
Silence settled between them, broken by clicking on a keyboard and the kids’ football game.
“Andrew . . . if you don’t need anything else, I really need to get back to work.”
Jorge broke past a larger boy and sprinted toward the picnic tables that represented the west end zone. Andrew grinned as he watched his kids embrace Jorge in the way of young men, acknowledging his touchdown with whooping, hollering, and high fives.
“Look, Emilie hasn’t called me back, and I need to talk to her. When you see her tonight, let her know, okay?”
“Wait.” There was a soft expulsion of air. “Has she really been ignoring your calls?”
“Yes.” It wasn’t like his cousin. Sure, she put on the act of being a ditzy blonde when it suited her purposes, but she wasn’t rude or irresponsible. “Maybe she’s getting everything ready for our Cherry Blossom seats.”
Hayden laughed, a rich sound, one without a hint of flirtation in it. “She’s got plans for the parade with her latest guy.”
“What if you came instead?” The words just slipped out, but why not? It could be enjoyable to spend a couple hours with Hayden, taking in the trees’ showy display before watching the parade. It was pretty clear she didn’t have an interest in him, so he should ask her to attend the fund-raiser too. That would keep his mom at bay and make the evening bearable.
“When do you need an answer?” Hayden’s words yanked him from his thoughts.
“Tomorrow works. I need to let my dad’s staff know how many tickets I’ll use.” He grimaced as he said the words, but without the stash in the congressman’s office, he couldn’t get access to the parade without fighting for a decent vantage point. “If you don’t want to see the parade, you can let me know Saturday morning. It’s easy to pick you up and head downtown.”
“I’ve lived in northern Virginia seven years and never been.”
“Seriously? That’s practically un-American. You do know people travel from around the world to see these flowers.”
“Never a tourist in your own backyard.” She breathed out a laugh. “First it was law school keeping me preoccupied. Then there was the clerkship, and now it’s the firm. Time got away from me.”
“Then you definitely need to see them. The blossoms are on track to amazing.”
“All right. Pick me up at ten?”
“Sounds good.” He jotted an old-fashioned note. “We can stroll around the Tidal Basin and then grab coffee.”
“I’ll probably need to work in the afternoon.” She sighed. “This case needs attention.”
Sounded like she needed some serious time off, not just a couple hours. Like his parents, she was married to her job, unless he could help her break free. “Anything I can do to help?”
She chuckled. “Not unless you work at Elliott & Johnson.”
“I avoided that fate by dropping out my first year. See you Saturday.”
Andrew hung up and leaned back in his chair. The weekend was definitely looking up.
CHAPTER 17
FRIDAY, APRIL 7
I didn’t do anything wrong.” Angela’s face was pinched as she huddled in the chair in Hayden’s office. “I don’t know how the affidavit got changed. Or why the witness denies he talked to me.”
Her friend’s gaze never wavered from Hayden’s.
“Do you have any proof?”
“I pulled up my digital time logs for the case. Every one mentioning I talked with Garrison is gone. It’s like IT scrubbed the records.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is it’s gone. I’m still looking for my paper notes.”
As digital as Elliott & Johnson had become, the digital as well as paper originals could be gone too. It would be easy for someone to slip over to a dedicated drive and delete unwanted files—especially if that person wanted to frame another attorney. You didn’t have to be in IT to pull it off. “Any chance you took those home?”
“No. It’s against firm policy.” Angela scrubbed her face, then shrugged. “Why would someone do this? I’m a team player.”
“Something strange is going on.” Hayden filled Angela in on Gerard’s odd comments and the feeling that someone had been in her office, though she hadn’t found evidence. “It started with the Rodriguez case.”
“I’ve got it.” Leigh skidded into Hayden’s office waving a Post-it note in her hand, her peasant skirt swaying around her legs. She abruptly stopped when she noticed Angela. “Sorry, ladies. I finally got through to the right person. Texas isn’t so different after all. Find the right woman, and the rest falls into place.”
Angela stood. “I’ll keep looking for the files. Thanks, Hayden.”
Hayden watched Angela leave, a tightness in her chest at the way her friend was being framed. The why eluded her. Then she turned to Leigh. “What are you talking about?”
“I found the person who can give you the information you need on Miguel’s time in Texas. I tried to talk to her, but she insisted she’d talk to the family’s representative after she collected the file.” She handed the note to Hayden. “Here you go.”
Hayden settled back in her chair, a smile tweaking her lips. “You seem certain.”
“Oh, honey, I’m positive. This is the best thing to happen since Maricel Rodriguez walked through the firm’s door. Call in fifteen minutes, and she’ll have Miguel’s information.”
“Thanks, Leigh.” Hayden snagged the paper her paralegal dangled in front of her. She needed this break in the case. The guts of the revised complaint were sketched out, but until she had more data—when he was detained, any notes the facility had—it was a rough sketch. If she didn’t hear from Director Snowden or his attorney about the deposition she’d requested, she’d have to start calling a couple times a day. Without that information, the new complaint wouldn’t make it past a Trial Rule 12(b)(6) failure to state a claim.
The fifteen minutes stretched as Hayden watched the clock and prayed, each tick of the clock feeling like an hour. Finally she dialed the number Leigh had scrawled on the note.
“This is Judy Foster.”
After exchanging introductions and small talk slowed down by the Texas drawl, Hayden steered the woman toward Miguel.
“My assistant told me you could help piece together when he was detained and confirm where he was held.”
“Sure enough.”
Hayden waited, attempting to be patient, as computer keys clacked in the background.
“Border Patrol picked him up December 17. He was held in a general facility down near the border, the first place to work into the system.”
A few more clicks while Hayden continued to wait.
“Here we go. Then he was sent to the JD facility. It only takes juveniles, and he barely fit that definition.”
“JD?”
“Juvenile detention, near Waco. Actual address is some small town near there. Should be turning eighteen in a few weeks, so he still qualifies. Not sure where they’ll move him next.”
Hayden blinked. Did the woman not realize Miguel was dead?
“Anything else you can tell me?”
Judy paused. “Can you remind me why you need to know?”
“His family is trying to locate him.” Well, trying to track down the details. She hoped God would forgive her that little stretch of the truth.
“There’s nothing else here.”
Hayden froze, her pen suspended above the legal pad. “What do you mean?”
“Just that. Nothing’s been recorded since his transfer. If he had a medical issue or something else to note, it would be here. Since his file is blank, he must be keeping his nose clean and out of trouble.”
Hayden tried to process this information. How did her client have a death certificate if the state of Texas believed this young man was alive and in the JD facility? Had her client been lied to? Or had Judy lied? Her mind conjured up the image of Miguel’s very dead body. No, Miguel was very dead, which meant someone had purposely not entered that information in the state database—or had purged it.
Her pulse pounded in her temple.
“Anything else I can do for you?” A tinge of impatience colored Judy’s voice as another phone rang in the background.
Hayden cleared her throat. “I appreciate your help. If you have time, this young man’s family would appreciate learning anything else you have. They’re concerned about him.”
“Sure. I’ll fax what I have.”
How could Miguel have disappeared from the system? He’d died in custody! A cover-up suggested more than murder.
Hayden doodled circles on her legal pad while she tried to make sense of the information. Stewing at her desk wasn’t helping her find answers, so she grabbed her jacket and purse and paused at Leigh’s desk. “I’m stepping out to grab something for lunch. Need anything?”
“No thanks, I packed one today.” Leigh held up a brown bag and then made a face at it. “Though if you wanted to grab a pastry from La Madeline, that would balance out the salad I brought.” She rolled her eyes. “This is what I get for trying to be healthy.”
Hayden laughed. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Rather than take the elevator to the lobby, Hayden charged down the stairs as fast as her heels allowed. When she exited the lobby, she took a moment to simply stand in the sunlight and inhale. Seagulls swooped around the marina, and she tasted moisture in the air. The warmth of the sun on her face felt delicious and infused her with energy. Much better than spending another unproductive hour at her desk.
She decided to join the seagulls and headed to the water. If she strolled along the Potomac she’d get the best of fresh air without the crowds around the restaurants. She could always grab a quick bite at a restaurant along King Street; what she couldn’t always do was take time to move in the sunshine. She wished she’d brought her tennis shoes. When she’d moved to DC, she’d thought the women who wore tennis shoes with their hose and suits looked a little odd. Now she knew it was practical for moments like this.
As she moved along the sidewalk, Hayden pumped her arms and forced her mind to clear. If she focused on something else, maybe her subconscious could wrestle with Miguel’s murder and disappearance.
She’d found a good rhythm and was looking for a water fountain when she spotted a group of kids playing in a field. It looked like an ad hoc game of soccer or rugby as one kid took off down the field kicking a ball. All around him, other kids—mostly boys, a couple of girls—chased the first. It looked like barely contained chaos. Two kids ricocheted off each other and onto the sidewalk.
One screamed something in Spanish, then pulled the smaller kid to his feet.
“Everyone all right over there?” A man jogged toward the boys, then slowed when he spotted her. “Hayden.”
“Andrew?” He didn’t have his GQ style going. Instead, in well-broken-in jeans and a sloppy Georgetown sweatshirt thrown over a collared shirt, he looked like an overgrown college student. “What are you doing?”
He grinned at the kids, who now
jostled toward him. “The school some of my kids attend had electrical problems, so they showed up early.” Some boys pushed another into Andrew, and he sent a mock glare over his shoulder. “What are you doing? Breaking free of the firm?”
“I guess.” She squared her hands on her hips and met his gaze. “Actually, I’m working on a case.”
He glanced around and made a sweeping motion with his arms. “Here?”
She tapped her forehead. “In here. It works.” Well, she hoped it worked, but she didn’t need to let him know how desperate she was.
“Next time you might try walking shoes. They’re more practical for strategy marches.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Her gaze swept the field. “Speaking of shoes, you might want to have these kids get their shoes on so you aren’t overrun with pneumonia.”
His grin widened. “I knew you cared, McCarthy.” The kids started tugging his arms, pulling him toward the field.
“Señor, we play.”
“Por favor?” A boy of about ten with the most adorable gap between his front teeth tugged harder.
Andrew laughed, then let them pull him back. “See you in the morning. Ten sharp.”
Hayden nodded even as she considered backing out. Maybe she didn’t want to spend part of her Saturday with the man. She wasn’t sure what to make of him.
But standing here watching Mr. GQ play football with a group of junior high students who adored and trusted him wouldn’t help her decipher Miguel’s situation. Nor would remembering how his blue eyes sparked with interest when he looked at her.
If she planned to take the morning off to attend the Cherry Blossom Festival with Mr. Wesley, she’d better stop staring at him and get back to work.
CHAPTER 18
When Hayden set a pastry bag on Leigh’s desk, her paralegal grimaced. “Mr. Campbell is waiting for you.”
“In my office?”
“Yep.” Leigh slid the bag into a desk drawer. “He told me to call your cell, but you didn’t answer. Seemed upset you took lunch.”
“I must have muted it.” Hayden puffed out a sigh as she checked the phone. “All right. Let’s see what’s up.”
