I organized my briefs in order of priority with the Venturini v. Seymour case on the top of my list. I texted Mackenzie my work email, phone number, and address in the event she got lost and had to track me down. Then I watched the time pass as her appointment hour neared. She had said ten, but when nine fifty rolled around I began to panic. If she didn’t show up, I’d be screwed. When I’d arrived at the office earlier, I’d sent an email to Howard and the associates on the case, filling them in on what I had discovered. The replies that appeared in my inbox had me smiling from ear to ear. Howard was extremely proud, or so he said.
At nine fifty-five, I pulled my cell phone out and dialed her. “Hello?” she whispered.
“Are you lost, or did you forget?” Panic crept down my throat.
“Turn around.”
Whipping my chair around, I saw her coming down the long hallway, heading toward my cubicle. I disconnected and rushed toward her. “I’m so glad you made it.”
She fidgeted with her fingers and offered a weak smile. “I just want to get this done and over with.”
“Follow me.” I led Mackenzie to the back conference room, closed the door behind her, and grabbed a bottle of water from the continental breakfast brought in for our meeting. “Here, drink this. I’ll be with you the whole time, so just imagine you’re talking to me, telling me your story.” Pulling a chair out across from her, I claimed my seat.
“And what about at the trial? Will you be there as well?”
“First, we have to go through discovery, where we collect all the information. That’s happening right now. We may need to set up a deposition later this week to officially record the information you’re presenting and share it with the defense. Then we go to pre-trial with the judge. Mr. Goldstein will go into further detail with you, but if we don’t settle at that time and end up having to go to trial, I’ll make sure to find a seat across from you so you can look directly at me. If it gets that far, Mr. Goldstein and the rest of his team will prep you for court, so don’t stress about that.”
“And when do I give you the check?” she asked. She seemed a bit calmer.
“Mr. Goldstein will let you know. Once we’re finished today, we’ll be reaching out to Boris Zolin, who’ll most likely be subpoenaed. Again, Mr. Goldstein will fill you in on everything.”
There was a soft knock on the door before it opened; Howard Goldstein, along with three associates and the stenographer who would be recording the meeting all filed in, taking the chairs around us. “I’m right here,” I mouthed to her. Nodding nervously, she tried to smile back at me.
“Ms. Adams, thank you for joining us,” Howard announced. Taking her hand, he shook it before he sat beside me. “Now, I know that this may seem a bit overwhelming, but we are all here for the same reason. I assure you, I’ll attempt to make this as painless as possible for you. Braelynn has filled us all in, but now we need you to tell us what happened.”
Mackenzie looked at me for guidance and I nodded. Her eyes were glued to mine as she began her story. Howard stopped her at certain points, asking her to elaborate, and by noon we had everything we needed. Howard told her he needed the check before the pre-trial conference on Friday, and Mackenzie agreed to bring it to the deposition later in the week.
“Do you want to grab lunch?” she asked as I walked her out to the elevator.
“Unfortunately, I can’t. You just added about eight hours of paperwork for me to do. Paperwork I’ll very much enjoy doing,” I joked. I didn’t want her to have any doubts about it.
“Sorry. I hope it’s not complicated.” The elevator doors opened.
“No, not complicated. If you need anything, just call me or Victoria, or even Howard. We will all be here if you need anything.”
“Drew doesn’t know I’m involved yet, does he?”
“No, but his attorney will know before the end of the day.” I hugged her and waved good-bye, letting the door close. Turning around, I returned to the conference room, where I planned to remain for the next few hours while I did everyone’s grunt work.
“Braelynn,” Howard called from his office as I passed.
I peeked my head in. “Yes, sir?”
“Take a seat.” He pointed to the chairs across his desk and I sat. “I just wanted to thank you. You saved this case. From the beginning you’ve been very hands-on and committed. You have excelled as an intern. I don’t know how you found Mackenzie, or what you did to convince her to do this, but you’re going to be an outstanding lawyer.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Know that once you pass the bar, you have an associate position here waiting for you. I know you’ll make a great asset to our team.”
I left Howard’s office walking taller. I was the reason this case had a fighting chance, and my hard work had not gone unnoticed. I took a wrap from our catered lunch, pulled my chair out, and settled in. It would be hours before I moved again. I sat and reviewed all the paperwork, noting everything that needed to be changed. By the time I pushed off the chair, my neck ached. I returned to my desk, logged off my computer, and retrieved my belongings. My watch said it was already eight thirty. I held the bridge of my nose and let my eyelids drift shut as I waited for the elevator to arrive. Hours of staring at a computer screen and small font legal briefs had exhausted my eyes.
The night air was cooler than it had been over the past few days. I breathed it in and steeled myself. Kennedy’s shift had ended at eight, so she was scheduled to be home when I got there. I figured it would be a perfect ending to my day to hash out our argument once and for all. It was not like us to go this long without speaking, and I needed to apologize for what I’d said to her.
The walk from the office to my home seemed longer than usual tonight, but it was only because I was so exhausted. I was in desperate need of a glass of wine and my bed. Turning up my block, I heard my cell chirp inside my purse.
I had two missed text messages, one from Peyton and another from a number I didn’t recognize. The first text was blank, so I deleted it and moved on to Peyton’s. Opening his text message, I smiled.
Peyton Haas: Really? She has a check? You couldn’t have given me a heads up?
I hit the reply button just as glass crashed and splintered over my head. Blinded from pain, my body crumpled and hit the hard cement sidewalk. I reached for my scalp; it felt sticky and warm. My vision swam in and out of focus and then blurred on a nearby lamppost. My eyelids grew heavier as I faintly registered the sound of feet shuffling near my head. Then everything went black.
Vanished.
Gone.
Haas
Wednesday afternoon I sat in my office, irritated that Braelynn had left early Monday morning and had yet to reply to any of my calls or text messages. I knew she would be busy at work with the bomb she had found with Mackenzie, but she was just ignoring me at this point. She had managed to find a curveball that threw this case out the window and made my team work twice as hard. Hell, I’d known she had something up her sleeve, but I didn’t want her to feel guilty for not sharing it with me. I found out eventually. What I didn’t fucking like was her ignoring my calls.
Something must have scared her off, something I did. Attempting to wrap my brain around how females worked was pointless and a waste of my time. I squeezed my stress ball tighter in my hand as I waited like a lost puppy for my phone to ring or an email to appear. “Mr. Haas?”
“What?” I shouted back, turning my chair to see who had interrupted my brooding.
Melissa walked farther into my office, closing the door behind her. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I wanted to let you know that Mackenzie Adams’s deposition is off, and her evidence won’t be appearing in court on Friday.”
“What?” I pushed off my desk. For any other case, this would have been music to my ears, but Braelynn had created her own personal hell to find something on Drew. There was no way she would let Mackenzie walk away now, not when her evidence was the only thing separating Drew fro
m a judgment that would dig deep into his pockets.
“Yeah, I just got the email. It said to revert back to the previous files and disregard anything they sent us within the past thirty-six hours.”
Something was off. This made no sense. “Melissa, are you still friends with Victoria?” I had to know why Braelynn was ignoring me and what the fuck had happened to this case.
“Yes, why?”
“I need you to do me a favor.” I ran my hands through my hair before I looked back at her. She nodded, waiting for me to go on. “I need you to find out what happened, why the evidence dropped, and I need you to keep this and whatever the answer is between us.”
“I’m on it.” She walked out of my office without another question.
“Fuck!” I squeezed the stress ball tighter. I looked down at my phone again. Still no response.
Pacing my office, I waited for Melissa to get the information I’d asked for. I canceled every meeting I had planned for the day. I wasn’t moving from my office until I knew what was going on.
Forty-five minutes later, I saw her jump from her seat and run over to my office door. Before she had a chance to fully open the door, I bombarded her. “What happened? What did you find out?”
She closed the door behind her. “I just got an email from Victoria. Their intern, Braelynn Wolf, was the one who’d convinced Ms. Adams to come forward with the evidence, but early yesterday morning, Braelynn sent an email from her personal account resigning from Goldstein’s, stating that she no longer planned to finish her internship. According to Victoria, Mackenzie would only come forward with Drew’s check if Braelynn were there.”
Shocked, I leaned on my desk for balance. “Thank you.” I rubbed my temples. Had someone caught on to us? Had someone threatened her? Had Drew?
I’ll fucking kill him.
I grabbed my cell phone and yanked my suit jacket off my coat hanger. “Take my calls. I’ll be out of the office the rest of the day.”
“Do you need me to do anything, Mr. Haas?”
I pressed the elevator button, waiting for the cart to rise. “No. Thank you, Melissa. If anything urgent comes up, please handle it.”
I found myself outside Drew’s office within twenty minutes. I marched down the long hallway, searching for his name on each office door I passed. Finding his at last, I pushed the door open, not bothering to knock. It was empty, so I looked around for his secretary.
“Can I help you?” She appeared from the cubicle fronting his office.
“Where is he?” I demanded.
“Mr. Seymour is out of the country on business. Is there anything I can help you with, sir?”
“Get him on the phone for me. Now.”
She took her office phone and dialed his number. I waited by her side, tapping my foot with irritation. “Mr. Seymour, I’m sorry to bother you, sir. There is someone here—”
I snatched the phone from her. “Where are you, Drew?” I barked into the phone.
“Well, hello to you too, Haas. What the fuck, man?”
“Where are you? Why are you out of the country?”
“I have business to attend to. Besides, your office said I didn’t have to be there for pre-trial.”
I scratched the top of my head, confused as fuck. “When you get back in town, I need to see you in my office. Bring your passport.”
“Why do you need my passport?”
“Because I need proof you were out of the fucking country. You have a potential trial on your hands and you didn’t think to tell your fucking lawyer you left the country?”
“All right, calm down. I’ll be back Sunday night and in your office first thing Monday morning.”
“If you did anything to fuck this case up by leaving the country, I can’t protect you.”
“Why would I purposely fuck the case up? I haven’t heard anything from your office.” He scoffed into the receiver. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a client to get back to.”
Drew’s conniving tone didn’t sit well with me, but I couldn’t accuse him of anything. I had nothing tying Drew to why Braelynn had quit or why Mackenzie had a change of heart.
After my visit to Drew’s office, I drove through Manhattan, letting the stop-and-go traffic provide me with a little uninterrupted time to think. Braelynn was avoiding me and I needed to know why. As I drove down her street, dark clouds finally delivered the rain that’d been threatening all day. I parked my car in an open spot and ran up her steps.
Ringing the doorbell and pounding on the door didn’t help. The lights were out and the house seemed dark—no one was home. I started back to my car, feeling like like a fool. If she wanted to see me, she would call. She knew how to find me.
I was overreacting, thinking about how I’d pushed her away after Drew first threatened her in my office, when I noticed something shiny caught in the root of a nearby tree. Any other time I would have just walked away—the crap you found on the streets of New York City would surprise you—but I had seen this purplish-colored necklace before. As I neared it, my shoes crunched against shards of glass littered all over the sidewalk. What the fuck? I lifted the necklace from the ground; it was speckled with mud. Holding it out, I let the rain wash it clean.
It was Braelynn's.
This was a necklace Melissa had bought for Braelynn along with the rest of her new clothes. Melissa had come by after breakfast on Sunday to drop everything off, and when she’d shown it to Spencer, my sister begged me to let her have it. Braelynn must have worn it to work on Monday, so how did it end up here?
Fuck, Braelynn. Where are you?
I stepped off my elevator and headed straight for my closet. If the necklace was still there, then I’d know I was overreacting. But I couldn’t find it, or anything resembling it, so I had to follow my gut.
I dialed Caleb’s cell phone number from the car.
“Hello?” His voice came through the stereo speakers.
“Caleb, it’s Peyton Haas.”
“Hey, Haas. How’s it going?” I knew Caleb through mutual friends and different social events. A couple of guys we both knew had taunted him at a golf outing once about a girl he could never claim. They said anytime she called he went running; I needed to speak to that girl.
“I need Kennedy’s cell phone number.” I gripped the steering wheel tighter; damn city traffic was a bitch.
“Kennedy?”
“Yeah. Long story, but I need to talk to her. It’s urgent.”
“She took an extra shift today, so you won’t be able to reach her on her cell, but she’s at Memorial Hospital. Anything I can help with?”
“No. Thanks, man.” Hanging up the phone, I swerved in and out of traffic until I arrived at the hospital.
The sterile scent of the emergency room greeted me once I passed through the automatic doors. Locating the closest nurses’ station, I walked up and waited until the brunette behind the counter was off the phone.
“Hi, can I help you?” she asked, smiling coyly. A year ago she would have been my type—very easy on the eyes, a cute grin, and responsive to my presence.
“I need to see Kennedy.”
She typed on the computer. “Is she a patient here?”
“No, she’s a doctor on staff.”
“Do you have her full name or a department she works in?”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I tried to remember her last name. “Fuck. Hold on,” I said, retrieving my cell from my pocket.
“Peyton?” a familiar voice called from behind me. Turning, I watched Kennedy walk closer to me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but I need to talk to Braelynn. Have you seen her?”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she pursed her lips in irritation. “The last time I saw Braelynn was the day you showed up at my house calling her dumb and naïve. What do you want with her?”
“That was the last time you saw her?” I questioned. That was over a week ago.
“Look, what happens with me and my r
oommate is none of your business. I don’t know what you think I am, but I’m not her sitter. You want to talk to Braelynn, call her.”
She snapped an attitude the same way Braelynn did, except Kennedy’s eyes weren’t soft when she did it. When Braelynn snapped, her eyes gave away what she really felt, even though she attempted to mask it.
“I’ve called multiple times, but she doesn’t answer, and yesterday morning she quit her internship with Howard. Something is wrong. I came here to see if you knew what was going on.”
She pulled me away from the audience we’d attracted in front of the nurses’ station. I followed her to the waiting room. “Braelynn and I aren’t really speaking at the moment, but she did send me a text yesterday morning saying that she was overwhelmed and needed to buckle down and study for the bar.”
“Overwhelmed?”
“Whatever. I don’t know. She did the same shit in college. Around finals, she would disappear and go on a cramming bender. I don’t know where she is. If she’s not responding to you, it’s because she doesn’t want to talk.”
“Something’s not adding up. Evidence in the case is falling apart because Braelynn quit, and without that evidence they have nothing on Drew.” I attempted to explain, but from the look on Kennedy’s face she couldn’t care less.
“Isn’t Drew your client? I told you what I know. I haven’t seen or talked to her; she just sent me a text. Try Gus. Maybe he knows where she is. Now, I have patients to get back to.” She left without a good-bye.
I left the emergency room determined to find Gus, but aside from his name I knew nothing about him. Driving down the West Side Highway, I called Melissa.
Consensual Page 24
