It earned her a reluctant chuckle. “Well, Aroostine, an electrical fire started in the wall, which blew your surge protector, melting your computer and destroying pretty much everything in your home office as a result of a malfunctioning sprinkler.” He threw Mallory a dark, disapproving look at the mention of the sprinkler failure.
“Melted my computer?” Aroostine repeated stupidly. “Like, my hard drive?”
“Afraid so.”
For the first time since her neighbors had broken the news, the enormity of what had happened hit her.
“Aroostine? Are you okay?” Mallory asked, a look of concern on her face.
“I . . . just . . . I have a trial starting in a little over a week. All my notes . . .”
“Surely you back up to the cloud? Or keep a copy at the office?” the firefighter said in disbelief.
“Usually, both. But not these notes.”
“Why not?” Mallory asked, her concern morphing into judgment.
Aroostine closed her eyes and willed herself not to pass out. She swallowed and said, “It’s a long story. It doesn’t matter.”
She wasn’t about to tell the property manager and some random District of Columbia fireman that she was so insecure about her trial abilities that she didn’t want anyone else to stumble across her opening, closing, and witness examinations and cross-exams until they were final.
Pride goeth before the fall, her adoptive father’s voice rang in her ears.
She almost laughed. She’d never truly understood that particular adage until this very moment. Fat lot of good it did her now.
“Anyway,” she pressed. “Can I get into my place?”
Mallory and the firefighter exchanged a look.
“I’m sorry, but no,” he said.
“Look—what’s your name, anyway?”
“Pete Richards, ma’am.”
“Look, Mr. Richards, I’ve been out in the woods all morning, and I need to take a shower, change my clothes, and get something to eat before I go into work. Because apparently I need to recreate my trial prep notes from scratch. So, can you please stop being a bureaucrat and let me into my apartment?”
“No can do. Your walls are still hot. And it’s smoky in there. It wouldn’t be safe.” His voice was kind, but his face was implacable.
Aroostine felt tears welling up in her eyes and forced them back. “What am I supposed to do?”
Mallory hurried to reassure her. “We can put you up in the model apartment temporarily. And I’m sure I can get the office to approve a petty cash dispersal so you can get some clothes and toiletries. It’ll just be for a night or two. Luckily the damage is confined to your study.”
Aroostine shook her head. The last thing she wanted to do was to hang around the building if she couldn’t access her place. “I have my bank card on me, thank goodness. I’ll just . . . stay with a friend.” As she said the words, she realized she did have at least one friend in this miserable town.
She’d call Rosie from the back of a cab. They could recreate the work. Hell, her loss would inure to Rosie’s benefit—she’d let the junior attorney take the lead on a witness or two. She really didn’t have a choice. Not if she still planned to win this trial.
“Good luck,” Pete Richards called after her as she trudged to the corner to hail a cab.
CHAPTER TEN
Rosie met Aroostine at the door of her Columbia Heights townhouse.
“Come in, it’s cold out there,” she said by way of greeting, pulling Aroostine inside.
Aroostine looked around and tried not to gape at the exposed brick walls, the orange and red canvas hanging over the fireplace, and the abundance of dark, rich wood and sumptuous fabrics.
“This is gorgeous. Did you do all this yourself?”
The townhome was the picture of urban sophistication.
Rosie blushed. “No. When I saved enough for a down payment for a house, my parents surprised me by hiring an interior designer to furnish it. They said I’d be living out of the IKEA as-is room forever on a government lawyer’s salary. You know how it is, being young and single—I’m sure your family’s the same way.”
Young and single. A pang of guilt plucked at Aroostine’s conscience. But she decided this wasn’t the right time to mention to her closest friend in DC that, oh, by the way, she had a husband back home.
Instead, she focused on the notion of the Higgenses hiring a decorator and swallowed a giggle.
“Um, back home nobody really has their house decorated by a professional.”
Rosie cocked her head. “Really?”
Aroostine thought of the roosters and folk art Americana that most of her parents’ friends favored. They picked up their tchotchkes at the craft stalls that dotted the annual Apple Festival, not at some high-end, European furniture store.
“Really,” she assured her friend.
“Huh. Anyway, speaking of being single—”
“Yeah?”
“Somebody was asking about you.”
“Asking about me?”
“You have an admirer,” Rosie teased.
Aroostine felt her face grow warm.
“Mitchell?” she guessed.
“You nailed it,” Rosie confirmed. “He’s cute—I think so, at least. I didn’t even know he was single. He’s always so serious and focused at work, we’ve never talked about his personal life. Not until you showed up, that is.”
She wasn’t sure how to respond. This was probably the best chance she’d have to mention the small matter of her marital status. But she really didn’t feel like talking about Joe.
“Uh, so, I could really use a shower,” she said, both because she was desperate to change the subject and because it was true.
“Oh, of course! I’m sorry. After the day you’ve had, I’m sure you could. Follow me.”
Rosie led her up the narrow spiral staircase and down a short corridor.
“Here’s the guest room. There should be towels and shampoo and stuff in the bathroom. I’ll grab you a pair of sweats and leave them on the bed.”
“Thank you, seriously, so much. But, um, I don’t really think sweats are appropriate for the office, even on a Saturday,” Aroostine said gently.
She gave Rosie’s gray leggings and long-sleeved t-shirt a pointed look to suggest she might also want to change before they went into work.
Rosie cocked her head and looked bemused.
“What?” Aroostine asked.
“There is no way we’re working today. We’re going to hang out and relax, then eat Chinese takeout, watch girlie movies, and drink a bottle of good red wine.”
Aroostine gave her the same look back.
“Are you crazy? One, we have jury selection in six days. Trial starts in nine days. I just lost all my notes, and Hernandez granted the motion in limine—which reminds me, did the Clerk’s Office get back to you? Please tell me they did and the whole thing’s been resolved.”
“Not yet. The guy did say it would take him a while to research it. So I’m sure, eventually, it’ll get straightened out.”
“What’s a while?”
Rosie chewed on her bottom lip for a few long seconds, then she admitted, “It could take as long as a week.”
“A week? We don’t have a week. That settles it: we’re definitely not taking the day off.”
“Oh, yes, we are,” Rosie informed her.
Aroostine studied her silently.
“No way.”
Rosie held her ground. “Listen, you’re the boss, but this week has sucked—I mean, even without your place catching on fire, it sucked. The fire is just the cherry on this crap sundae. You deserve a day to recharge. No, strike that, you need a day to recharge. We’ll get up at the crack of dawn and work all day tomorrow. Deal?”
Aroostine bit her lip and consi
dered Rosie’s plan. It had been a miserable week.
“Okay, but I don’t drink.”
“You do tonight,” Rosie said, and her mouth curved into a grin.
Aroostine rolled her eyes and headed into the bathroom. She shoved her worries about the trial, Joe, and the ridiculous notion of a romance with Mitchell to the back of her head.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sunday morning
Aroostine held her identification badge up to the reader and waited for the soft click that signified the door had opened. She pushed it open and held it for Rosie.
Rosie was still grumbling about the early hour. She shook her head and dug her own badge out of her purse. “I don’t think so, sister. If you’re going to drag my butt in here before sunrise on a Sunday, you better believe Sid and all the bean counters are gonna know I was here. I want full credit.”
She turned and waved at the security camera. “Hi, Sid!”
Aroostine couldn’t suppress the laugh that rose in her throat. “You’re insane.”
She rolled her neck and stretched her back while she waited for Rosie to finish mugging for whoever had the bad luck to be monitoring the cameras at five thirty in the morning. To her infinite surprise, she didn’t even have a headache. She’d fully expected to wake up hungover and sick after not one, but two, bottles of Syrah.
Instead, she felt rested and ready to tackle the mountain of work that awaited them. Maybe, she reasoned, every once in a while, a person just really needed a night of egg rolls, girl talk, and bad Lifetime movies.
The night had gotten a little fuzzy toward the end, though. She could only hope that she hadn’t blurted out anything about Joe. Or, worse, Mitchell. She reddened at the thought.
Rosie followed her through the door, and Aroostine told herself to forget about her disastrous personal life and focus on the trial. It was time to get serious.
“Grab your laptop and meet me in the big conference room so we can spread out,” she said to Rosie’s back, as the younger attorney made a beeline for the kitchen.
“Caffeine first, you demon woman.”
“Do what you need to do. I’ll get the files.”
“Do you want a mug of tea, at least?” Rosie called over her shoulder as Aroostine headed for her office.
“Sure, that’d be great.”
She ducked into her dark office and scooped up several of the Redwelds that formed an unsteady tower on her desk. She eyed the trio of fat three-ring binders stacked alongside the desk and considered whether she could possibly manage to carry everything.
Deciding it wasn’t worth it to try, she took the Redwelds and dumped them on the conference room table. She detoured to the supply closet to sign out a loaner laptop and dropped it off in the conference room, then headed back to retrieve the binders.
On her way through her office, she bumped the corner of her desk, knocking the heart-shaped paperweight to the floor.
She dropped the binders on the desk and bent to retrieve it, turning the cool, gray rock over in her hand. The memory of the day Joe gave it to her washed over her like a wave.
Joe and Rufus had spent a lazy August morning fishing in the stream out back. They came tromping into the kitchen just before lunchtime, both of them dripping water on the floor.
She’d looked up from her reading.
“Any luck?”
Joe grinned and hefted his cooler.
“Four trout.”
“Nice.”
She marked her place and walked over to take the cooler from him, wrinkling her nose. “One or both of you smells like wet dog. Why don’t you take a shower while I clean these?”
He’d bent and planted a sweaty kiss near her ear. At the same time, he slipped something smooth and heavy into her hand and closed her fist around it. “We found this, too. Made me think of you.”
And then he disappeared up the stairs, whistling, with Rufus trotting along behind him.
She’d opened her hand to find the perfectly heart-shaped stone, still wet from resting in the bed of the stream.
She lost track of time as she stood there turning the rock in her hands, her mind hundreds of miles away in her sunny kitchen.
Rosie appeared in the doorway.
“Hey, you okay?”
“What? Yeah—sorry.” She forced herself back into the present, set the paperweight on the desk, and gestured to the binders. “Can you give me a hand with these?”
“Sure.” She grabbed the top binder and eyed Aroostine closely. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Aroostine swallowed around the lump in her throat and searched her mind for a suitable lie. “Just trying to recreate my opening from memory, that’s all. Let’s go. We can divvy up the witnesses.”
“Divvy them up? You mean . . . you’re going to let me take a witness?”
Judging by the shock that glazed Rosie’s face, her distraction effort had succeeded.
She smiled. “Maybe two,” she tossed over her shoulder, as she walked out of the office with Rosie tripping on her heels.
First, though, they’d have to draft a motion to file their opposition nunc pro tunc, just in case Rosie’s contact at the Clerk’s Office couldn’t figure out what happened and get the opposition reinstated. They wouldn’t spend too much time on it—a motion nunc pro tunc was, at its core, a formality, a technicality. It was simply a way to correct a clerical error after the time for doing so had passed. No judge in the world, not even one harboring a grudge against a government lawyer, would refuse to grant it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“What is it?”
Franklin pushed away his irritation at the greeting. He couldn’t afford to get into a snit with the man on the other end of the phone—the man who held his mother’s life in his hands.
“I wanted to give you an update.”
“Please do.”
“At exactly five thirty this morning, Aroostine Higgins’s card registered on the log. Less than a minute later Rosalinda Montoya’s card registered.”
“And she is?”
“Montoya? Another lawyer at Justice. Junior to Higgins. Her name isn’t on the signature block of the complaint, but she has signed some motions and certifications.”
“So she is assigned to the trial?”
“I don’t know. Possibly?”
“Is that all?”
Franklin checked the pocket-sized notebook he’d picked up at the dollar store near his home. If there was one thing he knew beyond a doubt, it was that every electronic file left some trace, no matter how crafty and careful its author believed himself to be. He’d decided any notes he took in the course of one of his so-called assignments would exist only in physical form. There would be no digital footprints leading back to him; more accurately, there would be no digital footprints that would make sense to anyone who hadn’t invented the RemoteControl system.
“No. Higgins used her card to open the locked file room, while the other woman used hers to access the kitchen. The lights in conference room C were turned on, and both women signed on to their laptops from that space. They’ve been camped out in the conference room ever since.”
“Have you been tracking all their activity?”
“To the extent possible, yes.”
The man huffed in his ear, and Franklin heard a slapping sound, as if he’d struck his thigh or, God forbid, another person, in exasperation.
“And what extent would that be?” the man asked, his voice sarcastic and mocking.
“I can tell if one of them opens, modifies, or prints an existing file. And I can tell if one of them creates a new file. But I can’t tell the exact letters or numbers they’re typing,” he answered carefully.
“Why not?”
“Um, that would require the installation of a keystroke logger. That could be done remotely, but it’s probabl
y a serious felony, like high treason or espionage or something, seeing as how they work for the Criminal Division of the federal government. Do you . . . Is that something you want?”
Franklin sent up a silent prayer that the man would say no.
There was a pause. Then the man said slowly, “No. Not yet, at least. What about e-mails?”
“Neither one has opened her e-mail yet.”
“What information can you gather about the e-mails?”
“Oh, I can see everything on the e-mails. Envelope information—recipient, sender, subject, time, and date—as well as the content.”
“You can read her e-mails but not her files?”
Franklin heard the disbelief in his voice and hurried to answer. “Yes. Look, I know it seems counterintuitive, but it’s just a function of it being a different program. I can explain it, but it’s highly technical. How much detail do you want?”
“None. Just make sure you capture all the information you can, whether or not it seems important to you.”
“I will. In that case, you may also want to know that the Higgins woman has a dental appointment tomorrow morning.”
Franklin tossed out the piece of information mainly because the man’s insistence that he not use his judgment rankled him. Fine, let him sift through all the useless crap himself.
To his surprise, the man’s voice registered excitement.
“She does? Where? What time?”
“Uh . . .” He checked his notes. “According to her Outlook calendar, she has a wisdom tooth extraction scheduled at Suburban Dental Surgery Associates with a Dr. Davis at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“Suburban? This office is associated with Suburban Hospital, yes?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out. SystemSource has contracts with the hospital. See if your company provided a monitoring system to the dental surgery suite and call me back.”
“But—”
“Do it.”
The line went dead.
Critical Vulnerability (An Aroostine Higgins Novel Book 1) Page 5
