by Claire Adams
“So,” my father began still in a cautious tone, “there still may be the problem of how all of this negative publicity is affecting his law practice. Do you have a back-up plan at least, sweetheart?”
“No, Daddy. Adam is my plan.” I got up and told them I’d be right back. Coming back into the room with the velvet box I saw my parents exchange a look.
“Adam asked me to marry him, and I said yes.” I took the ring out and placed it on my finger. “I will stick by his side no matter what, and we will figure this all out together. I want to have a strong, happy marriage like the two of you. I always admired how you were partners in everything. That’s what I want, and I know I can have with Adam. I need you two to have enough faith in me to know that I’m smart enough to know what I am doing here.”
My parents looked at each other again. I really did admire them. They had been together so long and shared so many things in life that they almost didn’t have to speak. Their thoughts were often conveyed in looks or a touch. My mother gave an almost imperceptible nod in my father’s direction and he said, “Okay, sweetheart, we’ll trust you. Promise us you will keep us informed, though, even when we go home. And, let us know if we can help.”
I threw my arms around his neck. “I promise, Daddy, thank you!”
As I turned towards Mother, I thought I saw the slightest hint of a smile on cross her lips, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. My mother acted like she was waiting for a peck on the cheek, but when I put my arms around her neck, too, she softened for a second. Softly brushing my hair away from my face with her right hand, she put her left palm on my cheek and said, “I do hope you know what you’re doing.”
I could see the traces of tears that lined her pretty eyes. I wanted more than anything to fast-forward time to where this was all over and she could see just how happy Adam can make me.
“I do, Mother. I promise.”
CHAPTER FOUR
ADAM
When I got to the office that morning, I was let in by a uniformed officer posted at the door. I made his way to the large conference room where law enforcement seemed to have gathered and introduced myself to the detective in charge.
“Sorry we have to meet under these circumstances, Mr. Hanson,” the detective told me.
“It seems that has been happening to me a lot lately,” I said with a sigh. “What happened here?”
“Well, it looks as if the thieves made their way into the building through the vents that lead from the building next door to this one. That building doesn’t have an alarm, and so breaking into it was easier. Once they got in here, they had to work pretty quickly, as the motion detectors alerted the alarm company and we had police units here in less than ten minutes.”
“Which offices did they break into?”
“We’ve checked the entire building. It seems that your main office and that of a Ms. Winston,” he said, glancing at a notepad, “were the only two where things seem to be disturbed. You can probably tell us more as you look around, however. That’s why we needed you here.”
“Okay, well, let’s get this over with.” I headed out of the conference room and across the hall to my office and the detective and uniformed officers followed me. The lock on my office door was scarred from the tools the thieves had used to force entry. I looked around as I entered the room. Papers and files were strewn across the desk and floor. The locked cabinet where I kept client case files was tipped over and had obviously been forced open. It was mostly empty. I went around to the front of my desk. The drawers had all been forced open, and the files I considered most private, mainly those involving Brigham and the oil spill case, were gone, as well.
“Damn!” I said, dropping momentarily into my desk chair. I felt like my head was going to explode. How much more was I fucking supposed to take?
“Files are missing?” the detective asked.
“Yes,” I told him. “Almost all of them. Confidential files, open cases, what a mess.” I stood up and without another word, left my office and headed down the hall to Alicia’s. Her door had been forced open and the same type of mess awaited us there.
“For specifics, you’ll have to speak with Ms. Winston,” I told the detective. “But it seems that most of her files are gone, as well.”
I glanced around the office again, this time noticing that the pictures Alicia kept on the shelf above her desk were in disarray. Upon close inspection, I realized that the pictures Alicia kept here of us together at various business functions were all laying down on their face while the others were still sitting upright and facing outward. That was odd, but I didn’t mention it to the policemen. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it felt personal and I couldn’t bear to get Alicia any more involved in this mess than she already was.
With my lead, we checked each of the other offices. They all remained locked tight, and when I used my master key to open them, it appeared as if nothing had been disturbed in any of them.
As the cops were finishing up taking my statement, people began coming in to work for the day. The police had them all wait in the lobby or the conference room until they were finished with their evidence collection. I had to explain what had happened over and over, until finally I had a massive headache and assigned the task to Marie.
When Mac arrived, he and I began the daunting task of informing clients that our confidential files had been taken and we had no way of knowing whose hands they were now in. We also had to notify the courts. I had to wonder how many of my and Alicia’s cases would just be thrown out now regardless of how well they had been going so far. When I made the call to Miles, the man was incensed.
“Do you mean to tell me that all of my personal business, including statements I have made to you behind closed doors and never meant to be public, are out there floating around somewhere with God knows who? What the hell are we going to do now?”
“I don’t know yet, Miles. I’m not even sure yet how damaging this is to any of us. I assume much of it depends on who it is that has this information now.” I was as worried about those files falling into the wrong hands as Miles was. I could feel everything I’d ever worked for slowly slipping away.
Throughout the morning as I called one pissed off client after the other, Miles kept calling back with another question and each time before I got him off the phone, he would ask, “Who the hell would do this?”
“I don’t know, Miles. I wish I did. The police are working on it, but it’s only been a few hours.”
“You know what this will do to me?”
“Of course I do,” I answered with a heavy sigh. “I’m so sorry, Miles. I don’t know what else to say.”
“I’m sorry, too – sorry I trusted you. In this day and age, why wasn’t everything kept on the computer and password protected, anyways?” he asked gruffly.
“A lot of information is.” I tried to explain to him. “Unfortunately, the nature of our business requires us to take files of data into court with us. Most of that is written information. I promise you, Miles, nothing these people took can be used against you. It has lost any credibility just by virtue of leaving the office. The law cannot touch you based on anything you said in confidence to your lawyers.”
“What about the press? Are you gonna tell me that they can’t use this information to smear me more than they already have?”
When I didn’t instantly reply Miles continued, “I didn’t think you could,” and hung up the phone.
I sat there with my head in my hands for a while, letting the phone ring and knowing Marie would be picking it up on the other line and taking messages, none of which I’d be looking forward to hearing, I was sure.
I thought about Alicia. I hadn’t told her yet about what had been taken, and what kind of fallout we would be facing. I knew she would have her hands full with her parents today and I was trying to give her a break. The police needed to talk to her in order to get an inventory of what had been taken from her office, but I had been able to get t
hem to agree to wait until tomorrow. I looked around at the office I sat in at the business I had built from nothing and thought about what I might do when it all crashed down around me. I had no idea.
********
Mac and I had lunch behind the closed doors of my office trying to strategize about what we would do now. The phones had not stopped ringing and angry clients had even begun to show up at the office. The press was running with it and as usual were making things worse.
“Have you talked to Alicia yet?” Mac asked me.
“No, but she is my next phone call. The police aren’t going to let me stall them much longer. They say now that they need to talk to her today.”
“What about the open cases? Will we have to talk with each judge independently to know how to proceed?”
“I’m afraid so,” I told him. “I have Nico and Kyla working on compiling a list right now. Once that is done, we’ll arrange a meeting that includes the clients, not just ours but in the civil cases, the other side, our attorneys, and the individual judges and in the criminal cases, of which we thankfully don’t have many, the district attorney will have to be invited.”
Marie stuck her head in the room. “Excuse me, Mr. Hanson, I have Ms. Winston on the line.”
I exchanged a look with Mac who took the hint and said, “I’ll meet up with you when that list is ready.” He left with Marie and she closed the door behind them.
“Hi, babe,” I said when I picked up the line.
“Hi, how’s it going with the police? Was anything taken?”
“I’m afraid so, Alicia. My office and yours were the only ones breached. They took all of our files.”
“Oh my God, Adam! We have all of that information on people who hired us and trusted us to keep issues private? Oh my God!”
“Calm down, sweetheart,” I told her. “I know it sounds really bad, but we’ll fix this, I promise.”
“Are the clients aware?”
“Yes, most of them have been notified. They have been calling or showing up all day. It’s like a three-ring circus around here. Alicia, I’m sorry, but the police need to speak to you, today.”
“Great, that will make my parents’ day,” she said with a sigh. “Adam, why are all of these things happening to us?”
“I don’t know, baby. But we’ll fix it, okay?” I knew it wasn’t much, but it was all I could think of to say right now.
I had thought a lot today about how I had struggled to get through law school on scholarships and student loans. I had worked twenty hours a day sometimes as an associate at the first law firm that hired me, until I finally made partner, and then when I had finally saved enough I had opened my own firm and brought Mac on as a partner.
It had been, up until today, the most successful and respected firm in Manhattan. I knew that if I had accomplished all of that once, I could do it again. I really did plan on fixing it all somehow. I knew too, that it would all be easier with Alicia by my side.
CHAPTER FIVE
ALICIA
I was numb and in shock when hung up the phone with Adam. I didn’t want to imagine what this was going to do to the firm’s reputation…to all of our reputations. I also had no idea how I was going to tell my parents. It was just all too much. Adam told me he would have the detectives come back in two hours. That would at least give me a chance to arrange lunch for my parents and give them some type of explanation as to why I had to leave them already. This was another conversation that I was not looking forward to at all.
I arrived at the law office a little earlier than Adam told me to. Once again, the sidewalk out front was congested with reporters. I slipped in the back way this time and took the service elevators up to the floor that housed the firm. I went straight to Adam’s office, and although Mac, Kyla, and Nico were there when I arrived, Adam got up and put his arms around me. We stood there like that for several minutes and then I finally pulled back and said,
“Are we working on a plan?”
“That’s exactly what we’re doing,” Kyla told me. “Pull up a chair and help us out. Another great mind is always welcome.”
I sat down and Nico began explaining to me what they were doing. Nico, Kyla, and a few of the junior associates had compiled a list of all my and Adam’s open cases. Then, they separated them into civil and criminal cases.
As it turned out, Miles’ and Nelson’s cases had been the only open ones that Adam or I had been working on as a criminal case. The oil spill lawsuit was a different story. Adam, Mac, and our teams had spent hundreds of hours interviewing and taking depositions on witnesses. Most of that information was in the files that had been taken. They had listed out the names of all of the people involved in those interviews and also had a list of all of the judges involved on cases that have already been assigned and the attorneys representing the other side.
“Wow, you guys have been busy. Great job,” I told them when Nico had finished. “I don’t know that I have anything else to offer until I’ve seen what the damage is in my office. If you’ll all excuse me, I think I’ll take a look now, before the police arrive.”
When I opened the door to my office, I was sickened at the sight. The damage that had been done originally was compounded by the trail left by the police during their investigation. Black powder used for picking up fingerprints could still be seen on the door the desk and other furniture in the office. As I stood there, trying to decide where to start, I heard Adam’s voice behind me.
“What a mess, huh?”
I turned towards him and said, “I’m not even sure where to start.”
He put his arms around me again and held me longer this time. “It’s going to be alright, baby, I promise.”
I didn’t say anything, just stood there with my head resting against his chest. I wished we could go back to when our love was new and business was thriving. I’d even be happy to have to deal with Marjorie’s nonsense again, if it only meant that the old shrew was still alive to antagonize us. Life had gotten so complicated so fast. I was a pro at handling other people’s messes and drama, but I wasn’t quite sure how to handle my own at that point.
Up until a month ago, life had more often than not come easily to me. Yes, my mother could be difficult at times, but my parents had given me every advantage in life and had done an excellent job of shielding me from the bad things.
Adam held me back so he could look at my face. “Is this the final straw?” he asked, looking genuinely afraid that I might say yes.
“Of course not,” I told him. “None of this is your fault. Now, let me take stock of what is missing before the police get here.”
“Okay, but there’s one more thing,” he told me, “I don’t know what if anything this means, but the pictures you have of you and I on the shelf behind your desk were all laid face down.”
My eyes went to the shelf. “Why? That seems a bit…personal, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said. “It does, and I don’t like it.” I got a chill down my spine. I didn’t like it, either. What the hell was going on?
Adam left me alone after that and by the time the police arrived, I had compiled a list of what was missing. I had been working on two civil cases; one was a woman who was suing a large corporation for the wrongful death of her husband. He had been on the company’s private jet on the way to a business meeting when the jet had crashed. The company had not compensated the woman in any way, other than a very small life insurance policy they held on her husband.
I had found out that the pilot who had been flying the jet had been drinking earlier in the day, prior to the flight taking off. The FAA had investigated and found the cause of the crash to be equipment failure, but I thought that the pilot drinking prior to a long business flight was still significant and could be used to force the company to compensate the widow.
My other civil case was a domestic one. The husband hired a private investigator to follow the wife, who in this case was my client. The wife was cheating on him, and
the man was trying to use the infidelity to keep basically everything they had accumulated together over a period of fifteen years of marriage. I disagreed with the infidelity, but did not believe it entitled the man to take everything that the woman had helped work for.
The two criminal cases, Miles’ and Nelson’s, were the most complicated. In Nelson’s case, since we were already in the stages of going to trial, I could get most of what we lost from court documents or the DA’s office.
In Miles’ case I’d have no such luck and it was going to suck. We would have to re-interview anyone that had already been interviewed and re-compile a case file. We would probably also have to fight the press. It made me crazy just thinking about it.
In that file were the documents Miles had given me at the beginning, as well. There was background on Vick, information Brett had found for me on David, and most damaging of all was Miles IV’s admission that his son had killed his third wife. It wasn’t enough for the police to arrest Miles V on, but it would be damaging in other ways if the file was in the wrong hands.
I spoke to the detectives when they arrived and gave them a run-down of what was taken. The nature of their job made them inquisitive about who the clients were, but I stuck firm on only telling them what type of case file it had been.
I called my own clients myself. The two women weren’t happy, but they were reasonable and seemed to understand that I was doing all I could. I left a message for Miles and had to reassure Nelson ten times that this wouldn’t be his ticket to jail. It was an exhausting afternoon.
When I finally finished all of that, I said goodbye to Adam and told him I would call him later. I needed to get back to face the music once again with my parents. I could only hope that they hadn’t watched or listened to any news while I’d been gone.
When I got home and opened the apartment door, I was surprised to hear a voice other than one of my parents. It was Jack. I thought about just sneaking back out. I could only imagine what sort of ideas he was filling my Mother’s head with about Adam. I was beginning to distrust him and as much as I hated that my instincts told me it was the safe thing to do.
