Chapter 2
Two
I pull my coat tighter against the January cold.
My first interview here felt like entering another century. That old world vibe hits you the moment you step inside. Cigar smoke lingers in these walls despite the paint and the cleaning products.
Some things never wash out.
Tonight, the lobby is empty. Sharon’s reception desk dark. I scan my badge and head for the elevators, my heels echoing in the silence.
The elevator doors ding open.
Dom is already inside, reviewing something on his phone.
“Dylan.” He looks up briefly as I step in. Doesn’t bother with pleasantries. “Patterson discovery. Stacks. Organized and indexed by Monday morning.”
He hands me several folders as the doors close.
I take them like the dutiful employee I am.
“Should have been handled today,” Dom continues, still scrolling through his phone. “Wasn’t. Now it’s your problem.”
The elevator rises. I watch the numbers climb in silence.
Dom doesn’t have to say much. The silence does the work. I find myself standing straighter. Checking my work twice in my head. Making sure I don’t fuck up.
“I’ll be in my office,” he says as we approach the fourth floor. “All night if needed. Come find me when you’re finished.”
The doors open. Dom steps out without looking back.
The elevator begins its descent. Fourth floor. Third. Second. First.
Basement.
The doors open to darkness.
I don’t fear the stacks. But they have to be in the basement—it’s the only spare location in the building and Dom had it temperature controlled.
I flip the switch on the wall just outside the elevator.
A lone light flickers on above me, threatening to die. Then the rest come on one by one.
The stacks: floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in a windowless basement, law books from years past to last year crammed on every surface.
Barely any cell signal. No natural light. Just fluorescent buzz and the smell of old paper and something else—something that reminds me why most people refuse to work down here alone.
Alex hates it down here. Says it’s a liminal space, that the veil is thin, that she can feel things watching. She’d burn sage the moment she left and pull tarot cards about what the basement wants.
Philadelphia is old. But that doesn’t mean it’s haunted.
To me it’s just a basement. What they call creepy, I call focus.
Usually.
Tonight the stacks feel different. Heavier. Like the air itself is holding its breath.
That’s ridiculous. I’m tired. Old buildings make noise. Pipes clank. Wood settles. There’s nothing down here but boxes and files and my own exhaustion.
But I catch myself listening between the sounds. Waiting for something I can’t name.
A feeling coils at the base of my spine—the one Alex calls my gut knowing.
It’s there now. Faint. Like a warning I can almost hear.
I roll my eyes even though she’s not here to see it.
The feeling doesn’t go away.
This is my space. Where Dylan the skeptic works while Alex the mystic burns sage at home.
I toss the folders down on the nearest table and get to work.
Alone.
Usually Amber would take half. We’d divide the boxes, work separate tables, finish by midnight.
Now it’s just me and however long this takes.
And one more year assumes so much.
Assumes I’ll pass the bar on the first try.
Assumes Dom won’t find another way to trap me here—another NDA, another opportunity that’s really just golden handcuffs.
What if one year becomes two? Three? What if I look up one day and I’m Dom’s age, still here, still organizing files for guilty men?
Discovery documents stacked against the far wall. Crime scene photos. Witness statements. Chain of custody logs. Exhibit tags. All of it needs to be organized chronologically, cross-referenced, indexed.
Trial deaths. Twenty-three people who signed up for a drug trial and never came home. Parents, children, someone’s best friend. They trusted the system would tell the truth if something went sideways.
They were wrong.
And I’m organizing the documents that will help the man who killed them walk free.
Somewhere, families are still waiting. Still hoping. Still searching for answers that are sitting in these boxes.
I’m burying them.
This is what paralegals do. We organize the evidence. Create the timelines. Find the inconsistencies that create reasonable doubt. We don’t judge—we just make sure the lawyers have what they need.
Except I am judging. I have been for months.
Alex would ask me if this is who I want to be.
It’s a question I try not to think about because we both already know the answer.
I pull the first box toward me.
The fluorescent lights buzz. They’ve always buzzed, but down here the sound fills every corner.
I organize documents into chronological order. Tag exhibits. Create witness folders.
Somewhere above me, pipes clank. Old building, old pipes.
Another clank. Louder this time. Closer.
I don’t look up.
I’m halfway through the second box when footsteps echo behind me.
I look up.
Dom appears with a bag from Sang Kee.
“Pad see ew.” He sets it on the table. “Mango boba.” He places the drink beside it.
Of course he remembers my order. Like he didn’t just call me in on a Friday night.
But that’s Dom. Thai food while destroying my weekend. Small kindnesses while taking everything else.
It’s why I stay.
He’s morally grey, but he remembers. And somehow that’s enough to keep working until midnight on a Friday.
“How’s progress?”
I gesture to the organized stacks of documents, the witness folders, the growing index. “I’ve made a dent.” Barely.
He nods. “Good. I’ll be in my office. Come find me when you’re finished.”
He pauses. Halfway turned.
“How’s your dad?”
My face is already moving. Smile assembling itself like muscle memory.
“He’s doing better.” The hopeful expression slides into place. “And the puppy is getting so big.”
Dom glances at his phone. “That’s good. Companionship.”
“Oh my God, he’s so cute!” The squeal comes out automatically, practiced. My face hurts from smiling this big. “Purebred wiener dog. Brown and so soft—I’m completely jealous. I just want to go visit and steal him.”
My jaw aches. Not just sore—it throbs. I roll it, feeling the tension radiate up to my temples. Five years of this performance. Five years of smiling so hard my face hurts.
And it gets easier every time.
My father has been dead for fifteen years. But I can see Winston so clearly I could paint him.
“He’s been so good for Dad’s spirits,” I continue, because Dom’s still standing there, waiting for more. “Keeps him active, you know?”
I add a little laugh. The one I use when clients visit. High and light and completely fake.
Dom smirks. “I’ll be sure to send a puppy gift package.”
Of course he will. And it’ll go to my mom, who finds the whole thing as absurd as I do. Except she doesn’t have to look Dom in the eye and lie about her dead husband every week.
Dom pulls out his phone. Glances at it. Types something. Sends it.
He never texts. Dom calls. Always. Says texting is for teenagers and cowards.
But he’s texting someone now.
He pockets the phone and heads for the elevator without another word, leaving the scent of expensive cologne and Thai food.
I let the smile drop the second he’s out of sight.
I open the container and eat while I work, scrolling through witness statements with one hand, chopsticks in the other.
Alex would steal bites. Claim she’s sharing my dinner while eating half. I’d pretend to be annoyed. Then she’d read my fortune from the sriracha bottle pattern.
The building settles around me. Old buildings do that. Creak and groan and shift.
The stacks are too quiet without her.
Not the way it’s quiet without Amber—that’s just professional absence. This is different. Alex fills spaces. Her voice, her laugh, the way she hums Never on Sunday when she’s concentrating.
I should text her. Tell her I’m almost done. That I’ll meet her at Bob & Barbara’s in an hour.
My phone sits on the table beside the pad see ew container. I could text right now. She’s probably three drinks deep, charming strangers, making friends with the bartender. She’ll have convinced someone to let her read their tarot by now.
But if I text her, she’ll know something’s wrong. She always knows. And I don’t have the energy to explain why my jaw still aches, why I’m organizing evidence that will help a killer walk free, why one more year is starting to sound like a threat instead of a promise.
So I leave my phone where it is.
I pull out my earbuds and cue up my favorite true crime podcast. Background noise while I work.
Alex and I binge these together. Fall asleep on the couch while some host describes arterial spray patterns. She always falls asleep first, and I always wake her before the credits roll. Her head on my shoulder. Her hair everywhere. The way she mumbles “five more minutes” like I’m her alarm clock.
I love true crime podcasts. I love them more with her.
“And that’s when the cops found his body rotting in the trunk of his car. Forgotten in a Pittsburgh garage.” The words pump into my brain as I organize the documents.
I pause to listen because the story is wild.
“John Bradshaw’s murder was never solved. And his ties to Earl were never confirmed.”
I shake my head. Poor Madison Bradshaw. She fell for a guy and ended up dead.
“He was never found, right?” the other host interjects.
“Nope, but when the police raided his house? They found the evidence they needed to tie him to Madison’s murder.”
My hands slow on the documents.
Evidence. They found the evidence.
“Of course, by then the trail was cold. The body was never recovered. Without a body, the prosecution had a harder time. Earl’s lawyer argued reasonable doubt. The jury couldn’t convict.”
I stare at the witness statement in my hand.
No body. Reasonable doubt.
That’s what I’m doing. Right now. Creating the reasonable doubt.
“The family still doesn’t have closure,” the host continues. “Madison’s mother died never knowing what happened to her daughter. The evidence was there—financial records, witness testimony, a timeline that put Earl at the scene. But the lawyer did his job. Found the holes. Created doubt.”
The lawyer did his job.
My hands shake.
“And somewhere out there,” the host says, voice dropping, “someone knows exactly what happened to Madison Bradshaw. Someone helped make sure that evidence would never be enough.”
I set down the witness statement before I drop it.
Somewhere in these boxes I’m organizing, there might be evidence that could convict Patterson. Evidence that could give twenty-three families closure. Twenty-three mothers who deserve to know what happened to their children.
But I’m not looking for that evidence.
I’m looking for ways to bury it.
Ways to make a jury doubt.
Ways to make sure these families never get answers.
That’s my job. Finding the holes. Creating reasonable doubt.
Making sure someone walks free.
I am the person the podcast is warning people about. The person who helps make bodies disappear into legal paperwork. The person who organizes evidence into reasonable doubt.
Making sure someone walks free.
One more year, I tell myself.
But the words feel heavier than they used to. Heavier than the boxes. Heavier than the files full of bodies and lies.