Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
EMILY
Daydreaming was dangerous in the legal field.
A chocolate shop.
Finn had treated my ridiculous fantasy like it was a viable business plan. And for the first time, maybe ever, a tiny, rebellious part of me started to believe it, too.
I didn’t want to be back at the office, but I couldn’t exactly meet with clients at Finn’s kitchen table. Not the clients I worked with. They were the sort that demanded posh conference rooms with shiny mahogany.
Dallas and I reviewed the priority lists in a landscape so familiar it was practically my natural habitat. And yet, after some time away? It felt utterly foreign.
She sat on the edge of the guest chair opposite my desk as she reviewed our agenda.
“Okay, next is the prep for the McDowell deposition,” she said, her voice all business, but her eyes had already defected.
They were locked on the small plate I’d set on the corner of my desk, a neat grid of perfectly cut caramel squares covered in chocolate and glistening from the sun coming through the window.
I’d made them for Finn.
No, actually, I’d made them for me. But Finn got to try them first, so it was a win-win.
“What’s up with the candy?” Dallas asked.
“Help yourself.” I pushed the plate toward her. “Salted caramels.”
She leaned forward with the stealth of a cartoon cat. “Why are we talking about intellectual property theft when we could be noshing on these?”
She plucked one from the plate, inspected it, and took a bite.
Her eyes closed. A low, reverent sound escaped her throat.
“I made them,” I confided. “I find it soothing.”
“Oh, my God.” She mumbled through a mouthful of caramel. “This is… this is proof that there’s good in the world.”
“It’s just sugar, butter, and chocolate. Not a signed confession,” I said with a grin.
She swallowed, her eyes wide. “You didn’t make these.”
“I did.”
“You’re telling me that not only are you Super Lawyer Lady, but you also cook?” Dallas mock-frowned, reaching for another.
“I make candy. It’s not exactly earning me any Michelin stars.”
“I’d cross state lines for this.” She held up the rest of the caramel in her grip like evidence. “Just so you know.”
A small, genuine smile touched my lips. “I’m glad you like it.”
“I am officially shook,” she declared, taking another, even bigger bite. “This is way better than that time you found that loophole in the Harrington contract.”
Oh.
This. This was what I’d been missing.
Then the email dinged with Pavlovian finality, and the expression on Dallas’s face did not make me happy.
“Douglas is calling a meeting. He wants to see everybody.” She made a face that was the exact opposite of the one she’d made before when she sank her teeth into the candy. “In the conference room.”
My stomach twisted itself into a pretzel of pure dread.
“C’mon. You don’t get to sit out on this fun.” I stood and pulled on my suit jacket.
We moved down the hall, Dallas keeping stride with me.
The conference room was the corner fortress, all glass and steel, with a view of Denver that screamed: We own this city, and possibly your soul.
Douglas was beaming when I walked in, which was, oddly, never a good sign. It generally meant he’d done something that would involve a lot of work for me.
“Em. Perfect. Grab a seat.”
The entire staff of the firm was shoving itself into the room. Everyone except the front admin who took care of greeting clients and answering phones.
I sat, my spine straight, ankles crossed, as the other partners streamed in and took their places at the table. The others found spots, some standing just outside the door.
Douglas stood at the head of the table, his smile so wide it looked like it might break his face. He tapped a gold-plated pen against his water glass, a sharp tink-tink-tink.
“Friends, colleagues,” he began, his voice booming with the manufactured passion of a seasoned litigator charming a jury. “I’ve brought you all here for some wonderful news. As you know, Emily’s recent, spectacular win on the Owens & Gold case has made some significant waves.”
His turned to me.
“And those waves have brought a very big fish to our shore. I’m thrilled to announce we’ve officially acquired AVX Core Industries as a client.” He paused for effect, letting the name sit there like his expensive cologne.
“And,” he added, his grin widening, “they were so impressed by the outcome of the O&G case that they have specifically requested Emily to lead the legal team.”
This was less of an honor and more of a prison sentence. Through the crowd, Dallas gave me a barely perceptible nod of her head and a quick thumbs up.
A smattering of applause went through the partners first, then moved to the rest of the staff.
A few partners nodded at me, their smiles tight and fleeting, their pocketbooks already calculating the potential revenue. They were happy for the firm, of course. A win for one was a win for all.
But we were still a tank of well-dressed sharks. And even when you were one of their own, they were always circling.
“This is going to be a fun one,” Douglas said, leaning forward like he was offering me a crown jewel instead of another step toward that ulcer I’d been nursing.
“AVX Core Industries?” I asked. Massive player in the medical instrument field, but currently in a very messy public relations nightmare about the quality of their pacemakers.
“There’s some messy patent infringement stuff, and there’s another whistleblower component. Our goal is to bury his credibility in discovery.”
“What about the faulty medical device issue?” I asked.
The details were coming back to me. A component in a pacemaker sometimes failed and it came down to the cheap supplier cutting some pretty steep corners in the name of profit for AVX.
Douglas waved a dismissive hand. “Allegedly faulty. The settlement didn’t require the company to take responsibility. The point is, AVX Core is a legacy client, and this case could set a new precedent for corporate shield laws. It’s a landmark opportunity.”
A landmark opportunity to help a company get away with murder.
The thought was so loud, and so clear, that I was shocked it didn’t echo off the panoramic windows.
My mind went blank.
I was just a woman in an expensive suit, listening to a man in an even more expensive suit, propose that we join forces to screw over the little guy.
Again.
Take the case, Emily.
The voice in my head was familiar. It had coached me through law school and my bar exam.
It’s a landmark opportunity. I’m a partner. This is the job.
My hands, resting in my lap, curled into fists.
“This job is to defend a company that cut corners on a device meant to keep human hearts beating,” I said, out loud and everything.
“This job is to dismantle the life of a man who had the courage to speak up, paint him as a liar so that our legacy client can continue their profitable march over a trail of bodies?”
Was that really who I had become? Who I wanted to be?
My words stretched out for everyone.
Douglas froze, his mouth slightly agape. Dallas’s palm rose to cover her mouth as if she couldn’t believe the words just came from me and maybe she could shove them in her mouth instead.
My stomach churned, caramels rising in a buttery protest.
Finn’s voice echoed in my head, a low, steady counterpoint to the frantic chorus of my own self-doubt. What would you do if you could do anything?
Silence smothered the usual hum of ambition.
Some of the other partners looked on with pity, some with alarm, all with the detached curiosity of sharks who’d just seen one of their own start bleeding and weren’t quite sure what to do about it.
Douglas finally managed to close his mouth, snapping it shut with a nearly audible click.
He forced a dry, papery chuckle that didn’t even pretend to be amused. “Emily, I think the stress from the Owens case is getting to you. We’re all a bit burned out.” He gestured around the table. “Let’s just take a breath.”
This was my way out.
A chance to retreat, to apologize, to claim temporary insanity, and slink back into my role as his prize bulldog.
But my words were already out there. And I didn’t want them back.
“No. I don’t need a breath, Douglas.” My voice was steady now, fortified by a conviction that had been brewing for years under layers of billable hours.
I stood up, my hands resting on the back of my chair.
This was making an argument. My last one, maybe.
“We need to remember why we’re in this room in the first place. ”
I knew each partner. Knew who played golf on Wednesdays, who cheated on their spouse, who secretly dreamed of chucking it all to open a winery in Napa.
“Look at us,” I said, my voice resonating in the silence.
“We are, without a doubt, the sharpest legal minds in this city. Joel can dismantle a witness with five questions. Linda can find loopholes in contracts that God himself supposedly co-signed. Mark can make a jury believe that black is white and up is down, if the retainer is big enough.”
A few of them shifted, the compliments landing with the uncomfortable thud of truth.
“Our firm, this firm, has that much power,” I continued, hands on the chair in front of me.
“My question is, when did we decide that the best use of that power was to become ‘Justice for whoever pays the highest bill’?” I glanced to Len, who’d done pro bono work for a women’s shelter in his twenties.
At Sarah, who’d once told me over too many martinis that she’d gone to law school to fight for environmental causes.
“Do you remember the person you were when you passed the bar? The one who thought the law was a shield for the innocent, not just a sword for the powerful? What would that person think of this? Of us, celebrating a new ‘landmark opportunity’ to ruin a good man’s life so a corporation can sweep the body count under the rug? ”
The air crackled.
This was more than just insubordination. This was heresy.