“I gotta go!” She quickly kissed her sister, taking the paper on her way out the door.
***
It took her a week to get all her information in line to confront him. After she ran out of girls’ night like a crazy person, she spent the rest of her time putting the pieces together. She ran sweaty palms down her slacks while she walked down the hallway, the lone light at the end like a beacon to her. She took a couple deep breaths to calm her nerves, knocking on the half-open door.
“Alexandra!” he greeted with a smile, standing up behind his desk.
“Hey, Barrett.” She returned the smile, sitting in front of him. “I guess you’re probably a bit surprised to see me here, but I wanted to talk to you without everyone else here. Henry said you were working late this evening.”
“About—”
“I want to know why.” She cut right to the point and saw happiness switch to confusion.
“Why what? I’m not sure I understand.” She got up, moving to the whiteboard in the back, because this was better as a visual.
“I’m going to draw you a diagram, because the pieces are kind of complicated. I know it took me forever to put them together, and it wasn’t until last week that everything came together. Two months ago, I was handed the Williams case, a trademark dispute with Jonathan Hawkeye.” She put the two names on the board. Barrett sat silently while she connected the dots.
“You and Henry gave me the case, told me it was a must-win, my partnership on the line. As I told you several times, I was going to win it, because there was too much discrepancy in the dates for me to lose, but you guys continued to stress for whatever reason. Enter Leo Dominic.” She put Mr. Dominic’s name near Jonathan’s name. “Mr. Dominic is a nice family man, owns a pizza parlor in one of the more rundown neighborhoods downtown, and had never had any problems with the law or anything. He’s approached and told to have his grandson Jonathan drop the suit, but he doesn’t, and coincidentally, Mr. Dominic’s store is robbed about a month before we go to court. The person arrested for the crime is Corey Davis.” She put Corey’s name at the bottom with the words INNOCENT under his name in all caps. “You with me so far?”
Barrett nodded, giving nothing away.
“Okay, great,” she said sarcastically. “So, let me put this together. You guys can’t touch either of these cases, so you make the Williams case a must-win and tell me I can plead out the Davis case. Except you guys didn’t count on them using an older mugshot, which didn’t include his colorful tattoo, and didn’t count on me.”
“You were like a bloodhound.” Henry came in the room, sitting in the chair she’d recently vacated. “I told you to drop it. I guess it was my fault appointing one of our top stars, but I needed you to win the Williams case.”
“But were you willing to let an innocent guy go to jail?” The brothers exchanged a glance, pissing her off. “Are you two serious right now? All I have is a bunch of information that I can’t prove, and you guys are sitting here trying to pretend like I’m some little woman too stupid to know the difference. Which is probably why you gave me the cases in the first place, because you didn’t believe I could put all the information together.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because my partnership rested on the Williams case, but the only reason why I had it in the first place was because you avoiding it so you could buy stock in his tech company. Did you know that information is public knowledge? And now I’m standing here and you two are still trying to come up with some way to jerk me around.”
“We didn’t have to worry about Corey going to prison because you got him off.”
“But you didn’t want that. You wanted him put away. Now they have to look for the real perpetrator, which may be traced back to you two.”
“No, it won’t,” Henry shot back. “The robbery wasn’t even our idea. Williams got spooked because he was insecure about your ability to win the case, but we made sure we fixed it.”
“And Detective Trajeo? Mr. Dominic kept staring at him during his testimony and when I attempted to contact him, he stonewalled me.”
“Money talks.” Henry shrugged, as though the fate of a person didn’t matter to him.
“Right, money talks. But so do I, if you don’t give me what I want.”
Henry scoffed. “Do you think we’ll be intimidated by you?”
“No, but I think you’ll let me go with a glowing recommendation, because I’m amazing at connecting the dots. They may not be able to stick you with any criminal charges, but do you want to take that risk? They’ll start sniffing around your personal business, your bank records.” The last couple weeks had been eye-opening. Alexandra realized she shouldn’t have to deal with the long hours and the craziness. She was going to make it work on her own time. She could branch off on her own or join another company, but either way she was doing this on her own terms.
“You think we care?” Barrett chimed in. “We’ll be happy to see you go. Do you think it was a coincidence Gerald sued Roman for his membership list? That you were outed?”
Alexandra’s pulse sped up as her anger rose. “I had a feeling you guys were behind it, because you’re so narrow-minded you can’t see past your own imperfections. I’m done. I’m leaving, and I’ll take the clients who want to come with me, or I’ll out you for the assholes you are.”
“She still thinks we were behind it all,” Henry told Barrett.
“Of course you are.”
Henry started laughing. “Then you’re dumber than we thought. You can leave, and take your clients. I don’t care. I’ll be rid of you and whatever problems you cause. But maybe you ought to do yourself a favor and check your diagram again.” He walked out, whistling without a care in the world. She stared at the wall, at the diagram representing information she’d painfully gathered. A chill ran through her. She’d missed the biggest piece of the puzzle. The person who sat front and center.
Franklin Williams.
24
Alexandra stewed over the revelation because she couldn’t find Franklin. She called his office and emailed him but was told he was out of the office. She almost sent up a smoke signal, but figured it would be extreme. The most annoying part about finishing a puzzle was discovering you were missing a piece. Franklin was the piece, right in the middle of a series of seemingly unrelated circumstances orchestrated by a puppet master.
“What are you doing?” Roman asked as he walked into her home office, leaning down to kiss her on the neck. He’d been over at her house several times that week, their schedules merging in a way she’d never believed possible. She’d stuck to her promise to leave her firm, but it was unnerving trying to determine what she wanted to do. She could either join another firm or create a new one. It was a huge decision, and she was taking her time. She had enough money between her savings and her inheritance to float her as long as needed, but Alexandra was a worker. She wanted to be back in the office and help clients like Corey.
“I’m looking into potential office spaces.” He moved to the other side of her desk and took a seat. She’d let him know what she could about the situation, so he knew she had quit and was looking for a new gig.
“Are you going to strike out on your own instead of joining a firm?”
“Most likely. I don’t know if I want to work for anyone else, and I liked the work I did recently. Ensuring an innocent man stays out of jail felt amazing, and I want to do more cases like that.” He propped his foot over the opposite knee, leaning his head back so he was staring at the ceiling.
“I need a favor.”
She narrowed her eyes, even though he couldn’t see her. The last time he asked for a favor, she ended up naked in the back of his club while he pretended it was her idea. “What?”
“Stop staring like that.” He hadn’t moved, so he had no clue what she looked like.
“Staring like what? You can’t even see me.”