“You’re gonna have to be more specific than that,” Corbin responded tartly.
“You told Theresa you were making fake documents!”
“So what? She didn’t believe me.”
“It’s a stupid risk!”
“She wasn’t even listening to me,” Corbin said, cavalierly dismissing Beckett’s concerns.
“That’s not the point. What if she believed you and turned us in to the cops. That was stupid!”
“Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”
“It is not ridiculous!” Beckett punched Corbin’s desk. “You accuse me of taking risks, but you’re the one who’s playing around! You see this as some kind of game, a challenge to beat the system. Well, this is no game, and I’m not in this for the challenge! I don’t want fame. I don’t want satisfaction. I am not doing this to prove anything to myself. I’m in this for the money. That’s all I want, the money, and frankly, I’m not even sure that’s worth the price.”
“What price?”
“The moral price. We’re stealing and that’s wrong, no matter what we tell ourselves.”
Corbin shrugged his shoulders. “Hey, if you want to walk, you can walk. If you can’t go through with this, then you’re free to quit.”
“I’m going through with it,” Beckett insisted, “but you need to get serious!”
“‘Serious’?! You think I don’t know how serious this is?!”
“Then stop playing around! There’s no reason to toy with Theresa or Molly. Why tell them things that can come back to haunt us?” Beckett continued to yell.
“Stop overreacting. This is the first thing I’ve ever said to them that even hints at what we’re doing, and the only reason you think they can connect the dots is because you know everything we’ve been up to. They don’t. They don’t even know the dots exist.”
“They can’t connect them now, but what if you end up on trial and they call Theresa? Theresa might be a whacko, but she’s not stupid. What if the prosecutor shows her the fake documents and asks if you ever said anything about making fake documents? Do you think she won’t remember your comment? You may know the theory of the law, but you don’t know jack about how things really happen.”
Corbin threw his hands up. “Fine.” He turned his attention to his computer, but stopped mid-turn. A shadow darkened his face. “I won’t say another word, that’s fine. But let me tell you that you better calm down. I am sick of dealing with your nerves. You were a trial attorney. You’re supposed to be used to dealing with the unexpected, handling disasters, but you’re panicking every other day.” Corbin stood up and pointed directly at Beckett. “You need to get over your fear of what could go wrong and just focus on doing what needs to be done. You’re acting erratically around here and it needs to stop! Do you understand me? It needs to stop! I won’t have it anymore!”
Beckett froze. Corbin made an imposing figure when he was angry, something Beckett had never seen before. Normally, Corbin remained relatively emotionless around work. This was something new. Beckett swallowed hard. They stared at each other. Beckett buckled first.
“Should we throw a couple punches or would you rather slam the door and one of us runs off down the hallway?”
Corbin laughed. His entire manner changed instantly, and he became the old Corbin again. “What does Miss Manners recommend?”
“Mediation.”
“Let’s just throw the punches.”
“Ok.”
“Or we could just go to lunch?” Corbin suggested.
“Better yet.”
“You know, the next time Molly and Theresa end up in here together, we might want to search them for shivs first.”
“Isn’t that the truth.”
“You should have seen the grin on Molly’s face when she walked past me in the hallway to slam her door.”
“Honestly, I’m glad I missed it. Are you going to check on Theresa?”
“Something tells me that would be a horrible idea. Let’s go to lunch.”
An eerie silence settled over the office the following morning. Theresa didn’t emerge from her office and didn’t respond to e-mails. Corbin and Beckett spent the morning working in silence. Even Molly kept to herself, at least until Beckett was called away from his desk.
“Hey,” Molly said from Corbin’s doorway. “You look tired.”
“I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“What? Your co-conspirator do something to keep you awake all night, huddled in the corner. . crying?”
“Always playing the dick aren’t you?”
“Excuse me?!”
“Private detective.”
“Yeah, you better explain that!” Molly drifted over to Beckett’s desk and scanned the items Beckett left lying around. “What kept you awake?”
“An old movie. I started watching it and then couldn’t get myself to go to bed. Then they ran another one that pretty much kept me up until just before dawn.”
“What was all the yelling about yesterday?”
“You tell me. I was under the impression you two just don’t like each other.”
Molly gave Corbin a sour look. “You know what I mean. The minute I left here, you and your little friend started yelling at each other.”
“Did we really? Somehow I missed that.”
“Fine, I don’t care.” Molly crashed down into Beckett’s chair. “What were you watching last night?”
“Night at the Opera.”
“I don’t know it.”
“It’s old.”
“I’m not into opera.”
“I am, but that’s not why I watched the movie.”
Molly picked up Beckett’s stapler and rolled it in her hands. “I had an ok night.” Molly obviously wanted Corbin to ask for further details about her night, but Corbin was in no mood to make this easy on her.
“Good, glad to hear it.”
“Of course, it could have gone better.”
“Usually can. Have you heard if it’s going to rain today?”
Molly exhaled loudly. “Do I look like the weather channel?”
“You didn’t see anything in the paper?”
“Stop asking me!” Molly said in her well-practiced exasperated tone. “Do you want to hear what happened last night or not?”
Corbin shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, do I?”
Molly stood up. “I hear my phone,” she said bitterly, and she left.
Corbin laughed. “Score one for the home team.”
Chapter 9
Two days later, Corbin sat in the middle of the main conference room at the Maria de Santo Hotel in Washington. Beckett sat on his left, Molly on his right. By coincidence, all three wore light-gray suits. Around them, nearly two hundred people watched speech after speech with feigned professional interest.
Theresa was nowhere to be seen. She secluded herself since the fight with Molly and even refused Corbin’s offer to help with Wilson’s speech.
Wilson began his speech with a joke that received only polite laughter and quickly moved on to outlining the difficulties of running the office. He spoke in rambling, complex sentences and used much larger words than were needed. Though the speech may have looked erudite on paper, it sounded confused and pretentious when spoken. Without a doubt, Corbin knew Theresa had sabotaged it. He smiled.
“What’s so funny?” Molly and Beckett asked in unison.
Corbin waved them off as Wilson droned on, having moved on to the lack of attention the office received in the media: We’re often called the forgotten office because we rarely end up in the newspapers. In fact, I can’t think of the last time we made the papers.
“Too bad the papers didn’t ignore his last divorce,” Molly whispered in Corbin’s ear.
“It’s hard to ignore allegations of a naked car chase.”
“What did she say?” Beckett whispered, nodding toward Molly. Owing to the ambient noise of the room, neither Beckett nor Molly could hear the other when they whispered to Corbin. Thus, Corbin found himself passing along each comment.
“Wilson’s last divorce.”
“Oh, right,” Beckett snickered.
. . because our function is so specialized, many people don’t even know precisely what it is that we do.