Jeffery Deaver - Mistress of Justice

"Sebastian?" Reece pondered. "In the corporate group, right? He's done work for New Amsterdam in the past. He might even've done some of the work on the original loan to Hanover. But what's his motive? Money?"

"Revenge. He was passed over for partner."

"Ouch!" Sympathy crept into Recce's face, which revealed the fatigue-dulled skin and damp red eyes that Taylor knew matched hers. Still, his suit of textured charcoal wool was perfectly pressed and his shirt was as smooth and white as the starched napkin that lay across his lap. His dark hair was combed back, slick and smooth from either a recent shower or some lotion. He sat comfortably upright at the table and ate hungrily.

Taylor braved the toast again and managed to eat a small piece. "And he acted real odd about something. He's got a quote project going on with somebody nicknamed Bosk. Another lawyer here in town, young kid. But he wouldn't talk about it. He also claims he was in a club on Saturday but the bartender there said he wasn't. He left about one. I asked Sebastian about it and he claims Ralph Dudley took his computer door key."

"Old Man Dudley? Working on Sunday at one-thirty? No way. Past his bedtime." Reece then reconsidered. "Funny, though I heard Dudley had money problems. He's borrowed big against his partnership equity."

Taylor said, "How'd you find that out?" The individual partners' financial situations were closely guarded secrets.

As if citing an immutable rule of physics Reece said, "Always know the successful partners from the losers."

"I'll check out Dudley today."

"I can't imagine he was in the firm on legitimate business. Dudley hasn't worked a weekend in his life. But I also can't see him as our thief. He's such a bumbler. And he's got that granddaughter of his he's looking after. I don't see how he'd risk going to jail and leaving her alone. She doesn't have any other family."

"That cute little girl he brought to the outing last year? She's about sixteen?"

"I heard that Dudley 's son abandoned her or something. Anyway, she's in boarding school in town and he takes care of her." He laughed. "Kids! I can't imagine them."

Taylor asked, "You don't have any?"

He grew wistful for a few seconds. "No. I thought I would once." The stoic lawyer's facade returned immediately. "But my wife wasn't so inclined. And, after all, it does take two, you know."

"When I hit thirty-eight. I'm going to find a genetically acceptable man, get pregnant and send him on his way."

"You could always try marriage, of course."

"Oh, yeah, I've heard about that."

He looked at her eyes for a moment then started laughing.

She asked, "What?"

"I was thinking, we should start a group."

"What?"

"The Visine Club," he said.

"I can get by with seven hours sleep. Less than that, no way."

Reece said, "Five's pretty much standard for me." He finished the bacon and held a forkful of eggs toward her. She smiled, fought down the nausea and shook her head. She noticed, behind the bar, a stack of wine bottles and felt her stomach twist. Reece ate some of his breakfast and asked, "Where you from?"

"Burbs of D. C., Chevy Chase in Maryland. Well, I was born on Long Island but my parents moved to Maryland when I was in middle school. My father got a job in the District."

"Oh, I read that article in the Post about him last month. His argument before the Supreme Court."

"Tell me about it," she grumbled. "I've heard the blow-by-blow a half-dozen times. He overnighted me a copy of his argument. For my leisure-time reading, I guess."

"So how'd you end up on Wall Street?" Reece asked.

"Very long story," she said with a tone that told him that this was not the time or place to share it.

"School?"

" Dartmouth. music and poly sci."

"Music?"

"I play piano. Jazz mostly."

This seemed to intrigue him. He asked, "Who do you listen to?"

"Billy Taylor's my fave, I guess. But there's something about the fifties and sixties. Cal Tjader, Desmond, Brubeck."

Reece shook his head. "I'm mostly into horn Dexter Gordon, Javon Jackson."

"No kidding," she said, surprised. Usually only jazzophiles knew these players. "I love Jabbo Smith."

He nodded at this. "Sure, sure I'm also a big Burrell Ian."

She nodded. "Guitar? I still like Wes Montgomery, I've got to admit. For a while I was into a Howard Roberts phase."

Reece said, "Too avant-garde for me."

"Oh, yeah, I hear you," she said. "A melody that's what music's got to have – a tune people can hum. A movie's got to have a story, a piece of music's got to have a tune. That's my philosophy of life."

"You perform?"

"Sometimes. Right now my big push is to get a record contract. I just dropped a bundle making a demo of some of my own tunes. I rented a studio, hired union backup. The works. Sent them to about a hundred companies."

"Yeah?" He seemed excited. "Give me a copy if you think about it. You have any extra?"

She laughed. "Dozens. Even after I give them away as Christmas presents this year."

"How's the response been?"

"Next question?" she asked, sighing. "I've sent out ninety-six tapes – agents, record companies, producers. So far, I've gotten eighty-four rejections. But I did get one 'maybe'. From a big label. They're going to present it to their A &R committee."

"I'll keep my fingers crossed."

"Thanks."

"So," he asked, "how's the music jibe with the law school track?"

"Oh, I can handle them both," she said without really thinking about her response. She wondered if the comment came off as pompous.

He glanced at his watch, and Taylor felt the gesture abruptly push aside the personal turn their conversation had taken. She asked, "There is one thing I wanted to ask you about. Linda Davidoff worked on the Hanover &r Stiver case, right?"

"Linda? The paralegal? Yeah, for a few months when the case got started."

"It struck me as a little curious that she quit working on the case pretty suddenly then she killed herself."

He nodded. "That's odd, yeah I never thought about it I didn't know her very well. She was a good paralegal. But real quiet. It doesn't seem likely she'd be involved," Reece said, "but if you asked me it if was likely somebody'd steal a note from a law firm, I'd say no way."

The waitress asked if they wanted anything else. They shook their heads. "You women, always dieting," Reece said, nodding at her uneaten toast.

Taylor smiled. Thinking. We women, always trying not to throw up in front of our bosses.

"What's up next?" he asked.

"Time to be a spy," she said.

Taylor sat in her cubicle at the firm and dialed a number.

She let the telephone ring. When the system shifted the call over to voice mail she hung up, left her desk and wandered down the halls. Up a flight of stairs. She turned down a corridor that led past the lunchroom then past the forms room, where copies of prototype contracts and pleadings were filed. At the end of this corridor – in the law firm's Siberia – was a single office. On the door was a nameplate. R Dudley. Most of these plates in the firm were plastic, this one, though it designated the smallest partners office in Hubbard, White, was made of polished brass.

Inside the office were crammed an Italian Renaissance desk, a tall bookcase, two shabby leather chairs, dozens of prints of nineteenth-century sailing ships and eighteenth-century foxhunting scenes. Through a small window you could see a brick wall and a tiny sliver of New York Harbor. On the desk rested a large brass ashtray, a picture of an unsmiling, pretty teenage girl, a dozen Metropolitan Opera Playbills, a date book and one law book – a Supreme Court Reporter .

Taylor Lockwood opened the Reporter and bent over it. Her eyes, though, camouflaged by her fallen hair, were not reading the twin columns of type but rather Ralph Dudley's scuffed leather date book, opened to the present week.