Jeffery Deaver - Mistress of Justice

"Oh, sure. Feel better." Carrie hugged her. Then she asked, "Oh, one thing – do you know where the United Charities of New York general correspondence file is?"

"No idea I never worked for them."

The girl frowned. "You didn't?"

"No. Why?"

"I was down in the pen this morning and I saw Donald Burdick's wife in your cubicle."

"Vera?"

"Yeah. She was looking through your desk. And I asked what she needed and she said she was doing a fund-raiser for the UCNY and needed the file. She thought you had it. But we couldn't find it."

"I've never checked out any of their files. Must be a mistake."

Carrie glanced at the TV and her face lit up. "Hey, look, it's The Bold and the Beautiful. That's my favorite! I used to love summer vacations so I could watch all the soaps. Can't do that anymore. Things sure change when you start working."

Well, that's the truth.

Taylor's eyes strayed absently to the screen, watching the actors lost in their own intrigues and desires. When she turned to the doorway to say good-bye to Carrie, the paralegal had already left.

Taylor felt uneasy. Lillick, Dudley, Sebastian, Burdick or somebody else had tried to poison her. They might find out that she was no longer in a coma and try again. She summoned the floor nurse, who in turn managed to track down a resident. The young doctor, seeing the urgency in her eyes, reluctantly agreed to discharge her as soon as the paperwork was finished.

After he'd left, she lay back in bed and looked through her purse for her insurance card.

She found a folded sheet of paper stuck in the back of the address book.

It was the poem that Danny Stuart had given her Linda Davidoff's poem, her suicide note. She realized that she'd never read it, which she now did.

When I Leave

By Linda Davidoff

Taylor Lockwood thought of Linda, the beautiful, quiet, gypsy poet. She read the lines again very slowly.

Then she read them once more.

A moment later a huge orderly appeared in the door. "Ms. Lockwood, good news. The warden called."

He grinned, she frowned, not understanding.

Then the man delivered the rest of what would be his stock joke. "It's a full pardon. You're free to go." And he maneuvered the wheelchair into the room.

Taylor Lockwood had learned early who the real power centers were at Hubbard, White.

One of the most powerful was a short, round-faced woman of sixty. Mrs. Bendix had used her miraculous skills at memory and association to save the butts of almost every attorney and paralegal in the firm on more than one occasion by finding obscure file folders buried among the millions of documents residing on the gray metal shelves.

She was the doyen of the firm's massive file room.

Taylor now stood over Mrs. Bendix's frothy blue hair as the woman flipped through the three-by-five cards that were her computer. Taylor silently waited for her to finish Mrs. Bendix – even more so than a senior partner – was a person one did not interrupt. When she was through she looked up and blinked. "I was told you were in the hospital. We contributed for the flowers."

"They were lovely, Mrs. Bendix. I recovered more quickly than expected."

"They said you were almost dead."

"Modern medicine."

Mrs. Bendix was eyeing Taylor's jeans and sweatshirt critically. "This firm has a dress code. You're outfitted for sick leave, not work."

"This is a bit irregular, Mrs. Bendix. But I have a problem and you're just about the only person who can help me."

"Probably am. No need to stroke."

"I need a case."

"Which one? You've got about nine hundred current ones to chose from."

"An old case."

"In that event, the possibilities are limitless."

"Let's narrow things down Genneco Labs. Maybe a patent -"

"Hubbard, White does not do patent work. We never have and I'm sure we never will."

"Well, how about a contract for the development of bacterial or viral cultures or antitoxins?"

"Nope."

Taylor looked at the rows and rows of file cabinets. A thought fluttered past, then settled. She asked, "Insurance issues, the storage of products, toxins, food poisoning and so on?"

"Sorry, not a bell is rung, though in 1957 we did have a cruise line as a client I got a discount and took a trip to Bermuda. I ate pasta that disagreed with me very badly. But I digress."

In frustration, Taylor puffed air into her cheeks.

Mrs. Bendix said tantalizingly, "Since you said toxins, food poisoning and so on I assume you meant toxins, food poisonings and so on."

Taylor knew that when people like Mrs. Bendix bait you, you swallow the worm and the hook in their entirety. She said, "Maybe I was premature when I qualified myself."

"Well," the woman said, "my mind harkens back to… She closed her eyes, creasing her gunmetal eye shadow, then opened them dramatically." Biosecurity Systems, Inc. A contract negotiation with Genneco for the purchase and installation of Genneco's new security system in Teterboro, New Jersey. Two years ago I understand the negotiations were a nightmare."

"Security," Taylor said. "I didn't think about that'."

Mrs. Bendix said, "Apparently not."

"Can you tell me if anyone checked out the files on that deal in the past few months?"

This was beyond her brain. The woman pulled the logbook out and thumbed through it quickly then held it open for Taylor to look at Taylor nodded. "I'd like to check it out too, if you don't mind."

"Surely."

Then a frown crossed Taylor's face. "I wonder if we could just consider one more file. This might be trickier."

"I live for challenges," Mrs. Bendix replied.

The New York State Department of Social Services worked fast.

After one anonymous phone call to the police the West Side Club became the front-page feature in the evening edition of every tabloid in the New York area.

Though gentlemen did not read such newspapers, Ralph Dudley made an exception this once, since the Times wouldn't have the story until tomorrow morning. He now sat at his desk, lit only by a single battered brass lamp and the paltry December dusk light bleeding into his office, and stared at the same article he'd already read four times. A half-dozen people were under arrest and two underage prostitutes were being placed in foster homes in upstate New York.

Good-bye Junie, Dudley thought.

He'd made one last trip to see her – just before he'd made the call to 911, which closed up the West Side Art and Photography Club forever.

"Here," he'd said, handing her a blue-backed legal document.

She'd stared at it, uncomprehending. "Like, what is it?"

"It's a court order. The marshal seized your mother's and stepfather's bank accounts and house and they've put the money into a special trust fund for you."

"I… Like, I don't get it."

"The money your father left you? The court took it away from your mother and they're giving it back to you. I won my petition."

"Whoa, like radical! How much is it?"

"A hundred and ninety-two thousand."

"Awesome! Can I -"

"You can't touch it for three years, until you're eighteen."