Willful Violation (Lawyers Behaving Badly Book 3) (8 page)

T
he next morning
, Maisie got up early. Since she couldn’t rely on being able to lock her things up with Ginelle every day, she’d have to find a way to make the awful uniform work for her.

And that meant being creative, making a few alterations to her look. She pinned her hair up into a wild, sexy bun that would nonetheless stay in place.

Well, it would stay in place unless her bosses called her up to their offices for some fun.

She’d never learned how to sew, but a tube of superglue, judiciously applied, helped transform the baggy uniform into something a little less offensive.

“You look hot,” Ginelle said when she saw Maisie.

Maisie nodded once in satisfaction.

“You’re with me again today, but not tomorrow. I’m taking a vacation day to chaperone my daughter’s field trip to the natural history museum. For today, we’ve gotta clean up after a party in the afternoon, so you can’t take a late lunch again.” She leaned in and lowered her voice. “Well, you can, but who knows what they’ll assign you to do. Know what I mean?”

When lunch rolled around, Maisie ate her sandwich in the locker room while pretending to be on the phone.

In reality, she was listening to a podcast about law school.

She didn’t want to get attached to her new coworkers, and she especially didn’t want them to recognize her once she was back at LB&B Law.

Ginelle breezed into the locker room. “You’re still on the phone?”

“Just finishing up,” Maisie said.

“Gotta pee. Two minutes.”

“You’ve never been up to LB&B?” Maisie asked as they were wheeling their carts down the fifth floor.

She wanted to make sure that she didn’t have to worry about running into Ginelle in the future. She liked Ginelle, liked her a lot, actually, but once this nightmare was over, Maisie planned to never look back.

“They have their own cleaning crew, remember?” Ginelle opened the door to the conference room, then muttered a curse.

Maisie went up on her tiptoes to look over Ginelle’s festooned head.

The conference room had been trashed.

Perhaps not by rock star standards, but this had been a group of businesspeople. There was no excuse for the spilled cups of soda that had been left to seep into the carpet, or the trash that hadn’t made it into the can. Gnawed-on pizza crusts littered the windowsills.

“Roll up your sleeves, girl,” Ginelle said, shoving her cart into the room. “We’re earning our keep today.”

“Pigs,” Maisie muttered as she scraped a bit of dried icing off the table.

“No one even touched this slice of cake,” Ginelle said. “I’m gonna eat it.”

Her eyes dancing with the pleasure of a pupil who had just learned that there wouldn’t be any school tomorrow, she leaned across the table for an unused plastic fork.

“You’re brave,” Maisie said.

“Why?” Ginelle’s mouth was full.

“Suppose someone coughed on it?”

Ginelle forked up another bite. “Too late now,” she said, chewing with her mouth open. “’S yummy. You want a bite?”

“I’m good. So, if there’s an emergency up there, at LB&B, what do they do?”

“I guess Ethan Brennbach snaps his rich fingers and it disappears,” Ginelle said, then snorted.

“Ethan Brennbach?” Maisie’s heart beat faster. She felt like she was in middle school, and someone had just said the name of the boy she had a secret crush on.

“I’ve never been up there, but that’s not the same as not knowing stuff. Besides, everyone knows who Ethan Brennbach is.”

After quickly glancing around to make sure that Ethan hadn’t materialized out of thin air, summoned by his name having been spoken aloud three times, Maisie said, “Tell me.”

“Ok.” Ginelle scraped the last of the icing off the plate, then began gathering up the trash. “He owns the building. And he’s got a scar on half his face. Right here.”

She clapped her hand over her right cheek.

“It’s not unattractive, but it’s noticeable. Like, if he walked in here right now, you wouldn’t be able to help staring at it.”

If Ethan walked in right then, Maisie would pass out.

“Well, maybe it’s not interesting if you don’t know who he is. Imagine… a talk show host.”

“Why?”

“I’m trying to describe what he’s like. Or… I don’t know. Like a president, but way younger. Like, he’s really…” Ginelle waved her hands around. “You can tell he’s rich just from looking at him, and not just ’cause he wears suits all the time. Presence. That’s the word. He has presence. Between you, me, and the chandelier, he’s hot, even with the scar.”

“All right,” Maisie said. She’d been wiping at the same bit of table, and she expected that at any second she’d be told to get back to work.

But Ginelle was too caught up in her story to notice.

“So, there was this building manager, Cynthia. She was really pretty. Like, she never wore makeup, and she always had her hair pulled back, but she looked like a model. Have you ever seen a picture of Kate Moss?”

Maisie nodded. “I think so, yeah.”

“Well, kinda like that. Like, real delicate. Not hearty farm girls like you and me.”

Maisie tried not to take offense.

“Ethan was having some huge party on the roof, and all the bigwigs from the building were there. People like us don’t get invited, but it was the place to be. Cynthia got to go. She was all dressed up. She was our Cinderella.”

Maisie frowned. The story was already diverging from the two versions she’d previously heard: one from Mrs. Donahue, and the other from Jayne Torrabadella, a third-year associate at LB&B.

“Anyway—and this is a secret—but there’s this lady who worked up there. She’d be about my mom’s age. Anyway, she was going through a rough spell or something, and Cynthia, she was nice. The kind of person where if she saw you were having a bad day, she would take time to talk to you. And she started talking to the older lady—”

“How do you know this?” Maisie asked.

“Cynthia told us. Well, she told Beth, because she couldn’t come back to work, but them two were friends. And Beth told the rest of us at lunch the next day.”

She suddenly narrowed her eyes. “One of those jerks spilled something on that chair. Here.” She tossed one of the thin cotton towels to Maisie. “See if you can soak it up.”

Maisie worked on the chair for half a minute. “I’ll let it sit. What were you saying?”

“Ok, so, Cynthia was on the roof, talking to the older lady who worked for Ethan Brennbach, and the lady was pretty upset about something in the office. Something about the new employee who wasn’t working out. And also, stuff at home wasn’t good.”

Maisie assumed the new employee was the crazy intern, Petra.

“And the lady was having a rough time and getting all teary. And the new employee—Petra was her name—walked up and was like, what about your daughter? ’Cause Petra knew the older lady had a daughter. And the older lady went berserk.”

“What?”

Mrs. Donahue had gone crazy? That didn’t make the least bit of sense. Maybe it wasn’t Mrs. Donahue; as far as Maisie knew, she didn’t have any kids.

But then, it wasn’t like they’d ever had a conversation about personal matters.

“Yeah. And then Cynthia said to Petra, ‘Where’s your boss?’ because she was upsetting the older lady by asking questions about the daughter. And Petra, she, like, grabbed Cynthia’s hair and started yanking her around and shit. I mean, stuff.”

That, at least, matched the general story Maisie had heard.

She was pretty sure she knew the rest—that Petra had tried to shove Cynthia off of the building—but she asked, “Then what happened?”

“Then Ethan Brennbach comes running up, and he’s trying to pull Petra off of Cynthia…” Ginelle laughed. “This sounds insane, right? But, hand to heaven, it’s what happened. So, while he’s trying to get that under control, the older lady gets up on the wall, and she’s about to jump, and he, like, throws himself at her, saves her life. Boom. Scar. What do you think of that?”

Maisie thought it was the most ridiculous version of the story she’d heard so far. Mrs. Donahue, trying to throw herself off the top of Fortune Tower?

“You’re right. It sounds crazy.”

Ginelle shrugged, but she looked disappointed. “I guess it’s not the same now that everyone involved is gone. It’s just a story. My dad tells stories like that. You know. The ‘you had to be there’ stories, but it’s boring because you don’t know any of the people.”

“No, no,” Maisie said. “Not at all. I like hearing about people. Anything else about LB&B Law?”

“If you weren’t impressed by that, I got nothing.”

Then… definitely nothing about kinky spanking sessions with the partners.

That was something, she supposed.

Maisie’s pager vibrated. It was the first time she’d been contacted directly—before, Ginelle had always been the one summoned by the powers that be.

“Crap,” Maisie said. She pushed a button to acknowledge that she was on her way.

“Let’s hope it’s not crap,” Ginelle said with a snicker. Then her pager went off, too. “That’s not good.”

“What?”

“Management is calling everyone in, is my guess. They never do it to hand out cookies. It’ll be a big mess.”

“Or layoffs,” Maisie said without thinking.

Ginelle slapped her arms. “Shut your mouth! I can’t get laid off. Or did you hear something?”

“Um, no.” Because who knew if the maintenance guy she’d met yesterday even knew what he was talking about? And if it was bad news, Ginelle would find out soon enough.

Ginelle tapped her pursed lips. “I’m thinking… You just got hired. They’re not gonna hire a new girl and then fire everyone the next day.”

Maisie thought Ginelle didn’t know much about the corporate world if she believed that.

B
y the time
the manager entered the lunchroom, everyone was buzzing.

Maisie managed to let herself drift to the back of the room. The fewer people who saw her, the less chance of being recognized once she was back at LB&B Law.

A portly woman with a clipboard strode to the front of the room. She glanced at her watch, then frowned.

“I don’t know where everyone else is, but enough of you are here, so I’m going to get started.”

“Are you laying us off?” Ginelle called out. She was much closer to the front of the room, leaning against an exhausted-looking woman with a heavily lined face.

Maisie shuffled her feet uneasily.

“That depends on you,” the woman said, and a murmur ran through the crowd. “For whatever reason, the building’s owners have taken a sudden interest in our little operation, and they’ve decided to audit us.”

Oh, no.
Maisie briefly closed her eyes. “For whatever reason” was likely because she’d complained to Raphael on the phone last night.

Raphael must have said something to Ethan.

“Tomorrow morning, there will be self-evaluation forms. For the next seven days, each of you will keep a log of what you’re doing and how long it takes to carry out.”

Respectful but dissatisfied objections rumbled across the room.

Ginelle raised her hand but didn’t wait to be called on. “What about people who are off tomorrow?”

The woman sighed. “Then you’ll get it on Friday, Ginelle. Are we good? Good.” She didn’t even give them a chance to respond.

The door opened. Maisie glanced over, just a reflex.

Her heart began to pummel her rib cage.

Ethan Brennbach was walking in, his expression serious.

Maisie recognized that look—he was in a hurry. But to someone who didn’t know him, it was probably scary as hell.

What was he doing there? Nothing good, that was for sure. He moved confidently, but he was completely out of place in his elegant suit. Damn, he was hot.

The woman at the front of the room was holding herself taller. Everyone was, except for Maisie, who tried to melt into the wall.

“I need to borrow someone to clean up a spill,” he said. His gaze swept quickly over the crowd. “You,” he said, and pointed directly at Maisie. “Come. Now.”

“She’s…” the woman started to say, but Ethan was already walking away.

The woman looked at Maisie. “Go,” she said with an impatient jerk of her head.

Maisie quickly pushed her way through the crowd, her head lowered. She hoped no one was looking at her, but how could they not be? This probably never happened.

She almost ran the rest of the way to the exit.

“Are there any questions about the forms?” the woman was asking, and then the door closed on her voice.

Ethan was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed and his expression unreadable.

“Um, hi,” Maisie said.

He looked her up and down. “Congratulations. You made that uniform stylish.”

Stylish
wasn’t as desirable as
hot
or
sexy
, but Maisie beamed anyway. Ethan didn’t hand out compliments very often.

“What do you need cleaned up?” she asked.

“My life.” His wry smile vanished quickly. “Come on. We need to talk.”

Maisie’s feet felt like they were glued to the floor. “I don’t want to go up to LB&B,” she said.

“Why not?”

Maisie could tell from the way he said it that he didn’t give a shit what she did or didn’t want.

And if she told him the reason, it would just be handing him ammunition that he could use the next time he wanted to punish her.

“Not very difficult to figure out why, Maisie,” he said. “You and your pride. But we’re not going up there. This way.”

She followed him to the fire exit stairs, which they then climbed to the fourth floor.

Ethan had a key that unlocked the door from the stairwell. Maisie followed him down the hall and into a small conference room.

Raphael had his hands in his pockets and was staring out the window. Trent was leaning against the edge of the table, his gaze a million miles away.

Ethan closed the door behind her.

From their worried expressions, Maisie gathered that this wasn’t about having a quickie foursome before sending her back to the salt mines.

Too bad.

“It seems—” Trent said at the same moment that Ethan said, “We’ve decided—”

“Go ahead,” Ethan said.

Trent pulled out a chair and motioned for Maisie to sit. The instant she did, her feet and aching back heaved a sigh of relief.

“Byron Ballystock is becoming a significant problem,” Trent said. “It hasn’t been easy to determine how he discovered we were at Norman’s home the night he disappeared.”

“What about your investigators?”

“Pointing them in the direction of our illegal acts would be foolish,” Raphael said.

Trent nodded. “However, after talking to Davina, it sounds like Norm was in the habit of keeping a nanny cam in his office because he was afraid of the cleaners snooping through his personal things.”

“She could have mentioned that sooner,” Maisie said.

“Davina knows very little,” Ethan said. “And given how much damage she’s done, we’re trying to keep it that way.”

“If he’s got video proof, then why hasn’t he dragged you down to the station for questioning?” Maisie asked. She licked her lips. Despite the sun coming through the windows, the room felt very cold.

“Originally, I believed there was external security footage, but now that we know it’s from the nanny cam, that means the entirety of our conversation was recorded. Remember that we went there to convince him to leave Davina alone.”

In other words, whatever they’d threatened Norm with must have been so bad that his brother was unwilling to officially use the tape in the investigation.

“So, you’re safe,” she said.

“Not exactly,” Raphael said. “Byron can’t use what he has directly, but he’s playing dirty.”

Ethan’s expression darkened. “Under the circumstances, I can’t completely fault him. If someone I cared about turned up dead, I’d do whatever it took to find out who killed them, and to punish that person.”

She wasn’t surprised to hear him say that. Her knight on a white horse, always saving the damsel in distress.

Unless the damsel was crying. Then, he was helpless.

“Thus far,” Trent said, “Byron has been circumspect in his official dealings with us. Davina is the suspect. He can’t compel a suspect’s lawyers to submit to an interview. However, now he’s insisting on meeting with us unofficially to discuss the matter.”

“If we can convince him that we had nothing to do with his brother’s disappearance, we might be able to settle the matter,” Ethan said. “That’s how he’s baiting the trap, in any event.”

Maisie took a deep breath and slowly released it. “He wants me to be there, too?”

Raphael nodded.

Trent let his head fall back. He stared up at the ceiling and said, “Yes, but you don’t have to go.”

“Yes, she does.” Raphael began to pace. “If we keep her from him, he’ll be suspicious.”

“But right now, she’s not implicated,” Ethan said. He turned to face her, his gray eyes solemn. “This isn’t without risk.”

“Do you want me there?” she asked.

“This has to be your decision,” Trent said. The others nodded in agreement.

She thought about it for a moment.

“I’ll go. If I don’t and the meeting turns into a disaster, he’ll harass me until he gets what he wants. Plus, I’d feel better facing him with you next to me.”

Besides, if she wasn’t at the meeting, she would never find out what was going on; her bosses never told her anything.

Raphael nodded. “We’ll change the meeting location at the last minute, and we’ll use you as the excuse. That will give us somewhat of an advantage.”

Maisie swallowed. “Ok. Is there any strategy, or… anything?”

“Yeah,” Ethan said. “You’re going to have to act like you despise us. Like you’re there against your will.”

“What happens if he brings up the affair thing again?”

“That.” Trent looked irritated. “It so happens that one of our other partners did take a room in that hotel. He was sleeping with his secretary. When Byron asked him about it, he said he was in the hotel because of Davina.”

“Oh.” So Byron hadn’t been intentionally lying, which meant she wasn’t a sucker for believing him. “When you tell Byron the truth, that might help him realize you had nothing to do with Norm’s murder.”

“We’ve already told him,” Ethan said. “And he’s already verified it. It was the only way to keep him from going after additional partners and squeezing them for information. We didn’t kill Norm Ballystock, but Byron is desperate for leads. And he’s correct—he could ruin our reputations and tear apart the firm.”