“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too.”
And with that they agreed to spy on their oldest child.
3
THERE had been no truly damaging or insightful instant message or e-mail at first. But that changed in a big way three weeks later.
The intercom in Tia’s cubicle buzzed.
A brash voice said, “My office now.”
It was Hester Crimstein, the big boss at her law firm. Hester always buzzed her underlings herself, never had her assistant do it. And she always sounded a little pissed off, as though you should have already known that she wanted to see you and magically materialized without her having to waste time with the intercom.
Six months ago, Tia had gone back to work as an attorney for the law firm of Burton and Crimstein. Burton had died years ago. Crimstein, the famed and much-feared lawyer Hester Crimstein, was very much alive and in charge. She was known internationally as an expert on all things criminal and even hosted her own show on truTV with the clever moniker Crimstein on Crime.
Hester Crimstein snapped—her voice was always a snap—through the intercom, “Tia?”
“I’m on my way.”
She jammed the E-SpyRight report into her top drawer and started down the row with the glass-enclosed offices on one side, the ones for the senior partners with the bright sunshine, and the airless cubicles on the other. Burton and Crimstein had a total caste system with one ruling entity. There were senior partners, sure, but Hester Crimstein would not allow any of them to add their name to the masthead.
Tia reached the spacious corner office suite. Hester’s assistant barely glanced up when she walked by. Hester’s door was open. It usually was. Tia stopped and knocked on the wall next to the door.
Hester walked back and forth. She was a small woman, but she didn’t look small. She looked compact and powerful and sort of dangerous. She didn’t pace, Tia thought, so much as stalk. She gave off heat, a sense of power.
“I need you to take a deposition in Boston on Saturday,” she said without preamble.
Tia stepped into the room. Hester’s hair was always frizzy, a sort of bottled off-blond. She somehow gave you the sense that she was harried and yet totally together. Some people command your atten- tion—Hester Crimstein actually seemed to take you by the lapels and shake you and make you stare into her eyes.
“Sure, no problem,” Tia said. “Which case?”
“Beck.”
Tia knew it.
“Here’s the file. Bring that computer expert with you. The guy with the awful posture and the nightmare-inducing tattoos.”
“Brett,” Tia said.
“Right, him. I want to go through the guy’s personal computer.”
Hester handed it to her and resumed her pacing.
Tia glanced at it. “This is the witness at the bar, right?”
“Exactly. Fly up tomorrow. Go home and study.”
“Okay, no problem.”
Hester stopped pacing. “Tia?”
Tia had been paging through the file. She was trying to keep her mind on the case, on Beck and this deposition and the chance to go to Boston. But that damn E-SpyRight report kept barging in. She looked at her boss.
“Something on your mind?” Hester asked.
“Just this deposition.”
Hester frowned. “Good. Because this guy is a lying sack of donkey dung. You understand me?”
“Donkey dung,” Tia repeated.
“Right. He definitely didn’t see what he says he saw. Couldn’t have. You got me?”
“And you want me to prove that?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Just the opposite, in fact.”
Tia frowned. “I’m not following. You don’t want me to prove that he’s a lying sack of donkey dung?”
“Exactly.”
Tia gave a small shrug. “Care to elaborate?”
“I’d be delighted. I want you to sit there and nod sweetly and ask a million questions. I want you to wear something formfitting and maybe even low cut. I want you to smile at him as though you’re on a first date and you’re finding everything he says fascinating. There is to be no skepticism in your tone. Every word he says is the gospel truth.”
Tia nodded. “You want him to talk freely.”
“Yes.”
“You want it all on the record. His entire story.”
“Yes again.”
“So you can nail his sorry ass later in court.”
Hester arched an eyebrow. “And with the famed Crimstein panache.”
“Okay,” Tia said. “Got it.”
“I’m going to serve up his balls for breakfast. Your job, to keep within this metaphor, is to do the grocery shopping. Can you handle that?”
That report from Adam’s computer—how should she handle it? Get in touch with Mike, for one. Sit down, hash through it, figure their next best step. . . .
“Tia?”
“I can handle it, yes.”
Hester stopped pacing. She took a step toward Tia. She was at least six inches shorter, but again it didn’t feel that way to Tia. “Do you know why I picked you for this task?”
“Because I’m a Columbia Law School grad, a damn fine attorney, and in the six months I’ve been here, you’ve barely given me work that would challenge a rhesus monkey?”
“Nope.”
“Why, then?”
“Because you’re old.”
Tia looked at her.
“Not that way. I mean, what are you, mid-forties? I have at least ten years on you. I mean the rest of my junior lawyers are babies. They’ll want to look like heroes. They’ll think they can prove themselves.”
“And I won’t?”
Hester shrugged. “You do, you’re out.”
Nothing to say to that so Tia kept her mouth closed. She lowered her head and looked at the file, but her mind kept wrestling her back to her son, to his damn computer, to that report.
Hester waited a beat. She gave Tia the stare that had made many a witness crack. Tia met it, tried not to feel it. “Why did you choose this firm?” Hester asked.
“Truth?”
“Preferably.”
“Because of you,” Tia said.
“Should I be flattered?”
Tia shrugged. “You asked for the truth. The truth is, I’ve always admired your work.”
Hester smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m the balls.”
Tia waited.
“But why else?”
“That’s pretty much it,” Tia said.