BUM DEAL: Jake Lassiter Legal Thrillers by PAUL LEVINE

Author:PAUL LEVINE [LEVINE, PAUL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Herald Square Publishing
Published: 2019-12-18T08:00:00+00:00

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The Essence of Partnership and Love

Victoria Lord…

Victoria had just hung up the phone and was staring out the window at the bay and Key Biscayne in the distance. A dozen sailboats were puffing along on the downwind leg of a race, their multicolored spinnakers ballooning in the steady easterly breeze.

The fledgling law firm of Solomon & Lord had recently rented a small but luxurious office on the eighteenth floor of a Brickell Avenue high-rise. The view was spectacular, the rent crushing. It had been Steve’s idea, of course.

“Gotta spend dough to make dough, Vic.”

Victoria didn’t think their clients cared about the provenance of the glass sculptures in the waiting room or the Brazilian teak on the walls. As the only one of the partners who could balance a checkbook, she was burdened with juggling accounts and paying bills. Making the monthly nut was her worry, not Steve’s.

The six-figure retainer from Clark Calvert had put them in the black for this month and possibly the entire summer, but when you’re humping a major homicide case, you’re not out hustling for others. No time for lawyer lunches with colleagues who are likely to refer clients. That’s why winning the Calvert case was so important. Beating the state in murder trials, that’s how you build reputations.

For the good of Solomon & Lord, it was necessary that Clark be charged. This caused Victoria cognitive dissonance. She wanted Clark to be a free man, but she also wanted her little law firm to be a success, and the two goals were not entirely consistent… unless Clark was charged and acquitted in a highly publicized trial.

While she was mulling these conflicting thoughts and watching the sailboats carve their way across the turquoise water, her partner and fiancé barreled into her office.

No knock-knock.

No “Am I interrupting you?”

Just Full-Speed Steve, a thousand-horsepower boat swamping the sailing craft in his wake.

“Hey, Vic, your door’s closed,” he said.

“Was closed.”

“Were you on the phone?”

His way of asking, “Who were you talking to?”

“Yes, I was,” she said. “It’s a highly useful instrument of communication.”

Make him squirm; force him to be direct.

“With Calvert?” he asked.

“Sit down. We need to talk.”

Steve plopped down into a client chair, a modern Ligne Roset imported from France. The chair had a heavy-duty lumbar support and a heavier-duty price tag. Steve’s idea, of course.

“Shit, who’d he kill now?” he asked.

She considered how to disclose what she knew. Clark’s case had altered the way they communicated. Their discussions—both personal and professional—had always been free and open. She had held nothing back and believed the same of Steve.

But now…

Steve had been acting so squirrelly. Jealous of a man who was no threat to him, causing her to parcel out information, to withhold or delay until she figured how to package the news. This was no way to defend a case… or nourish a relationship.

Now she just blurted it out. “Clark lied to the police about his whereabouts on the day Sofia went missing.”

“What!”

“He didn’t drive up and down Collins Avenue checking her favorite places all day.

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