Found Money - James Grippando [11]
Her body shook, her voice was quaking. “It was so…peaceful. His touch. His breath. His presence. It all just faded away.”
“It’s okay, Mom.”
“It’s like he was ready,” she said, sniffling. “As if he’d just decided it was time.”
Ryan bristled. As if he’d rather die than face his son again.
His mother shook harder in his arms, the tears flowing freely. He held her close, rocking gently. “Don’t worry,” he whispered, almost speaking to himself. “I’ll take care of everything.”
5
Amy took Monday morning off, arriving at the office during the lunch hour. After six straight days of nonstop work, three thousand travel miles among the firm’s U.S. offices, and immeasurable abuse and aggravation from frantic attorneys, she felt entitled to a few hours with her daughter.
The Boulder office of Bailey, Gaslow & Heinz was on Walnut Street, filling the top three floors of a five-story building. Boulder was the firm’s second-largest office, though with 33 lawyers it was a distant second behind Denver, which had 140. The office prided itself on doing the same quality work and generating the same billable hours per lawyer as Denver. That was the minimum standard set by the new managing-partner-in-residence, a certified workaholic who had moved from Denver to Boulder to whip the satellite office into shape.
“Morning,” said Amy as she breezed by a coworker in the hall. She got a cup of coffee from the lounge, then headed back to her office. The thought of a week’s worth of work piled up on her desk made her dread opening the door.
Her office was small, but she was the only non-lawyer in the firm who had a window and a view. Marilyn Gaslow had pulled strings to get it for her. Marilyn was an influential partner who worked out of Denver. Her grandfather was the “Gaslow” in Bailey, Gaslow & Heinz, one of the founding partners over a century ago. She and Amy’s mother had been friends since high school—best friends until her death. It was Marilyn who had gotten Amy hired as the computer expert, and it was Marilyn who had committed the firm to pay half of Amy’s tuition if she went to law school. The only condition was that Amy had to come back to work at the firm as an associate, putting her valuable law and science background to use in the firm’s nationally recognized environmental law practice. At least, that was supposed to be the only condition. Ever since Amy had accepted the deal, the firm had treated her like slave labor.
She sat down behind her desk and switched on the computer. She had been checking her e-mail from outside the office for the past week, but she had some new messages. One was from Marilyn, just this morning. It read, “Atta girl, Amy. One hell of a job!”
Amy smiled. At least one of the firm’s two hundred lawyers knew how to say thank you for salvaging the computer system. Somehow, however, it didn’t mean quite as much coming from Marilyn, her mother’s old buddy. She scrolled down to the next virtual envelope on her screen. It was from Jason Phelps, head of the litigation department in the Boulder office. Now, kudos from him would definitely be a breakthrough. She opened it eagerly.
SEE ME! was all it said.
She looked up from her screen and nearly jumped. He was standing in the doorway, scowling. “Mr. Phelps—good morning, sir. Afternoon, I mean.”
“Yes. It is after noon. A big T-ball game for Timmy this morning, I presume?”
Her gut wrenched. It didn’t matter how many nights and weekends she worked. It didn’t matter if she was away on firm business. For a single mother, temporary unavailability always gave rise to the same negative inference.
“Her name is Taylor,” she said coolly. “And she doesn’t play T-ball. Her mother doesn’t have time to take her.”
“I need that joint defense network for the Wilson superfund litigation operable by three o’clock. No later.”
“I have to work through the MIS directors of six different law firms. You want it in two hours?”
“I wanted it yesterday. Today, I need it. I don’t care how you get it done. Just get it done.” He raised