Look Closely - Laura Caldwell [44]
“A trial would drag this thing out,” I said to Beth, “but maybe that’s for the best. The public has a short attention span these days.”
The door opened then, and Sean McKnight walked in without comment. He strode to the head of the conference table. “Well?” he said. He took a seat at least five places away from where Beth and I were.
Beth ducked her head as if trying to stay out of the line of fire.
“Well, what?” I said. I hated this guy more and more by the minute.
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure what you’re referring to, but if you’re talking about the judgment, it’s exactly what I told you to expect. Arbitrators often find for the plaintiff and award an amount they think the defendant can afford in order to get rid of a case. With Gary’s testimony, we knew this would probably happen, and I advised you of that on Friday.”
There was silence at the table, one I refused to break, so McKnight and I sat staring at each other until he opened his mouth again.
“And so what shall we do now, Hailey?” It was the first time he’d used my name, and a chill went through my shoulders.
“If the award won’t hurt your reputation too badly, you could pay it and be done with it. You’d have to change the Web site, too, of course.”
“Well, the award would hurt our reputation, and I don’t think our stockholders would be happy. So trial is the other option?”
“That’s right.” I pulled my gaze away from his odd stare and snuck another look at my watch. Only an hour and fifteen minutes until the flight left.
“What makes you think you could win at trial, when you couldn’t win at an arbitration?” McKnight shifted his weight back in his chair and crossed his leg, his dove-gray pants barely creasing with the movement.
I swallowed a lump of anger that rose in my throat like bile. “We’d do a few things differently at trial.”
“Like what? Gary is still a liability.”
“As I said, he’ll never be a good witness, but I’ll work on him some more. I’d also like to hire a trial consultant to work with him.”
“Anything else?” McKnight crossed his arms, and I was scared suddenly that he would fire me. I despised the guy, but I couldn’t lose his business, not now.
I decided to give him exactly what he wanted to hear. “Yes, there’s something else.”
He cocked his head as if to say, “Continue.”
“We start playing hardball,” I said. I went on to describe investigations we would undertake into Kingston’s own history to try to ward off any reminder of the Fieldings allegations. And I described the exhaustive research we’d conduct to find other Web sites with similar marks and technology to prove that Kingston wasn’t so unique in its own site.
“I like it, Hailey,” he said when I had finished, and again, his use of my first name made me nearly cringe. “Why didn’t we do this before?”
“We decided to keep costs down and see if we could win at the arbitration level.”
McKnight looked to Beth Halverson, who nodded to confirm that this had been the plan. Then he returned his gaze to me.
“This will be a much more expensive route,” I continued. “Trial consultants and investigators cost a lot of money. Plus, I’ll have to put at least one or two associates on the case to research the trademark and technology issues. As you may know, we bill at an average of three hundred and fifty dollars an hour. So it’s partly an economic decision. Are you willing to pay to get the dirt?”
McKnight gave me a cold smile. “I’d like a budget plan. As well as a letter from you analyzing our trial strategy.”
I didn’t even blink. “Fine.”
“Fine.” Another silence descended over the table.
What is his goddamn problem? I wondered again. I didn’t let myself linger on the question for long, though, since I saw that the time was now advancing on twelve o’clock.