36

CONNOR COULDN’T FOCUS. HE HADN’T BEEN ABLE TO FOCUS ALL MORNing. The only thing he remembered from the 8:30 Doyle & Brown partner meeting was that the breakfast spread had included Nantucket Nectars juices. And he only remembered that because he still had a half-empty bottle of orange juice on his desk.

After the meeting, Tom Concannon had stopped by Connor’s office to chat about golf and firm politics. Connor had just smiled and nodded, waiting for his friend to leave.

When Tom was gone, Connor started writing a routine letter to opposing counsel in one of his cases. After forty-five minutes, all he had was “Dear Fred.”

He knew exactly what the problem was, of course. Allie. He had hardly been able to think of anything else since their evening together yesterday.

Lying awake last night, he had given free rein to his fantasies. He allowed himself to imagine showing off his favorite chalet in the French Alps. She’d be amazed at the snow and the manicured slopes. He’d ski and she’d snowboard, and they would see each other in flashes as they sped down the mountains.

Afterward, they would go to a little restaurant he knew that specialized in wild game. They’d get the table by the old stone fireplace and the owner would come out with two glasses of Beaujolais as soon as they were seated, like he did for all his regulars. Allie would sip her wine and look beautiful in the firelight. They’d have pheasant—no, venison—and Allie would make jokes about Bambi and Rudolph and they’d both laugh. Then they’d walk back to the chalet with the moonlight silvering the mountain and the narrow brick road before them. It would be cold and she would snuggle up against him and say how happy she was.

When he woke in the morning, he remembered why that was a fantasy. Doyle & Brown had a policy against lawyers dating clients, and they did not make exceptions. Five years ago, a former corporate client had sued, claiming that a D&B lawyer had seduced their general counsel in order to keep her from moving the company’s multi-million-dollar legal budget to another law firm. D&B paid six million to settle the case and lost millions more when several big clients took their business elsewhere “to avoid even the appearance of impropriety,” as they put it.

And a romance with Allie wouldn’t just mess up his career, it would ruin hers. Too many people wanted to know who was behind Devil to Pay, Inc. Even if they were discreet, it wouldn’t take long for someone to see them together. Then someone would put one and one together and guess what the two of them were up to. And then Allie would be nothing but an unemployed accountant with a string of bad references.

So what was he going to do when she called? He glanced at the clock. 11:15. Okay, fifteen minutes to figure out what he was going to say. Pretend last night never happened? No, that never worked. Besides, he didn’t want to find a way to go back to the way things were—he wanted to find a way forward where they could be together painlessly. He was good at that— always had been. There was always someone he could call or a bank account he could draw on somewhere. Things could always be fixed. He just had to find the right lever to pull.

But how was he going to fix this? He bit his lip and stared out the window, hardly seeing the fog-covered bay outside. He could switch firms—but that would only solve his problem, but not hers.

Maybe he could arrange a high-paid accounting job for her at one of the companies where Mom and Dad were directors. No, that would take her away from the fraud-fighting work she loved. Plus, it would look like he was buying her.

He picked up a model P-51 from his desk (a gift from a former secretary) and spun the propeller. He waited for inspiration to come, but the only thing he felt inspired to do was get out of the office and take the White Knight up for an hour or two.

He looked at the clock again. 11:30. He sighed and put the plane down. He’d just have to fudge his way through the call and think some more. There was a solution there someplace. He just had to find it.

At least Max had given them plenty to talk about. DOJ had never turned down one of their cases before. Once Max filed a “declination to intervene” as it was formally called, the case would come out from under seal and litigation would begin in earnest. And so would the bills. If Max was right that the ceiling on their recovery was only about sixty thousand, they really had no business going much further. D&B’s legal bills alone would probably cost over sixty thousand. Per month.

Connor was entitled to his attorney fees under the California False Claims Act, even if they far exceeded the actual amount of the judgment. But he’d have to fight for them, and the judge would likely slice a big chunk off of whatever bill Connor submitted. Overall, it just wasn’t worth it. He hadn’t asked the Executive Committee for permission to continue with the case despite DOJ’s decision, but he had a pretty good idea what they’d say.

He’d recommend to Allie that they fire off a massive wave of discovery as soon as the seal lifted, then offer to settle. The discovery would be cheap to prepare, but expensive for Deep Seven to answer. Presumably, they’d be willing to pay something to make the case go away at that point. Even if they weren’t, the case would still go away. Or at least Connor would.

Allie would understand. She was a smart businesswoman, and she’d be able to see that going forward with the case would be stupid. In fact, as soon as she called, he would—

He looked at the clock in the corner of his computer screen. It showed 11:35.

Weird. She was always punctual, and they had specifically decided that she would call him because she didn’t know whether she’d be home this morning.

11:37.

Maybe they’d had a misunderstanding and she was expecting him to call after all. He dialed her cell phone. It rang three times and went to voicemail. He left a message.

11:40.

He called her apartment. The phone rang once. Then a woman’s voice said, “The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service. Please hang up, check the number, and dial again.”

Connor hung up, checked the number, and dialed again. Same message.

He hung up again and stared at the phone, mind whirling.