Indiscretion

“What are you doing here at this hour?”

A week later, I got off the elevator on the fourteenth floor at six forty-five AM to find Naomi waiting outside the office.

“I wanted to get an early start,” she said.

“An early start to nine o’clock would be eight thirty.”

She smiled. “I was anxious.”

I dug my keys out of my pocket, trying not to notice how smooth her legs looked sticking out from that black pencil skirt, and grumbled. “I had new locks installed last week. I’ll get you a set of keys made today.” Inside the office, I flicked the lights on. “Your cast is gone?”

She opened and closed her hand. “Came off Friday morning. At my last appointment, the doctor had said it would probably come off, but he wanted to X-ray first, and there was a chance it might need to stay on another two weeks. Thankfully that didn’t happen, because I’d already googled removing a cast with a hex saw more than once.”

I smiled. Naomi had been here before, so she knew the way to my office. I started to extend a hand for her to go first, but stopped. “Do you smell that?”

Naomi cocked her head to the side. “Smell what?”

“Do you have hand cream on, maybe?”

“I put lotion on after I got out of the shower this morning.”

“What scent is it?”

“Freesia.”

I leaned in and attempted to sniff inconspicuously, but failed. My mouth salivated as the scent grew stronger. Naomi pulled back, her face wrinkled. “What are you doing?”

There had to be coconut in something she used, even if she didn’t realize it. Or maybe I was coming down with something. I remembered reading an article in a workout magazine once that said a change in olfactory response is often the first sign of illness, but most people ignore it. Maybe I should make a doctor’s appointment?

A mental health professional, perhaps, because you’ve lost it, Reed…

I shook my head. “Nothing. Right this way. After you.”

Unfortunately, my attempt at being a gentleman turned into an opportunity to ogle her ass as I followed her down the hall. She had a great ass, and that damn skirt followed the curve of it almost as closely as my eyes.

I nearly got caught when she stopped at the desk stationed outside my door. “Is this where I’ll be sitting?”

“Ummm…” At least ten feet at all times. “Yeah, that’ll be your desk, but I’m going to move it. I do a lot of calls on speakerphone, and when my door is open it can be pretty disruptive. Just give me a few minutes to put my stuff in my office, and I’ll relocate it.”

“Okay.” She looked around. “Is there a coffee machine? I brought Keurig pods and some ground beans and creamer, too. I can make us a pot.”

I pointed down the hall. “First door on your right.”

“Perfect. Thanks. How do you take your coffee?”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I don’t mind. I’m going to make mine anyway.”

“Alright, thanks. I take it black. There are mugs in the cabinet. You’ll be able to guess which one is mine. It was an office-warming gift from Ben.”

She smiled. “Okay. Be back.”

A few minutes later, I’d moved her desk to a safer location, and Naomi returned with two steaming mugs. She held up the one that read Fresh out of Fucks to Give. “I was torn between this one and the one that said Blow Me, I’m Hot.”

“The jackass bought me that one, too.” I shook my head. “I don’t know why I tell him shit sometimes. He showed up with that one the day after I fired a client by telling him to blow me and hanging up the phone.”

She scrunched up her nose. “This is going to be more different than working in the DA’s office than I thought.”

“I hope you don’t get offended easily.”

She caught my eye. “Only when people ogle my ass.”

My eyes widened.

Her lip twitched. “Gotcha.”

How the hell did she know?

She laughed. “I was teasing. But I guess you just confessed.”

I wasn’t admitting to shit, so I waved for her to follow. “Come on. I’ll show you around the rest of the office.” A few steps down the hall, I spoke without turning back. “You better not be ogling my ass.”

“I’m more of a forearm girl.”

Note to self, do extra reverse wrist curls at the gym tomorrow.

I gave Naomi a quick tour of the office. It wasn’t that big, so it didn’t take long before we were back at her desk. I pointed. “There’s a laptop in your top drawer. We use Caret for billing and timekeeping, and you should have all the usual research software already installed on that computer. You’ll just need to set up accounts, which you can do after I assign you an email with the firm’s domain.”

“Okay, great.”

“Every Monday morning, my old paralegal and I used to get together at ten to go over the status of my cases. It took a few hours, but I’m often out of the office for extended periods of time for trials and hearings, and I think it’s important for clients to be able to talk to someone when they reach out, without having to tell their story from the beginning. Why don’t we do that today? It’ll give you a little background on each case.”

“Perfect.”

“I’m still working on finding a staff attorney and another admin. But I hired a new receptionist finally. She works eight to four. I’ll introduce you when she gets here.”

“It’s okay. I can do that myself so you can get started with your day.”

I grinned. “That would be great, especially because I can’t remember her damn name at the moment.”

Naomi laughed. “I’ll fill you in when I find out.”

“Thanks.” I thumbed over my shoulder to my office door. “I have a few things I need to get done before the phones start lighting up. Why don’t you settle in and we can catch up later?”

“Sounds good.”

I’d made it to the doorway of my office when Naomi stopped me.

“Hey, Dawson?”

I turned. “Yeah?”

“Thank you for giving me a chance. I promise I won’t disappoint you.”

I smiled. “I’m sure you won’t.”

***

“You were awfully quiet.” I stacked the files I’d brought into the conference room to review with Naomi into a pile. “Did I go over the cases too fast?”

She shook her head. “Not at all. I’m still trying to figure out how to be a paralegal. I don’t want to overstep and act like an attorney.”

“What do you mean?”

“My mind still thinks like a lawyer, even if I’m not one anymore. So when you talk about cases, I want to interject with ideas about making a motion stronger, or if maybe there was some entrapment in a kickback case. But it’s not my place.”

“Entrapment? You mean for the Gregor case?”

Naomi nodded.

“How is there entrapment?”

“Well, the informant is a known drug addict, right?”

“Yeah. That’s how the narcotics division flipped him. Rich bastard uses his silver spoon to put drugs up his nose.”

“Did the DA know the building inspector was a recovering addict? I bet they did. They basically dangled temptation in front of the person they were investigating, and when he took the bait, the informant shared drugs and then handed over government funds in the form of a bribe. That’s crossing the line to me.”

“Hmm… Good point. It’s worth looking into. Let’s schedule a deposition with the informant to see what the ADA instructed him to do, or if they told him about the inspector’s drug use.”

A loud gurgling noise came from somewhere. It sounded like water moving through pipes that had air in them. I looked around and realized the heat wouldn’t be on in August. The AC was. I pointed to Naomi. “Was that…your stomach?”

She covered her face. “I was hoping to get away with that. I haven’t eaten since yesterday. I lose my appetite when I’m nervous.”

“What were you nervous about?”

“My first day.”

“You feel any better now?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Let’s get you fed then. If you don’t mind a working lunch, I’ll order us some sandwiches from the deli down the block. I’d like to hear the rest of the thoughts you’ve kept to yourself over the last two hours while I rambled on about these cases.”

She smiled, and my eyes lingered on her lips for a heartbeat too long. I forced them away and cleared my throat, quickly heading for the conference room door. Ten feet at all times, Reed. “What are you in the mood for?” I asked from a safe distance.

“What are you getting?”

“Pastrami on rye and an order of steak fries.”

Her little nose scrunched up. “I don’t eat meat.”

A joke was on the tip of my tongue, but I managed to control myself. “They have salads.”

“That sounds good.”

“What kind do you want?”

“Anything.”

“A cobb without the turkey and bacon?”

“Actually, I don’t eat eggs or cheese either.”

“So…lettuce?”

She laughed. “How about I place the order?”

“Sounds good. There’s a menu for Gem Deli in one of your drawers. They deliver, and we have an account there.”

“Great. So a pastrami on rye and an order of steak fries?”

“On second thought, make that two orders of steak fries.”

“Two?”

“I didn’t eat breakfast either. I went to the gym this morning. They have a protein-shake bar there, and I usually pick one up on my way out, but for some reason it wasn’t open today.”

“You went to the gym today? But you were here at six forty-five?”

“I’m an early riser.”

“I need to get my butt back to the gym now that this cast is off.”

“Your butt looks pretty good to me.” I winked.

I thought her cheeks might’ve pinked a bit, but I wasn’t getting close enough to find out. “Thanks for ordering.”

***

“So what made you move to New York?” I asked before shoving a fry into my mouth. “Ben mentioned your sister lives here. Did you guys grow up in the area or something?”

Naomi shook her head. “No. We grew up in Virginia. My sister met her husband in college, and he was from Brooklyn. They moved to Manhattan after they graduated. I was looking for a change and wanted to be closer to my sister. Frannie has AML, acute myeloid leukemia. She was diagnosed seven years ago, but it went into remission. It came back three months ago, and the treatment has been rough on her. Our mom died from the same thing. It’s not supposed to run in families, but…” She shrugged. “She really needs a bone-marrow transplant. I was her best hope, but I wasn’t a match.”

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded. “Thank you. She’s a single mom now with two young kids, so I figured I could help out. I’m staying with her. She lives down in the financial district. Or Fidi, as they say. I need a New York acronym dictionary.”

I smiled. “Had you ever spent time here before moving?”

“A weekend here and there over the years, but no extended period of time. I was originally debating moving out to California before my sister got sick again. I love San Diego. But I thought if New York couldn’t give me a fresh start, at least it’s big enough to allow me to get lost for a while.”

“Do you know anyone here besides Lily and Ben?”

“One other person. Simon. He’s an old friend. I guess technically he’s an ex-boyfriend. We were a couple for a few years in college. We split up on good terms when we graduated. He went to medical school in Texas, and I went off to Michigan to go to law school. We’ve kept in touch over the years, even though we don’t get to see each other too often. He’s an oral surgeon, but he recently took a three-month sabbatical to do a Doctors-Without-Borders-type program over in India. He specializes in cleft-palate surgeries and jaw reconstruction. He lives up on Eightieth Street.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Four years ago, at a mutual friend’s wedding. But he’s actually flying home today. His sister is getting married Saturday. So we’re going to get together before he goes back to India for the last six weeks. We’re having dinner Friday night.”

An uneasy feeling I didn’t like settled in the pit of my stomach.

“What about you?” Naomi reached over and stole one of my fries. When I looked at her, she halted with it halfway to her mouth. “Do you mind?”

“Does it matter? You already did it.”

She rolled her eyes. “You can take some of mine.”

“I don’t want salad. And clearly neither do you, even though you ordered it.”

“Get over it.”

Her attitude made me smile. “You’re going to fit right in, here in New York.”

Naomi pushed her salad around with her fork. “So what’s your New York story? I know you must’ve grown up in Connecticut since that’s where Ben is from, and you two have been friends forever. When did you move here?”

“I came for college. Went to Columbia for undergrad and wound up going to law school there, too. Never left.”

“I’m surprised you and Ben aren’t partners?”

I shook my head. “We both did a criminal prosecution externship here in the City the summer after our second year of law school. Emily did it, too.”

“You? Prosecution? Not defense?”

“I wanted to learn the tricks from the other side.”

“Is that how you met Emily?”

“No. Emily and I met in law school. I was first in our class, and she was second. I was editor-in-chief of moot court; she was editor-in-chief of law review. We competed against each other at every turn, but it made us both work harder, so we got a lot out of the rivalry. The day we graduated, she asked me if I was interested in going to work at her father’s firm with her. Her dad had been the Kings County DA for a decade before he opened his own practice. I figured I could learn a lot from him, so I took the job. A year later, Emily showed up at the office earlier than she normally did and caught her father getting a blow job from a first-year associate. He was married to her mother at the time. The shit hit the fan, Emily quit, and we decided to hang out a shingle together.”

“Boy, are all the lawyers like this in New York? Emily’s father was having an affair with an associate. You started sleeping with your partner. I’m sensing a theme here.”

I shrugged. “We work a lot of hours. I don’t know anyone in private practice who isn’t putting in ten or twelve hours a day. It doesn’t leave a lot of time for outside relationships.”

Naomi closed her plastic salad container. “I guess it’s a good thing I’m not an attorney anymore then. I’ll be safer at work.”

My eyes dropped to her lips. I wouldn’t be so sure of that.

I wadded the wrapper from my sandwich into a ball and tossed it into the bag everything had been delivered in, holding it out for Naomi to deposit her trash. Pushing back from the table, I stood. “Stop in my office when you’re ready. I’ll give you the Gregor case file, and you can work on getting a deposition scheduled. Maybe you can also go through it to see if anything else interesting pops out at you. You have a different perspective, coming from the DA’s office.”

“Okay. I’m just going to visit the ladies’ room first.”

A few minutes later, I was on the phone when Naomi came to my door. I was just finishing up, so I motioned to the file cabinet on the other side of my office. She took the hint and dug out the Gregor file. After, I held up a finger, telling her to wait while I got off the phone.

Naomi scanned the office, checking out the art on the walls, books on the shelves, and finally the one framed photo I had displayed. She pointed to it when I hung up, clearly about to ask a question, but I cut her off.

“I just wanted to tell you there’s a police interview that hasn’t been transcribed yet, so it’s not in the folder. The video itself is in the e-file, if you need it for any reason when you’re going over the case.”

“Okay, thanks.”

I thought I’d distracted her enough to forget about the photo, but apparently that was not the case. She motioned to the photo of me and Bailey, arm in arm. “Is this another sister?”

I shook my head. “I only have the one.”

Our eyes met. It looked like she was about to ask another question, so I beat her to the punch once again. “I have to make a call. Let me know if you find anything interesting in the Gregor file.”