Judgment

66

It was a few minutes after one in the morning, and she was beyond exhausted. She felt jittery and strangely wide awake. She stood on the sidewalk outside Boston Medical Center, stunned, horrified by what had been done to Philip Hersh. She wondered if it had happened because of her. Surely he was also working on other cases.

But what if it was because of her case that he was so badly wounded? What if it was over this file he mentioned? The possibility sickened her.

There was a surprising amount of traffic for that time of night. She watched the cars for a moment, then looked at her phone. Duncan had called several times.

His voice messages sounded increasingly worried. I thought your flight gets in at like eleven thirty. Call me. Where’d you go? Jules, where are you?

She called him back, told him she’d be home soon, and she’d explain.

Then she hailed a cab to the Park Colonnade Building, in downtown Boston.

Maybe he’d left this paper file in his office. What had he said? I’d be happy to drop it off... you can stop by my office.

I think you need to see this.

If the file was in his office, she needed to get over there right now and get it. Whatever it was.

The cab pulled up to the Park Colonnade Building, and she got out. It was dark, nobody else around.

That means no one is following me, she thought.

At least no one that I can see.

She took the stairs to the third floor. The hallway was dark, as were the offices, which she assumed were all empty and locked this late at night.

She walked down the hallway in the darkness, her footsteps echoing. At the door to Hersh’s office, she took out her cell phone to use as a flashlight and Hersh’s key ring.

And began to try the keys, one by one.

The fifth key turned the lock.

She waited for an alarm warning tone, but there was just silence.

No alarm? That surprised her. Hersh would make sure his office was alarmed. He would take security precautions. That was the kind of guy he was.

Maybe the alarm had been turned off. Or hadn’t been set in the first place, for some reason.

She didn’t want to turn on the overhead lights, which would spill light into the hallway and arouse the curiosity of any passing security guard. Instead, she continued to use the flashlight function on her phone. It illuminated a broad area with a dingy light.

And she saw that his office had been searched. File cabinet drawers were all open, files spilling out of them. His desk was heaped with file folders. Piles of folders were scattered here and there on the carpet. Hersh’s office had been untidy, but there was no way Hersh had left it like this. Someone had been here and searched aggressively, not bothering to return it to its previous condition, not caring who knew what had happened. It almost looked as though they were making a point — we can do whatever the hell we want. Not just to the office, but to anyone who gets in our way.

She heard footsteps in the hallway and immediately fumbled with her phone, trying to turn off the damned flashlight, finally swiping up and finding the right icon and pressing it to switch off the light.

The footsteps came closer. She froze, standing there in the dark, in the middle of this tiny office. A security guard? If so, she didn’t know what she could say. She had Hersh’s keys, which counted for something. He’s in the hospital and asked me to pick something up for him.

That might work.

She breathed in, and out, and stayed perfectly still.

The footsteps were right outside the door.

She exhaled slowly, silently.

The footsteps moved on. She waited for another thirty seconds or so to make sure the guy was gone.

Then she put the phone-flashlight on and began to search through the chaos.

The first open file drawer seemed to have client files. There was a gap in the B section. Maybe that was her file. If Hersh had made a file with her name on it, someone had taken it.

She went through the other files, looked over the piles on the desk and on the floor. Nothing that had to do with the Russian man, Protasov, nothing that had anything to do with her case.

Either someone had found what he wanted and took it — or he’d searched and given up. But as far as she could see, the file wasn’t here.

She didn’t get home until after two in the morning. She had to be in court no later than eight thirty. She could push it to maybe a few minutes before nine, if she really needed the sleep. She’d get five hours. That would be fine. In law school there’d been nights when she didn’t sleep at all.

But she couldn’t sleep. She was wired and tense. She thought about Hersh, so badly wounded, beat up nearly to death. And about how nervous Paul Ashmont, this CIA career professional, was about her getting close to Protasov.

You would be putting yourself in great danger, he’d said.

Now she found Duncan in their bedroom, awake and distraught.

“Jesus, Jules, where the hell have you been?” he said angrily.

She told him about Philip Hersh and what she’d seen.

“Do you understand how worried I’ve been?” he said.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have kept you in the loop. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

He exhaled. “Tell me what happened in DC.”

She told him about the Russian oligarch and his minions in Washington. About the CIA guy she’d met at the bar and his theory of Yuri Protasov.

And she told him her plan.

After about an hour she was finally able to go to sleep, but it was a light, troubled sleep.

It felt like just a moment later, though it was more like a couple of hours, that she heard Duncan whisper her name. She opened her eyes, saw that he was standing by her side of the bed, in his T-shirt and boxers. She sat up. “What?”

He put a finger to his lips. Shh.

She whispered, “What is it?”

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear — what?”

He cocked his head to one side. “Downstairs.”

“What?”

“I heard something from downstairs.”

“You think it might be Jake?”

He shook his head. “Someone’s in the house.”