A Legal Trap Ch. 14

I knew I was full on blushing and wasn't sure what to say back. "You weren't so bad yourself Mr. Kline..."

"Oh, we're grading now," he asked with mock indignity.

I could feel the flushing now, the little bit of nervousness in my stomach, maybe even shyness - though I'd started this whole line of flirting. I needed to get back on task or I'd be a puddle of pudding on the floor.

"What's up?"

"Hadn't thought about deleted emails and whether Blass had tried to dump stuff. I'm running scans now and asked Iron Mountain for backups going back a couple years. I talked to our rep and there hadn't been any asks for backups or to outright delete any backups, so we should see if there were any attempts to bury emails..."

"Oh, you can do that?"

"Well, I can do a lot of things...," he chuckled, "But this will take a couple days, I'm sorry about that." He looked like he'd let me down or something.

"Don't worry about it, but I'm certainly curious now. Thanks for thinking about that."

"You going to be working late?"

Ask me to dinner... Say you want a repeat of last night...

"Liz?"

Augh! "Sorry, I... I was thinking, from this set of emails you've collected can we filter it anymore? Throw some keyword searches to come up with a subset?"

"Absolutely! You wanna email me your keywords," he asked enthused.

"I'll do that..."

We talked a little more about what I was doing and he was supportive, but wasn't sure how he could help anymore. I told him he'd already made my job easier and thanked him for the assist. He left without asking me about either of those thoughts I'd had. Mr. Hit and Miss on the mind reading thing he seemed to do! Back to work...

March 16th 9:12 PM

At 8:49 PM Gina Barnes had stuck her head in my office to see how I was doing. We talked briefly about the progress, but I didn't get a sense she was too impressed. She was leaving for the day and told me if I needed a ride home to Uber it and turn in an expense form. I still had the company Amex card, so I had a way to pay for it. That bit of our conversation reminded me I needed to fill out an expense form from my trip to Phoenix. Augh...

I was starving, tired, and stressed. My search for snack options within the office got me nothing worthwhile, so I'd hopped the elevator to the lobby and got a pre-made sandwich and a bag of chips right before they closed at 9. When I reentered the office the cleaning crew had just begun doing their thing, so I closed my office door to drown out the vacuum cleaner noise. I'd settled in to staring at my compu...

FUCK! I about jumped out of my skin as my cellphone began to ring! I fumbled to get it from my purse and caught the caller ID - Paul.

"Hello you...," I tried to sound like I wasn't fazed or startled. I'd last seen him around 6 PM when he popped in to say he was heading to his parents place for dinner. I'd like to have been invited, but... Yeah, it is what it is and I was busy anyway. Life would have to take a backseat for a few days, maybe weeks - I hoped not.

"You're still at work..."

It wasn't a question, he knew - how did he know? I wondered how much I could mess with him?

"No, I'm home...," I replied shyly.

"Don't think so Liz... I see you just scanned your keycard to get back into the office. You need a ride home?"

Ah ha! Sneaky Mr. Kline, very sneaky. "Nah, I can Uber it... Gina said to expense it."

"Oh, okay..."

He sounded disappointed. That's a good thing, right?

"I'm beat Paul... Think I just want to shower and sleep."

It's not all I wanted to do, but if he came to get me it would be an even longer night and I'd be paying for it tomorrow. Come to think of it, I was paying for last night still - a little sore down there. I smiled thinking it was worth it.

"Gotcha... Yeah, long day I guess. Making any headway with that subset of emails?"

"Yup, but I'm probably being too anal about my categorizing them. I think I can get some help with these from Cal, he sounded like he might have bandwidth in a day or two."

"Cool... Well get out of there soon and text me when you're home."

"You sound like you care Mr. Kline...," I said playfully.

"If that's what you're hearing, then I'm glad there isn't any confusion. Really Liz, pack it up and get out of there. Let me know when you make it home."

How couldn't I feel a warmth from all of that?

March 19th 11:52 AM

It was already Friday and I was drowning in this assignment. The only bright spot in the last couple days had been seeing Paul - inside of work only unfortunately - and that Cal and Michelle had finished their assignments and were now combing through the financials I hadn't even begun to get too.

The emails from Janet and Martin were taking forever to review. I'd made it through the bulk of the sent emails and was beginning to look at the deleted set Paul had gotten me. Most were crap, nothing but... Wait a second, what the fuck?

'From: Jones, Vincent <vjones@clogistics.ca>

Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 8:05 AM

To: Larson, Janet <larsonj@bwllaw.com>

Cc: Barta, Peter <pbarta@ilwu19SEA.com>

Subject: RE: [EXTERNAL] Classification standards V8.2

Janet:

We're a go with the changes via our legal team. The software is being updated and pushed to Peter at the Port of Seattle Union for final testing and approval. Let me know if you need anything additional.

I will text you the information on that other matter shortly. I found someone who can assist.

V

__________

Vincent Jones

PM Comsware Logistics

Vancouver, BC 604.667.7156

vjones@clogistics.ca

-----------------------------------------------------------

From: Larson, Janet <larsonj@bwllaw.com>

Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 4:54 PM

To: Jones, Vincent <vjones@clogistics.ca>

Cc:

Subject: Classification standards V8.2

We'll need the status on this Vincent. Also that other item.

Janet Larson (she/her)

Brandt, Wentz, and Larson

Office Phone: 206-844-1612. Cell Phone: 206-918-1577

larsonj@bwllaw.com'

What was the 'other item' Janet had mentioned and the reply mentioning 'someone who can assist' from some guy in Canada? I'd seen easily a hundred emails from this Vincent guy to both Janet and Martin - all normal looking, work related kind of things, non-judicial grey areas, and mostly generic 'Kah-Rap!', but this one had been purposely deleted. Why?

I scanned the folder Paul had created for me on the network and found that Janet's original email been deleted, so was this reply I was looking at. I then combed through the other directory of emails and eventually found emails related whatever this "V8.2' software stuff - all business, no extra mention of 'other item'.

Okay, that's unusual. When was this deleted? Wait, it was sent... FUCK!

March 19th 12:19 PM

"This doesn't look good Jacob...," Paul said after giving him a printout of the email I'd found and inserted it into the timeline we knew about Amber's online activity.

Jacob took a long time to answer; he was deep in thought for easily a minute, maybe more.

"Legally we'd be hard pressed to get any traction from this," he replied stoically, "Chain of evidence could come into play and honestly it doesn't say much - though possibly a slip by both Vincent and Janet."

I felt seeing the email and the gravity of the implication had hit Jacob hard, harder than he was letting on given the long standing business relationship and friendship he'd had with both Janet and Martin. Could he reconcile that maybe either or both of them had planned the distraction with Amber to open up their chance at taking over the firm? Augh...

"Janet wanted constant updates from Elizabeth while in Phoenix, that's got to be something," Paul complained.

"A senior partner of the firm looking out for me, for an employee new to the firm and being thrown into a stress filled assignment," he replied quickly, not even appearing to think that answer through.

He was right though; there wasn't enough in that one email - out of the thousands I'd reviewed - that would implicate Janet or Martin. Was there other evidence we could tie to the email?

"Any chance there's some phone records we can tie to David Lafleur? Maybe something in the financials my team finds," I asked quietly.

Jacob turned to really look at me for the first time since we entered his office, "More evidence would certainly help. I'm not so sure we'll find anything. Janet, hell Martin too, are crafty, careful, and cautious actors on every aspect of the law. That you've found even the thinnest of possible connections to what happened to Amber - while disappointing, I'm certain in court it would fall on deaf ears. I doubt they made calls or plans from the office and no court is going give us access to their personal phone records or banking records without cause, more proof of wrong doing."

Paul chimed in, "Unlikely any contact with Lafleur was done with their personal devices, unless they were burner phones or something like that."

I couldn't keep let it be, "Lafleur, he's dead and possibly murdered from what the FBI shared from the RCMP. Couldn't we give them a couple possible suspects? Vincent Jones? Maybe he would turn on Janet?"

"Let me reach out to Landon, see what he thinks. Maybe it'll shake things up a little or maybe not," Jacob offered.

March 19th 12:31 PM

Alone in my office I couldn't hold my tongue any longer and barked, "What the fuck! She set Lafleur to groom Amber?"

"We can't prove that Liz," Paul said sounding as frustrated as I was.

"How though?"

"I don't follow," he scrunched his eyebrows at me.

"How did she know Amber was online or Trans?"

"Maybe it was Martin that found out?"

"Maybe, but... Have you looked at their computers? Like browser history or whatever?"

"Unlikely they would look for her while at work, but the question is valid and I can certainly scan their computers for anything like that, them looking for her online. I think how or when they knew Amber was Trans would be a good thing to know," he said picking up the handset for my phone and dialing and extension.

"Hey... You ever mention to Janet or Martin about Amber being Trans?"

The answer came quickly, "Okay, about when was that?"

I figured he was talking to Jacob and tried to listen, but could only hear Paul's side of the conversation.

"Sure, I'm...," he pause to listen to something, "I understand. I'll get back to you. Thanks."

He set the handset down, "Jacob mentioned it was close to about the time Amber came out. He said Martin didn't give it much thought, but Janet was curious and they had a few conversations about Amber over the past couple years. I think he thinks we're wasting our time on this..."

"During my interview with Janet she brought up the fact that she was active with her wife in the LGBTQ+ community. I wasn't sure whether she was a supporter of my choice or if there was something more to that. It wasn't awkward or anything, but her bringing it up did make me wonder..."

"Well, I'll get a look at their computers then. We good?"

"I'm pretty sure we're good...," I said smiling at him.

He grinned and left. I'd like to have joined him, but I had a lot more emails to plow through and it was going to another long day at this rate.

March 19th 8:46 PM

Gina Barnes had popped her head in my office on her way out and encouraged me to call it a night. I had sent her an email earlier saying Cal, Michelle, and I would be in tomorrow at 10 AM. The last thing she said to me was she'd be in tomorrow also and wanted to go over the RCW (Revised Code of Washington) findings. She had a few questions, a concern about one of the findings, and additional research requests. My heart sank and it took every bit of effort I could muster to not break down in front of her. When she left I laid my head on my desk trying to think out how I was going to manage this assignment.

"Not sure that looks comfortable..."

I didn't look up, "Yeah, well it's the best I can come up with."

"Ran into Gina, says we need to get out of here for the night. She even said something about working tomorrow with your team. I think she's impressed with you Liz..."

I looked up, "Yeah, well... When I don't deliver what she's looking for by Monday I'll be just another road kill paralegal she's left in her wake."

"Drama much," Paul asked smiling.

I chuckled, too tired to be pissed, "My go too..."

"Is there a costume change?"

I laughed, looked over my desk, picked up a large paperclip, and threw it at him.

"Let's get out of here... I could use a drink, maybe even one of your fancy rum drinks."

I slid my chair back, locked my computer, and grabbed my coat and purse, "You could use a little fancy..."

"Why I got you. It's an upgrade for sure," he said helping me get my coat on and then hugging me.

I didn't want him to let me go, but we were at the office and there was no telling who was still around. I smiled at him and for a moment considered kissing him, but held back the urge. He held my office door open and I asked, "Any luck scanning Janet and Martins computers?"

"Actually, that's why I'm still here..."