Page 32 of The Perfect Deception

“So you’re call­ing her a liar?”

Adam shrugged. “I wish I wasn’t. But I never would have ex­pected her not to own up to her mis­take. And cer­tainly not to have all the par­ale­gals rally around her.”

“Re­ally? So if a para­le­gal screws up and forces you all to lose a case, you re­ally think she’s go­ing to ad­mit it? We have to have each other’s backs.”

“Are you say­ing you’d lie?”

Kim closed her eyes. “No, but I’m say­ing it’s awk­ward to be work­ing with the boss’s son and ex­pect fair treat­ment, es­pe­cially in­di­vid­u­ally.”

“Wait a minute, hold on. I’ll ad­mit I’ve been care­less in the past. I’ll even ad­mit to rush­ing out oc­ca­sion­ally. But when I mess up, I ad­mit it. You know that, Kim. I’ve ad­mit­ted mis­takes to you. And I’ve never blamed any of you for some­thing I’ve done. So why are you so will­ing to be­lieve her over me?”

“Ac­tu­ally, Adam,” she said as she got into her car, “I’m try­ing to stay out of it com­pletely. We do have each other’s backs. I’ve had good ex­pe­ri­ences work­ing with you and I ap­pre­ci­ate all the help you’ve given me. But in this case, I’m keep­ing my nose out of ev­ery­thing. If you have an is­sue with Ash­ley, or any of the other par­ale­gals, talk to them. Please leave me out of it.”

Kim started her car and drove away, leav­ing Adam alone un­der the lamp­light. Mut­ter­ing a curse, he climbed into his own car and left. Ten min­utes later, he pulled into a bar he and the other lawyers fre­quented.

“Adam!”

This late on a Fri­day af­ter­noon, the bar was crowded with happy hour rev­el­ers, but de­spite the noise, Adam could eas­ily hear Ryan, one of the lawyers he worked with. Al­though go­ing to a bar prob­a­bly wasn’t the wis­est choice, Adam wanted to find out from Ryan what he knew of Ash­ley’s work. Maybe if other lawyers were hav­ing the same prob­lem, he could use that as proof he was telling the truth. It was weak, but it was the best he could do. Fol­low­ing the voice, and look­ing out for the raised hand hold­ing a beer, Adam pushed his way through the crowd at the door. He made his way to­ward the other end of the bar.

“You want the usual?” Ryan asked. Turn­ing to the bar­tender, he or­dered Adam a beer be­fore ad­dress­ing him again. “Haven’t seen you around the of­fice much.”

Adam shrugged, took the beer from the bar­tender, and swal­lowed deeply. He’d need about twelve of these to re­lease all his ten­sion, but one was a start. “About that. How has Ash­ley been work­ing out for you?”

Ryan laughed. “What do you mean?

“When you give her dead­lines, mo­tions to file, etc. Does she meet them?”

Ryan wrin­kled his face. “I think so. I can’t re­mem­ber a time she hasn’t. Why?”

“Be­cause I gave her a mo­tion to be filed—handed it to her specif­i­cally—and it never made it. She claims I never gave it to her. There was also a prob­lem with a mo­tion I gave her on the Hyde case a month or so ago. Now she’s telling the par­ale­gals I’m throw­ing her un­der the bus to cover my own mis­take.”

Ryan took a gulp of his beer. “Sorry, I haven’t had any prob­lems with her.”

Adam shook his head. An­other one who couldn’t point to any prob­lems and there­fore, couldn’t help him.

“I do know she doesn’t like work­ing late, but then, none of them do. Wish I could be more help.” He eyed him over his beer. “You need to get laid, my friend,” Ryan said. “You’ll feel a lot bet­ter.”

Adam shook his head. That was Ryan’s an­swer to ev­ery­thing. In law school, Adam might have agreed with him. Hell, be­fore his fa­ther was rid­ing his ass, he’d prob­a­bly have agreed with him. But now? Now he didn’t know what the hell to do.

“Oh, do you see that one over there?” Ryan pointed to a hot blonde in the cor­ner and Adam winced. The blonde didn’t ap­peal to him. He took an­other swig of beer and shook his head.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Hair’s too smooth.”

He felt as sur­prised as Ryan looked. Where the hell had that come from?

“Since when are you so picky?” Ryan asked.

Since my fa­ther de­cided ev­ery­thing I do points to my be­ing a waste of space. “I have no idea.”

“Well, if you’re not in­ter­ested, I’m go­ing to check her out.” Grab­bing his beer, Ryan saun­tered over to the blonde.

Adam watched them as Ryan leaned in and said some­thing, the blonde laughed, Ryan held up his hand for the bar­tender. Adam shook his head. When had he be­come such a stick in the mud? There was noth­ing wrong with what Ryan and the blonde were do­ing. He’d done it count­less times.

“How the heck do I get him to pay at­ten­tion to me?”

A fe­male voice near his ear made Adam jump. He turned to­ward a brunette with an up do and heavy ban­gles on her wrists.