Page 104 of The Suit

I went back to the computer screen, then flicked through the law journal I was using for reference, trying to find the spot I’d been reading when they’d barged in.

“Raferty?”

“Mmm hmmm?”

I waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t, I looked up to find him staring down at my desk.

“What, Murray? I’m busy.” It was clear I was busy, so I felt justified in snapping, seeing as he was behaving like I had all day to stand around and chat.

“Have you been to bed recently? When did you last leave here?” He spun slowly, taking in the empty pizza boxes and food containers, an overflowing trash can containing discarded coffee cups and the floor littered with tiny colored balled up sticky notes, where I’d tossed them after they’d fulfilled their usefulness from their place on the far wall. Piles of annotated books were strewn across the couch and floor.It would have been tidier, but I’d instructed Sabrina to call off the cleaning crew in case they threw away something important.

When did I last leave? I thought about it but couldn’t remember. After I’d walked out of Penn’s, I’d come here and picked up all the cases I’d been working on before Beulah’s unwanted reappearance in my life. And then once I’d finished them, I picked up more. Celia Ellington, and the rest of my clients, all a thousand times more deserving than Johnson Maynard, whose case was still on hold with the courts while Cody was hunting down the new trail of accounts and assets he’d been hiding.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Why aren’t you at work anyway?”

“It’s Sunday,” Murray replied simply.

Huh. Sunday. That must be why the office was so quiet, and why Sabrina hadn’t been answering when I’d called her name.

“If you’d checked your phone,” he scolded, using his new ‘dad voice’ like I was an errant child, “you’d see I’ve been trying to get ahold of you. Have you even had the news on? Are you aware at all about what’s been happening in the outside world? Or even outside this cesspit of an office? Honestly, Raferty, you’ll need this room fumigated!”

I picked up a half empty bottle of water and gulped down the rest of it, suddenly desperately thirsty.

“I’ve been busy! I’ve been catching up on all the work time I’ve wasted the last month!” I refrained from adding it was all because of Beulah Holmes.

In response, he flung the Sunday edition of the New York Times on my desk.

The front page showed a full bleed image of twenty to thirty FBI agents carrying boxes out of a building. Three pairs of guys were lifting what looked like massive computer servers into a marked truck. There were only five words printed on the entire page:

AUTHORITIES RAID CHICAGO LAW FIRM

“What’s this?”

He pointed to the building, tapping on the image. “This is Feather Smythe Jones.”

My neck snapped back as my eyes shot to his then back to the papers I’d snatched up for a closer look.

Holy shit.

Fuck.

Actual fuck.

Beulah.

I turned the page, my stomach dropping to its lowest levels since last Tuesday when Cody had been waiting for me off the elevator and delivered the news that I’d been sleeping with a traitor. I wonder if this was how Washington felt after Benedict Arnold defected to the British.

All the words missing from the front page were crammed into the next two, three, four text dense pages, broken up with more images of FBI agents standing outside the office building.

In a joint operation between dedicated teams belonging to the divisions of fraud, tax evasion, and organized crime, an FBI Task Force raided the Chicago headquarters of international law firm Feather Smythe Jones and Partners yesterday searching for evidence of illegal activity, following a detailed data leak.

The leak, which tied together a comprehensive and vast cache of evidence the authorities have collected, resulted in the raid on the offices at six a.m. Saturday morning.

“We have been monitoring the unlawful practices of Feather Smythe Jones and Partners for the past eleven months. This morning’s arrest is the result of the hard work and dedication of the team, and a significant breakthrough in cracking down on illicit financing by anonymous shell companies and organizations which facilitate them.” Special Agent in Charge, Ray Diggs, confirmed in a press conference.

I scanned through the pages for Beulah’s name, but didn’t see it. No one was mentioned. There was also nothing in the images beyond the familiar yellow lettering on the back of the agents’ navy jackets as they returned into the building for more evidence.

Besides, she wasn’t in Chicago. She was still here, ruining my city.

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