Page 104 of A Dead End Wedding

He didn't bother to pretend. "Ah. Ms. Vaughn. To what do I owe the honor of this phone call?"

"Right. Like you don't know why I'm calling you. The number ninety-six ring any bells?"

"Hmmm. A riddle. Let me guess. The number of days you've been licensed in Florida?"

I could grow to despise this guy.

"Cute. No, I'm talking about the ninety-six boxes that your flunkies starting unloading in my office parking lot at, oh, probably six-thirty this morning.Thatninety-six," I said,drawing a sketch of Langley as the devil, complete with horns and a fat belly.

He sighed. "Ah, Ms. Vaughn. Most of us who work in litigation spend all day on Saturday at the office. How was I to know that you and your associates are more . . . shall we saylaxin your habits?"

Before I could singe his ears, he went on. "Oh, I'm sorry. You don't actuallyhaveany associates, do you? If this case is too much work for you, I'm sure Sarah Greenberg would be glad to take it. Just say the word, and I'll send somebody over to deliver that discovery to her. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Brody was quite amused at your predicament last night."

The floor dropped out of my stomach. Jake had been laughing it up with this pit viper about me? After how scary everything was?

After he'd asked me to make out in his car?

Scumbag.

I stabbed my pen at the paper and started drawing Jake-with-horns in slashing strokes next to Addy-with-horns. "What is the deal with you and Sarah Greenberg? Are you long-lost twins? Or secret lovers? I've already told you once that I'm keeping this case."

I finished my sketch and started added flames burning them both to cinders, then continued. "Addy, you keep forgetting that I trained with themastersof gamesmanship. You'd better hope you didn't play the 'give the plaintiff tons of paper, but too bad if it's not legible' trick. I have a motion for sanctions already in my forms file for that one."

He started to speak, but I cut him off. "And Iwinwith that motion. Every. Single. Time. Good bye, Addy."

He tried to say something again, but I'd had enough. I gently placed the receiver in the cradle, not slamming it down despitehow badly I wanted to do it. My hands might shake, but I'd faced down the big, bad wolf.

December: Two.

18

When I left my office, Uncle Nathan was leading the burly mover guys, who each had a dolly loaded with boxes, toward the filing room. I squeezed past them and quirked an eyebrow at Nathan. He grinned and made a rubbing motion with his fingers and thumb, the universal symbol for "I bribed them with cash."

As much as I appreciated not having to carry ninety-six boxes in the stifling swamp of heat and humidity that was Florida in June, the idea of owing yet more money to Uncle Nathan made me twitch a little. Shaking my head, I walked out to reception and found Aunt Celia still on the phone and Max just walking in the door.

Max looked around, gaping in disbelief. "What the heck is going on? What kind of case has ninety-six boxes of discovery before experts are even called in?"

"It's the 'bury them in paper' trick. He hopes he can force me to go bankrupt or drop the case, because I have to hire more staff to do document review, or because the case drains all of my time and resources. Either way, I won't have any hours left to devote to cases that might bring in some current cash."

She raised an eyebrow. "Do we evenhaveany of those?"

"Hilarious. Maybe you can take that act on the road. But in the meantime, how about you help me catalogue these boxes and figure out some kind of organization?" I didn't even know where to start. If Addy were playing true to form, the docs would be organized in such a loose way that it could take months to figure out what I'd received.

The idea of transferring the case to a new —non-Sarah Greenberg – lawyer who had more resources than I did suddenly sounded awfully tempting. But I didn't want to give up on Charlie so soon. It might not be as bad as I thought.

"This is worse than I thought," I said a few hours later, tossing a file folder on top of the box I'd just pulled it out of. "There is no discernible organization whatsoever. He really messed with these files. The good news is, that's against the rules of discovery production. The bad news is, I waste more time and energy filing a motion against him. By the time I get a new, organized production, or at least some kind of key to this nightmare, we've lost another few months, minimum."

Max sighed and leaned against the mountain of boxes that partially blocked the doorway to the hall. She looked around at the cardboard looming over us on all sides of the file room and shook her head. "I'm usually pretty good with this, after five years working as a paralegal, but I can't figure it out, either. The documents should be organized by matching them with the discovery requests – and they're not – or in the manner in which they were filed in the defendant's company, with an indication ofwhich request they're answering – and they're not. It's a cluster fudge."

I had to laugh. Even in the face of my impending doom as a lawyer/business owner/somebody who could help Charlie Deaver, "cluster fudge" was funny.

Kind of.

"No worries, girlie. Sometimes you just need a man to bail you out of these things. Hey, did you hear about the three lawyers who walked into the bar?"

"Mr. Ellison!!" Max and I both yelled. "No lawyer jokes!"

He quit chuckling long enough to glare at us. "Hey! I don't have a hearing problem. No need to yell. So, as I was saying, I solved your problem," he said, looking unbearably smug.

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