Chapter 49

Freen arrived at the firm at nine fifteen.

Not seven twenty. Not seven fifteen. Nine fifteen – because the mission was over and there was no operational reason to arrive before anyone else and she was figuring out what the operational reasons were now.

There weren’t any.

That was the thing she kept arriving at. For two months everything had had a reason – the desk position, the coffee order, the late nights, the courthouse runs. All of it had a clear operational purpose that she could point to if she needed to.

She didn’t need to anymore.

She came through the glass partition and Noey looked up and said good morning and Freen said good morning and went to her desk and sat down.

She looked at the Viroj bundle.

The trial was over. The bundle was evidence in a concluded case. She didn’t need to read it.

She looked at the threat assessment folder.

There was no active threat. The assessment was complete.

She looked at her desk.

Becky’s office door was open. She could hear her in there – on a call, something about a new case that had come in, her voice doing the precise focused thing it did when she was interested in a problem.

Freen looked at her desk.

She opened her notebook to a blank page.

She sat.

—

Becky finished the call at nine forty.

She put the phone down and looked at the notes she had made and looked at her screen and then looked through the glass at Freen’s desk.

Freen was sitting there with a blank notebook page in front of her and a pen in her hand and the expression of someone who was working something out.

Becky looked at this for a moment.

Then she stood up and went to the kitchen and made two coffees and came back and set one on Freen’s desk.

Freen looked at the coffee. Then at Becky.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You looked like you needed it,” Becky said.

She went back into her office.

She sat at her desk.

She looked at her screen.

She was aware that something was different about this morning and she was aware that the difference was not bad – not uncomfortable exactly, just unfamiliar. The mission was over. The danger was over. Freen was at the desk outside her office not because there was an operational reason but because she was there.

Because she had come.

Becky looked at her screen.

She had a new case to review. A client meeting at two. The normal work of a firm on a Wednesday morning.

She started reading.

—

At eleven Freen appeared in her doorway.

“Do you have a minute,” she said.

Becky looked up. “Yes.”

Freen came in. She didn’t sit – she stood near the window the way she stood when she was thinking through something and needed to be on her feet.

She looked at the city outside for a moment.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she said.

Becky looked at her. “Do what.”

“This.” Freen turned from the window. “Being here without – without a reason. Without the mission or the cover or a purpose that I can point to.” She looked at Becky. “I don’t know how to just be somewhere.”

Becky held her gaze.

“I’ve been doing this for eight years,” Freen said. “There’s always a brief. Always an objective. Always something I’m supposed to be doing and a reason I’m doing it.” She paused. “I don’t know how to do it without that.”

“Without a cover story,” Becky said.

“Without a cover story,” Freen said.

Becky was quiet for a moment.

She looked at Freen standing by her window – the taped eyebrow, the bandaged hand, the careful way she was still standing that she was still pretending not to be doing. The woman who had sat at a desk outside this office for two months and learned enough law to be genuinely useful and read her closing argument back to her and refilled her water glass and done all of it inside a lie that was also somehow not entirely a lie.

“Good,” Becky said.

Freen looked at her.

“I don’t want a cover story,” Becky said. “I’ve had two months of a cover story.” She held Freen’s gaze. “I want you. Without the brief. Without the objective.” She paused. “Just you.”

The office was quiet.

Freen looked at her.

“I don’t know who that is yet,” she said. “Without the mission. I’m still figuring it out.”

“That’s okay,” Becky said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I might be strange about it.”

“You’re already strange about most things.”

Something moved in Freen’s expression. The beginning of something. “That’s fair.”

“I know it’s fair.” Becky looked at her. “Freen.”

“Yes.”

“Sit down. You’ve been standing carefully for two days and your side is hurting.”

Freen opened her mouth.

“Don’t say it’s fine,” Becky said.

Freen closed her mouth.

She sat in the client chair across from Becky’s desk.

Becky looked at her sitting there. In the chair where clients sat. Where she had sat during the debrief the morning after the parking garage. Where everything had shifted about seven times in the past two months.

“The new case,” Becky said. “That came in this morning.”

“Yes.”

“I could use another pair of eyes on it.”

Freen looked at her. “I’m not actually a lawyer.”

“I know that.”

“I’m on desk duty pending a review.”

“I know that too.”

“So what would I be doing here.”

Becky looked at her for a moment.

“Being here,” she said simply.

Freen held her gaze.

The city was outside doing its Wednesday thing. The office was its normal Wednesday self – Noey’s voice somewhere, the printer running, Heng appearing around the corner with files and disappearing again. The ordinary sounds of a firm going about its work.

“Okay,” Freen said.

“Okay,” Becky said.

She pushed the new case file across the desk.

—

They worked through the morning.

Not the way they had worked during the trial – not with the urgency and the late nights and the specific weight of something at stake. Differently. Slower. The way you worked when nothing was on fire and you were just – working.

Becky read through the case and asked questions and Freen answered the ones she could and said I don’t know to the ones she couldn’t and Becky explained those ones and Freen listened and it was ordinary and quiet and completely different from anything the past two months had been.

At one Heng knocked.

“Lunch,” he said. He set two containers on Becky’s desk and left before either of them could say anything.

Becky looked at the containers.

She looked at Freen.

“He ordered for you,” she said.

“He ordered for me,” Freen agreed.

“He knew you were in here.”

“Heng knows most things.”

Becky picked up her container. “He’s been knowing things and saying nothing for two months.”

“He’s very good at that.”

“He is.” She opened the container. “I should give him a raise.”

“Probably,” Freen said.

She opened her own container. The city was outside the window doing its lunchtime thing. The office had the quiet of the middle of the day.

They ate.

No files between them. No case to discuss. No closing argument to read back. Just lunch in an office on a Wednesday with the city outside and a raise Heng was going to get and the particular ordinary quiet of two people sitting in the same space without needing it to be anything other than what it was.

“Sunday,” Freen said.

Becky looked at her.

“Are you doing anything Sunday.”

“No,” Becky said.

Freen looked at her container. “I thought-” She stopped. Started again. “I know a place. Not far. Good coffee. Outside tables.” She paused. “Not the office.”

Becky looked at her.

Freen was looking at her container with the expression of someone who had said something simple and was now unsure whether it had landed correctly.

It had landed correctly.

“Yes,” Becky said.

Freen looked up.

“Sunday,” Becky said. “Yes.”

Something happened in Freen’s expression. Small. Quick. But there.

“Good,” she said.

“Good,” Becky said.

She went back to her lunch.

Outside the city did what it always did. Inside the office two women ate lunch in a room that felt different from how it had felt two months ago and different again from how it had felt two weeks ago.

Simpler.

More uncertain and simpler at the same time.

Just this.

—

At two Becky had her client meeting.

Freen went back to the outer desk.

She opened the new case file – Becky had left her a copy without being asked – and started reading. She understood about sixty percent of it. She made notes on the forty percent she didn’t and looked things up and made more notes.

At four Becky came out of the meeting.

She walked past Freen’s desk. Stopped.

She looked at the notes Freen had made in the margin of the case file copy.

“The third issue,” she said. “You’ve flagged the authentication problem.”

“It looked familiar,” Freen said.

Becky looked at the note. At the specific provision Freen had referenced – the same one from the Viroj case, the same authentication standard they had spent three nights on.

“It is familiar,” she said.

“I thought so.”

Becky looked at the note for a moment longer. Then she looked at Freen.

“Don’t tell anyone you’re not a lawyer,” she said.

She went into her office.

Freen looked at the case file.

She wrote another note in the margin.

Outside the city was going into its late afternoon. The office was doing its end of day thing. Normal. Wednesday. The particular ordinary of a day that had nothing dramatic in it and didn’t need to.

Freen turned a page.

She kept reading.