Hard to Trust (31 page)

He put his feet on the ground and the book on the table. "Is that true? Your aunt says you're still looking for work."

His kind eyes were studying me intently, and I squirmed. Before I hired him as my lawyer, I'd seen him around the bakery for years and knew he and Aunt Marie were friends. Rob was a tall, rangy man. He looked like he'd spent his youth on a ranch, which was the case. Before he went to law school, he'd been a farrier and a roper on the rodeo circuit. He looked a little ill at ease in a suit, but he knew how to do his job. He waited patiently for me to answer his question, and I knew he'd wait forever, and that I'd eventually give in.

With a sigh, I nodded. "Yeah, I'm having some problems getting back into the workforce. I've sent in dozens of resumes and can't even get a call back from most of them."

Rob's face softened. "It's going to be hard to brush off the scandal for a while. Have you considered doing something else, besides finance?"

I frowned. My education didn't make me qualified to do much other than work in investment banking.

"I hadn't really thought about it. What would I do?"

"You were a damn good paralegal," Rob said. "Have you considered going to law school? Becoming a lawyer?"

I tilted my head. "I don't know if I'm cut out for that, Rob. I mean, maybe it's because it's still so soon after my experience with the justice system, but I think it would be too stressful."

He nodded and looked thoughtful. "I may be getting a new fraud case soon. If you're interested, I could use your help sorting through the discovery and making sense of it. If you think you'd want to do that."

The thought of burying myself in paperwork in Rob's small conference room, dubbed the "War Room," and looking for ways to fight against the federal government's narrative made me want to throw myself out the window. It wouldn't do any good, though. Rob's office was on the ground floor. Plus, I really needed the money.

"I guess I could do that," I said.

Rob threw back his head and laughed. "Don't get too excited. It won't be as hard as working on your own case—you can keep your distance. It's not going to be your own life on the line. Plus, since you figured out all the fancy new software, you can take the laptop and work from home if you'd like."

That fancy new software had been bought and paid for by my retainer. The FBI had seized a huge trove of paper and electronic records from Patterson Tinker in its raid, and all of that was made available to Rob and his staff for preparing my defense. Because the federal agents weren't sure how deep or wide the fraud scheme was, they grabbed everything they could, sweeping in vast quantities of client information, banking records, computer hard drives, email servers, phone logs, you name it. A portion of the information—about 110,000 pages worth—was culled out by the government, scanned, and provided to Rob as evidence related to the charges against me. The rest was in a warehouse, where we could go review it. Or rather, where Rob, Sarah, and Burton could review it. I wasn't allowed. I guess they were afraid that I might eat something vital.

I was afraid that there was something in there that I needed to prove my innocence, so I sold the last asset I had—a mountain cabin with a sliver of a view of Lake Tahoe. It had been in my dad's family for sixty years and was the only thing I'd ever gotten from anyone with the last name of Vaughn. If any of the Vaughns could have been bothered to write a will, I wouldn't have inherited it. But thanks to their laziness and the laws of
intestate
succession, I became the owner of the rustic one-bedroom cabin with single-pane windows, leaky pipes, a roof made of papier-mâché, and a charm that bears found irresistible.

But I wasn't going to enjoy the cabin while spending a decade in federal prison, so it went on the market, and I used the proceeds to pay for a service to come in and scan the rest of the documents in the warehouse and convert them to electronic versions that we could search, and the software to manage that much electronic data. It wasn't cheap. But it was worth it. I learned more about Patterson Tinker than I had ever thought possible.

"Think about it, anyway," Rob said. "I can't use that high-tech software for my usual clientele. It would be good to put it to use, and if this new client decides to retain me, I'll probably need it."

"What about Sarah? She knows how to use it."

He waved a hand. "She's already busy with the usual research and writing. It would be easier to have one person devoted to this job."

"I'll think about it," I said, though I wondered if he was just taking pity on me.

He must have heard his former clients complain a thousand times that they couldn't find work, but most of his clients were busted for drugs or bank robbery or identity theft. That narrowed one's employment options. I'd been cleared of the charges—at least in court.

"So you're here to pack up the War Room today?" Rob asked, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table.

"Yeah, Theresa said you're going to need to prepare for another trial soon. I know I should have come by sooner, but I guess I was putting it off."

He smiled and patted my hand. "No problem. I could have done it myself, but I thought you'd probably be better at keeping it organized. Not that I'll need to return to it, since we don't have an appeal to worry about. But the state bar says I have to keep all my records for five years. Or is it seven years? Anyway, I put a stack of boxes in there, but just give a holler if you need more."

I left him in the large conference room with Basil and went down the hall to the windowless room with the "authorized personnel only" sign on the door. The tiny room was lit with fluorescent lights and lined with banker boxes, labeled with tags that read "United States v. Vaughn." I'd spent about nine months in this room, sorting through the boxes and staring at the laptop screen until my eyes were dry. Just being back here made my heart beat faster and my stomach fill with dread—a Pavlovian response.

Rob had thrown a couple of empty boxes on top of the table dominating the middle of the room and had scribbled out the old labels with a black felt-tip pen. They lay haphazardly on stacks of papers and folders that would need to be organized before they went to storage. I started at the far end of the table and worked my way to the open door.

I had nearly cleared the table when Rob and Basil appeared in the doorway.

"I'm heading out for the night. You're welcome to stay as late as you want, or you can come back on Monday—your choice." He leaned on the doorframe and rested his hand on Basil's head, stroking the dog's ears.

"I'm close to finishing. If you don't mind, I'd like to get it all done tonight," I said.

"No problem. You still have a key?"

I wondered how many criminal defense attorneys gave their clients keys to the office.

"Of course. The alarm code still the same?"

"It is," he said and started to turn away. "Oh, and I almost forgot. Can you check the laptop for any electronic files? I know the external hard drives have all the discovery on them, but we had pulled copies to the laptop for trial. I want to make sure our only electronic copies are on the external drives in storage so we're not violating the protective order."

"Sure, I can do that," I said. "But how would that be violating the protective order?"

"We're not supposed to copy the files except as needed for the case, and now that we're done with your case, I don't want any extra copies floating around. I want to be sure that all of the evidence in your case is in these boxes or on those external drives. Any extra copies of documents put in the shredder."

"Got it," I said, wiping my hands on my jeans and standing up. "Thanks for giving me some extra time to get this cleaned up."

He gave me a wink, and I could see the young charming cowboy in his eyes. "Don't stay too late. It's Friday night. Go have some fun."

He locked the office door behind him as he left, and I returned to my task. Before long, my stomach was protesting the lack of dinner. The boxes were labeled. I entered each container's label and content into a chart for Theresa, in case she ever needed to order something from storage. All that was left was the laptop.

As I waited for the computer to turn on, the cell phone in my pocket buzzed. It was such a rare occasion anymore, the sound startled me. The caller's number was blocked, and I expected a telemarketer when I answered.

"Miranda? It's me, Dylan."

The sound of his voice over the phone made my heart skip. That, too, was only a memory, though. I had missed him for a long time, and then I had hated him. But now, I needed him. Which made me hate him a little more.

"Hi, Dylan."

"How are you?"

Annoyed with having to make small talk with you
.

"I'm fine, thank you. What's going on?"

He cleared his throat, and my heart sank. It was a nervous tic of his—a way of avoiding giving bad news. When he dumped me, he sounded like he was in the later stages of tuberculosis.

"I, uh, made some calls, like I said I would. You know, about any job openings."

He really didn't even need to continue. I knew what was coming.

"Here's the thing. The industry, you know, it's still rebounding from the recession."

Bullshit
. Corporate profits for banks were as obscenely huge as they'd been at the height of the market. Did he think I didn't still read the
Wall Street Journal
?

"So, there's that. Plus, you know, you've been out of the game for a year."

You're so full of shit
. I was falsely accused of a crime. Set up by someone at Patterson Tinker to take the fall.

"And the thing is, well, you're sort of radioactive right now. Given some time, that will probably change. But right now? Well, it's going to be a tough sell to get you in the door."

My face flushed.
Radioactive?
That's not what I expected to hear. I mean, I knew it was going to be tough, but I figured there was a chance. I wasn't going in without credentials or experience. I graduated near the top of my class. I did excellent work, knew what I was doing. Sure, my best references were en route to federal prison, but I had been cleared of all charges.

I tried to talk, but my throat was closed up like a fist.

"Listen, Miranda, if I hear of anything, I'll let you know." He cleared his throat again in the uncomfortable silence that followed.

"Thanks, Dylan."

I didn't know what else to say. I wanted to rage, wanted to scream at him. But it wasn't his fault and I couldn't burn that bridge. As much as I hated to admit it, Dylan was the only person in the banking industry who would return my calls.

He said a hasty goodbye and hung up, and I sat in the small airless conference room, surrounded by the proof that I hadn't done what they said I did. That I wasn't a swindler, a con artist, a fraudster.

Or was it proof? I remembered one of the jurors quoted in the local newspaper after the acquittal had said that she wasn't convinced that I didn't know what Ralph and Tim were doing, but the government hadn't proved it beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury had deliberated for four days, and the testimony of the victims who lost their life savings had almost swayed them. Almost, but not quite. At the time I read it, I didn't care about that nuance because I was so happy to not be going to prison. Now I understood that the gulf between being cleared and being found not guilty was going to haunt me. Maybe forever.

I leaned forward and put my forehead on the smooth wood surface of the table, trying to quiet the roaring in my head. All my years of working crappy waitressing jobs to put myself through college, all my hard work at Patterson Tinker, everything that Aunt Marie had sacrificed for me—it was all swirling down the drain. I'd be stuck making apple turnovers at the Sugar Plum Bakery and dodging my former colleagues until everyone forgot that I was the woman who was arrested on fraud charges. Which was approximately never.

The laptop sitting next to my head beeped, and I sat up and reluctantly opened the electronic discovery software. It looked like I had no choice. I'd be working for Rob, reliving my past in his new white-collar criminal cases. I was going to get reacquainted with the computer I'd spent so much time with. I navigated to the folders that contained my case, and my finger hovered over the delete command.

I paused for a moment, my earlier discussion with Dylan echoing in my head.

I
had
been set up. I had known it as soon as I saw the evidence against me. Someone knew that I was in charge of transferring client funds and had set up an account in my name and used it to siphon off investments. I knew I hadn't done it. But it was someone with access to my computer, my information, my passwords. Ralph and Tim would have known enough to do it, and Rob had been successful in convincing the jury that they certainly had motive to set up an underling and lie on the stand about it.

My finger still inches above the delete key, I looked up at the rows of boxes.

Maybe the answers I wanted were in here. The FBI was convinced that I was guilty and was only looking for evidence to corroborate Tim and Ralph's stories. But what if there was something here, something that would finally prove that I was innocent, instead of merely "not guilty."

A plan began to percolate through the haze of self-pity I'd been wallowing in for the past several weeks. I could clear my name. I could find the money stolen from the investors.

No one knew the ins and outs of Patterson Tinker like I did. Not only had I worked there for six years, I had studied it thoroughly in the past year. And no one knew the evidence in the case like I did. I knew where the bodies were buried, so to speak.

I just needed some time. And the computer. And those hard drives sitting in a box waiting to get shipped off to Rob's storage unit.

I stood up and dug through the stack of boxes, ripping the lid off the one I was looking for before good sense could catch up with me. From between folders stuffed with papers, I pulled out the two external hard drives, their cords trailing behind them. Between them, they contained every page of evidence from that government warehouse. I stuffed them in my messenger bag and resealed the box. I turned off the computer and slid it into the bag, too, along with the cords and a binder that I had compiled months earlier as a directory of the volumes of evidence.