Mistress of Justice

process server during the day—serving subpoenas in some of the toughest parts of the outer boroughs.
    So, there was a different Thom Sebastian beneath the jokey party animal. One who was driven, ambitious, tough. And, Taylor knew, recalling the conversation in Ada’s downstairs den, also a thief—fucking the firm that fucked him.
    More associates were filing into the library now and she didn’t want anybody to see what she was doing so she logged off the computer and went to the administrative floor.
    There she walked into the file room Carrie Mason had told her about, a large, dingy space filled with row upon row of cabinets. It was here that the billing department kept the original time sheets that lawyers filled out daily.
    Making certain the room was empty, Taylor opened the “D” drawer—where Ralph Dudley’s sheets would reside—and found the most recent ones. They were little blue slips of carbon paper filled with his imperial scrawl, describing every ten-minute period during working hours. She read through and replaced them and then did the same in the “L” drawer for Lillick and the “S” for Thom Sebastian.
    Taylor rose to leave but then paused.
    The “R” cabinet was right next to her.
    She rested her fingers on the handle and after a moment’s hesitation, pulled it open and looked inside. She stared in astonishment at the booklets with Mitchell Reece’s name on them. There were hundreds of them. Christ Almighty … nearly twice as many as for most other lawyers.
    She pulled one out at random—September—and thumbed through it, looking at a typical day in the life of Mitchell Reece:
    New Client relations
—½
hour
.
    New Amsterdam Bank & Trust v. Hanover & Stiver
—4½
hours (depositions
).
    Westron Electronic et al. v. Larson Associates—3
¼
hours (motion to quash subpoena, J. Brietell
).
    State of New York v. Kowalski—½ hour (conference with DA’s office; pro bono
).
    State of New York v. Hammond—½ hour (meeting with defendant; pro bono
).
    In re Summers Publishing—2½ hours (research, briefing Chapter 7 bankruptcy issue
).
     
    She skimmed ahead.
    Lasky v. Allied Products … Mutual Indemnity of New Jersey v. New Amsterdam Bank … State of New York v. Williams
.
     
    She totaled the hours: Sixteen were billed to clients. That was sixteen hours of
productive
work, not commuting time, lunch, trips to the rest rooms and the water fountain.
    Sixteen hours in one day!
    And every day was pretty much the same.
    Arguing motion, arguing motion, on trial, writing brief, on trial, on trial, settlement conference, arguing motion, on trial, pro bono meetings with criminal clients and prosecutors
.
    On trial on trial on trial …
    He never stopped.
    A thought occurred to her and she smiled to herself. Yes, no?
    Go for it, Alice.
    She opened the binder containing the most recent of his sheets. She flipped through them until she found the day that she’d followed him to Grand Central Station.
    For the three hours he was out of the office he’d marked the time Code 03.
    Which meant personal time.
    The time you spend at the dentist’s office.
    The time you spend at PTA conferences.
    The time you spend in Westchester, with your girlfriend.
    Taylor felt her skin buzzing with embarrassment as she flipped through other lunch hours over the past severalmonths. In September he’d done the same—taken long lunches—only usually it was two or three times a week. Recently, in the month of November, for instance, he’d done so only once a week.
    Three hours in the middle of the day for a workaholic like Reece?
    Well, Taylor Lockwood understood; she’d had lovers herself.
    She put the time sheets back and closed the drawer.
    Outside, the air was cold but the city was ablaze with Christmas decorations and she decided to walk home. She slipped her Walkman headset on, then her earmuffs, and began to walk briskly, thinking about the evening ahead, dinner with Mitchell Reece—at least until the hiss of the cassette grew silent, Miles Davis started into “Seven Steps to Heaven” and the rest of the world was lost to Taylor Lockwood.

CHAPTER NINETEEN
     
    Well, look at this.
    Mitchell Reece could’ve been a professional interior designer.
    Taylor would have thought he’d have no time for decor—or interest in the subject. So when he opened his door and ushered her into the huge loft, she exhaled a sharp, surprised laugh.
    She was looking at a single room, probably twenty-five