Chapter 74: Revised Instruction

Victoria’s car took her to the Harbor Grand at seven forty-eight. Lucas watched it go from his own front step with his collar up, while the gray Suburban pulled out after it and one of the guards gave him a short, unreadable nod through the passenger window.

He took the train. It was the first time in three days he had ridden it without checking every face in the car. A man across the aisle was asleep with his mouth open and a tie folded into his shirt pocket. Two students argued about a lab report. Nobody in the car had heard of Richard Sterling, and that felt like a luxury Lucas had forgotten was available.

He thought about what Reed would ask and decided he would answer all of it the first time. Not because Reed would catch the gaps. Because Victoria had sat at his small table with bad coffee and put her own exposure into words before his, and he did not want to be the one who came to the office with less.

Reed’s assistant was back at her desk. She looked up when Lucas came in, looked at the clock, and said, "He’s expecting you. He’s been expecting you since seven fifteen."

Reed’s office smelled of fresh coffee for once. Reed was standing behind his desk with his jacket still on, which Lucas had learned meant he intended to be brief and did not expect to manage it.

"Sit," Reed said. "Before you say anything, understand what this is. It’s privileged. It’s also going to become a written disclosure within the hour, so say it the way you’d want it read aloud by a stranger."

"Okay."

"Start with when."

Lucas told him. The night Cole was arrested, after the Halcyon close, in Victoria’s apartment on the river. Then page forty-seven, the confession in her office, the suspension, and nothing personal between them for the whole time the instruction stood, except one text telling him to stay off Richard’s line and one look across 2B that he could not have sworn to in court. Then last night. Her knock at ten fifty. Her detail in the car downstairs. The text he had sent from his own phone at her request. This morning.

Reed wrote while he talked, in short lines on a yellow pad. He did not interrupt once.

"Did you discuss your testimony?" Reed asked when he had finished.

"No. We talked about how it would look. She went through her exposure and I went through mine. Nobody told anyone what to say."

"Did she ask you about Ward, Cole, the timeline, anything in the civil outline?"

"No."

"Did you ask her?"

"No."

"Did either of you mention Richard’s photographs?"

"I did. As a risk. That his lawyer would use it."

Reed made a note. "That’s fine. That’s not coaching, that’s arithmetic." He looked up. "Anything else? I mean anything. If the defense asks you on the stand whether you’ve ever discussed this case in bed with the CEO of the plaintiff, I want to have already read your answer."

Lucas thought about the night before. The word eventually. Her thumb on his wrist.

"She told me she’s noticed I see things other people don’t," he said. "She said she’d want to know how, someday. Not about the case. About me."

Reed looked at him over his glasses for a long second.

"That’s not a legal problem," he said. "That’s yours."

At eight forty the GC called. Reed put him on speaker. Victoria was in the GC’s office with him, and she said so herself before he could.

"I told the board chair at eight ten," she said. "By phone. He asked whether it began before or after the suspension. I told him before, paused during, and resumed last night after Richard’s arrest. He asked whether it changes anything about Mr. Vintage’s account. I told him that’s a question for counsel and not for me. Then he asked me whether I was all right."

"What did you say?" Reed asked.

"That I was the most all right I’ve been in a month, and that he should write that down too, because someone will ask him." Her voice stayed level. "The GC has my written statement. It’s two paragraphs. I didn’t use adjectives."

Reed’s mouth moved, very slightly.

The GC read the revised instruction aloud. It was short. Mr. Vintage remained a fact witness in Vertex’s civil action and a cooperating witness in the state matter. The prior no-contact instruction was withdrawn. Mr. Vintage and Ms. Sterling had disclosed a personal relationship to counsel, which would be disclosed in writing to the Assistant State Prosecutor that morning. Neither would discuss the facts of either matter, any testimony, or any document outside the presence of counsel. Mr. Vintage’s building access remained suspended pending the conclusion of the internal review.

"The badge stays in the envelope," the GC said. "That’s not a judgment on the relationship. It’s page forty-seven. Those are separate problems and I want them on separate paper."

"Understood," Lucas said.

"Miller," Reed said. "I’ll call her myself. Before nine thirty. She hears it from me or she hears it from someone at Richard’s bail hearing, and I know which version of that call I’d rather make."

"Agreed," the GC said.

Victoria spoke again.

"Lucas."

"I’m here."

"Separate paper," she said. "I heard it. I’m going to keep to it. I’d like you to keep to it too, including when it’s inconvenient for me."

"I will."

The call ended. Reed picked up his desk phone and dialed Miller without putting it on speaker. Lucas heard only his side. Yes. Last night. Disclosed this morning by both of them. Written. I’ll send it in ten minutes. No, nothing about testimony. Yes, I asked. Twice. Then a long pause, and Reed said, "I know. That’s why I’m calling you first," and hung up.

"Well?"

"She said, and I quote, ’Of course they are,’" Reed said. "Then she said thank you for not making her find it in a defense motion. She’s not happy. She’s also not surprised. Those two together are about the best you get from a prosecutor."

[Priority Quest Completed!]

[Objective: Give a complete and accurate account of the relationship with Victoria Sterling to counsel before the revised no-contact instruction is issued.]

[Reward: 300 AP.]

[Current AP Balance: 4650.]

[Note: Disclosed facts are harder to weaponize than discovered ones.]

Lucas let the brackets fade. Forty-six fifty. He thought the system’s note was the first sensible thing it had said about lawyers.

Richard Sterling’s bail hearing ran at eleven in a courtroom on the fourth floor of the county building. Lucas did not go. Reed went alone and texted from the gallery in fragments.

New counsel. Criminal defense from Philadelphia, Martin Kaplan. Met Richard for the first time this morning.

Miller arguing flight risk. Charlotte lie, the dawn wire, three burner numbers, the Arlington signature.

Kaplan arguing spotless record, community ties, ex-wife pursuing him for revenge.

Lucas read that one twice.

Judge asked Kaplan what community ties a man has when his phone is a voip gateway. Kaplan did not have a good answer.

At eleven forty: Held without bail pending a detention hearing Friday. No contact with Victoria, you, Camilla, Ward, or any Vertex employee. Elena Garrity was not in the room.

His phone buzzed while he was still reading. Victoria.

I heard. I’m not going to say anything about it, because I’m not allowed to and because I don’t want to. Dinner Thursday. Somewhere with a table that isn’t in 2B.

He looked at it for a moment. It was the first message she had sent him in weeks that did not mention counsel, a lawyer, or a door.

Thursday, he wrote back. I’ll cook. Not rice.

You’ll cook rice, she replied. I saw the bag.

Lucas sat in the counter place near Reed’s office with a bowl of soup going cold and read the last line again. Elena had been on Richard’s side of every call for a week. Her withdrawal had landed at six fifty this morning, four hours before the hearing, which in Reed’s world was like stepping off a train while it was still moving.

He thought of Victoria’s two-paragraph statement. He thought of the night before, when she had told him she was tired of being the woman who did not show up. Then he did what he had promised himself he would do, which was to call Camilla before anyone else could.

She picked up on the second ring.

"You’re calling," she said. "Not texting. That’s either very good or very bad."

"It’s neither. It’s a disclosure."

A pause. "Go on."

He told her. Not the details. The fact of it, the timing, the revised instruction, Miller. He told her before she could find it in a hallway or a log or a motion.

Camilla was quiet for a while. He could hear an office around her, a printer, someone laughing two desks away.

"I’m not surprised," she said finally. "You called me from her apartment that night. I didn’t know you’d go back." Another pause. "Thank you for telling me yourself. That’s new."

"I’m trying to make it not new."

"I’ll believe that around the fourth or fifth time." Her voice was dry, but not cold. "Are you happy?"

He had not expected the question. He answered it anyway.

"Yes."

"Good," Camilla said. "Then don’t do anything stupid with it. She’s going to be on a witness list with you for a year, and Richard’s new lawyer is going to read every page of this. Be boring in public. Be whatever you want in private. Just don’t get those confused."

"That’s the second time you’ve told me to be boring."

"It’s the second time you’ve needed it."

[Target: Camilla Verman.]

[Relationship Status: Wary Ally.]

[Trust Trend: Rising. The target values disclosure that arrives before discovery.]

She hung up before he could say anything else. He found he was smiling at a bowl of cold soup.

At two Reed called him back to the office. He was standing at the window again with his jacket on.

"Elena Garrity called me at one fifteen," he said.

Lucas sat down slowly.

"She withdrew this morning because her engagement letter makes her a witness if she stays. The detective has the Hartwell alias. Miller has the annex security stills. Pell and Garrity’s managing committee has been asking her since last night why her name is on a conference room reservation she didn’t make under her own name." Reed turned from the window. "She is now a lawyer who needs a lawyer. She has one. He called Miller at one thirty and asked for a proffer."

"What’s she offering?"

"Miller wouldn’t tell me the substance. But Garrity’s lawyer sent one line to Miller’s office in writing, and Miller forwarded it to me because it names you." Reed picked a single printed sheet up off his desk and held it out.

Lucas took it.

My client is prepared to identify the person who received copies of the Sterling photographs from Richard Sterling two weeks before his arrest. That person is a current Vertex director. My client will give that name only in a proffer session at which Lucas Vintage is present, because Richard Sterling told her that Mr. Vintage would understand why.

Lucas read it to the end, then read it again. The paper did not change.

"A director," he said.

"A director," Reed said. "Someone on the board Victoria just called this morning to tell the truth to."

[Priority Quest Generated.]

[Objective: Attend Elena Garrity’s proffer with counsel present, and share nothing about it with Victoria Sterling outside the presence of counsel.]

[Reward: 500 AP.]

[Failure Penalty: Revised instruction breached; disclosed relationship becomes evidence of coordination.]

[Current AP Balance: 4650.]

Lucas looked at the objective, then at his phone on the desk, where Victoria’s last message still sat at the top of the screen. You’ll cook rice. I saw the bag.

"I can’t tell her," he said.

"You cannot tell her," Reed agreed. "Separate paper. You both signed up for it four hours ago." He took the sheet back and slid it into a plastic sleeve. "Miller has the proffer set for tomorrow at ten. Garrity, her lawyer, Miller, Morgan, me, and you. Whatever name she says in that room, you walk out and you go to dinner on Thursday and you talk about rice."

"And if it’s someone Victoria trusts?"

Reed set the sleeve on his desk and squared it to the edge.

"Then you’ll find out what you’re like," he said, "when keeping a secret from her is the honest thing to do."