"Search the box."
Clay said it to the whole thirtieth floor.
"She takes things."
It was 9:45 AM.
My cubicle was a gray square by the copy room.
About forty people stood in the aisle, their phones still lit.
Andre Peebles stood at my elbow.
He was fifty-four, with a radio on his belt and a tired face.
He had set an empty banker's box on my chair.
He hadn't touched anything else.
Clay held a printout.
"Complaint filed with attorney regulation at 9:31."
He read it to the aisle.
"Disclosure of client confidences to a third party."
"Misappropriation of firm files."
My license was thirty-eight days old.
Now there was a complaint against it.
He held up a second sheet.
"Return every Bettendorf file by Thursday at five, or we sue."
"Conversion, over two hundred fifty thousand."
He smiled at the people holding phones.
I didn't have any Bettendorf files.
I had a desk.
I set the box on it, where everyone could see inside.
It was empty.
"Watch, then," I said.
"Andre, check everything she touches," Clay said.
"Yes, sir."
I lifted the first thing.
"One."
"Mug."
It was white and chipped, from a 10K in Wash Park.
"Two."
"Running shoes."
"Turn them over," Clay said.
I turned them over.
Two insoles fell out onto the desk.
Nothing else did.
I put them back in and set the shoes in the box.
"Three."
"Bar flashcards."
There were six hundred of them, rubber-banded and soft at the corners.
"Four."
"Cardigan."
Each thing went into the box in front of the aisle.
I held up a manila envelope.
"What's in it?" Clay asked.
"My oath."
I opened the flap so the aisle could see the signature.
It was dated October 9.
"A souvenir," Clay said.
He'd emailed me that same day.
Title and salary change at the December ceremony.
That meant $58,500 would become $135,000.
He had put himself down as my sponsor.
"Five," I said, and laid it in.
Lorna's office door across the aisle was glass.
She stood behind it on the phone, her back to us.
Her voice carried anyway.
"Tell Conrad it's handled."
I kept going.
"Six."
"Umbrella."
"Seven."
"Phone charger."
"Eight."
"Hand cream."
"Nine."
"Spider plant."
"Ten."
"Earbuds."
"Eleven."
"Granola bars, half a box."
"Twelve."
"Hairbrush."
"Thirteen."
"Diploma cover, University of Denver."
"Fourteen."
"My mother's photo."
Clay hadn't moved.
"That's everything?" he asked.
"That's everything."
"Check her pockets."
Andre didn't move.
"Sir, I watched every item."
The legal-pad page should have been fifteen.
It was in Jonah Calloway's pocket.
I uncapped a Sharpie and flipped the lid over.
I wrote all fourteen items on the inside, in order.
Under the list I added one line.
Nothing of the firm's.
I held out the lid and the pen to Andre.
"Sign the lid."
Andre looked at Clay.
Clay said nothing.
Andre took the pen.
A. Peebles 9:52 AM 11/16
I photographed the lid.
Then I photographed the open box beside it.
Nobody in the aisle laughed.
The elevator chimed at the end of the floor.
Jonah stepped off.
He came down the aisle like he had somewhere to be.
"I'll walk her down."
He reached for the box.
"I carry my own box," I said.
He let go.
"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
He didn't argue.
He walked ahead and held the elevator open with one arm.
Clay called after us.
"Thursday at five, Delia."
The doors closed on his voice.
Nobody spoke for thirty floors.
Andre rode down with us.
He kept his eyes on the numbers.
The lobby smelled like coffee and wet wool.
Bea Fontaine had sat at the front desk for thirty years.
She was sixty-one and knew every partner's coffee order.
She didn't say goodbye.
She turned her phone around on the marble.
To: OK-All
Cc: Jonah Calloway
140 recipients
The email had two files attached.
The first one was mine.
Reyburn_Teams_chats.pdf
Bea had to scroll to see the second.
"He emailed the sealed brief!"
She said it loud, in front of the revolving door.
In thirty years, Bea had never raised her voice at that desk.
The sealed brief was the unredacted version, filed June 9, 2023.
It quoted Corvane's own pump test logs.
The last page carried Clay's signature block.
Clayton R. Haverty, Reg. No. 21406
The court had locked that version behind a protective order.
Paragraph 7(b) said who could open it.
Attachment 1 is a list.
It has nine names.
If you're not on it, you don't see the brief.
I had drafted paragraph 7(b).
I had typed every one of those nine names.
He had sent it to 140.
Bea's thumb slid to the end of the filename.
UNREDACTED — FILED UNDER SEAL.