Read Online The Hearing by John Lescroart - Free Book Online Page A

you’ll be helping out with the distribution of Elaine’s caseload and that should keep your utilization high.”
    “I was thinking the same thing.”
    “Good. Beyond that, I’d like to recommend, if I may, that during that transition you also begin taking assignments from some of the other attorneys if they are offered to you.”
    “Yes, sir. I was hoping to do just that, too.”
    “Splendid.” Jackman didn’t have to issue the warning any more clearly. Left unspoken was the hard truth that if Treya could not find enough work with one of the teams to keep her fully utilized, Jackman wouldn’t be able to justify keeping her on. “You’ve been with the firm quite a while now, haven’t you?”
    “Almost seven years. I came with Elaine when she moved over from the city.”
    Jackman had his fingers intertwined on the desk. He was rolling his thumbs ponderously. Something was going on in his brain, though his face didn’t show it. “Well,” he said with resignation, “your good work hasn’t gone unnoticed.” He paused again, offered an avuncular smile. “Let’s call it a soft six weeks, shall we? If you need a little extra time, please come up and see me.”
    “I will,” she said.
    The discussion was over, though they both sat unmoving for a long moment. Then, as though on cue, they both nodded, and Treya stood. She said “Thank you” without inflection and headed for the door.
     
    As she walked down the hallway back to her cubicle, the knife kept turning in her stomach. Whatever sympathetic spin Jackman might put on it, she knew the reality behind his words—she had just been politely, regretfully, fired if she couldn’t find another attorney in the firm who’d want to use her.
    Six soft weeks.
    She knew that Jackman meant he might give her seven weeks, maybe as many as nine if he let her continue to work through her two weeks’ notice.
    My God, she was thinking, what am I going to do?
    Six weeks!
    She knew there was little chance she would get anywhere near full utilization in that amount of time. First, her fellow paralegals were under the same pressure as she was to keep working. Nonattorney staff at Rand & Jackman would “bank” their overtime so that they could apply the hours to their utilization during slack periods—though technically illegal in California, the firm winked at the common practice. Too many weeks of low utilization—the exact number was unknown but low—you were gone. And everyone at the firm knew it.
    Beyond that Treya was aware that her special relationship with Elaine had been a source of jealousy among her peers. She had done nothing purposeful to make this happen. She was unfailingly polite and friendly. She bent over backwards, to tell the truth. But there was no denying that she enjoyed a slightly exalted status that some of the other paralegals resented. A few lawyers might have harbored even more negative thoughts—Treya was a mere paralegal who on some level must have thought she was equal to someone who’d passed the bar. A ridiculous notion if ever there was one.
    No one was going to throw her a bone, and several people she could mention might even be glad to see her laid low.
    So unless a miracle occurred, and she had long since stopped counting on them, she was going to be unemployed before springtime. She couldn’t let that happen, not to herself and not to Raney. She had to whip her résumé into shape, get out there at lunchtime and start interviewing.
    If only Elaine . . . oh, poor Elaine . . .
    Blinking back the unexpected new flash flood of tears, Treya hurried the last few steps to her cubicle. She would be damned if she’d let anyone see her crying. If she could just make it back to the safety of her workstation, she could get herself back under control.
    These sudden attacks of crying had to stop. Before the beginning of this week, Treya couldn’t remember the last time she had cried. It must have been just after Tom’s death, when Raney