Look Closer

by David Ellis

But I hadn’t thought much of it, as I was the boss’s son, and pretty much everyone treated me with kid gloves—a lot more pleases and thank-yous when I dropped off a package or delivered a message than the other staffers presumably received.

But then I realize that Vicky isn’t wondering why I would ask that question, or if I already knew something. She’s deciding how much to tell me. She’s deciding how much to let me into her life.

That’s not in your best interest. Why not go to the source, the one the dean is trying to please?”

I may push back when people do things to me, but I don’t generally distrust people.

She would look at Paul as someone who had it coming, even if he never personally did anything to us.

Because what I love about the law is its purity, its honesty, its search for justice and fairness. Because I love teaching the tools of that craft, honing minds, showing them the majesty of the law at its zenith.

The reason I still love Vicky, oddly enough, is that what I have to offer her is not enough.

“What you have to decide,” I said, “is whether you can respect my decision.

Me, I’m in my office at the law school, finishing up a blog post on a case involving a Title III intercept from the Ninth Circuit that is before the U.S. Supreme Court this session.

With these girls, everything is a negotiation, every command merely an opening bid.

You’ll understand. Or you’re not the person I thought you were.

“Irreconcilable differences,” the phrase that launched a thousand ships, the legal term that describes in bland terms the countless different complexities that compel a couple once in love to go their separate ways.

I am not actually a financial guy, I don’t really need this office, but appearances are appearances.

I imagine Emily thinks I’m one of those uber-rich, uber-brainy eccentrics for whom the expense of an office and receptionist is just pocket money, who just wants a place to call an office.

She doesn’t know that I have a special phone for her, but it’s necessary. Once I take her money, I need to cut off all connections between us, remove any trace of myself from her life, and hers from mine.

She’s just saying that it wouldn’t work. That means she’s keeping an open mind.

You missed it, Vicky, because you were counting dollar signs in your head, and you were falling for me.

Yeah, but that’s only half. You want it all, Vicky. So do I.

She’s doing to Simon what I’m doing to Vicky.”

“Brainy in that useless, academic way,” I say. “Kinda guy who could recite the freakin’ quadratic equation or something from memory but wouldn’t know how to operate a can opener.”

I’m a pretty damn good player, but he’s a better coach.

Actually, I was afraid he might not say that and I’d have to raise the idea. But it’s much better that it came from him.

I’ve known about Lauren since before I first met you.

For men, it’s different. Strange men who linger are creepy, potential stalkers, someone to keep an eye on. A woman? A woman can walk a regular route every day and nobody will notice.

Another thing I didn’t want to have to mention. It’s so, so much better when they think it was their idea. Lucky for me, Christian doesn’t lack for confidence.

I walk back to my car, parked up by the elementary school (one place where you can park by the curb and nobody thinks much of it), and drive back to Grace Park.

“We have to cut off all contact with each other,” I tell Vicky. “There can’t be any trace of our connection.”

Ah, yes, that makes sense. Phew. That makes things easier. I’ve been using a burner with her all along, for a different reason, for when I made my escape with her money, but I’ve never told her that.

I told the others, who came after Vicky, that my current fund was closed, but I’d be happy to talk with them when I open my

Most days, I’ve been paying this nineteen-year-old twenty dollars an hour, four hours a day, to do her homework.

“Well, then a bonus,” I say. “A contribution to Emily’s college fund.” She counts it out, her mouth opening in a wow. This is more than a month’s pay all in one shot. “Yeah?” she says. “Yeah. Good luck to you, Emily. I hope to be reading great things about you someday.”

And there is not a single trace of Vicky Lanier to be found.

The man, tall and gray with a kind face, smiles.

Good that he’s taken this seriously. There can’t be any trace of me inside this apartment.

Gavin Finley has a firearm owners identification card with the state, and he owns three handguns, at least three he has legally purchased.

“I’m not doing it, Nick. We’ve been over this. It’s your job. You’re doing it.”

But it is, without a doubt, a way into her house.

I think this is how author will set up the reasonableness of Vicki having the pink phone

The phrase “It is what it is” is the only sentence we speak where we could, but don’t ever, ever use contractions. Nobody says, “It’s what it’s.”

The phrase “only choice” is an oxymoron. “Laid” is pronounced like “paid” but not “said” and “said” is pronounced like “bread” but not “bead” and “bead” is pronounced like “lead” but not “lead.”

And that club, that country club, no I never go, I’m just a legacy member, but you knew my family belonged there and you had to think you might run into me there, but that didn’t stop you from going, did it, Lauren, going every day, because you didn’t care, did you, Lauren?

I don’t have class today and I don’t have office hours today, but I go anyway, maybe because I think I’m supposed to, because it will look right, it will look normal, but I can’t think about the law. I can only think about her. I try to read from the e-bulletin I receive every Monday about new Fourth Amendment decisions handed down around the country, but all I can think about is her.

It was some student’s Halloween bash, and you have to be careful socializing with students, so I decided against it at the last minute.

Alex Galanis is a downtown lawyer in his second term as village president. The word around town is he’s being groomed for a shot at the state senate in 2024. Jane knew his younger brother, Nikos, in high school.

He left a big tip so he’d be memorable to the pizza guy.

A lot of big companies probably hated him because he sued them and got huge awards, but big companies don’t murder plaintiff’s lawyers. They’d probably like to, but another one would just pop up and take his place.”

“Those questions are the answer,” says Gully. “Because we’d ask those very questions and discount him as a suspect. Why wait so long before doing it? Why pick a time when he’s in the heat of final exams and it would be incredibly inconvenient, borderline impossible, to pull it off? And when he’s about to go on to law school and a successful life?”

Hello, Christian.

“What about . . . my mother?” I said, choking out the words.

I had no idea about champagne, if Laurent-Perrier was some fancy brand or something cheap—but I did know that it wasn’t the kind of thing you usually drank with your buddies on the back porch.

Did my mother, the smartest person I’ve ever known, the sharpest legal mind—even with her stroke-addled brain, did she know what he was doing? If she did, she didn’t say. Neither did I.