Tell No Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

young lawyer he had fired years before on a night very similar to this one.
    "Well, congratulations are in order." The fake smile had left Mendelsohn's face. "Shall I show you to Ms. Dodson's office, Jack?" He looked at Jenny once more. "I'm not sure she's in a condition to remember where it is."
    Jenny glared and began to speak, but Jack interrupted her. "That's not necessary, Steve," Jack said. " I remember where it is."
 
     
    Jenny cut loose as soon as they'd reached her office and she'd slammed the door behind her.
    "The fuckin' asshole! I could poke his beady eyes out, looking at me like that! If he thinks he's going to oust me from this firm or screw up my partnership chances, he's got another think coming!"
    "Jenny, calm down. What are you talking about?"
    She continued to rant as she walked to the file drawer where she kept her purse. "He's trying to blame me for all the shit happening with Maxine Shepard, and I'm not going to let him. He's into something—I don't know what, yet—but I'm not letting him make me take the fall for his crap!"
    Jack searched her purse as he tried to make sense of what she was saying. The only part that sounded familiar was the mention of Maxine Shepard. "Crazy Maxine," as Jenny always referred to her, was one of Jenny's least-favorite clients. She was a spunky widow whose husband had left her with more money than she knew what to do with. Sixty-two years old, Maxine wore Levi's and sweatshirts at the same time as she wore a three-carat emerald-cut diamond ring. She smoked Virginia Slims menthols incessantly and spoke with a permanent rasp in her voice. Maxine had come to Newman around the same time as Jenny, after her husband's children from his first marriage—a brother and sister—had contested their father's will and attempted to obtain control of the large estate that had been left to her. As told to Jenny later by Maxine, the children had disliked her from the day they were first introduced.
 
    "'I'm sure it had something to do with the coat I was wearing that day, some beastly old fur their father had given me—how was I supposed to know it had been their mother's?'" Jenny had mimicked Maxine's deep voice when she first told Jack about her.
    Maxine prevailed, and with her caustic personality and seemingly never-ending supply of litigation work for the firm, she soon became a legend around the office. Jenny's first face-to-face meeting with her had occurred just last summer, after another of Maxine's investment deals had gone sour and Jenny was asked by Mendelsohn to "go after the crook that bilked her out of her money." When Jenny didn't immediately warm to Maxine's style—kisses on the cheeks upon greeting, "honey" substituted for names—and Maxine didn't warm to working in the shadow of Jenny's youth and beauty, a cold war ensued.
    "Are you having trouble with Maxine?" Jack asked. He handed her the purse, minus her keys.
    "She fancies herself some worldly businesswoman just because she inherited all this money. But she doesn't have the business sense she needs to play the part. She refused to listen when some of the guys in Corporate suggested she hire someone to handle her investments. She keeps getting screwed, and if I'm not able to clean up the mess, she blames me." Jenny lowered her voice. "And Mendelsohn blames me, too."
 
    "What did you mean, 'he's into something'?" Jack didn't trust Mendelsohn either.
    But Jenny only shook her head and didn't elaborate. She was winding down, and he let it go. He'd ask her about it later, when she was sober.
    Her phone rang, and they both stared at it as if it'd just come to life.
    "Who's calling you at this hour?" he asked.
    She made a dismissive noise and waved it off. "Let it go."
    This time Jack persisted. "You think it could be Mendelsohn?"
    She ignored him and headed for the door, but he reached for the phone. She saw him do it, and before he had a chance to speak, she snatched it from his hand and hung it up. "It's not