Page 36 of Passionate Defense

Chapter 9

AFTER THE LONG WEEKand late nights, the road sounds and the motion of the vehicle lulled Lanie into a doze. It seemed like she’d only just closed her eyes when a grating noise, like metal on metal, pulled her from sleep. Disoriented with her head heavy from waking so abruptly, she sat up, looked around, including at Ethan.

The rattle happened again. On reconsideration, it was more like a buzzing.

“Do you hear something?” she asked, reaching over to turn down the radio.

“It’s your phone. This is the fourth time it has gone off.”

“How long was I asleep?” she asked, as she searched for it on the floorboard, bending double to run her hand under her seat.

“An hour at least.”

“I’m sorry. I haven’t been good company.”

“You needed a nap. Forget about the phone and go back to sleep. We still have an hour to go.”

Her fingers brushed against it, wedged into the crack by the console. “Found it,” she exclaimed. When she fished it out, the call had gone to voice mail.

She frowned at the number on the caller ID. It was an old one she forgot to take out when she left WW&S. “Why would Marcy Greene be calling me on a Friday night?” she wondered aloud.

“There’s only one way to find out. Just remember, we’re out of town on a mini-vacation.”

They had agreed to no work for three days.

“I remember,” she replied as she played the message. As soon as she heard the woman’s sobs, she switched to speaker and started it over so Ethan could hear.

“Lanie, it’s Marcy from work. Your old work, I mean. I need your professional advice. Mr. Simons made inappropriate comments and advances toward me.” A hitching breath echoed through the interior. “I can’t repeat what he said, but you know his reputation, and I’m sure you can imagine what he asked me to do. I refused and went back to my desk, but not even an hour later, security came and escorted me out of the building. The separation agreement listed a trumped-up excuse. Please, you’ve got to help me. It’s my word against his, I know, but I’ve got a mortgage and my mother, who isn’t well, stays with me.”

She glanced at Ethan, seeing his frown in the lights of the dash.

“The pathetic worm strikes again,” he muttered angrily.

“Do you mind if I call her back? I’ll schedule her for early next week. Maybe that will help her get through the long weekend.”

He readily agreed, but when she called back, she also got voice mail.

“Marcy, this is Lanie Fischer. I can see you on Tuesday at four. What Simons did isn’t right, and if I have my way, he won’t get away with it. Between now and then, I need you to write down everything you remember about his assault, which is what this is. Try to be detailed, what he said, how he acted, if he touched you or made you feel threatened in any way. We’ll go over it at our appointment and come up with a plan. Try not to worry.”

After ending the call, she added the appointment to her calendar before dropping her phone into the cup holder. “The man is a pig. He treats the women on his staff like they’re his own personal sex smorgasbord.”

“You’re right. He shouldn’t get away with this.”

Gazing out the window, a shiver of revulsion passed through her as she thought back on the coercive tactics he’d used on her. “I should have charged him with harassment, but he only propositioned me. He didn’t threaten my job.”

“He made your life hell, though, and drove you to leave.”

Mesmerized by the passing lights, which she was aware of but didn’t really see, Lanie whispered, “Maybe if I’d done more, there wouldn’t be a Marcy. I just wanted out of there.”

“Making such a claim against a powerful man, especially when it’she said, she said, isn’t easy for anyone to take on.”

“It’s not enough to make claims. We’ll need concrete evidence to bring him down,” she reflected out loud. “Maybe Marcy has something more.”

“Doubtful, or she would have used it to keep her job, or mentioned it in her message, don’t you think?”

She turned from the window, meeting his gaze when he briefly glanced her way.

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