Page 14 of Devil's Luck

“Hill & Associates. This is Nola.” I answer the phone for what feels like the umpteenth time in two hours, and only three of those calls were even for something I could help with.

What a drag of a day. With the way today is going, I’m really regretting all the time I spent practically begging Fergus to let me have a day in the office. This place is a mess.

Even though I’ve been keeping up with all of the work I could do online, it was a mistake to be away from the office for an entire month. I know a good portion of the mess cluttering my desk is my fault because I wasn’t here to deal with it, but I can’t believe no one even bothered to call and ask if I was coming in. There are a twenty-some other people in and out of this building every day, yet not a single one of them bothered to check in, or drop me an email, letting me know things had gotten this bad.

And to make matters worse, my in-office filing system looks like it was hit by a tornado. While most of my organization and record keeping is done on the company portal, we do keep paper copies of all important transactions and legal documents. Unfortunately for me, instead of using common sense and decency to put things away like I know everyone who works here knows how to do, not a single one of them used it in my absence.

In between answering phone calls, most of which are not about things under my purview and a waste of my time, I’m now stuck alphabetizing hundreds of file folders that fill the wall of file cabinets behind my desk.

One system that I set up when I started working here, is that every lawyer has their own color folders to use. This is making the process go a little smoother than expected, but it still doesn’t fix everything. When a blue folder that belongs in the M drawer is actually in the R drawer where the green folders belong, it adds another second to the daunting day ahead of me.

Last night just before Fergus left to deal with whatever mess that was going down, I let him know I would be going into work today no matter what he said. I think he agreed just to get me to stop asking, but I considered it a win. But looking back now, I wish I had been able to talk him into crawling into bed with me after our shower this morning. I think it would have been a better use of our time for the day, but unfortunately for both of us, there seems to be no rest for the wicked in either of our jobs.

Flipping through one stack of folders that shouldn’t be in the drawer I have open in front of me, I keep seeing a client company name I don’t recognize. TXMX Water LLC out of Laredo, Texas. While there is no way I could ever memorize every client this firm has ever had, based on the dates of the invoices and banking transfer statements in this handful of files, this company has been a client for the last four years, three of which I have worked here and have touched every file in this office at least once.

I don’t recognize any of these documents.

Dropping the pile of folders to the one cleaned off corner of my desk, I plop into my chair for the first time in over an hour and wake up my computer screen with a wiggle of the mouse. I type the LLC name into the search bar for the firm’s database and twenty-seven results pop up.

“What the hell?” I whisper to myself. “What is this?”

Clicking on the first result, I see the client is being represented by Jasper Hill, my boss Jordan’s younger brother.

Moving to the second, then third, and each and every result until the last, they all are under Jasper’s name. There is no reason I shouldn’t have seen any of these files and records before.

Grabbing the files, I open the one on top and find the coordinating client record on my screen.

It’s a lawsuit settlement judgment awarding TXMX Water LLC four point two million dollars from another LLC, this one out of Philadelphia, that I don’t recognize.

One by one, I open every file and it’s coordinating client record. Every single record is showing a winning judgment from an LLC in various cities across the country, all going to TXMX Water LLC out of Laredo, Texas.

Back and forth. Over and over. I go through the pile six more times and the same alarm bells have been ringing in my head since the second go-around. Everything in these folders, every client name and record on my screen, has the set-up of a money laundering operation.

In my business ethics class during my sophomore year of college, one of our lessons was about how LLCs can protect a business owner’s personal assets from being involved in their companies finances. While for the average law abiding citizen, this can be a great thing, it unfortunately also can also be used as a way to take part in some not so legal business practices. With people’s names being hidden by more often than not ‘dummy corporations’ with fake names, finding the truth behind situations like these wouldn’t be easy. The more I look and clickand read, the more it’s starting to look to me that this is one of those situations.

What did I dig up? I don’t think I’m supposed to be seeing this. Why is firm involved in something like this?

I need to call Fergus.

This may make me sound like a damn hypocrite, because I am very much well aware of the fact that he is involved in numerous, even darker illegal acts himself, but my fingerprints are now all over these files and I’m scared.

Even though my name isn’t on any of the records, I don’t want to be involved in whatever mess this is any way, shape, or form. Something tells me, all of these folders ended up on my desk by mistake and I wish I never saw them.

Just as I fish my phone out from under a different pile of papers, Jordan comes marching around the corner and grabs it out of my hand.

“You won’t be needing that,” he snaps.

“What the hell, Jordan?” I jump out of my chair and try to grab it back from him. “Give me my phone back.”

“I really wish you hadn’t been sneaking where you weren’t supposed to, Nola.” Using one hand to push me back an arm’s length away, he tucks my phone in his back pocket before grabbing my forearm and pulling me into his chest.

“Let me go!” I scream, wondering where everybody else is. Why is no one rushing out of their offices to see what’s going on out here?

With his arms wrapped around me and pining mine down, Jordan is holding me in a way too tight bear hug. I try to kick my legs, and stomp my feet, but my dress is preventing me from being able to get enough momentum to do any damage. Also, I have lost both of my flip flops, not that they would be helpful in this situation, but all I’m managing to do is hurt my own feet as I stomp on his shoes. I toss my head back once, thinking I can maybe break his nose like you see done in the movies, but he twists me in a way that I’d only be hitting air and potentially hurting myself.

“Why were you accessing files that have nothing to do with you, Nola?” Jordan growls as he starts backing us toward his office. “I know for a fact that Jasper keeps those separate from the regular client files.”

“What files?” I try to play stupid at first. Maybe I can talk myself out of this. “I don’t know what you mean. I was just organizing the mess on my desk and making sure all the right papers were in the right folders.”

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