Page 55 of Escape Girl

I did the research we discussed. I will try to sum it up here, but you know what? We’re onto something.

OK, James A. Hill. Taggert’s attorney. I was unable to find his name associated with any intellectual property case. I’ll attach a list of the sources I checked—maybe I’m not checking the right places? But if I am, that’s weird, right? I also can’t find a social media presence for him, which is unusual.

When I searched the tech boards for searches done on any variation of James A. Hill with cease and desist or a bunch of other similar phrases, I found four results in the past year. There may have been more, but the sites probably routinely purge this kind of nonessential data.,

Please call me about next steps with this.

Max

I leaned back in my desk chair and pushed my reading glasses to the top of my head. I was so grateful to have somethingimportant, something non-Bobby, to think about, that my sleep headache faded by several degrees.

Max was right; we were onto something.

Four other folks searching on James A. Hill cease-and-desist letters. If he was an actively practicing intellectual property lawyer, maybe these folks were searching because he was representing a variety of clients across a number of cases. But that was still highly unlikely. Like my firm, the IP division at Bird & Dreyer focused mainly on corporate IP work. Corporate intellectual property lawyers typically worked on massive, long cases at a time, not four small, individual cases in a year. I supposed there could be scenarios that made sense with these few facts, but nothing explained why Max couldn’t find Hill’s name on any IP lawsuits.

Biting my lip, I called Gabe.

He answered on the first ring. “Oh thank God, Emily. So glad they put you on my case. Are you back in the office? Swing by and I’ll catch you up.”

I grimaced. “No. I’m sorry, Gabe, but I’m in Chicago.”

He huffed at me. “Fine, fine. I’ll send you a Zoom link.”

Closing my eyes, I spoke through my teeth. “I’m pretty wrapped up in my pro bono case, Gabe. And—” Ugh, ugh, ugh. But Gabe was the closest thing I had to a friend at work. The best thing I could do was to be honest with him. “I—I’m pretty wrapped up in a personal situation as well. I’m so sorry, but I just don’t have the capacity, intellectually or emotionally, to join your case right now.”

There was a pause on the line. My stomach sank, but I also lifted my chin. This may have been the first time I’d ever drawn any sort of boundary at work.

When Gabe responded, his voice was gentle. “I get it, kid. I’m not gonna give you shit.” His tone turned cautious. “The powers-that-be are not going to be thrilled though,” he warned.

I sighed. “Yeah, I know.” I’d have to deal with that reckoning at some point soon. Very soon once they got wind that I was refusing to work on Gabe’s case. “Hey, do you know anyone trustworthy at Bird & Dreyer? In the Chicago office?”

I heard quick typing and his customary “I’m thinking” light hum. “Lydia Beckett. She’s a senior associate there. We worked together briefly a few years back, and I always liked her. Want me to do an email introduction?”

That would be perfect. “Please. Thank you so much, Gabe.”

“You’re welcome.” Another pause on the line. “Take care of yourself, OK?”

As common a sentiment as it was, Gabe had never said anything like it to me before. It almost sounded like a final goodbye, and I winced. He was assuming the partners were going to be mighty pissed.

The introductory email appeared in my inbox three minutes later, and I jumped right on top of it, asking Lydia Beckett if she’d be open to a quick phone call or a cup of coffee in the morning. I was vague about my reason for wanting to meet. She probably would think I was discreetly looking to change firms.

Now, was I ready to talk to Max? I was pretty sure I knew what he wanted to discuss and not over email. In order to identify the people who had searched for James A. Hill, he would need to cross-reference their user names on the sites with the personal information stored in their user accounts.

Definite illegal hacking.

Not an appropriate way to start a legal case.

Sure, he’d already done it with Bella, but she had eventually come to me, and I hadn’t known any of other stuff when I took on her case. Now I did know, though, and if I told him to find out more about the people who had searched Hill’s name, I would be a party to cybercrime.

Was that a line I was willing to cross?

I called the number Max had left on my voice mail. “Hey, it’s Emily. So, I’m not sure about proceeding to the next steps for identifying the people who posted about Hill.”

“I totally understand,” he said immediately. “Isn’t there some sort of legal thing about ‘fruit of the poisoned tree’ or something?”

“Exactly,” I said, relieved. “I have no idea where we’re going with all of this yet, and I want to be careful and entirely aboveboard.”At least for now. “Um, the thing you’re doing, where you can see what other people search for…is that something everybody can do?”

He answered so readily, I could picture him nodding. “I know what you’re asking. The search data is not encrypted or protected. I didn’t need to do anything, ah, shady, to access it. But, it’s not easily available. You really have to know what you’re doing to find other people’s old searches.”

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