WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE
CHAPTER ONE
All set to add another notch to your belt, LJ?”
Leslie Harris glanced up from the deposition transcript, hiding her annoyance at
the interruption and the uninvited familiarity.
She’d made the mistake of leaving her of? ce door partly open when she’d
arrived at 4:30 a.m., and now she discovered with a quick glance at her Piaget it
was close to seven, and the troops were arriving. It wasn’t like her to lose track
of the time.
Absently tucking a strand of her shoulder-length, ash blond hair behind her ear,
she smiled automatically at the junior associate who leaned into her of? ce.
Mentally, she ran his stats. Tom Smith. Eager, just like every other ambitious
young attorney, and smart enough to recognize the important players in the ?
rm. Points for that. Just the slightest bit obvious with his ? irtatious attention.
Minor demerit. She crossed her silk-stocking-clad legs beneath the skirt of her
custom-tailored Armani suit and shrugged. “Just another day at the of? ce,
Tom.”
“Oh yeah. Like it’s every day we take on the Feds with a couple of million at
stake.”
“Uh-huh.” Actually, for her it was a near-daily occurrence, because defending
corporations in big-ticket, high-pro? le lawsuits was her specialty. And she
liked to win. Every time. Her ferocious drive had shaped her career from the
start, as had her unfailing ability to read a jury and emphasize just the right
aspects of the case to garner their sympathy. She’d fast-tracked to partner
seven years out of law school, and her pace, if anything, had picked up in the
last year since she’d moved into a corner of? ce.
But she had neither the time nor the inclination to point all this out to Tom. She’d
barely squeezed in her daily workout at the gym before coming to the of? ce to
prepare for a big morning in court. She was also juggling six other cases that
were every bit as important as the one she was due to defend in two hours
before the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
She reached for her fourth cup of coffee of the morning and went back to
reading.
“Get you something from the coffee shop, LJ? Bagel?”
“What?” Leslie glanced up again, surprised to see Tom still standing there.
Didn’t he have any work to do? “No. Thanks. I’m ? ne.”
Breakfast wasn’t on her schedule. She’d be lucky if she remembered to grab a
yogurt at lunch, because the midday recess was a critical time to recap the case
with her client and revamp strategy. Working lunch was just a euphemism for
more work, and rarely included food. Fortunately, as far as tough battles went,
today’s case was middle-of-the-road.
United States v. Harlan Vehicles, LLC, et al. She knew the facts verbatim of
course, but her defense wouldn’t center on the facts. It was true that her client,
Harlan Vehicles, had imported 11,000 pieces of gasoline- and diesel-powered
equipment over the past nine months that didn’t meet the federal Clean Air Act
emission requirements. Arguing that point would be folly, because the measured
levels of smog-forming volatile organic compounds and nitrous oxides in the
exhaust was irrefutable. She never based a case on discrediting the science,
because Americans were programmed to believe facts and ? gures. No, her
ammunition had to be more personal, something that Joe Juror could relate to.
And when the federal government assessed the company millions of dollars in
penalties and ? nes after the special agents from the Justice Department and
U.S. Customs seized the equipment, she had just the weapon she needed.
She couldn’t make the charges go away, but she didn’t need to.
After all, what average citizen couldn’t be made to appreciate that levying
crippling costs on Harlan meant a higher price tag for them the next time they
went to buy a snowmobile for their kids for Christmas?
In this kind of case, reducing the monetary damages to tens of thousands rather
than millions of dollars—what amounted to a slap on the wrist for a corporation
the size of Harlan—was a major win.
Still mentally reviewing the order of her witness list, Leslie drained her coffee
cup and rose to get a re? ll. As a sudden wave of
dizziness rolled through her, she dropped her coffee cup onto the thick Persian
rug. Re? exively, she braced both arms on the desk, lowered her head, and
took several long, slow breaths. It was frighteningly dif? cult to catch her breath,
and her heart felt as if it might dance its way up her throat and right out of her
body. She blinked and forced herself to focus on the pens and papers covering
her desk until the room stopped spinning and the black curtain obscuring her
vision lifted. Then, when she was sure she wasn’t going to faint, she carefully
lowered herself into her chair. Worried that someone might have witnessed her
spell or whatever the hell it was, she checked the door to be sure no one was
nearby.
Thankfully, the hall was empty. The last thing she needed was for her colleagues
to get the impression that she wasn’t up to form.
Her adversaries in the courtroom weren’t the only ones who killed the weak.
She got along well with her partners, but she wouldn’t exactly call them her
friends. Nevertheless, the thin veneer covering aggressive competitiveness didn’t
bother her. This was the battle? eld she had chosen, or perhaps the one that
had chosen her, and she intended to triumph.
“Ready to head over, LJ?” Stephanie Ackerman called from the doorway.
Leslie’s paralegal, a voluptuous redhead four inches shorter than Leslie’s ? ve
foot six, pulled a rolling cart with two enormous briefcases strapped to it. In the
other hand, she carried a venti cappuccino.
“Just about.” Leslie smiled brightly and hoped she didn’t look as pale as she felt.
Even though her breathing was more comfortable, she still felt an odd ? uttering
sensation in her chest. Maybe no breakfast after three hours’ sleep wasn’t such
a good idea after all. “Do me a favor and grab a Danish along with another
coffee for me, will you?”
“Sure. I’ll meet you by the elevators.”
Leslie waited until Stephanie disappeared to ? ll her own briefcase with the
notes and ? les she’d need. By the time she joined Stephanie, she felt ? ne.
While the elevator descended, she nibbled on the Danish and scanned the
messages on her BlackBerry. When the doors slid open, she dropped the
