Doubt (Caroline Auden #1) - C. E. Tobisman Page 0,23

A great set of aspirations. Unfortunately, reality wasn’t being so cooperative.

“I’d feel better about our chances if we had some science showing a direct link,” she said.

“Agreed,” Louis said, letting the mask slip enough for Caroline to see his concerns. When she’d told him about Dr. Heller’s death and Dr. Wong’s apparent disappearance, he’d taken the news with the grim determination of a cavalry lieutenant facing a wall of cannons.

Now he exhaled softly.

“All we can do is to play the hand that’s been dealt to us,” he said.

“But what if it’s a bad hand?” Caroline asked.

“Then unless you play very well or you are very lucky, you lose.”

Louis’s eyes flickered over to the chess game on the small table by his window. Caroline noted that neither side had moved since her last visit to the senior partner’s antiquated domain. It was a slow, deliberate game that Louis played. But while he might win his chess match, Caroline couldn’t see how he’d win the SuperSoy case.

Litigation wasn’t chess. A game of chess always began the same way. The pieces lined up, identical on both sides. Who won and who lost depended on each player’s skill. Litigation was different. Sometimes the evidence just didn’t fall into place. Sometimes you couldn’t win.

The thought depressed Caroline. Still, she waited for Louis to say something inspirational. Something hopeful.

But the only sound she heard was the ambient hum of activity in the firm’s halls. A hum that had nothing to do with SuperSoy.

Caroline studied Louis’s face. She worried she’d started to see traces of disappointment. In the faint tightening of his mouth, in the soft sigh of his breath when she’d told him that she hadn’t managed to locate the Heller article, she feared she saw his interest in her waning like a balloon with a slow leak, its bright sheen growing limp before crumpling into a rumpled heap.

“The transfer of this case to New York is going to create some issues for us,” Louis said finally. “I need you to prepare a pro hac vice application for me so I can appear before the district court there.”

“Will do.” Caroline had googled pro hac vice at a stoplight on her way back to the office from the hearing. Wikipedia had provided a superficial description of what the Latin phrase meant. Translated as “for this one occasion,” pro hac vice was a lawyer’s request for permission to appear in a court where he was not licensed.

“New York allows appearances by out-of-state attorneys so long as they’re sponsored by a local attorney and they provide a Certificate of Good Standing from the state bar,” Louis said. “Silvia has my Certificate of Good Standing on file. Please arrange to have Anton Callisto sponsor my application.”

“I’ll get right on it,” Caroline said. She kept her face neutral even as she noted that Louis only planned to request permission for himself to appear. She wondered if he’d even ask her to attend the hearing in New York. Or whether she’d be staying home.

Louis removed his wire-rimmed glasses and placed them gently on his ink blotter. Without his glasses framing his light eyes, his gaze held a pale vulnerability. He looked out the window, his aristocratic features distracted.

“I suppose it might be time to give up on finding that article,” he mused aloud. Unsaid was since you failed abysmally at finding it.

Unsure what else she could say, Caroline nodded her understanding and left his office.

As she walked away from Louis’s office, Caroline didn’t notice the staff at the workstations in the halls. She didn’t notice the box of doughnuts laid out on the credenza, a gift from some grateful client. Instead, she chewed the inside of her lip and considered her dilemma.

Hale Stern didn’t hire the usual way, sorting through hundreds of applicants during the on-campus interviews hosted by the law schools, holding back-to-back conversations with candidates in cramped hotel rooms across the street from campuses. No, Hale Stern handpicked its candidates from clinical courses taught by the firm’s partners at the top law schools in the country. It invested substantial time in selecting its new attorneys. And when those attorneys arrived, they were expected to perform. Immediately.

And she wasn’t performing. Not yet, anyway.

Caroline felt like an Olympic diver attempting a trick with a high degree of difficulty. If she pulled it off, she’d stand on the victors’ podium for sure. But if she failed, she risked braining herself on the diving board. At this point, a belly flop seemed likely. Even