Page 55 of Holding On

Chapter Fourteen

Maya Hamilton

Monday morning, the boat is so still in its moorings that I’m not sure I’m even on the water.

I spent last night thinking about Travis. And then thinking about Travis with my vibrator in hand. It lies next to me, a poor substitute. Damn, that boy is good.

He told me the night before that he considers rom-coms to be documentaries and that being raised by four sisters left an impact.

I need to remember to thank them, but they won’t know for what. I roll over and pick up my phone and moan. Five forty-five. I have to be at the courthouse by seven. I’m so tired, though. Carlson talked my ear off on the phone last night. He’s convinced there’s evidence in Barr’s office—a second set of books, a digital footprint, a list of past clients for past crimes, something.

Time for work.

I’ve been watching Oliver Barr for a week now. The guy’s on a schedule and wound tight. He tries to pretend it’s his exuberant energy, but I think it’s just because he’s balancing a lot.

My bet is that he’s balancing things he doesn’t want other people to know about, or he’s doing cocaine. He operates with a kind of jittery mania I’ve seen in addicts, and he’s suspicious—of everyone. I watched him chew out a court reporter because he thought she’d misfiled a document on purpose.

He can also be weirdly messy on occasion, and I need him to be messy today so he’s clueless about what I’m about to do in his office.

The first time I saw a second calendar—a paper one not easily shared inter-office on the computer—was Friday, when he left his desk open just a little. I was handing him some paperwork, and I looked down and saw Thursday was blocked with “Bunnies.” When I double-checked at my computer on Outlook, it said “GYM,” a far cry from Bunnies. When he left for court that morning, I went into his office to see if I could read more of the writing.

The desk was locked.

When I explained this to Carlson last night, he went ballistic and figured out a way for me to be in the office alone.

This morning, Barr will be in court early, and Carlson will send Gretchen on a chase for paperwork that doesn’t exist just to get her out of the office.

I’m just sitting down at my desk, catty-corner from hers, when the phone rings. I glance up, just to show how I could commiserate with her over an early work call.

I know it’s Carlson right away.

She sets down the receiver. “A file is missing in evidence. I have to go,” she says, grabbing her keys. “I’ll be back in an hour. Can you continue with the file reorganization? And if you get tired or bored, go get a coffee.”

It’s total shit work, converting paper documents to digital.

“Of course.”

I wait until her silver Camry pulls out of the parking lot below before I turn and step into Barr’s office. At first, I stand there, realizing simultaneously that I’m wasting time and have no idea what I’m doing.

There’s supposed to be evidence here that he wouldn’t want at his house. Evidence he could claim was work-related. But what? Where?

I glance at the ornate clock on the wall like it might have the answers. My heart starts to thud. I’m wasting precious minutes being so indecisive. Then I stop. Refocus. I hold my breath the way Travis showed me. Box breathing, isn’t that what he called it?

Whatever it’s called, it helps. My brain slows down a moment, and I can think.

I go to the desk and tug on a drawer. Still locked. I pull open the other drawers, being careful to leave the layers of papers exactly as they were before I rifled through them. Then I realize that if I kneel down, I can slip my hand along the back of the drawer and inside.

I scrape a couple of knuckles and it takes a few tries, but then I use an envelope opener to wedge the thing out. I flip quickly to the page and take a picture of this week, next week—as many as I can. The calendar is nearly full, the lines penciled or penned in blue and black ink. But then there’s a black-sharpied “B” three weeks out on a Thursday.

It wasn’t “Bunnies” though, it was “B-runners” and an address. I have no idea what this means.

Slipping my phone back into my skirt pocket, I kneel down again and slide the calendar back into the drawer from behind. I can only hope there was nothing else on top of it, or if there was, that he wouldn’t remember.

Feeling somewhat momentarily smug that I actually have something to give Carlson, I glance around the room for more. The smugness starts to ebb. A calendar isn’t much. Carlson wanted a ledger, a bookkeeping tool, and it would be something probably not computerized or hackable or traceable. In other words, it would be on paper.

I walk over to Barr’s legal bookcase. It’s the old-fashioned kind, with glass panels that lift. Glancing up, a shiver runs down my spine. There’s something on the mantle that looks like an urn, but then I realize it’s an old spittoon. Creepy either way. There’s nothing here.

Then I remember something Gretchen told me the second day I was here, about why the offices were all so quiet.