At seven, Sean got up, stretched, and yawned.
“I think I’ll head out.”
Imani raised an eyebrow. “Hot date?”
“Yeah, with my sofa and a carton of noodles.”
Imani started gathering her things. “It is Friday night, and it’s been a long week. We should go home. You too, Madison.”
“I’m close to done with this memo, and I really want to finish. Is it okay if I stay another hour? That way you’ll have the memo on your desk first thing Monday morning.”
The clerks exchanged glances.
“It would be good to get it to Judge Conroy,” Imani said.
“If we leave her alone, and there’s a problem, we’ll get blamed for not supervising. And we’re not supposed to give out the code to the door.”
“She’s an intern. It’s not like we’re giving it to DoorDash.”
“I know. But just—Olivia.”
“Who freaked out after Olivia? Nancy. Who’s breathing down our necks to speed up draft opinions? Nancy. She can’t have it both ways. Madison’s just trying to help out.”
“True.” He sighed. “Okay, Madison, we’ll give you the access code, but you can’t let anyone into chambers, understand? Whether you know them or not, no matter what they say. You’re not authorized to admit people.”
“I know that. I would never.”
“When you leave, turn off the lights, enter the code in the keypad on the door to the reception room, then you have sixty seconds to exit.”
“By the way,” Imani said, “once you have the code, you can get into the building after hours through the employee entrance. Just FYI if you need to work this weekend to get the memo done by Monday. Have a good night.”
The clerks left. Madison kept working. Her phone buzzed intermittently, but she knew it was Mom, wanting to talk about Danny. This wasn’t the time or place. Only after she finished the memo and emailed it to Imani did she check her messages. There were numerous missed calls and two voicemails from Mom. She listened to the older one first.
“Hey, honey, give me a call. It’s important. I need to know if you talked to that judge and what you found out about Danny’s case. Love you.”
She never said she’d speak to Judge Conroy. In fact, she said she wouldn’t. The most she promised was to get a copy of the plea agreement or other documents, so they could make a plan. Which, granted, she hadn’t done yet, but it had not been long, and she’d been busy.
The tone of the second voicemail upset her.
“Madison, I left you a message before. Please call me back. I need to know what you found out. Tomorrow’s Saturday. I’m going to visiting hours. I want you to come with me. We need a game plan for how we’re getting him out of jail. I’m counting on you. Don’t let me down.”
A game plan for getting Danny out of jail? That was asking for the moon. No way could she deliver. She couldn’t even get the documents from his case before visiting hours tomorrow because the Clerk’s Office had closed at five and wouldn’t reopen until Monday morning. Of course, she could just pull them up on this computer she was sitting in front of right now. Danny’s case was in there. It would be easy enough to find his plea agreement, print it, and bring it to the visit.
She wouldn’t be hurting anybody.
Except herself.
She’d been explicitly told not to use the work computer for personal purposes. Not only that—if she got caught, they’d figure out that Danny was her brother. That she’d lied to the judge in the interview. And didn’t write his name on the form. It wouldn’t matter that she never signed the damn thing, or if she put a Post-it on it. She’d be fired faster than you could say Olivia.
Why should she risk that for him?
She could hear her mother’s voice. Because he’s your brother.
But what if she got caught?
If. She might not. She probably wouldn’t. How would they find out?
Mom expected her to help Danny. He needed her legal expertise, which she couldn’t deliver without looking at the case file.
Ugh.
Heaving a sigh, she got up to take a reconnaissance stroll. The lights were on in the break room. She flipped them off. In the reception area, they were also on, though Kelsey had left hours ago. The door to Judge Conroy’s office was closed, a bar of light visible beneath it. Did that mean the judge was still here, or just that she wasn’t good about conserving electricity? No way to know. There was no sign of Nancy, whose office Madison had been told was way on the other side of the floor, next to the courtroom. Though she wouldn’t put it past Nancy to stay late just to spring a surprise inspection.