Forty-eight hours.
That was the number Will Gardner gave her over the phone Friday night, and Robyn had said yes before she’d finished doing the math on how little sleep it left her.
By eight the next morning she was in the bullpen, fluorescents humming at a frequency she could almost count, the office stretched empty except for the associate two rows over who’d clearly never left.
August Quill.
The lucky one.
She’d heard the associates talk.
Three weeks at the firm and he’d already second-chaired a major verdict, pulled a motion brief out of thin air, and somehow landed on Diane Lockhart’s short list of people worth remembering.
Robyn had been at Lockhart/Gardner for six months and still got introduced as “the other investigator” when Kalinda wasn’t available.
Which was why she’d said yes.
A witness problem on a fraud case.
August’s case, technically, though Will was supervising.
The witness a bookkeeper named Sandra Voss who claimed she’d seen the defendant backdate contracts was scheduled to move to Oregon on Monday, and the defense had just filed a motion to exclude her testimony on credibility grounds.
The clock Will had given her was already running.
August looked up when she stopped at his desk.
Gray eyes, sharp and a little too still.
He didn’t look surprised to see her, which was the first odd thing.
“Robyn Burdine,” she said.
“Will said you needed an investigator.” “He did.” August gestured to the chair beside his desk.
“Thanks for coming in.
I know weekends are” “Billable,” Robyn finished.
She sat, pulled out her notebook.
“So.
Sandra Voss.
What’s the problem?” He slid a file across the desk.
“The defense is claiming she has a financial motive to lie.
Her brother filed for bankruptcy two years ago, and the defendant’s company was one of his creditors.
They’re arguing she’s testifying out of revenge, not truth.” Robyn flipped through the file.
Dates, dollar amounts, a bankruptcy petition thick enough to be its own case.
“Okay.
So we need to prove the bankruptcy and the testimony aren’t connected.” “Or that they are, but not the way the defense thinks.” She glanced up.
He was already back to his notes, but his tone carried certainty like he’d already run the numbers and was just waiting for her to catch up.
“You have a theory,” Robyn said.
“I have a question.
Why would someone with a revenge motive wait two years to come forward?
The bankruptcy closed eighteen months ago.
The fraud case only started last quarter.” Robyn circled the bankruptcy date twice.
He was right.
The gap didn’t make sense.
“So either she didn’t know about the fraud until recently” “or something else changed that made her willing to talk.” She tapped her pen against the notebook.
“We need her phone records.
And her brother’s financials for the last six months.
If something changed, there’ll be a transaction or a call that shows it.” He didn’t reach for his phone.
Just nodded, like she’d confirmed what he’d already decided.
“I’ll get the subpoenas drafted.
Can you run the interviews?” “interviews plural?” “Her brother, if he’ll talk.
And her former employer she left that job four months ago, right around when the fraud allegation first surfaced.
I’d like to know if she was pushed or if she jumped.” Robyn added the names to her list.
Two interviews, a subpoena wait, and maybe seventy-two hours of records to parse before Monday.
Tight.
Also exactly the kind of problem she was good at.
“I’ll need her brother’s current address,” she said.
He handed her a Post-it note.
The address was already written on it.
That was the second odd thing.
— By Sunday evening, Robyn had the story.
Sandra Voss’s brother hadn’t been in contact with her for over a year not since the bankruptcy closed and he’d stopped returning her calls.
No revenge motive there.
But four months ago, Sandra had been laid off from her consulting firm job.
Two weeks after that: unemployment application, a therapist.
The therapy bills showed up in the subpoenaed records, along with a prescription for anxiety medication dated the same week she first contacted the plaintiff’s attorneys about the fraud.
Not revenge.
A woman who’d lost her job, needed money, and finally had the space to process what she’d seen two years ago when she was too scared to say anything.
Robyn laid it all out on August’s desk records, interview notes, the timeline she’d built in her notebook with the dates circled and the gaps annotated in red.
He read through it in silence, eyes tracking the page quick and methodical, like he was solving an equation she’d only half-finished.
“This is good,” he said finally.
“The therapy angle especially.
It explains the delay and it humanizes her.” “Defense is going to argue she’s financially desperate and making it up for the plaintiff’s payout.” “Then we put the therapist on the stand and let her explain what trauma-delayed disclosure looks like.” He looked up, and for the first time all weekend, the corner of his mouth twitched almost a smile.
“You found the thing that makes her credible.
That’s the case.” Robyn felt the warmth of it, the small surprised pleasure of being told she’d done something right by someone who didn’t waste words.
She flipped her notebook closed.
“So we’re good for Monday?” “We’re good.” He stood, started gathering the files.
“I’ll draft the response to the motion tonight.
Will can file it first thing.” “Tonight?” Robyn checked her watch.
Almost seven.
“You’ve been here since yesterday.” “So have you.” “I went home and slept.” “I napped.” He said it like a reasonable distinction, and Robyn realized he wasn’t joking.
She tilted her head.
He had the kind of face that didn’t give much away controlled, a little too watchful, like he was reading a room that only had two people in it.
Most associates wanted to tell you how smart they were.
How hard they worked.
Why you should be impressed.
Quill didn’t perform any of that.
He just worked, and watched, and occasionally handed you a Post-it note with an address you hadn’t asked for yet.
“Okay, so,” Robyn said, leaning forward.
“How did you know her brother’s address before I asked for it?” He paused.
For half a second his face went still not fear, exactly, but the careful blankness of someone who’d been expecting that question and dreading it in equal measure.
“I pulled the bankruptcy file Friday night,” he said.
“His address was in the petition.” Reasonable answer.
Probably even true.
But the pause before it had lasted just long enough to make Robyn wonder what the first answer would have been, the one he’d decided not to say.
She let it go.
For now.
“Well,” she said, standing.
“Thanks for not making this a disaster.
I’ve worked weekend cases that turned into triage, and this one actually…
added up.” “You’re the one who found the therapist.” “You’re the one who told me to look for a shift.” Robyn slung her bag over her shoulder.
“That’s not a lucky guess, by the way.
That’s just good.” He held her gaze for a beat, and Robyn had the strangest sense he was making a decision filing her under a category she couldn’t see reliable or flake or smarter than they look, the same bins she used for everyone else.
“See you Monday,” he said.
She left him there the only associate still working in a building gone dark except for the exit signs and the cold blue glow of his monitor.
The elevator ride down was quiet.
Outside, the city smelled like rain and exhaust, and she pulled out her phone to text her sister that she’d actually gotten to solve something this weekend instead of just fetching files for someone else.
August Quill, she decided, was interesting.
Polite deliberately so, like he’d practiced it until it fit.
Insightful without announcing it.
And haunted by something he wasn’t going to name, not to her, maybe not to anyone.
Would he thank her on Monday when Will filed the motion and won?
Would he even remember her name by the time the case closed?
Didn’t matter either way.
The work had been good, and the work was the part that counted.
The rain started as she reached the corner, light and cold, and Robyn Burdine walked home through a city that billed by the hour and never stopped moving, glad she’d said yes to the weekend case and already wondering when the next one would come.