“Sounds good, Mom.”
“Oh, and can you bring one of those flourless cakes from that bakery downtown to brunch?”
“Sure. But only if you’re making the baked French toast,” Alexa said. She always had brunch with her parents on Sundays. It was one of the traditions that made their family so tight-knit. Alexa had never had any siblings, and while she sometimes wondered what it would be like, being the sole apple of her parents’ eyes was pretty awesome.
“It wouldn’t be Sunday without it,” her mom said.
“Then it’s a deal,” Alexa said.
“Talk soon.”
“Bye, Mom. Love you.”
“Love you too, Lex.”
Alexa disconnected the call and pulled back into traffic, her mind turning to the Murphy case. It was unusual for the AG’s office to take up a case that originated in the press. Those cases weren’t always grounded in facts, and the legalities necessary to ensure a prosecutable case were intricate, involving paperwork with signatures that were difficult to obtain, search warrants, and a chain of evidence that had to be scrupulously maintained to ensure the case wasn’t later thrown out.
But the allegations against the Murphy brothers had intrigued her from the beginning. Maybe it’s because it sounded so unlikely, or even just because it sounded like something out of a movie, but she’d followed the information leaked to the press the way some of her coworkers followed celebrity gossip.
She’d learned a lot about the Murphy brothers in that time, enough so that she’d recognized Ronan and Nick Murphy as soon as she’d walked into their offices two months ago. The visit had been risky — the AG’s office wasn’t in the habit of announcing their investigative intent to the subjects of their investigation — but by then she hadn’t been able to help herself. She’d been too intrigued, and she’d told herself the element of surprise might net some information her office didn’t already have.
It hadn’t, but that didn’t mean the visit had been a loss. She’d known immediately that the Murphys weren’t to be trifled with, had seen their resolve in the way they’d stared at her as if she were there to deliver sandwiches for lunch and not as a representative of the State of Massachusetts Attorney General’s office.
Her visit had to have been a surprise, and yet neither of the brothers had shown an iota of it. Even the woman — Julia Berenger, visibly pregnant and later discovered to be Ronan Murphy’s then-fiancée — had maintained an expression of calm throughout Alexa’s brief visit.
She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel as she waited at the light in front of her office downtown. Her boss, Imani Washington, had given her permission to look into the allegations against MIS and she’d spent the last two months digging into public records, largely on her own time, trying to find something that would bolster the story released in the press.
So far she’d turned up nothing. MIS was set up as an LLC. They filed and paid their taxes on time every year. They kept a tight payroll with a handful of employees and freelancers, mostly tech people and security guards with military experience, which was exactly what she would expect of a company specializing in intelligence and security operations.
They were clean. Too clean.
That was what nagged at her. Businesses — even the ones that were well-run — made mistakes because they were run by human beings. They filed paperwork late or got audited by the IRS or had complaints filed against them by disgruntled clients with the Better Business Bureau.
And yet, with MIS, there was no record of any of those things.
The light changed and she made the left into the parking garage and navigated the Camry to her reserved spot.
She was still thinking about the Murphy brothers — Ronan and Nick, she hadn’t met Declan, another partner in the company — when she turned off her car. Her eyes caught on the sign designating her parking spot as reserved. Despite her two year delay at college, she was the youngest Assistant AG in their office. The first day she’d pulled into the parking spot, she’d waited for the sensation of accomplishment to wash over her and had been disappointed.
Instead she’d thought, “Now what?”
She loved her job, loved that she spent her time getting justice for the people of her state, people who were busy with jobs and families who counted on her to make sure they were safe. But sometimes she’d be working at her desk late at night or driving home long after everyone else left the office or even lying in bed trying to sleep, and the words would come to her again.
Now what?
Someone rapped on her window and she jumped, then turned to find Jose Martinez, another Assistant AG, staring at her through the glass, his brown hair disheveled.
She grabbed her bag from the passenger seat and opened the door. “Hey!”
“Morning,” Jose said. He lifted up a cardboard carrier holding four hot drinks.
“You’re the best,” Alexa said, taking the cup with her name on it. They took turns getting coffee for each other and their assistants on Fridays.
“Don’t thank me until you taste it,” Jose said. “Clare wasn’t working today.”
Clare was their favorite barista at Nomad Coffee and the only one who could be guaranteed not to mess up at least one thing on their order.
“Thanks for the warning.” She looked at him as they walked toward the doors leading to the stairwell. “Rough night?”