One
Thursday, April 8
“You’ve had quite the career for a lawyer whose work is covered more often by the tabloids than law journals, Ms. Keene.” Walter Richards lobbed the insult over a stack of files that teetered precariously on his obnoxiously large desk.
Avery Keene offered a polite smile to the senior vice president who insisted they meet “before the markets opened.” A 7:00 a.m. meeting was unusual, and she recognized that the timing was designed to intimidate her—a weak man’s attempt to use the clock to show power.
It was a trick that wouldn’t work on her. An itinerant childhood had trained young Avery to exist on four hours of sleep or less, and not always in succession. Later, her boss at the U.S. Supreme Court believed dawn occurred too late in the day. In her next role, she’d hoped for regular business hours and aggressive normality.
She was destined for disappointment. Since she’d joined the law offices of Clymer Brezil eighteen months earlier, the cases had changed but the cadence had not. Being a new guy in the office required the same pattern: show up before the bosses, work hard, stay late. Only, rather than entering the Court’s imposing bronze-and-marble ode to justice on First Street each day, she came to her new employer’s headquarters on the fourth and fifth floors of a K Street steel-and-glass building—high enough that she could see the traffic from above, low enough that she could hear it. The firm boasted fifty-three attorneys, paralegals, and administrative staff. The named partners expected discretion, obsession, and perfection.
Avery had no real complaints. After being catapulted into international intrigue and congressional hearings during her time at the Supreme Court, she relished the relative quiet of her current gig.
Susan Clymer’s and Jeff Brezil’s varied paths had crossed in Washington two decades ago, and they decided to hang their shingle during one of the waves of corporate correctness that never quite translated into permanent rectitude. Over time, Clymer Brezil had added associates and a few partners of every stripe, though they refused to add anyone else’s name to the letterhead. To land Avery, they’d upped the typical signing bonus for a boutique firm and promised extra latitude in her caseload, thereby managing to snag the most famous law clerk in America.
Avery’s decision to join came as much from curiosity as from avarice. One of the jobs she’d never learned about in law school was the role of an “internal investigator,” but in her initial meeting with Susan, the founding partner had explained her firm’s specialty. They were a law firm that big companies, vulnerable NGOs, or hyper-private multinationals called on when they needed help, but not attention. An internal investigator could reveal a company’s Achilles’ heel with the guaranteed protection of attorney-client privilege.
Which brought Avery to the lair of Walter Richards. She had been assigned to vet Richards on behalf of Verdure Industrials, where he served as SVP of Acquisitions. A pending merger would sort their various C-suite personnel into higher or lower rungs on the new corporate ladder, and she was hired to figure out where Walter would wind up.
On the edge of leering at Avery’s toned legs, which were framed by the aubergine skirt that matched her snug blazer, Walter Richards ran a beringed hand through his sandy brown mane and cocked his head at her. “You done digging through my trash, Ms. Keene?”
“Mr. Richards, none of the questions I posed were out of line,” she told him. “They were consistent with my scope of inquiry.”
When she didn’t expound, he barked, “You were damned insulting. I’m a senior member of this company—but you enjoy bringing down good men, don’t you, Ms. Keene? By any means necessary.”
Richards was a typical snake, and taunting him simply made him strike faster. Instead of taking the bait, she replied, “The board thought it would be prudent to have us do a final evaluation before the merger, sir.”
“I do deals every day. Every fifteen minutes, I add zeroes to Verdure’s bottom line. Why in the hell they think I need a babysitter is beyond me . . . especially one just out of diapers.”
Avery gave a light shrug, his comment rolling off her strong back. “Due diligence. Mr. Richards. Clymer Brezil was hired to assess any exposure that Verdure Industrials might face, which is why we’re reviewing all aspects of the company’s dealings. This isn’t personal.”
“It feels damned personal. I run the highest-billing division here or abroad,” he perseverated. “So it’s an insult to have you performing a colonoscopy on my lunch receipts, wouldn’t you say?”
Avery reached into the bag at her feet and pulled out a thick folder. “I’m curious about the Mitchell contracts.”
He coughed once, then sputtered, “Drew Mitchell and I go way back. He and I learned loyalty together when we did the ROTC together at Texas A&M. Up by our bootstraps, both of us.”
Avery nodded at the well-worn story. She’d heard it at least twice since she started her review several days earlier. “With all due respect, sir—”
The corner of his mouth curled into a sneer. “I don’t want your respect. Why the hell do you keep coming back to this? I’ve given you every scrap of paper you can handle.”
“With all due respect, sir,” she repeated stiffly, “it’s not what you’ve given me that’s caught my attention.”
“So what bee is up your skirt?”
If she hadn’t been looking for it, she might have missed the subtle shift in his chair. She couldn’t miss it in his tone. Quiet enjoyment almost curved her lips—almost. “Gramm-Leach-Bliley.”
“Come again?”
Avery cocked her head. “Gramm-Leach-Bliley. The consumer financial-privacy rules.”
“What of it?” He slowly straightened, his color rising.
“You authorized the acquisition of Mr. Mitchell’s company, and you arranged to invest a sizable amount of personal capital in the deal.”
“Like I’ve told you before, Drew was a college buddy of mine. He was looking to sell a little loan company in Nevada.”
“Yes, and when you bought them, you neglected to inform your partners that they are at risk of being sued for illegally selling customer data to another company.” Avery glanced at her papers, more for show than information. She could recite the findings by heart. “Your second wife, who, coincidentally, is Mitchell’s cousin, is the bona-fide owner of a chain of for-profit treatment centers in Nevada. You used Verdure assets to acquire his little loan company, which financed the treatment centers’ clients that didn’t have insurance.”
His rubicund skin darkened further. “What are you accusing me of doing, Ms. Keene?”
“Among other things, money laundering and kickbacks.”
“That’s bullshit . . .”
“Just last fiscal year, you and your partners netted $13.8 million in Nevada and $5.4 million from your satellite scheme in Arizona. And that’s revenue on top of the cool $1.2 million you pulled down from Verdure as a bonus.” Avery tsked at him. “With your potential stock options from an IPO, you would have added more than $20 million after the initial lockup period.”
Richards gave her panicked look. “What do you mean, ‘would have’?”
It was Avery’s turn to pretend surprise. “I have to report this, Mr. Richards.”
He bolted to his feet. “This is outrageous! I will not allow you to come into my office and threaten me.”
Avery held his gaze. “Apologies for any misunderstanding you might have, sir . . . It’s not a threat.”
Richards’s tone turned more desperate. “I’ll just divest my shares. Give me a couple of days, and I’ll be clear of all this if it’s some sort of problem.”
“No, sir. You and Drew Mitchell preyed on the most vulnerable people you could find, and then turbo-charged their exploitation. In the process, you violated at least six provisions of Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and the FTC is the least of your worries. I have no doubt Verdure will claw back its bonus, the SEC will seize what they can, and the IRS will likely go after whatever is left.”
Richards lunged over the desk, and Avery jumped clear. “Security!” she yelled.
Prepared for his outburst, she’d updated the CEO, CFO, and GC on her analysis the day before. The CFO had gleefully arranged for a couple of company security guards to wait outside Richards’s office. Richards may have been profitable, but he seemed to be something less than a favored colleague. At her signal, the security guards rushed inside. Avery darted behind them, more out of amusement than in fear. As Richards flailed in outrage, the tower of papers crashed to the carpeted floor, spilling their secrets. No doubt, she’d be spending the balance of the day combing through them to bolster her report.
While Richards hissed a stream of invective, Avery crossed to the opposite side of the room and reached for her phone; she noticed a missed call from Noah Fox, her friend and fellow attorney.
She quickly dialed him up. “You rang?”
“I did indeed. Sorry to call so early. You busy?”
Avery peeked at the mêlée still under way. Richards had abandoned dignity and was basically squirming in a tantrum on the strewn documents, an overheated toddler in a two-thousand-dollar suit. “Not at all.”
“Great. I may have a client to pass along. An old friend from law school is the general counsel over at Camasca, the tech company. He reached out to me about you.”
“Why?” Instinctively, she braced herself, despite her curiosity. Gaining attention had become her worst nightmare. She was the walking embodiment of no good deed going unpunished.
Noah heard the dread in her voice. “Why you, or why call me?”
“Both.”
“He called me because I like to brag about my famous friends. He wants you because he has poor taste.”
“Ha-ha-ha.” Avery relaxed, knowing neither was true. A trust-and-estates attorney, Noah took the confidentiality of his clients and his friends as a sacred oath. They’d been through too much together to doubt his loyalty. Still, her natural suspicion of unearned opportunity prompted her to ask, “Do you like this guy?”
“He did me a solid in law school. He’s not everyone’s cup of tea, a little peculiar, but I trust him.”
“Enough said. How should we connect?”
“Give me the okay to connect you, and he’ll be in touch.”
She glanced at the ruins of Walter Richards’s fledgling criminal enterprise. “Sounds good. I’ve got time.”
Glen Paul Freedman—who preferred “Freedman” from his contemporaries and only answered to “Glen Paul” when his mother or his boss called—waited impatiently in the restaurant for his guest. Shockingly vivid auburn hair that grew fast and curly had been shorn as close to his scalp as current social conventions allowed. An aesthetician routinely trimmed his eyebrows to keep their growth in check. He’d grown as straight and tall as his riotously redheaded nemesis from cartoons, Sideshow Bob, a comparison he’d heard until he grew too belligerent for others to use the nickname to his face.
He studied the menu with limited interest. His order rarely deviated from a standard of scrambled eggs, wheat toast, and coffee, black. At thirteen, he’d tested the bitter brew on a dare and fallen in love. Now his refusal to haggle over oat or goat or pistachio milk was a personal badge of honor. A hovering waitress had already filled his cup upon arrival, and he gestured for a refill.
The waitress returned moments later, with Mi Jong, his breakfast companion, nipping at her heels. The financier who had agreed to spearhead Camasca’s attempt to go public, Mi Jong moved briskly as though in a hurry to be done with him and on to the next meeting. Rising, he waited for her to take a seat. Good manners dictated that he stand. The twenty-first-century social mores kept him from reaching for her chair.
Once they had settled, he offered, “Rafe sends his regrets, but he’s meeting with the bankers and our CFO this morning, as you might expect.”
“We chatted on my way here. Your boss wanted to warn me about the news you were sent to deliver.” Jong flicked at an errant strand of silver hair that threaded liberally through her stark black bob. “We’re two weeks away from going public, Glen. Why in the devil are you bringing in outsiders to comb through your company?”
“Compromise,” he replied. “We’ve got some land mines lurking—we’ve got to sort them out.”
“Land mines aren’t allowed. We’ve raised every dollar you and your boss asked for, and I’ve put in a hundred and fifty million of my own. A hundred and fifty million. We performed the tech due diligence and the conflicts checks, and all the other regulatory tap dancing necessary—because no one understands exactly what your guy Rafe Diaz has created at Camasca, but they’re afraid to be left out.”
Copyright © 2025 by Stacey Abrams. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
