Striking a match, Ober turned on the gas and lit the stove. “Don’t count on it.”

Chapter 16

TWO WEEKS LATER, AT SEVEN-THIRTY IN THE morning, Ben read through the newspaper at his desk. Wearing jeans and an old wool crewneck, he was thrilled that the absence of the justices also meant casual dress for all Court staff. Reaching the op-ed page, he leaned forward and pored over the opinions of Washington’s top columnists. He looked up when Lisa entered the office.

“Happy New Year,” she said. Lisa had spent the previous week in California, celebrating Christmas and New Year’s with her family. Although she was wearing a stark black sweater and faded jeans, the first thing Ben noticed about his co-clerk was her deep brown tan.

“You look great,” Ben said, kissing her on the cheek.

“Thank you. You look pale.” She opened her briefcase and dumped a six-inch pile of paper on her desk.

“You got through all of those?” Ben asked, amazed.

“What can I say? I’m that good.” As she started to organize the pile of papers, Lisa noticed a memorandum on the corner of her desk. “What’s this about?”

“Clerk lunches,” Ben explained. “Since we’re halfway done with our term, they’re starting to organize private lunches with the justices so we can get to know them better.”

“That’s really nice,” Lisa said.

“It should definitely be interesting,” Ben said. “Besides Hollis, I don’t think I’ve said two words to any of them.”

“So we get to rub elbows and the Court picks up the tab? What a deal.” Leaning on the back of her chair, Lisa stared at Ben. “Speaking of deals, I can’t stop thinking about this whole Grinnell thing.”

“What can I say? It was a great plan.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Lisa said coldly. “It was completely stupid. The more I think about it, the more I realize it was the dumbest thing you could’ve done.”

Ben sat up straight in his chair. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me,” Lisa said, shuffling papers. “I just think the plan was stupid.”

“How was it stupid?” Ben asked, annoyed.

“It was stupid because all you did was piss off Rick. When everything was said and done, the plan accomplished nothing else.”

“It did more than that.”

“Really?” Lisa challenged. “Tell me what else it did.”

“It got Rick off my back.”

Lisa stopped shuffling the papers on her desk. “Let me ask you a question,” she said. “When you designed the whole Grinnell thing, what was your actual goal?”

“What was my goal?”

“Your goal,” Lisa repeated. “What did you hope to accomplish?”

“There wasn’t a true goal,” Ben explained. “Rick approached Eric, then Eric approached me. From there, I kinda planned it out so Rick wouldn’t win.”

“But what was your number-one concern? What was going through your head?”

“Tons of things were going through my mind,” Ben said. “Excitement, fear, anxiety, anger, revenge-”

“Exactly,” Lisa interrupted, pointing a finger. “Revenge.”

“What’s wrong with revenge? After everything Rick put me through, I was pissed.”

“And you have every right to be pissed,” Lisa said. “But since this thing started, you’ve been so obsessed with revenge, you’ve stopped thinking about how you’ll actually get yourself out of this mess.”

“Don’t give me that,” Ben said. “Getting out of it was my first priority.”

“Then why didn’t you try to get Rick arrested? If you knew where Eric was meeting with him, why didn’t you stake the place out with the authorities?”

“We didn’t know where they were meeting,” Ben explained. “Rick always called Eric moments before they met. Eric would be in the lobby of one hotel, and then he’d get a phone call to go to the lobby of another. It was impossible to track Rick down. Besides, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t go to the authorities-they’d arrest me in a heartbeat.”

“See, there’s the main flaw in your thinking. You can go to the authorities; you just don’t want to.”

“You’re damn right I don’t want to. No offense, but I like my job.”

“Forget about your job. Your life is more important.”

“Lisa, I don’t know why you’re so crazy. The past three weeks have been perfectly calm. I have no worries. Nothing’s hanging over me. Rick is gone-”

“Rick is not gone!” Lisa said, raising her voice. “When are you going to get that through your head? Rick may be pissed off, and he may be broke, and he may be angry, but he is certainly not gone! And if you just screwed me over for a few million dollars, you can bet your ass that I’d be plotting some serious revenge of my own from the moment it happened.”

“What are you getting so nuts about?”

“I just want you to see what’s going on. You’re not safe.”

“So what do you want me to do? Run to Hollis and ask for help?”

“I don’t know if Hollis is the right person, but I think that’s the right idea. Otherwise, you’re never getting out of this mess. I mean, this guy has already slashed your father’s tires-do you really want to wait to see his next move?”

Saying nothing, Ben grabbed a calculator from his desk. Nervously, he started tapping its keys.

“You know I’m right,” Lisa added. “Throughout this whole disaster, you really haven’t been thinking about getting out of this mess-you’ve just been obsessed with the fact that Rick outsmarted you.”

“That’s not true,” Ben said as he continued to tap at the calculator keys.

“It is true,” Lisa insisted, picking up Ben’s calculator and throwing it in the garbage can next to his desk. “You hate the fact he beat you. And you’re obsessing over revenge. But let me tell you, getting revenge is easy. Screwing Rick was cake. The hard part is catching him. To do that, you have to make some sacrifices. So for once in your life, you’ll have to admit you can’t do it alone.”

“Maybe I can’t, but we-”

“No, we can’t,” Lisa said. “We can’t do anything. No offense, but you, me, and all your friends, even with all their little spy toys, do not have the resources to anticipate where Rick’s going to turn up next. No matter how smart we are, we’re not that good. And until you’re willing to admit that, you’re never going to get out of this.”

Ben stared silently at his desk. “You think I should turn myself in?”

“Yes,” Lisa said. “For the past week, I’ve been thinking about every possible outcome of this scenario. No matter what happens, the authorities are going to find out somehow. That’s the one truth you have to accept.”

“Unless we get something on Rick.”

“It doesn’t matter if we get something on Rick. Rick doesn’t care if we tell the police he’s the mastermind. They can’t find him. But they can always find you. And as long as Rick’s out there, you’ll always have that hanging over your head.”

“But what if we catch Rick ourselves?”

“It wouldn’t matter,” Lisa said, impatiently. “Even if we caught Rick on our own, we’d have to turn him over to the police at some point. It’s not like we can lock him in our basement forever. And the moment we turn Rick over, you can be sure he’s going to blame everything on you.”

“Then I’m screwed no matter what.”

“That’s my point,” Lisa said. “So you might as well go to the police and preempt whatever Rick can do to you.”

“Maybe they’ll go easier on me because I’m the one approaching them.”

“Possibly,” Lisa said. “And if we give them a solid enough plan, they might let you walk away so they can catch Rick in the act.”

Pausing as he processed the information, Ben eventually said, “If I go in, I can kiss my job good-bye.”

“Not necessarily,” Lisa said. “For all we know, you may get a medal for your bravery.”

“You know what? Let’s just stop, okay?” Ben said, turning his chair away from her.

“What’s wrong? What’d I say?”

“Nothing,” Ben said, refusing to turn around.