insurance company clients a lot of money by getting
people to settle out of court. Some of her father's
clients had even agreed to settle for very low sums.
As they rode down in the elevator, Nancy's mind
raced. Was someone at Williams & Brown getting her
father's clients to accept early settlements? Could this
young man be involved, hoping to impress his father
and the other partner?
“So, where do you want to eat today, Johnny-boy?”
the older man asked as the elevator doors opened on
the ground floor.
“Don't call me that, Dad, you know I hate it,” the
young man said, annoyed. “How about the Steak and
Ale.”
“Yes indeed, John Junior—sir—the Steak and Ale it
is. Anything for our rising star.” John Brown Sr. smiled
affectionately at his son. Nancy faced the front of the
elevator and exited ahead of the two men.
Nancy was sure there was something going on, hut
how were they making it work? And who was behind
it? She walked slowly through the lobby of the office
building, her head down, deep in thought about how
these cases might have been settled early, and about
the mysterious E-mail log she had discovered earlier.
“Excuse me,” she murmured as she bumped into
someone. Looking up, she saw it was Blaine Warner!
4. A Stranger in the Shadows
“Blaine!” Nancy exclaimed. “Hi. I'm just coming from
an errand to Williams and Brown. Do you have an
appointment there?”
“No. Why would I be going there? I don't have
anything to do with Williams and Brown,” Blaine said
sharply. “And I thought you were supposed to be
working in the law library,” she added.
“I'm on my way back right now,” Nancy said,
struggling to hide her annoyance behind a professional
demeanor.
“I'm going to lunch,” Blaine explained. “I just had to
stop at the bank first. The branch is on the other side
of the atrium lobby. I'll see you later hack at the office.
I know you've still got a lot of file copying to get done.
Do you think you'll have completed all of it by
tomorrow?”
Nancy smiled but wondered why Blaine wanted her
out of the office so quickly. “Oh, no,” she said. “There
really is a lot of it. It's going to take several days,
especially if I have to interrupt the computer work to
run errands like this one.”
Blaine checked her watch. “I guess I'll have to skip
the bank, or I'll be late for lunch. I'll see you later.” She
exited ahead of Nancy and hurried up the street.
Nancy saw her enter the same steak-house where John
Brown Sr. and John Brown Jr. had made plans to eat
lunch.
What a coincidence, Nancy thought after she
grabbed a quick sandwich and continued back to
Carson Drew's law firm.
When Nancy arrived at the office, she greeted Ms.
Hanson in the reception area, then proceeded to the
law library to continue her work. Henry Yi had
replaced Byron Thomas at one of the other computer
terminals. He looked up as Nancy entered.
“Hi,” he said. “Solve any mysteries on your lunch
hour?”
“I didn't have time. I ran some papers over to
Williams and Brown for my father. Where's Byron?”
“Oh, Blaine has him doing research for her over at
the courthouse. I'm just making some notes for her.
The poet is great at writing, but I get stuck with all the
technical stuff. You know, no law office runs without a
great paralegal, and that's me.”
Nancy looked down at Henry's elegant script. He
was making notes in the margins of his computer
printout.
Nancy repeated, “The poet? Do you mean Byron?”
“One and the same,” Henry replied. “He's always
scribbling away at something. Maybe he's writing love
letters.” He grinned mischievously up at Nancy.
Nancy decided to change the subject. “You certainly
have distinctive handwriting,” she said, her eyes drawn
to the artistic swoop of his carefully drawn letters.
“Thank you,” Henry said “Even though I'm no poet,
I'll bet I could pen a few romantic lines myself . . . if
the right woman came along.”
Nancy rolled her eyes, then went to log on to her
computer again. She looked for the password Ms.
Hanson had given her that morning, but couldn't find
it.
“What are you looking for, Nancy?” Henry asked.
“Anything I can help with?”
“Ms. Hanson wrote down a temporary password for
me to get into the computer system this morning,”
Nancy said. “And now I can't seem to find it.”
“Oh, I know all the passwords around here,” Henry
said. “This should work.” He tapped on her keyboard.
Nancy looked up at Henry, who was leaning over
her shoulder as he typed. “Does everyone know one
another's passwords in the office?” Nancy asked.
“Sure,” Henry replied. “We're always finishing up
work for one another, so we have to be able to access
one another's files. It's no big deal.”
Henry continued to stand behind Nancy and study
the screen as she accessed some files, preparing to
copy them onto a floppy disk.
“What are you working on this afternoon?” Henry
asked, leaning again over her shoulder.
“Same thing as this morning,” Nancy replied. “And I
find it a little difficult to concentrate with you hovering
over me like that,” she said firmly.
“Sorry. I'm always sticking my nose into everything,”
Henry said. “I'll just mosey on over here and get back
to my own work.”
Henry walked away. Nancy checked to make sure he
was safely back at his own computer terminal before
calling up the suspicious computer E-mail log file that
showed that someone had sent E-mail to the opposing
attorneys on the same dates as the initial client
interviews.
Nancy studied the log file carefully, and decided to
print out a copy of it so she could check it out later.
She thought that perhaps she would ask Bess Marvin
for her opinion, too.
I should also show this to Dad and ask him what it
means, Nancy thought. As the printer whirred, she
decided not to worry her father until she had more
information.
“Making hard copies?” Henry asked. “I thought you
were just backing up the computer files on floppies.”
“Yes, this is just a record of the E-mail transmission
log on this case,” Nancy said. “I thought I'd add it to
the paper file, in case someone wants to check on it
later.”
“Those are dead cases, Nancy,” he said. “No one's
ever going to look at them again.”
Before Nancy could reply, Byron Thomas rushed
into the library and hurried over to the computer
station he had been working at b
efore, the one at
which Henry now sat.
“Where's my disk?” he asked Henry frantically.
“Relax, Byronic Man, it's right here,” Henry replied.
“I took it out and put it in a sleeve before I started my
work. Not to worry. How was the courthouse?”
Byron grabbed the disk out of Henry's outstretched
hand, tucked it inside his folder, and rushed out of the
library without answering Henry's question. Nancy
looked at Henry, her eyebrows raised.
“Is he always this excitable?” she asked. “He seemed
kind of quiet when we were working in here this
morning.”
“Oh, Byron's just one of those sensitive, artistic
types,” Henry replied. “He doesn't like to let anyone in
on his big, important secrets.”
The secret of how he's paying his law school tuition?
Nancy wondered. Could he be the one sending
information to Williams & Brown—and are they paying
him for it?
The library doors opened again. This time it was
Blaine, with the same harried manner Byron had
shown a few minutes earlier.
“Where's Byron?” she asked sharply. “He was
supposed to look up some information at the court-
house and bring it to me right away. And what are you
two doing sitting around talking? You both have work
to do, don't you?”
Nancy quietly continued her work, not responding
to the angry woman. “Byron was in here a minute ago,
Ms. Warner,” Henry replied. “I think he just got back
from the courthouse and was headed to your office.”
“My office is right across the hall, Henry. Why did
he stop in here to gab with you and Nancy? Maybe he
can explain that to me.”
Blaine turned on her heel and left the library,,
closing the door behind her. Hard.
Nancy shook her head. “What's up with her?”
“She's always pretty tough,” Henry said. “You' don't
get to be the first female editor of the Law Review at
Walker Law by being a pushover, believe me. But
frankly, she seems worse today than I've ever seen her.
Do you think she's jealous of you?”
“Jealous of me?” Nancy asked. “What for?”
“Oh, I don't know. She admires your father so
much.” Henry paused thoughtfully. “I mean, when
you're not in the office, she gets all his attention.
Maybe when you're around, she feels left out, like a
fifth wheel. Maybe she feels threatened.”
I'm his daughter, Nancy thought. Blaine's an
associate in his law firm. What more attention could
she want from him? Nancy frowned. That was
something to think about.
“Where's there a phone I can use to make an outside
call?” Nancy asked Henry.
“Well, if you don't want to use the one at your
computer station, there's one right across the hall, in
the conference room next to Blaine's office,” Henry
replied.
Nancy excused herself and walked over to the empty
conference room. It was time to call Bess. Maybe Bess
would know how to find out who had sent the
mysterious E-mail and what had been transmitted.
Nancy closed the conference room door, which had
a smoked-glass window. She walked to the end of the
long table in the conference room. She dialed her
friend's number.
“Hi, Nancy!” Bess said, her voice reflecting her
happiness at hearing from Nancy. “You're lucky. I was
just about to go on-line, and I haven't got a separate
phone line for my computer yet. All you would've
gotten for the next couple of hours was a busy signal.”
“A couple of hours? You've really become serious
about this Internet thing, haven't you?” Nancy asked.
“It's so interesting. You can find out anything on-
line,” Bess said excitedly. “So, what's up?”
“I'm helping out at my dad's office,” Nancy
explained. “In fact, I was calling to pick your brain for
some on-line expertise.”
“I'd be glad to help out,” Bess said.
“I've discovered something strange going on here at
the office,” Nancy elaborated. “A number of cases have
been settling unusually early, and it looks like someone
sent E-mail to the opposing attorneys on the very first
day each of the cases was received. My dad said all
these clients of his wanted to settle right away.”
“That does smell rotten,” Bess said. “What kind of
Internet connection do you have?”
“I made a printout of the file. If you look it over,
could you give me more information about it?”
“I'll do my best. Have you told your father about
your discovery yet?” Bess asked.
“No, I don't want to worry him at this stage. I only
have suspicions. Maybe you can help me get some
proof. What are you doing tonight?” Nancy asked. “Can
we meet for dinner after I get out of work?”
“Sure,” Bess agreed. “Let's go to that new restaurant
downtown, the Sacred Cow. It's right next door to a
place I've heard a lot about, the Art-Dot-Café.”
“Art-Dot-Café?” Nancy said. “What's that?”
“Oh, it's one of these cool new cyber-cappuccino
places,” Bess explained. “You can drink coffee and chat
on the Internet. I heard about it on-line the other day,
and I've been dying to go there.”
“Okay,” Nancy said. “Sounds great. The Sacred Cow
it is. Six o'clock sound good to you?”
“Perfect,” Bess said. “And now I'm going online.”
“See you later,” Nancy said.
As she hung up the phone, Nancy noticed a shadowy
movement beyond the smoked-glass window in the
conference room door. Strange, she thought. Someone
had been eavesdropping on her phone call!
5. Caught Off Guard
Nancy jumped up, ran around the long table, and
threw open the conference room door to catch
whoever it was. The hallway was empty, and Ms.
Hanson was not in the reception area, so Nancy
couldn't ask her if she'd seen anyone. Who had
overheard Nancy expressing her suspicions to Bess on
the phone? Nancy realized she had gotten so wrapped
up in the conversation that she had forgotten to remain
alert.
She could see Blaine sitting in her office next door
to the conference room, head bent forward over her
papers. Byron exited from the copy room and headed
for the library, where Nancy saw Henry standing by the
door inside. It could have been any of them, Nancy
thought to herself. I wonder which one?
Nancy returned to her file-copying work for the rest
of the afternoon. At five-thirty, she went in to her
father's office to say good night to him, and tell him
that she was meeting Bess for dinner.
“Computer problems already?” he asked. “I meant
to tell you that you can also ask Henry for help in that
area. He's our resident computer whiz.”
“It's nothing like
that,” Nancy assured her father.
“We're just getting together. Tell Hannah I'll be home
late and she shouldn't worry about me,” she added.
“Okay, I will. But you know that won't stop her.” Mr.
Drew gave his daughter a tired smile. “Have a good
time. See you later.”
Nancy checked that the printout of the E-mail log
file was in her leather portfolio before picking up her
suit jacket. On her way out of the door, she said good
night to Ms. Hanson.
“Get some rest, Nancy,” Ms. Hanson said with a
smile. “You look tired.”
“I am tired,” Nancy replied. “I'm going out with
Bess for dinner, but I shouldn't be out too late.”
“Please say hello to her for me,” Ms. Hanson said.
“See you tomorrow.”
“I will. See you in the morning,” Nancy said, closing
the double glass doors to the office behind her. She
rode the elevator down to the main floor.
Nancy strolled down the street in the late afternoon
sunshine. She was looking forward to spending some
time with Bess, even if they would mostly be talking
about the world of the Internet.
Nancy's walk took her beyond the downtown
business area to the industrial district down by the
river. It had undergone a renaissance in the past few
years. Trendy restaurants, coffee bars, boutiques, gift
shops, and bookstores had sprung up in the converted
warehouse area.
Nancy spotted the sign for the Sacred Cow
restaurant hanging over a small doorway and made her
way toward it. The sign had a whimsical painting of a
blue sky with white fluffy clouds and a brown-and-
white cow with wings and a halo, playing a lyre.
In the next building was a small coffee bar with the
sign Art.Café at the door, just as Bess had told Nancy
on the phone.
Bess was waiting inside the Sacred Cow, sitting at a
small table next to a large ficus tree by the front
window. She was already working on a shrimp cocktail
appetizer.
“Hi, Nance,” Bess said, jumping up to give her
friend a hug. Bess's blond hair shone in the late
afternoon sunlight streaming in the window. “Sorry I
started without you. I was starved, and I didn't know if
you'd have to stay late at the office—or if the bad guys
had caught you already.”
“No talk about the bad guys yet,” Nancy said. “Let's