"Well, that was creepy," CJ says. "He actually tried to pull you into the elevator with him?"

"He did pull me in. He caught me off-guard. But I was able to shove him back - I don't think he was expecting that - and keep the door from closing. Once he heard you coming he let go of my arm and acted like it was no big deal."

"Did I mention that guy totally creeps me out? I can't believe I used to think I was friends with him. And that you were the enemy."

"He's good at manipulation. If I hadn't already met him that night at a club before he knew who I was, I would probably have been taken in too. And all the while he'd have been stabbing me in the back."

"We have to get him out of the firm before he pulls something else." CJ pauses. "Do you think he actually would have tried to hurt you?"

I consider this. "No, I don't see it in the elevator of a hotel like this, when the doors could open on another floor at any second. I think he was just trying to intimidate me. And find out who all knows about what he did to the slide deck, and the different script."

"He has to realize Jenny came to you."

"Yeah. I wonder how he's going to play it with her. Intimidation? Or more manipulation?"

"I think he'll try manipulation first. It's what he does."

"Yeah. We need to help her be prepared before he gets to her."

"I talked to her during the break before I started the seminar," CJ says. "She left right away and was contacting the manager of her apartment building and telling them her purse go stolen with her keys in it, and she needs them to change the lock."

I gape. "She gave Dylan a key?"

CJ shrugs. "He works fast."

We've reached the hotel parking garage and CJ says they'll drive me to my car, which is one floor down. I agree - I've had enough of Dylan popping out at me unexpectedly. I don't want to be confronted by him alone in the parking garage.

"He's a securities lawyer, not a serial killer," I tell CJ, mostly to reassure myself. But I'm glad for the ride.

"Are you going straight back to the office?" CJ asks.

"No. I think I'll give Hank a call to see how he's feeling, and ask if I can stop by and see him." I frown. "Although if his wife's there with him I'm not sure I want to suggest that he might have been drugged by another lawyer in the firm."

"She's out of town," CJ says as we get into their car. "On a trip with the grandkids. Hank is supposed to join them later this week."

I look over at them. "How do you know these things?"

CJ shrugs. "I make it a point to get to know everybody. I have lunch with people." They pause and glance back at me with a grin, and I know they're remembering all the lunch invitations with them I turned down because I was too busy. And too obsessed with my relationship with Max.

"Touché. I have to get better about that."

CJ nods. "You really do. If other people in the firm had gotten to know you the way I know you now, they never would have believed the bullshit Dylan was spreading about you."

"You're probably right."

* * *

It turns out, Hank is more than happy to see me. He's already feeling a lot better, and he lets me in wearing sweatpants, a t-shirt and a robe that looks like it's been around a long time. With his wife gone, the fancy condo looks a little like a bachelor pad. Not messy exactly, but a more than a little cluttered.

"I'm so sorry I missed the presentation this morning. I'm feeling a lot better now," Hank says, sitting back down on the couch while I take one of the high wing-back chairs. The coffee table is littered with empty water bottles, and he has a mug of hot tea in front of him, and a plate of saltine crackers.

I look at him skeptically.

"You still look a little green," I observe.

"I don't know when I've been so sick," he says. "It was the damnedest thing. I got home last night after a had a couple drinks and some bar food with Dylan, and an hour later, I'm just sick as a dog. I don't know, maybe I'm just not used to greasy food. My wife has us on this macrobiotic diet," he explains. "Did Dylan get sick at all?"

"No, he did not," I say wryly.

"Huh. We ate mostly the same things. I don't know. Maybe it wasn't food poisoning. Maybe I just caught some kind of 24-hour flu. Don't get too close to me, I might be contagious."

"Doubtful," I say, and he looks at me, perplexed.

"What's going on, Hadley?"

I tell him about the stunt Dylan pulled, switching the slides and rewriting the script, and I manage to keep Jenny out of it. Mostly. Except for explaining that she was the one who discovered the changes and alerted me.

"I don't understand," Hank says.

I lean forward. "Hank, I think this was no accident. You getting sick last night and missing the Bar presentation today."

"What you mean?"

"I mean I think Dylan orchestrated the whole thing. Hank, I think he drugged you."

He stares at me. "That's a pretty serious accusation."

"You never would have read that new script, and you'd have stopped the slides immediately. It wasn't enough for him to just switch out the slide deck and the script. Dylan had to be the one presenting. And the only way to do that was to get you out of the picture."

Hank shakes his head. "Hadley, I know there's some sort of animosity between you and Dylan - that was evident at the all attorney's meeting when he tried to blame you for the hacking incident. But you think he went this far and actually drugged me?"

"Yes, I do."

He studies me for a moment.

"I did think it was a little odd when he asked me to have a couple beers with him. I don't even know the guy very well. But he said he needed some advice for one of his securities clients who's making a bid to buy out a competitor, and he wanted me in on the M&A side. Made a big deal about how hush hush it was - which was why he didn't want to discuss it in the office - and how I was the only one he and his client would trust with the deal."

"Flattery. That's his number one modus operandi." I can just imagine Dylan, complimenting Hank, stroking his ego. And slipping something into his beer at the first opportunity.

"You really think he drugged me?" Hank asks.

"I really do."

"Well, that's certainly something to think about. Does your grandfather know about this?"

"I wanted to talk to you first."

Hank nods. "You're probably right. Otherwise, it's just too much of a coincidence that I'd get sick today when I was supposed to do the presentation. A presentation you're telling me Dylan radically changed to embarrass Andrew."

He looks up. "You're sure about that?"

"Yes. I have the one he intended to use. I'm going to watch it again later, read through the script again, but it's bad. He links my grandfather to criminal figures, disgraced politicians, all kinds of graft and corruption. He pulled old photos from charity events and found one of my grandfather standing next to some councilman who later went to prison."

"That's ridiculous. Just because you get your photo taken with someone at a charity event doesn't mean you're in bed with them and their dirty deals. I've been in tons of photos at those events. Doesn't mean you even know the person you're photographed with."

"I know."

"Damn. I'm usually a better judge of character. I didn't see this in Dylan."

"You're not the first one he's taken in. He had CJ believing I was some kind of homophobe who wanted to fire them just because they're queer. And I don't even know what lies he's told other people in the firm about me. I'm not exactly Miss Popularity around the office."

"Well," Hank says, "we're just going to have to fix that."

He pauses, takes a drink of his tea.

"The thing is, Hadley, why? Dylan's part of this firm now. What advantage does he get from disgracing it?"

I get up, preparing to head back to the office. "That's what I plan to find out."

* * *

By the time I get back to the office, most of the afternoon is gone. Martina is at the front desk. Jenny has not come back yet, and Dylan never returned from the meeting. So much for I have so much work to do back at the office.

A sudden thought occurs to me. "You don't think Dylan is at Jenny's apartment, do you? He has to know she's the one who came to me, and he has to be really angry."

"No," Martina says. "I just talked to her. She's at the apartment with the manager, and the locks are getting changed right now. She didn't want to leave until that was done."

"Okay, tell her obviously she doesn't need to come back to the office today. But would you ask her to meet me for breakfast tomorrow morning? I want to talk to her about everything before I go to my grandfather on this. Is he here now?"

"You just missed him. Oh, Hadley, he seemed so pleased. Said he was going to knock off work early and he thought maybe he deserved it. I wish he didn't have to find out what Dylan did."

"Me too. But I don't see any choice. Because I'm pretty sure that, with Dylan, this is only the beginning."

I stop by CJ's office and she confirms that there's been no sign of Dylan. We're both wondering if he's going to show up for work tomorrow morning.

"I don't think he'll be able to keep away," CJ says. "He doesn't seem the type to just sit at home waiting to see what happens next."

"I think you're right. He's using this afternoon to come up with whatever spin he's going to put on it. But honest to God I don't know how he can talk his way out of this one."

"It's Dylan," CJ reminds me. "You know he'll try."

I go back to my office and spend the next four hours diving deep into the pile of work that's been backing up on my desk since I left with Max on the trip to Paris. I just didn't feel ready to go home and deal with my grandfather being pleased about the event today, while I know I'm going to have to tell him tomorrow what was going on beneath the surface.

So I send him a quick text congratulating him again, and telling him I have some work I need to catch up on so he and my grandmother shouldn't wait for me for dinner.

By the time I come up for air, I realize it's after 8:00 and the office has pretty much cleared out. In fact, there's no one in the offices in my hallway, and the lights have been turned off. The cleaning crew usually shows up a little later, so they should be here soon. But for now, there's not even the sound of a vacuum. It's a little eerie, even though it's not really late. I've been at the office much later than this many times, but tonight my nerves are on edge.

I really shouldn't have stayed this long. Now I'm going to have to go into the parking garage alone. Either that or leave my car here and call an Uber. I feel a sudden twinge as I realize how simple it was when I could just text Max and he'd swing by and pick me up, for any reason or no reason at all.

Which reminds me that Max said he'd call tonight. Now a shiver of anticipation runs through me, just at the thought of hearing his voice. Why am I so pathetic?

I'm angry at Max, more angry that I've been at anyone in my whole life. Well, except for the misplaced anger I had toward my grandparents when I thought they refused to give my mom the money she needed for cancer treatment. But that was a long cold anger, like an icey fist around my heart, stretching across the years until it seemed like an intrinsic part of me. My name is Hadley, and I hate my grandparents.

My anger at Max is burning hot. When he calls me tonight, I don't know what I'm going to say.

I turn the corner from my hallway and enter the main part of the office. Everything is dark here as well. Is that normal? I've never noticed before whether the lights go off after everyone leaves and then the cleaning crew turns them on again, or if this is unusual. But I can't get rid of this little prickly feeling extending from the back of my neck down my spine.

I don't want to have a confrontation with Dylan alone here in the deserted office. I already know he's capable of at least some level of violence.

I'll see you later, he said, as the elevator door closed at the hotel earlier today.

I walk slowly down the hallway, trying to keep my heels from clacking on the polished wood floor. I'm leaning strongly now to just getting an Uber home rather than go into the parking garage alone.

I cut through the kitchen and break room then pause at the file room where rows of movable shelves hold expandable files folders full of documents from current and closed cases, and where the large-volume photocopy machines are located. Not everything is stored electronically, although we're certainly moving in that direction. I hesitate in the doorway, then flip on the light and exhale slowly. Everything looks normal. There's no one lurking in the shadows. I'm being paranoid and ridiculous.

Then I hear a soft click, like a door closing somewhere behind me. I strain my ears. I'm sure I hear slow footsteps, as if someone is trying to move quietly through the office. But not quietly enough.

I tell myself it's probably just one of the other lawyers who worked late, like me. Or a member of the cleaning crew has arrived early.

"Hello? Who's there?" I call out, and the footsteps stop. No one answers. That's odd, and it's got my senses tingling again.

Then the footsteps start again, moving faster now. I need to get out of here.

I go through the file room, and start down the hallway, past my grandfather's darkened office, toward the lobby. I can hear someone moving faster through the office, not trying anymore to be stealthy. But I'm almost there. I'll be in the main lobby soon, next to the elevator bank.

I turn the corner, practically running now, and collide with someone who grabs me by the shoulders. I let out a scream as their hands grip me tighter.