"Mrs James."
Colleen looked up from her typewriter. "Yes?"
Bill Williams — Billy Billy except to his face — was studying the folder in his hands. "You've been handling the McLaren case, haven't you?"
Handling it? "I've been doing the typing, yes."
"You're upstairs, then. Eighth floor, Jack McCoy. He's got the case now."
"Why?" Colleen asked, meaning why me?
Billy Billy didn't catch her meaning. "The One-Seven turned up a body with a bullet in it that matches McLaren's gun. It's a case for Adam Schiff's white-haired boy now."
Colleen didn't dare ask anything else.
She didn't dare catch Dan's gaze, either, as she gathered up her files on the case and scurried for the elevator.
McCoy was writing when she stopped in the doorway of his office, dark head bowed over the legal pad, the ring on his finger catching the light as he drove his pen across the paper.
Colleen tapped gently on the door. "Mr McCoy?"
He held up one finger without pausing, and she shut her mouth and stood quiet until he'd filled that page and half the next and looked up. Then he smiled, so warmly Colleen couldn't help smiling back despite her better judgment. "Colleen. You've been on the McLaren case, haven't you?"
"I wouldn't put it that way," she said. "I did some typing. For Dan."
"You and I both know that legal secretary and legal typist aren't even in the same zip code," McCoy said. He pointed to the chair across from his desk. "Sit, Mrs James. Tell me what I need to know about Gareth McLaren. From the beginning, in order, if you can."
She certainly could, and she did.
