Chapter 11:THE NEW YORK LAWYER
This morning was the first morning in months that I woke up to peace and quiet. It was actually kind of unnerving; nothing making a sound. I was so used to being woken up by Michael working out every morning. I guess Reese didn't work out, but I mean he was in such great shape he had to at some point and he doesn't seem like the type of person to sleep late. So why was it so quiet in here? I got up out of bed and walked around to the couch and to my surprise John wasn't there. I was just about to yell to see if he was even still here, but I caught a glimpse of a note on the kitchen counter. I picked up the note and read it,
L,
New job, left early. Meet at H.Q. Take the car.
R.
Right next to the note were a set of car keys. How nice? At least he left me a way to get to the library, it's not like I'm kinda new to New York and barely know how to get to the library from here or anything. I picked up the keys and went to change when I realized all my clothes were still at the library. Awesome. I was going to have to leave John's apartment dressed in his clothes, that'll look great to anyone who pays attention to who comes and goes out of the building. Not to mention his clothes were too big for me. I grabbed my phone off the table and the set of keys and headed down stairs to the car.
….
Luckily, I made it to the library with no trouble at all. After parking the car, I walked up all the stairs to the top of the library where H.Q was. When I reached the top Reese was holding out a cup of iced coffee for me, and Harold was busy typing away on the computer. At least Harold remembered I only liked iced coffee. I took a sip of coffee and smiled, then I turned towards Harold and said, "Thanks Harold." But before Harold could say anything John said with a fake annoyed look, "I bought the coffee you know."
"Yeah, but there's no way you could know how I like my coffee unless Harold told you, smart guy."
"Wow. You're real sarcastic in the morning." John observed.
Harold finally spoke up, "You get used to it Mr. Reese." He had a kind of surprised/annoyed look on his face when he noticed I was wearing John's clothes.
I laughed, "Relax Harold, I left all of my clothes here last night, so I needed to borrow something to sleep in. Unless, you rather I left John's clothes to himself and I slept naked." Reese stifled a laugh after what I said and then actually laughed after he looked over and saw Harold's face.
"Very well, Ms. Westen. Please get dressed so we can start working."
After I got dressed in a pair of jeans, a black tank top and combat boots, I walked back out into the main room where Harold and Reese were looking at a picture of a woman. "So what's her story?" I asked pointing to the women.
Harold answered, "This is Ms. Cassie Miller, she is a freelance lawyer in the City. Her number came up this morning. I can't seem to find any threats against her, she pays her bills on time, lives alone in a house near New Jersey, she dosen't seem to have grievances against anyone, appears to get along with everyone at work, no arrests, and no outstanding warrants, she seems like a normal working class women from the looks of it."
"A little too perfect if you ask me." John said.
"So I guess we start with surveillance?"
"Sounds like a plan." John said as he turned to his armory to grab a gun.
"Are you going to give me a gun this time, or do I have to go beat up some low life to get one?" I asked walking towards Reese.
Reese smirked, "That doesn't seem like a bad idea, but for now you can just borrow one." He handed me a Wesson Silverback and an extra magazine. I put the gun in the back of my waistband and popped my earpiece in before we headed down the stairs.
Once we arrived at Miller's house, John decided to break the silence, "So is this your first stake out?"
I gave him a hard look before I answered, "No John, I worked for the FBI remember? Of course i've been on stake outs before."
Before he could say anything Harold's voice came through our earpieces, "Ms. Miller should be leaving for work in about an hour. She is due in court at eleven."
"Thanks Harold." I said.
After Harold hung up or got quiet or whatever it is he does, John said, "Oh yeah, I forgot. And you can call me Reese you know. No one really calls me John anymore."
I was so surprised. I never really thought anything about that fact that Harold always calls him Reese and he always says Finch rather than Harold. "Okay, Reese." I smiled, I kind of liked that, it fitted him actually. I handed him the camera before I said, "You can call me whatever you want, I mean Harold always calls me Westen, but lots of people call me Lauren too, or a nickname, whatever suits your fancy." John smirked and responded with an okay. When John looked at me that time, I got a good look at his eyes, and boy did he have nice eyes. I mean they're like blue but silver at the same time with maybe a slight hit of green in this lighting, if that's even possible. They were the nicest eyes i've ever seen on a guy.
Reese broke me out of my thoughts, "What are you looking at?"
I was so confused. I wasn't even looking at anything, I was just thinking about his eyes. "What?"
"You were looking intently at the neighbor's house. I was wondering if there was something I should be looking at." Reese explained.
"Oh, no. I was just lost in thought I guess. It's nice being able to work like this; with no one giving you such strict rules on what you can and can't do." I said, coming up with an excuse about what I was thinking about.
"Yeah. I mean the Agency's only rule was to shoot people and don't ask questions, but it's nice having the option." I laughed. Mike was the same way; he hated killing people.
Before I could say anything, Miller walked out of her house. It was time to actually do something other than sit around. John turned the car on and followed her all the way to the court house. He was having a hard time following her since she drives surprisingly slow for someone who is always in a rush. She parked a block away from the courthouse, and speed walked the rest of the way. Reese and I followed behind her at a good distance so we wouldn't be noticed. Nothing seemed out of the norm so far. When we got to the courthouse, John walked right through the metal detectors and when it went off he flashed a police badge to the guard. Next, I went through the detector and flashed my old FBI badge and walked up to John. "Where the hell did you get an NYPD badge from?"
He just answered with a "You don't want to know."
"Oh I think I do want to know Mr. Reese." I said with a look that said I really did want to know.
"Fine, the short version is a cop was going to have another dirty cop kill me, so I killed the main cop and stole his badge, and then befriended the other cop."
"Of course that happened" I said shaking my head as we followed Miller inside one of the courtrooms. We sat in the back and watched as Miller presented her case for an alleged drug dealer. While we were watching Finch spoke into our earpieces, "Tony Perez, known drug dealer and alleged gang member, recently busted for selling cocaine to minors. I don't think Cassie is a good enough lawyer to get the charges dropped, if i'm being honest based on her past cases. I'm thinking the gang might be after her if she doesn't get the charges dropped on Mr. Perez."
We watched court go on for about an hour and a half before the jury was released to deliberate. By the looks of it, Tony was definitely going to jail. Miller didn't seem to be a good lawyer if I do say so myself. She had somewhat good evidence, but she was not good enough at arguing to make it as a great lawyer.
Reese and I followed her out to a small cafe down the street, where she ordered a sandwich for lunch. She sat down at a table near a window and Reese and I walked towards the back of the cafe, to where we could grab a seat with our backs against the wall. Unfortunately, the table that was open only had one chair with it's back to the wall. I decided that Reese should just take that seat, because knowing him he probably doesn't trust me enough to watch his back like this yet. We were only watching Miller for about ten minutes before I became fidgety. John finally spoke up, "What's wrong with you? You can't even sit still."
"Sorry. I just hate sitting like this. I feel so exposed with my back to the door even though I know that you're keeping watch."
"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you were taught to never sit with your back to a door. I thought that was an agency thing."
"Yeah I guess it is. I've kinda always been like this, but it got worse after living with my brother for three months." I laughed a little.
John smiled, "Yeah that would do it."
Finch said right after that, "Miller just got a call from the courthouse, the jury reached a verdict
