Marcia tilted her head to one side, like a dog hearing a whistle, a posture that struck me as peculiar until I noticed her chrome headset. It blended perfectly into her sleek silver bob. “Certainly, Mr. Barrett,” Marcia said, and picked up the phone. “Very well,” she said and placed it down again.

Thirty seconds later the door swung open. Lucy Carter-Jones rushed out, and I hurried to my feet. “Oh, hello, Lucy!”

She stopped and looked right through me. Her shell-like face was utterly blank. I was afraid I’d committed another office faux pas by using her first name. But Barrett had said to call him Barry and he certainly outranked the HR director. Maybe Lucy had simply forgotten who I was. “I’m Shay Lambert? The new addition to the Law Department?”

“Oh.” Lucy blinked and her face came back to life. “Yes, of course. How are you getting on?”

“Just fine. Thank you.”

She gave a perfunctory nod and left.

“You can go in now,” Marcia said to me.

Barrett’s office door was still ajar. I pushed through into an expanse of glass—floor-to-ceiling windows on two walls, glass shelving on the other two walls, a huge glass-topped desk, and a glass coffee table between the facing sofas. The effect was so overwhelmingly empty that it took me a moment to realize the office was also empty of Ingram Barrett.

“Have a seat. I’ll be with you in a minute,” he called from behind a different door. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“Coffee, tea, water?” he shouted. “Sparkling or still?”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

I took a seat in front of his desk. The visitor chairs faced the windows, and one of the windows was a door. It led to a private glass balcony that was cantilevered off the face of the building thirty stories above the city. On it was an arrangement of snow-covered cubes and rectangles—patio chairs and chaises that looked like summer cottage furniture covered with dust sheets until Memorial Day.

A row of framed photos lined the edge of his desk, turned not inward where he could see them but outward for his visitors to admire. One was his wedding photo: a recent one, judging from his appearance, and on his arm was an elegant blonde. The second Mrs. Barrett, I assumed, since she was too young to be the mother of the twentysomethings captured with Barrett in half a dozen other photos. She might have been a twentysomething herself.

Another sound came from behind the interior door—a toilet flushing with the high-speed whoosh of a jet engine. Barrett had his own washroom, I realized. A private balcony and a private washroom—even the most senior partners at Jackson Rieders didn’t have such luxuries. These must have been among the perks that had lured him from Wall Street to the executive suite of CDMI.

He emerged with a smile. “Let’s talk over here,” he said, and settled comfortably on one of his white leather chesterfields.