Still . . . I wanted this position badly. It was something I’d set my sights on early.

Even though I went to law school on the West Coast, I always knew I’d come home to North Carolina to practice. More important, I wanted to be the type of lawyer who made a difference in an ordinary person’s life, and in my mind, the best place to accomplish that was with Knight & Payne.

The law firm is massive, employing sixty-three lawyers, twenty-nine paralegals, thirty-six secretaries, and two receptionists, one for each floor. It’s an institution in North Carolina, sought after by every top-ranked law school graduate, because the pay is legendary, the benefits are beyond belief, and the work environment is cutting-edge. But that’s not why I wanted to come here.

I wanted to be a Knight & Payne attorney because the firm’s entire practice was built upon helping individuals. You won’t find any corporate lawyers here representing banks insistent on foreclosing on poor, unfortunate fools. You won’t find a single insurance company represented in these halls. Big business is the devil within this institution.

No, the founding attorney, Midge Payne, has it clearly written on her website for all to see that she represents only the downtrodden.

Come, any poor soul needing help.

That’s her freakin’ tagline.

It’s like an open-door policy for every miscreant and shiftless bum to seek help from the best attorneys in the state. We’re talking the dregs of society . . . drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, homeless people, deviants, assholes, and various other scum. Some of these people are so vile most people would shun them. Many attorneys would refuse to help them, forgetting the fundamental concept that everyone deserves a fair shot at justice.

Don’t get me wrong—the firm represents ordinary citizens who need legal help, too, but the point is Midge Payne does not discriminate, other than she’ll only represent people, not corporations. She isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, and that’s what I wanted in my law practice. I want to help those folks who need help lifting themselves out of the filth and grime of unfairness.

“Miss Michaels,” I hear from my left.

Turning my head, I see Danny Payne walking toward me. He conducted my interview all those months ago, and he still looks as sleazy as ever. Oh, he’s dressed impeccably enough, in a custom-tailored suit that perfectly fits his five-foot, six-inch frame. I tower over him by four inches, thanks to having a tad more height and sensible three-inch pumps.

Danny is dressed to the nines, but he looks like slime oozes out of his pores. It’s the way his eyes appraise you . . . like he’s trying to figure out how he can best use you or one-up you. It’s a calculating look, which makes me shudder slightly, but it in no way turned me off from working here. I was coming for the reputation of the great Midge Payne, not her lackey cousin who manages the firm.

Danny Payne is a conundrum, and not much is known about him publicly. He graduated from some law school I’d never heard of out in Idaho, and rumor has it he didn’t really pass the bar exam. The dirtiest of rumors say that his degree is forged, but I don’t buy it for a second. I doubt that Midge would let that occur in her firm. What I do know is that Danny doesn’t actually practice law but rather runs the firm for Midge. He handles all the glorious duties of the day-to-day operations: human resources, marketing, growth and development, yada, yada, yada. Sounds boring to me, actually. I went to law school so I could change the world, not sit behind some desk and figure out payroll.

Standing from my chair, I wipe my moist palms on my skirt and hold out my hand. “Mr. Payne, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

He gives me a look that could be a leer, or maybe it’s just a conspiratorial gesture of welcome, but he shakes my hand enthusiastically. “Come . . . Midge wants to talk to you.”

My breath hitches in my throat, and my nervousness ramps up tenfold. “Ms. Payne wants to see me?”

“It’s Midge,” he says with a smarmy grin. “We’re all on a first-name basis here. So it’s Danny . . . not Mr. Payne.”

“Um . . . okay. So, Midge wants to see me?”

This is unheard of. No one—and I mean no one—gets to see Midge Payne. She’s like the great and powerful Oz, hidden in a bejeweled tower, protected by the fiercest of dragons. It’s rumored that she comes in to work at 4:00 a.m. and doesn’t leave until after 9:00 p.m. She supposedly has a private elevator that takes her to the parking garage, and you get admittance to her office only by papal decree or something.

If Danny Payne is a conundrum, Midge Payne is an absolute enigma, perhaps slightly less mysterious and elusive than Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. While she was a powerhouse in the courtroom in her day, she hasn’t seen the inside of a courthouse in more than two decades, preferring to work behind the scenes. She still handles cases and does consultations with other law firms, but she does it all from behind her desk and is considered a virtual recluse. There isn’t even a picture of her on the firm’s website, although I have seen an old photograph. When I was researching this firm before sending my résumé, I went to the library and looked at old newspaper articles. Midge was a pioneering civil rights attorney in the late seventies, early eighties, championing women’s and gay rights in rural, southern North Carolina, where said groups were considered third-class citizens. In one photo she was walking out of the court of appeals building after having argued a discrimination case. She was beautiful, with her shoulder-length pale-blonde hair, her face regal and determined. Looking at her, I saw greatness.

She’s what I aspire to be, and I hope I don’t let her down.

Danny turns to walk through monstrous double doors. I know from my prior interview that this hallway leads from the lobby into the main work area of the twenty-seventh floor. “Yes. She’s looking forward to meeting you . . . to talk to you about your role in our firm.”

My head is spinning. I’m getting ready to meet Midge Payne, my legal hero, and suddenly I feel like ten times the fool for even applying to a firm like this. The cheap black suit I bought at Walmart—because that’s all I can afford with the law school debt I accumulated—is made of polyester and swishes against my taupe nylon stockings, which suddenly look too dark against my pale skin.

She’s going to see me for the fraud that I am.

Danny leads me through the Pit, an open work area that takes up the entire interior of the twenty-seventh floor, so called because that’s where a lot of the “dark and dirty work” takes place. Most of the attorneys and staff work here, with no walls or offices to separate them. Client meetings are held in conference rooms bordering the exterior of the work area along with the partner offices. All of the exterior rooms are walled with glass, so every office is open to the eye, which makes the work area seem immense. There’s no privacy to the outward gaze, however, I happen to know the exterior offices and conference room have double-paned glass, and if you want a measure of concealment, you simply push a button on your desk and a thick, dark-gray smoke filters in between the dual panes, coating the glass walls and giving the people within absolute confidentiality. When you’re done, you simply push the button again, and a vacuum sucks the smoke out, leaving clear glass once again.

I want one of those offices one day.

As we walk across the Pit, I get several smiles and nods from my new colleagues. Everyone is dressed differently. Some wear high-

powered suits, while others wear jeans and T-shirts. It’s one of the perks of working here—absolute autonomy in how you dress . . . how you look. I don’t bat an eye at one woman with pale white hair streaked with blue and her face covered in piercings, who sits at her desk smacking on bubble gum. She’s wearing a low-cut, shredded T-shirt and black leather pants with knee-high boots. She’s talking to a middle-aged man in a three-piece suit, who I assume is an attorney, but you never know. Hell, for all I know, she’s the attorney and he’s the secretary, which is what makes this firm so unique. Maybe my cheap suit won’t be so out of place, since we’re allowed to wear whatever we want unless we’re going to court or meeting with a client who might have tender sensibilities. Regardless, Danny leaves it up to everyone’s smarts and discretion, and he told me during my interview he’s had to reprimand someone only once for what they chose to wear. It was apparently a guy who showed up to work one morning after a hard night of partying and still had vomit on his Mötley Crüe T-shirt. Danny told me it wasn’t the Mötley Crüe T-shirt he had a problem with.