They’ve barely had time to get the office up and running before Foggy’s pal at the 15th Precinct calls him up with a hot tip about a potential new client.
“You gotta stop bribing cops, Fog,” Matt says once he’s disconnected the call and shoved his phone into his pocket. Matt’s referring to the legally dubious quid pro quo thing Foggy and Officer Mahoney have going on, though he’s only half serious about chastising Foggy for it. It’s become something of a running gag; Brett’s mom Bess likes her cigars, and Foggy likes greasing those wheels whenever he can.
But this is how Karen Page enters their lives: as a murder suspect handcuffed to the table in a cramped interrogation room. Matt never would have guessed.
She’s understandably upset and mistrustful of the two young and likely very ambitious lawyers. She’s young and in a vulnerable situation but she isn’t stupid. Knows ‘too good to be true’ when it materializes in front of her in their freshly pressed suits and reassuring smiles.
Matt hopes their strict professionalism will go a long way in assuaging some of her suspicions regarding their motives. (Though to be fair, she would be correct about the ambitious part. After all, they’re not here entirely out of the goodness of their hearts…)
They take their seats, and Foggy pulls out his notepad to begin reviewing the case as they know it so far. Matt contributes by setting his focus on their client. He believes in her innocence wholeheartedly, but he has to leave aside everything he already knows about her. Has to set aside what he remembers of her from their previous encounters; that time he locked himself in his office while she was there; or the time she had come by his place with a big, kind heart, a bouncy helium balloon, and a healthy dose of skepticism about his so-called ‘car accident.’ (Correction: he ignores everything he thinks he knows about her) and focuses on what’s in front of him. In the here and now. Her heartbeat rings so clear and so true he feels justified in placing his faith in her innocence.
“What’s the catch,” Karen says. She says it very carefully, like she wants to believe their presence here represents the answer to her prayers, but suspects she’s really looking at a deal with the devil.
“There’s no catch here, Ms. Page,” he says. “We can help each other. You need representation and we, frankly need clients.”
“Well, I don’t have any money,” she spits out.
So Matt doubles down by offering up their services pro bono.
Foggy abruptly turns to Karen. “Excuse me a moment,” he says, sounding a bit perturbed by Matt’s offer. Then, “Matthew, a word?”
He and Foggy huddle together in a cramped corner of the tiny interrogation room. Hold their little confab in hushed and hurried whispers. “All right. What’s the deal here. Your crystal ball has something to say about our little murder suspect over here, doesn’t it.”
“You know I don’t have a crystal ball, Foggy.”
Foggy groans at that. Matt is being deliberately obtuse, and he knows it. He jerks his head at the interrogation table, likely shooting Karen a quick glance, then crowds Matt deeper into the corner. He’s gripping Matt’s bicep a little too tightly, and his hot breath tickles the hair around his ear. If this was anything other than a professional setting, Matt might have been forgiven for thinking things were about to get interesting. He clears his throat and bites at the inside of his cheek.
Oblivious to how warm it’s gotten, Foggy says, “yeah, but… You kinda do.”
And well, yeah. He’s not wrong. Matt might not have all the details here, but he does know a whole hell of lot more than he’s letting on.
Even still, he replies with a clipped, “not always.”
Foggy sighs. Lets go of Matt’s arm and smoothes out his shirt from where they were pressed together. Poor Foggy. He’d hoped they’d struck gold with their first client, and here Matt is giving the store away. “Let me guess. It’ll work out?”
Matt stifles a laugh. “I honestly couldn’t tell you. It is a good start, though.” Foggy nods his head at that and lets out an exaggerated sigh. Resigned to fate whether he likes it or not.
They retake their seats and Foggy reaches across the table so that he and Karen can shake on it.
Foggy leans in toward Matt. In an exaggerated stage-whisper he says, “she still looks completely pole-axed, by the way, but I think she’s coming around.”
“Great.” Matt extends his own hand and adds, “welcome aboard.”
* The next night Karen is attacked in her jail cell and he and Foggy get their client the hell out of there. The three of them head back to the office to sit down to have a frank discussion about what she knows and who she suspects attacked her. As she unspools her story, he finds his fingers tapping against the underside of the conference table. The story she tells is a good one; a young secretary at a large construction company; a ‘nice guy’ in the legal department she asks out on a date; a dubious-looking pension file. The numbers didn’t seem right, she says. After confronting her boss about it, he had just waved it off as a hypothetical experiment they were playing around with. A “theoretical model,” they called it. Then she goes out for drinks with the guy from legal, and the next thing she knows she’s blacked out and dragged back to her apartment. Where she awakes next to her date’s cold and very bloody body and her own bloodied hand wrapped around an equally bloodied butcher’s knife.
(“I know it looks bad.”
“Yeah. No kidding.”)
She describes the victim—one Daniel Fisher—as a nice guy with a wife and kids. If he was married, a family man, then why did she ask him out for drinks? They weren't having an affair; he knows that much. Guilt often reads much the same as lying does; flushed face; fidgeting; an elevated heart rate. But Karen has been telling the story freely, without guilt or shame. Like the thought of cheating hadn’t even occurred to her.
So it’s something else then. Karen is a cautious person. Skeptical by nature. Asks a lot a question. He doesn’t think she’s the type to just let things go.
He has a hunch but keeps it to himself. For the time being.
It’s obvious that telling her story dredges up a lot of the pain and emotional turmoil she’s been under in the last day or so. “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault,” she says and keeps saying, and it kills him because he knows it’s not. It’s so obviously not.
She’s crying, and Foggy’s wrapping her up in his arms because he’s big-hearted too.
“I’ll keep you safe, Karen,” Matt says. And he means it. He really, truly does.
Now that Karen has nowhere else to go, Matt invites her to his place for the night. It’s nothing untoward; she needs a safe place to stay, and he wants to get a better sense of who she is and what else she might know. He doesn’t want to make this feel like an interrogation, though, so he offers to order take out. In return she dances around asking him personal questions. He doesn’t mind, and honestly it’s something he’s come to expect. People are very often nakedly curious about his blindness, sometimes to the point of rudeness, but he’s learned to not take it personally. To be self-deprecating about it. It helps put people at ease; to assuage their pity or their self-consciousness, maybe. It’s probably a little bit manipulative, but it’s a good way to break the ice.
He wants to walk her through the events leading up her being attacked in her cell because there’s one thing he doesn’t quite understand.
“Why go through all that trouble?” he asks. “Why not just get you out of the way in the first place?” Maybe to frame her? But why?
“They did,” she says, and he suspects she’s misdirecting.“In my cell.”
“Yeah. The second time.”
She found a suspicious file, went to her boss, then started telling other people about it. And not just any other people. ‘A nice guy from legal.’
Karen is suspicious by nature. Inquisitive. Doesn’t let things go.
She intended on blowing the whistle on the whole thing. Probably still does, actually.
He leans in very close, and opens up his focus.
“Karen. Do you still have the file?”
She tells him she wishes she had. That she gave it to her boss when asked, and it hadn’t occurred to her to make a copy. “Guess I’m just not that smart.”
Huh.
That was the first dishonest thing she’s said to him.
“Ah, well,” he says, wanting to defuse the tension hanging between them. He actually hadn’t meant to get that intense about it. “It was just a thought.”
“Anyway,” he says as he gets up and walks toward the bedroom. “I’ll make the bed up for you.”
*
Later that night, Karen waits until he’s asleep to sneak out of the apartment. Except he’s not sleeping, and he half expected she’d slip away anyway. Probably to recover the file from its secret hiding place. So he grabs his black outfit and follows after her.
And it’s a good thing, too, because inside Karen’s apartment a man holding a knife lunges at her just as Matt bursts through the door.
A USB drive clatters to the floor, and the man dives after it. Matt goes after the guy, and they go a few rounds before the tussle ends up with them both crashing through a window. The guy gets up, and he’s wielding some kind of long metallic object. A broken piece of scaffolding maybe. A pipe. Guy clocks him over the head with it, and Matt loses focus for a long couple of seconds.
Then the guy swings at him with his knife, and Matt scrambles for the pipe. Grips it like a baseball bat and clocks him over the head with it.
“Holy shit,” Karen says after the guy goes down for the count.
He didn’t realize she’d been standing that close to the action.
Matt uncurls the guy’s fingers and snatches the USB drive from his hand. Hold it up toward Karen so she can get a real good look at it before informing her that he’ll make sure it gets in the right hands.
She wants to whistleblow? Then that’s what they’re going to do.
*
Back in his apartment, he drapes his drenched clothes over the shower rod and towels himself off. He doesn’t know where Karen’s gone to, doesn’t know if she’ll sneak back in here like nothing’s happened at all. He doesn’t really care. And despite his aching muscles and his throbbing head, the only thing he wants to do is to crawl into bed and try to see if he can’t catch some sleep.
He isn’t traveling much these days and is sleeping better than he has in years, and he really, truly hopes the trend continues.
*
Come morning, Karen sneaks back in carrying two cups of steaming hot coffee.
Matt’s hand lands on the egg carton just as his front door creaks open.
“Oh,” she says when she sees him pouring vegetable oil into the frying pan. “I didn’t think you’d be up yet. I let myself in, hope that’s okay.”
“No, it’s fine,” he says, smiling. He whisks eggs into the pan. “Care for some?”
“Oh,” she says again. “I didn’t know you could,” then under her breath, “that’s stupid, of course he can.” She huffs out a small laugh. “I mean, yes! I would love some scrambled eggs. Thank you. I. I brought coffee? I wasn't sure how you took it so I guessed? Hope that’s okay.”
“No, don’t worry about it,” he says. “Really, it's great.” He gestures toward the tiny kitchen table. “Please.” Have a seat. He continues stirring the eggs then readies a pair of plates. “So,” he starts. He wants to broach this as carefully as possible. “I was surprised to wake up to an empty apartment this morning.” He plates the eggs and approaches the table slowly, every step and every movement careful and deliberate.
“Oh, let me, um.” She stands and takes one of the plates from him. With his now free left hand, he feels for the back of his chair before setting down his own plate and takes a seat. “Yeah. Um.” She’s going to lie to him; he’s sure of it.“I just needed…” She steels herself and changes tack.“I need to tell you something.”
“The file,” he says. He makes it sound like a question, like he doesn’t already know how this goes.
“Yeah, actually,” she says, and she recounts the events of the night before; the file, the man with the knife, and the guy in the mask who materialized from out of nowhere. He saved her ass and promised to help her expose the bastards who did this to her.
“Well,” he says. “Sounds like you had a more exciting night than I did.” He’s suddenly very aware of the bump on his head, has to actively keep himself from feeling for it. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”
They finish breakfast, and Karen offers to wash the dishes. “It’s the least I can do,” she explains.
So he calls Foggy.
“Morning, Sunshine. I trust babysitting duties went without a hitch.”
Oh right. Babysitting. He forgot that was how Foggy put it. “If I recall correctly, it was you who said that was an inappropriate way of putting it.” Foggy barks out a laugh at that. Then Matt adds, “that was last night, wasn’t it.”
“Sure was,” he says, still laughing. “How’s your head, by the way.”
Ice cold panic floods his veins. There’s no way Foggy knows he was in a fight last night. He can’t possibly know. “My head?”
“Uh, yeah,” he says, says it like Matt’s the world’s largest idiot. “You, under the conference table?”
“Oh right!” he says, rubbing at the sore spot on the top of his head. “God. That was a long time ago.”
“Your definition of ‘a long time ago,’ and my definition of ‘a long time ago’ are two completely different things, buddy.”
“Sometimes that is true,” he says through a wide smile. “Listen. We’ll see you in a little bit, okay? We’re just finishing up breakfast over here. And there’s been a development. It’s nothing huge, but. Who know. Might help.”
“Yeah, okay. Sounds good. See you guys soon.”
“So,” he says as he pockets his phone. Karen’s finished drying the plates and silverware and is now on to scrubbing out the baked on egg still stuck on the frying pan. “You’re welcome to stay here if you'd like, or you can come with me to the office. Or if you have somewhere else you need to go, but Karen. I would really like for you to stay close if at all possible. For all we know someone could come after you again.”
“You’re sweet,” she says, and Matt smiles at her. “But I couldn’t… you’ve done so much already and…”
“Leave the dishes, I’ll finish them later.”
“Oh, no, I’ll just… there’s not a lot left and I--.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “Come to the office. We can keep you safe. I promise. I do have to warn you though: Foggy likes an well-prepared meal as much as the next person, but he cannot cook for shit.” She very generously laughs at that. “So don’t let him try to convince you otherwise.”
“Okay,” she says, still laughing. “I think I can manage that. And who knows. Maybe I’ll cook for you guys some time.”
“I look forward to it, Ms. Page.”
*
Later that night, Karen is true to her word and prepares them an old-fashioned virtue-infused lasagna. She says it’s old family tradition meant for a future spouse, and as they eat it, Foggy kicks him in the shin.
It’s nice. The three of them. Of course it won’t last, but he intends on enjoying it all the same. Learn to life in the moment and all that.
Though he can’t help the worry twisting away in his gut. The collision is imminent; time to brace for impact.
But this is how Karen Page enters their lives: with the offer to help them out around the office in exchange for taking up her case. Matt never would have guessed.
Re: Always Crashing in the Same Car part 21
*
They’ve barely had time to get the office up and running before Foggy’s pal at the 15th Precinct calls him up with a hot tip about a potential new client.
“You gotta stop bribing cops, Fog,” Matt says once he’s disconnected the call and shoved his phone into his pocket. Matt’s referring to the legally dubious quid pro quo thing Foggy and Officer Mahoney have going on, though he’s only half serious about chastising Foggy for it. It’s become something of a running gag; Brett’s mom Bess likes her cigars, and Foggy likes greasing those wheels whenever he can.
But this is how Karen Page enters their lives: as a murder suspect handcuffed to the table in a cramped interrogation room. Matt never would have guessed.
She’s understandably upset and mistrustful of the two young and likely very ambitious lawyers. She’s young and in a vulnerable situation but she isn’t stupid. Knows ‘too good to be true’ when it materializes in front of her in their freshly pressed suits and reassuring smiles.
Matt hopes their strict professionalism will go a long way in assuaging some of her suspicions regarding their motives. (Though to be fair, she would be correct about the ambitious part. After all, they’re not here entirely out of the goodness of their hearts…)
They take their seats, and Foggy pulls out his notepad to begin reviewing the case as they know it so far. Matt contributes by setting his focus on their client. He believes in her innocence wholeheartedly, but he has to leave aside everything he already knows about her. Has to set aside what he remembers of her from their previous encounters; that time he locked himself in his office while she was there; or the time she had come by his place with a big, kind heart, a bouncy helium balloon, and a healthy dose of skepticism about his so-called ‘car accident.’ (Correction: he ignores everything he thinks he knows about her) and focuses on what’s in front of him. In the here and now. Her heartbeat rings so clear and so true he feels justified in placing his faith in her innocence.
“What’s the catch,” Karen says. She says it very carefully, like she wants to believe their presence here represents the answer to her prayers, but suspects she’s really looking at a deal with the devil.
“There’s no catch here, Ms. Page,” he says. “We can help each other. You need representation and we, frankly need clients.”
“Well, I don’t have any money,” she spits out.
So Matt doubles down by offering up their services pro bono.
Foggy abruptly turns to Karen. “Excuse me a moment,” he says, sounding a bit perturbed by Matt’s offer. Then, “Matthew, a word?”
He and Foggy huddle together in a cramped corner of the tiny interrogation room. Hold their little confab in hushed and hurried whispers. “All right. What’s the deal here. Your crystal ball has something to say about our little murder suspect over here, doesn’t it.”
“You know I don’t have a crystal ball, Foggy.”
Foggy groans at that. Matt is being deliberately obtuse, and he knows it. He jerks his head at the interrogation table, likely shooting Karen a quick glance, then crowds Matt deeper into the corner. He’s gripping Matt’s bicep a little too tightly, and his hot breath tickles the hair around his ear. If this was anything other than a professional setting, Matt might have been forgiven for thinking things were about to get interesting. He clears his throat and bites at the inside of his cheek.
Oblivious to how warm it’s gotten, Foggy says, “yeah, but… You kinda do.”
And well, yeah. He’s not wrong. Matt might not have all the details here, but he does know a whole hell of lot more than he’s letting on.
Even still, he replies with a clipped, “not always.”
Foggy sighs. Lets go of Matt’s arm and smoothes out his shirt from where they were pressed together. Poor Foggy. He’d hoped they’d struck gold with their first client, and here Matt is giving the store away. “Let me guess. It’ll work out?”
Matt stifles a laugh. “I honestly couldn’t tell you. It is a good start, though.” Foggy nods his head at that and lets out an exaggerated sigh. Resigned to fate whether he likes it or not.
They retake their seats and Foggy reaches across the table so that he and Karen can shake on it.
Foggy leans in toward Matt. In an exaggerated stage-whisper he says, “she still looks completely pole-axed, by the way, but I think she’s coming around.”
“Great.” Matt extends his own hand and adds, “welcome aboard.”
*
The next night Karen is attacked in her jail cell and he and Foggy get their client the hell out of there. The three of them head back to the office to sit down to have a frank discussion about what she knows and who she suspects attacked her. As she unspools her story, he finds his fingers tapping against the underside of the conference table. The story she tells is a good one; a young secretary at a large construction company; a ‘nice guy’ in the legal department she asks out on a date; a dubious-looking pension file. The numbers didn’t seem right, she says. After confronting her boss about it, he had just waved it off as a hypothetical experiment they were playing around with. A “theoretical model,” they called it. Then she goes out for drinks with the guy from legal, and the next thing she knows she’s blacked out and dragged back to her apartment. Where she awakes next to her date’s cold and very bloody body and her own bloodied hand wrapped around an equally bloodied butcher’s knife.
(“I know it looks bad.”
“Yeah. No kidding.”)
She describes the victim—one Daniel Fisher—as a nice guy with a wife and kids. If he was married, a family man, then why did she ask him out for drinks? They weren't having an affair; he knows that much. Guilt often reads much the same as lying does; flushed face; fidgeting; an elevated heart rate. But Karen has been telling the story freely, without guilt or shame. Like the thought of cheating hadn’t even occurred to her.
So it’s something else then. Karen is a cautious person. Skeptical by nature. Asks a lot a question. He doesn’t think she’s the type to just let things go.
He has a hunch but keeps it to himself. For the time being.
It’s obvious that telling her story dredges up a lot of the pain and emotional turmoil she’s been under in the last day or so. “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault,” she says and keeps saying, and it kills him because he knows it’s not. It’s so obviously not.
She’s crying, and Foggy’s wrapping her up in his arms because he’s big-hearted too.
“I’ll keep you safe, Karen,” Matt says. And he means it. He really, truly does.
Now that Karen has nowhere else to go, Matt invites her to his place for the night. It’s nothing untoward; she needs a safe place to stay, and he wants to get a better sense of who she is and what else she might know. He doesn’t want to make this feel like an interrogation, though, so he offers to order take out. In return she dances around asking him personal questions. He doesn’t mind, and honestly it’s something he’s come to expect. People are very often nakedly curious about his blindness, sometimes to the point of rudeness, but he’s learned to not take it personally. To be self-deprecating about it. It helps put people at ease; to assuage their pity or their self-consciousness, maybe. It’s probably a little bit manipulative, but it’s a good way to break the ice.
He wants to walk her through the events leading up her being attacked in her cell because there’s one thing he doesn’t quite understand.
“Why go through all that trouble?” he asks. “Why not just get you out of the way in the first place?” Maybe to frame her? But why?
“They did,” she says, and he suspects she’s misdirecting.“In my cell.”
“Yeah. The second time.”
She found a suspicious file, went to her boss, then started telling other people about it. And not just any other people. ‘A nice guy from legal.’
Karen is suspicious by nature. Inquisitive. Doesn’t let things go.
She intended on blowing the whistle on the whole thing. Probably still does, actually.
He leans in very close, and opens up his focus.
“Karen. Do you still have the file?”
She tells him she wishes she had. That she gave it to her boss when asked, and it hadn’t occurred to her to make a copy. “Guess I’m just not that smart.”
Huh.
That was the first dishonest thing she’s said to him.
“Ah, well,” he says, wanting to defuse the tension hanging between them. He actually hadn’t meant to get that intense about it. “It was just a thought.”
“Anyway,” he says as he gets up and walks toward the bedroom. “I’ll make the bed up for you.”
*
Later that night, Karen waits until he’s asleep to sneak out of the apartment.
Except he’s not sleeping, and he half expected she’d slip away anyway. Probably to recover the file from its secret hiding place. So he grabs his black outfit and follows after her.
And it’s a good thing, too, because inside Karen’s apartment a man holding a knife lunges at her just as Matt bursts through the door.
A USB drive clatters to the floor, and the man dives after it. Matt goes after the guy, and they go a few rounds before the tussle ends up with them both crashing through a window. The guy gets up, and he’s wielding some kind of long metallic object. A broken piece of scaffolding maybe. A pipe. Guy clocks him over the head with it, and Matt loses focus for a long couple of seconds.
Then the guy swings at him with his knife, and Matt scrambles for the pipe. Grips it like a baseball bat and clocks him over the head with it.
“Holy shit,” Karen says after the guy goes down for the count.
He didn’t realize she’d been standing that close to the action.
Matt uncurls the guy’s fingers and snatches the USB drive from his hand. Hold it up toward Karen so she can get a real good look at it before informing her that he’ll make sure it gets in the right hands.
She wants to whistleblow? Then that’s what they’re going to do.
*
Back in his apartment, he drapes his drenched clothes over the shower rod and towels himself off. He doesn’t know where Karen’s gone to, doesn’t know if she’ll sneak back in here like nothing’s happened at all. He doesn’t really care. And despite his aching muscles and his throbbing head, the only thing he wants to do is to crawl into bed and try to see if he can’t catch some sleep.
He isn’t traveling much these days and is sleeping better than he has in years, and he really, truly hopes the trend continues.
*
Come morning, Karen sneaks back in carrying two cups of steaming hot coffee.
Matt’s hand lands on the egg carton just as his front door creaks open.
“Oh,” she says when she sees him pouring vegetable oil into the frying pan. “I didn’t think you’d be up yet. I let myself in, hope that’s okay.”
“No, it’s fine,” he says, smiling. He whisks eggs into the pan. “Care for some?”
“Oh,” she says again. “I didn’t know you could,” then under her breath, “that’s stupid, of course he can.” She huffs out a small laugh. “I mean, yes! I would love some scrambled eggs. Thank you. I. I brought coffee? I wasn't sure how you took it so I guessed? Hope that’s okay.”
“No, don’t worry about it,” he says. “Really, it's great.” He gestures toward the tiny kitchen table. “Please.” Have a seat. He continues stirring the eggs then readies a pair of plates. “So,” he starts. He wants to broach this as carefully as possible. “I was surprised to wake up to an empty apartment this morning.” He plates the eggs and approaches the table slowly, every step and every movement careful and deliberate.
“Oh, let me, um.” She stands and takes one of the plates from him. With his now free left hand, he feels for the back of his chair before setting down his own plate and takes a seat. “Yeah. Um.” She’s going to lie to him; he’s sure of it.“I just needed…” She steels herself and changes tack.“I need to tell you something.”
“The file,” he says. He makes it sound like a question, like he doesn’t already know how this goes.
“Yeah, actually,” she says, and she recounts the events of the night before; the file, the man with the knife, and the guy in the mask who materialized from out of nowhere. He saved her ass and promised to help her expose the bastards who did this to her.
“Well,” he says. “Sounds like you had a more exciting night than I did.” He’s suddenly very aware of the bump on his head, has to actively keep himself from feeling for it. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”
They finish breakfast, and Karen offers to wash the dishes. “It’s the least I can do,” she explains.
So he calls Foggy.
“Morning, Sunshine. I trust babysitting duties went without a hitch.”
Oh right. Babysitting. He forgot that was how Foggy put it. “If I recall correctly, it was you who said that was an inappropriate way of putting it.” Foggy barks out a laugh at that. Then Matt adds, “that was last night, wasn’t it.”
“Sure was,” he says, still laughing. “How’s your head, by the way.”
Ice cold panic floods his veins. There’s no way Foggy knows he was in a fight last night. He can’t possibly know. “My head?”
“Uh, yeah,” he says, says it like Matt’s the world’s largest idiot. “You, under the conference table?”
“Oh right!” he says, rubbing at the sore spot on the top of his head. “God. That was a long time ago.”
“Your definition of ‘a long time ago,’ and my definition of ‘a long time ago’ are two completely different things, buddy.”
“Sometimes that is true,” he says through a wide smile. “Listen. We’ll see you in a little bit, okay? We’re just finishing up breakfast over here. And there’s been a development. It’s nothing huge, but. Who know. Might help.”
“Yeah, okay. Sounds good. See you guys soon.”
“So,” he says as he pockets his phone. Karen’s finished drying the plates and silverware and is now on to scrubbing out the baked on egg still stuck on the frying pan. “You’re welcome to stay here if you'd like, or you can come with me to the office. Or if you have somewhere else you need to go, but Karen. I would really like for you to stay close if at all possible. For all we know someone could come after you again.”
“You’re sweet,” she says, and Matt smiles at her. “But I couldn’t… you’ve done so much already and…”
“Leave the dishes, I’ll finish them later.”
“Oh, no, I’ll just… there’s not a lot left and I--.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “Come to the office. We can keep you safe. I promise. I do have to warn you though: Foggy likes an well-prepared meal as much as the next person, but he cannot cook for shit.” She very generously laughs at that. “So don’t let him try to convince you otherwise.”
“Okay,” she says, still laughing. “I think I can manage that. And who knows. Maybe I’ll cook for you guys some time.”
“I look forward to it, Ms. Page.”
*
Later that night, Karen is true to her word and prepares them an old-fashioned virtue-infused lasagna. She says it’s old family tradition meant for a future spouse, and as they eat it, Foggy kicks him in the shin.
It’s nice. The three of them. Of course it won’t last, but he intends on enjoying it all the same. Learn to life in the moment and all that.
Though he can’t help the worry twisting away in his gut. The collision is imminent; time to brace for impact.
But this is how Karen Page enters their lives: with the offer to help them out around the office in exchange for taking up her case. Matt never would have guessed.
*