She sighed unworriedly, picking at a cuticle. “He’ll probably get fired if he doesn’t find someone to take the dep in the next couple of minutes. Not that I care. I just so happened to catch a glance at the deposition notice on Kathy’s desk; it’s a 30(b)(6) deposition. Whatever.”

Not surprisingly, as J.D.’s best friend, Tyler was extremely flustered by this unexpected news.

“Um . . . okay. Wow. Let me think for a second.” He got up from his desk, walked around it, then went back. “I guess I should call Kathy. No, J.D.” He looked uncertainly over at Payton. “I should call J.D., right? See what he wants me to do?”

“I don’t think there’s time for that,” Payton told him. “Kathy said the attorney’s pitching a fit and ready to leave any minute.”

“Okay—I’ll stall them,” Tyler decided.

Payton sighed in frustration. Did she have to spell it out for him?

“Tyler. You have to take this deposition. Now.”

He stared at her blankly for a moment, then nodded. “Of course, right. Sure. You said it was a 30(b)(6) deposition?”

“Yes.”

Tyler nodded again, then hurried over and pulled his copy of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure off his shelf. “Um, 30(b)(6) . . . let’s see . . .” He flipped through the pages. “Okay—here it is.”

Payton stared at him, appalled. “Good god, boy—have you never taken a 30(b)(6) deposition?”

Tyler paused his skimming to peer up at her. “Wow, you just sounded exactly like J.D. right then.”

Payton scowled. As if.

Seeing her expression, Tyler answered quickly. “I think I may have sat in on a 30(b)(6) dep when I was a summer associate.” He looked at her questioningly. “Is that the one where you designate someone to testify as an agent of the corporation?”

Payton rolled her eyes. Were they teaching these kids nothing nowadays?

“Tyler—this is kind of a big deal,” she said. “These 30(b)(6) depositions can be tricky. The witnesses are usually very well prepared, since everything they say can be held against the company.”

Tyler looked her over. “So you’ve done this before?”

Payton snorted. Was the Pope German? “Uh . . . yes.”

“So, you could take this dep?”

“Like a champ. But.” She gave Tyler a pointed look. He stared back at her with those little I’m-just-a-sixth-year-associate lost eyes.

Payton spoke cautiously. “You are aware of the situation between J.D. and myself, are you not?”

“I am aware of it, yes.”

So he knew what he was asking of her, Payton thought. She continued to stare at Tyler.

He never blinked once.

After a moment, Payton spoke.

“He wouldn’t do it for me.”

Tyler cocked his head, interested. “Is that what matters to you?”

Payton flung her hair back, deciding to ignore that question. “Fine,” she told Tyler through gritted teeth. “I’ll do it.”

She held up a finger. “But you are going to help me. Go upstairs and tell the lawyer and his client that we apologize for the delay, but that everything has been straightened out and the deposition will begin in five minutes. Introduce yourself, and in turn, make sure you get the lawyer’s name. Then come back here and run a quick search in Martindale-Hubbell and on LexisNexis—find any noteworthy cases he’s handled, major clients, et cetera. I won’t have time to review everything before the deposition starts, but I’ll call you during our first break and you can give me the highlights. Okay?”

Tyler nodded affirmatively. “Got it.”

With that, Payton left his office and headed down the hall to talk to J.D.’s secretary.

“Kathy—I’ll need whatever files J.D. has for this deposition,” she said as soon as she got to his secretary’s desk. “Do you know if he prepares outlines for his deps? If you can’t find a copy in the files, run a search on his computer.”

Kathy flew out of her chair, extremely relieved. “Does this mean you can cover the deposition? Oh, thank goodness, Payton. I’ll get you that stuff right away. Yes, J.D. does prepare outlines for his deps, and I know right where I can find it . . .”

As Kathy hurried off, Payton headed to her own office. Irma glanced up curiously as she passed by.

“Change of heart?” she asked. “What happened to Tyler?”

“Never send a boy to do a woman’s job, Irma.”

Payton winked at her secretary, then disappeared into her office to get her game face on.

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, the deposition went pretty damn well. Payton attributed this to the fact that she had seriously mad skills as a lawyer.

And maybe just the teensiest bit to the fact that J.D. had prepared a very thorough deposition outline that set forth virtually every question she needed to ask.

Despite the extremely late notice, Payton found it not difficult at all to step in—along with the outline, J.D. had prepared his exhibits in advance and had organized them sequentially. Sure, some minor deviations from the outline were sporadically necessary to clarify something the witness said. But other than that, she found J.D.’s preparation and strategy to be very much in line with what hers would have been had it been her own case. She even managed—despite the delay in starting—to finish the deposition by four thirty, something J.D. apparently had promised the lawyer so that he and the witness could make their six o’clock flight back to New York.