Sunset Beach(25)

“Oh, wow,” Drue said, for lack of anything better to say. “That’s terrible.”

Aliyah looked up and gave her a shy smile. “Hello.” When she stepped from behind the woman whom Drue presumed was her grandmother, Drue noticed she had what looked like an iPad with a cover plastered in childish stickers.

“Hi,” Drue said. “I wish I had an iPad like yours. What do you like to do on yours?”

“I like to read, and sometimes I draw or watch videos.” Aliyah ducked her head and looked away.

“Her mama bought her that for Christmas, but I can’t afford to let her download all those books and movies she wants. This girl reads all the time,” Yvonne said. “She likes those YouTube videos too. But she needs new glasses. How I’m gonna pay for glasses and medicine and all of that? With a hundred thirty-five thousand dollars but it’s in a trust for her ’til she turns eighteen? Money I can’t touch, even though I’m raising her? How I’m gonna keep my job and look after her and see she keeps out of trouble in that bad neighborhood we live in? Tell me that.”

“I … I don’t know,” Drue said. She picked up her pen again. “Honest. Mr. Campbell really is in court today. But I can take down your name and let him know you’d like to see him and I’m sure his assistant can get you an appointment—”

“Listen to me!” the woman thundered. “Me and Aliyah, we are staying right here in this office until that man comes out here and does right by me. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars? Minus Brice Campbell’s lawyer fees? That’s what those hotel people say my baby girl’s life was worth? That’s a joke! But ain’t nobody laughing.”

She turned and herded her grandchild toward the sitting area, heaving herself down onto the sofa with a grunt. Aliyah sat down too and waited expectantly while her grandmother pawed through the contents of a backpack, handing the girl a juice box and a container of animal crackers. After the child was settled, she plucked a book of crossword puzzles from the backpack and attacked it with a pencil.

Drue picked up her headset and plugged it into the back of the phone.

“Oh hi, Wendy,” she said softly. “There’s a, uh, client here who would like to see Mr. Campbell.”

“I told you, Brice is out of office today,” Wendy said. “And he doesn’t see walkins. You know that. Just tell her to call and make an appointment.”

Yvonne Howington was staring at her, listening in.

“I suggested that, but she’s pretty adamant about seeing Mr. Campbell.”

“Who is it?” Wendy asked.

Drue swiveled the desk chair around so that her back was to the sitting area. “It’s Ms. Howington,” she whispered. “She says her daughter was murdered? At the Gulf Vista? And she’s got her granddaughter with her.”

“Her again? Jesus H.,” Wendy said. “That woman does not give up. Brice has explained the settlement to her numerous times, but she just doesn’t want to hear it.”

“Maybe you could come out and talk to her? She’s pretty worked up.”

“No, I can’t come out there. I’m busy. Do whatever you need to do, but get rid of her. We don’t need a disgruntled client out there scaring off new business.”

“What if she doesn’t want to leave?” Drue was starting to feel nervous. She hadn’t signed up to be the law firm’s bouncer.

“Speak to her firmly. Suggest that she leave, or otherwise you’ll call the cops. And then do that.”

“Call the cops? On a woman whose daughter has been murdered? A grandmother?”

“Handle it!” Wendy snapped. The phone went dead.

Drue swiveled the chair back around. Her fingers raced over the computer keyboard, accessing the firm’s case management database. She typed in the name Jazmin Mayes and waited for the files to download.

She glanced up at Ms. Howington, who was glaring at her again. “I’m on hold with Mr. Campbell’s assistant,” she lied.

“I don’t wanna talk to that heifer,” Ms. Howington said, waving away the suggestion. “Mr. Campbell is the one promised me we’d get four million, five million easy from those hotel people. Now I want him to look me in the face and have him tell me how I’m supposed to raise Jazmin’s daughter with that little bit of money I can’t even touch.”



* * *



As she read the file Drue kept glancing up at the little girl, who sat placidly looking at her iPad.

Drue arrowed down the intake report, condensing the facts in her mind as she read. Yvonne Howington had called the Justice Line for the first time eighteen months earlier, on October 30. She was forty-six, single and lived in a neighborhood on the city’s south side. She’d listed a sister, Francine Meeks, as her emergency contact, and according to the form, Yvonne had viewed one of the firm’s television commercials, which is where she’d seen the firm’s distinctive 777-7777 Justice Line phone number.

On the line where the form asked “Relationship to Injured Party” someone had typed MOTHER.

Drue glanced up at Ms. Howington, who was penciling something into her crossword book. Aliyah, finished with her juice, was folding the plastic straw into segments, and her iPad lay closed in her lap.

The reception desk’s bottom drawer yielded a stack of white printer paper. In the top drawer she found red, blue and yellow highlighter pens, and pads of the neon-colored self-stick tabs used to designate where clients signed documents. She took the tabs, paper and markers over to the girl, squatting down beside her.