Sunset Beach(31)

“I got no place else to go,” the caller said, smacking her gum loudly.

“Were the police called? Were either of you arrested and charged?”

Click. Her caller had disconnected.



* * *



The office was deserted. She’d watched while the rest of the staff drifted out of the building, headed off for their weekend plans. Her own weekend plans consisted of ordering takeout pizza and using her first paycheck to start painting the cottage.

Somewhere outside, a car backfired and an image flashed in her mind: of Yvonne Howington, and her Plymouth, and the face of Aliyah, as she peeked from the backseat of her grandmother’s rusted car. It had been a busy week, but every time she’d looked up she’d seen the child’s mermaid drawing pinned to her cubicle wall, and she thought about Aliyah’s mother, Jazmin.

Drue logged back on to her computer and toggled around the firm’s database, looking for the Jazmin Mayes file. She pulled up the file and looked guiltily around the empty room.

Wendy had left shortly after five, and she hadn’t seen Brice at all that day, which wasn’t an unusual occurrence.

Drue had signed a nondisclosure agreement her first day of work, and she’d had the words “client confidentiality” drilled into her brain every day since. As far as she knew, there wasn’t an official policy forbidding her from removing files from the office, but she could assume such an action wouldn’t meet Wendy’s approval.

She pushed the Print button and stood nervously over the printer, snatching up each page as it slid onto the paper tray and shoving it into her backpack.

While she waited for the documents, she thought again of all the unanswered questions surrounding Jazmin Mayes’s murder. Why had she agreed to work a later shift, knowing she needed to get home in time for her mother to leave for her own job? Who was the supervisor whom Jazmin told Yvonne was sexually harassing her? Had she reported the harassment to management? And if so, what, if anything, had been done?

The printer clicked off and Drue leafed through the stack of sheets she’d accumulated. Less than three dozen pages? Was that all the life of a twenty-four-year-old mother amounted to?



* * *



She was unlocking OJ in the law firm’s parking lot when her phone dinged. The text was from Ben.

Still here. U coming?

Can’t. She typed the word rapidly, then reconsidered. Why not go grab a burger with a couple friends from work? She did consider Ben her friend, and if she had to put up with know-it-all Jonah, so what? She didn’t feel like going home to Coquina Cottage and eating another solitary pizza by herself. God help her but she wanted to be part of the team. She x’d out the previous message and retyped, On way.



* * *



Ben and Jonah were seated at a table outside the wood-framed building, in the shade of one of the dozens of palm trees planted around the Chattaway’s deck area in old claw-foot bathtubs.

“I’m telling you right now,” Jonah said, leaning across the table. “We had our best recruiting year ever. We’ve got defense, we’ve got offense, this is going to be the year of the Gator.”

“Gross,” Drue said, pulling up a chair alongside Ben’s. “Football, again? Don’t you guys ever think of anything else?”

Jonah waved to their server, who arrived tableside with a menu and order pad.

“There is nothing else besides football,” Ben said, raising his glass and clinking it against his friend’s. “And gaming. And women. What took you so long? We were about to give up on you.”

“Tell you in a minute. I’m starved.” She opened the menu. “What’s good here?”

“Get the Chattaburger and onion rings,” Jonah advised, taking the menu and handing it back to the waitress.

Drue frowned.

“What? Oh, I get it, you’re a hippie east coast girl and you don’t eat meat, right?”

He knew precisely how to get under her skin.

“No, asshole. I just don’t feel like a burger tonight, okay? Is it all right with you if I order my own food, or do you need to tell me how to do that too?”

She hadn’t eaten red meat in ages, but suddenly would have killed for a rare, juicy, greasy burger. Drue looked up at the server. “I’ll have a grouper sandwich. And a side salad.” She glared at Jonah. “And a glass of iced tea. Okay?”



* * *



“You were about to tell us what took you so long,” Ben prompted.

“I got strung along with my 7-Eleven caller,” Drue admitted with a sigh. “I really thought I might have my first referral of the week. Right up until I asked her the question about an arrest. Which is when I heard crickets.”

“Just as well,” Ben advised. “Brice hates slip-and-falls.”

“Then why do we have billboards and ads for them on the side of every bus in town?” Drue asked.

“Visibility,” Jonah said.

“Too many of those clients are hoaxers,” Ben explained. “Even if we get a settlement, it’s nickels and dimes, because their injuries are rarely all that serious.”

“Just remember, in the land of personal injury, the badder the injury, the better the case,” Jonah added.

“So a wrongful death suit should be the best kind of case, right?” she asked.