by Dave Daren
“You have to admit that this is all suspicious,” I said to break the silence that had settled over us. “The fact that we’ve talked to three people already, and they’ve all had similar experiences isn’t strange to you?”
Brody angled his car onto the street and gave a deep sigh. “It is a little… odd,” he said after a moment of what looked like careful consideration. “But it doesn’t mean there’s anything here. It could just be a horrible coincidence and nothing more. I don’t think it’s worth starting a war with the sheriff over.”
He accelerated down the road, and his car’s engine gave a low rumble as we sped past the Greenview Apartment complex.
I reached up to rub my thumb over my cheek as I thought about what he’d said. I didn’t quite agree with him, but that could have been because of my own personal vendetta with Thompson.
I wanted to think that I was beyond holding grudges against grown-up schoolyard bullies, but I was only human, and I had a real distaste for the man that I had a hard time shaking off.
“We should still try to help them,” I said with a sense of finality in my tone. “Even if it is a coincidence, we won’t know that unless we treat it like it isn’t and find proof one way or another.”
I dropped my hand down from my cheek to let it rest along the windowsill of the car and drummed my fingers against the paneling to keep time to the barely audible hard rock station that trickled out through the radio’s static. I had never taken Brody to be a classic rock man, or maybe that was just the sort of music a car like this demanded to be played.
He didn’t say anything for a moment as he seemed to try and parse through a response in his mind.
I watched as the muscle in his jaw worked as he chewed at the inside of his cheek. Before Brody could say anything to rebut my declaration, however, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I shifted in my seat and slid my hand into my pocket to wiggle it free, and once I had it in my hand, I settled back into place and swiped up on the screen to see the new message I’d gotten.
My heart started to beat in my chest a little harder than I would have liked when I saw it was another message from Clara.
sorry if that was presumptuous earlier, and sorry if you’re just busy and this is the presumptuous message
I read the text no less than three times as my thumbs hovered over the screen but didn’t quite touch the keyboard.
“--Archer?” Brody asked, and I realized that I must have zoned out because I couldn’t recall the beginning of the question at all.
I blinked and tore my focus away from the screen to look up at Brody with raised eyebrows.
“Yes?” I asked before I cleared my throat. “Could you repeat that?”
Brody quirked up a single, thick eyebrow and quickly glanced over at me before he put his focus back onto the empty road ahead.
“Something interesting on that phone?” he asked.
I’d been a lawyer long enough to know a leading question when I heard one, and I was fairly certain that hadn’t been what he’d asked originally. But given the fact I didn’t remember the original question, I was in a bit of a bind.
I glanced between my phone and the road and debated what exactly I should say. Brody and I were friends by then, and after the hell that first case had put us through, it would be absurd if we weren’t.
I’d been to his youngest daughter’s birthday party when she was home for college for a weekend and to at least two Lucas family cookouts because Leslie had decided I didn’t eat nearly enough for her liking.
But I wasn’t exactly sure if we were the type of friends to discuss relationships, which honestly, I wasn’t even sure that’s what I had with Clara.
“It’s nothing,” I finally said and offered what I hoped to be a reassuring smile. “What was the first question you asked?”
I just hoped he’d let the conversation move on past my strange moment of silence.
But, of course, he didn’t. Brody scoffed and made an easy turn onto the main road back to the office, and he swiveled just enough in his seat to look at me again.
“Right,” he said with a roll of his eyes thrown in. “Like I believe that. You looked like you were in a damn trance, kid.”
He paused, and I could practically see the gears turning in his mind, protected as they were by the cowboy hat, and his lips quirked up to one side.
“Who’s the woman?” he asked with a sense of triumph so obnoxious I couldn’t help but roll my eyes in return.
Sometimes it was easy for me to forget just how perceptive Brody really was, because he acted like he wasn’t.
Just like everyone else, I still fell prey to the idea of Brody as a good lawyer, but not a great lawyer, given his past and what had happened. But really, he’d been like a shark in the water, an incredibly skilled presence in the courtroom, and he’d just done a bad thing.
I hated that he was using it now to remind me of his ability to get a quick read on people. It had been great when in court and deciding on juries, but in the privacy of his car, I felt like I’d been caught with my hand in the cookie jar.
I gave a deep, heavy sigh and sank a little lower into the leather seat as I pulled the messages up on my phone once again to skim over them as if I hadn’t already committed them to memory.
“Clara,” I said simply.
If Brody was surprised by the answer, he did a great job of not showing it. Instead, he just gave a slow nod and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel.
It hadn’t been a secret that I’d still kept in contact with her, but I hadn’t been exactly forthcoming with Evelyn and Brody about it, either, because really, it was none of their business.
“Are you two…?” He trailed off, and I couldn’t even imagine what word he’d thought about tacking onto the end of his question.
I had a sudden flashback to discussing girls with my father before his death and wondered if Brody really had started to think of me as one of his children. I suppose it could have been possible, just based on our ages, but the thought was still jarring.
I looked down at Clara’s texts before I answered.
“No, not yet, at least,” I said. “Or maybe not ever if I don’t text her back.”
I wasn’t sure why the idea of just saying yes made me so anxious. I wasn’t the sort of man to get anxious about things like this.
I’d never had any problems talking with beautiful women. Maybe it was the fact that Clara had a child that was throwing me off my game. I just wasn’t sure, but Brody seemed awfully amused at my struggles and let out a low chuckle.
“I thought I might have picked up on something back when we were working on the Knox case,” he admitted with a small shrug of his shoulders. “She’s pretty.”
And I thought I’d been subtle about my attraction during the Knox case, but apparently not. If Brody noticed, Evelyn certainly had, and that thought made me shudder.
“We’ve kept in touch, but given both of our jobs and Emma, it’s not exactly been a sure thing,” I said with a shrug of my own. I didn’t feel like I needed to comment on his admission that she was pretty, because she obviously was.
“For the last few months we’ve kept having to reschedule dinner or lunch or walks because something has always come up,” I added, and it was almost funny how unlucky the two of us seemed to be when it came to one another.
Brody gave another nod and made two small turns in quick succession as we neared the Landon Legal offices.
The sun had risen higher in the sky, and I gave a quick glance to my watch to see that it was almost two p.m. already. The time felt like it had flown by.
“So, are you going to text her back or sit there looking like an idiot?” Brody asked, and in that moment, I could have sworn Evelyn was speaking through him.
I gave a sheepish smile and held my hands up in surrender.
“Okay, okay,” I said with a laugh. “So long as this conversation doesn’t leave the car.”
He gave a solemn nod and tipped his hat toward
me as if that constituted a promise to remain silent as I turned my attention back to my phone.
Sorry! I’ve been caught up with a new case today, but dinner sounds great. When is Emma’s sitter available?
I gave a sharp exhale as I watched the message whoosh off.
To my surprise, the three, small, gray dots that indicated someone was typing popped up almost immediately. Clara must have been on a break, I figured, because she never responded this quickly.
But, only a few seconds later, a message bubble popped up on the left side of the screen.
Mary’s able to come on Friday, is that alright with you?
I did the mental calculations. Friday was in three days and hopefully, if all went according to plan, this case would be slowing down by then.
Sounds great. Does Martinos work, 7 p.m.?
I sent my next message and watched as the dots appeared again only to disappear and show up another few seconds later. I assumed that she must have been getting busy again at the hospital.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Brody sneaking glances over at me as he drove.
We were nearing our street already, and for a second, I had the unshakeable worry that I’d still be hashing out details for dinner when I walked into Landon Legal, and Evelyn would be able to smell it on me.
But, luckily, Clara’s next message came through.
perfect, I’ll meet you there :)
I stared at the smiley face for a little longer than strictly necessary before I clicked my screen off and wiggled my phone back into my pocket.
“I’ll take it by the look on your face that it went well?” he asked as he raised his eyebrows in my direction.
I shot him a look, but he didn’t meet it as he pulled into his usual parking spot outside Landon Legal.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied with a pleasant smile plastered across my face.
Brody actually laughed aloud as he shifted into park and twisted the key from the ignition.
“For a lawyer, you’re a shit liar, kid,” he teased and shouldered open the door to his side of the car.
“I will demote you!” I hollered at him with a laugh as he slammed the door shut. I untangled myself from the seatbelt and slipped out of the car as well.
“To what?” Brody crowed back with an edge of his deep, booming laugh in his tone while he headed up the sidewalk.
“Janitor,” I suggested. “Evelyn’s personal lackey. Mascot. Sign twirler.”
I continued to list new professions I could assign Brody as he laughed his way through the front door of Landon Legal. And then the door swung shut behind the both of us, and he gave me a firm clap on the shoulder that I took to mean he would drop the subject.
Evelyn poked her head out of her office at the sound of our arrival, and I gave her a small wave of greeting as Brody moved down the hall to presumably hang his hat back up on the rack he had mounted in his office when we’d moved in.
“Well?” Evelyn asked expectantly, and her thin eyebrows arched up.
“We’re going to a police auction,” I cheerfully announced as Brody snorted in the background.
Chapter 6
I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel of my car as I lingered outside Evelyn’s home in Fort Worth. The engine gave its familiar low sputtering rumble, and I turned up the radio station to drown it out.
The station was surprisingly clear, and based on the three songs I’d already heard it play, whoever was currently DJ’ing favored early 2000s hits.
After my announcement about the police auction, Evelyn had simply walked back into her office and closed the door. It had taken another five minutes for me to coax her out without fearing for my life.
I told myself I had a good reason to be skittish since the woman carried a damn handgun in a purple, velvet Crown Royal bag stashed in her purse. It wasn’t that I thought she’d shoot me, but I would never let anyone call me anything but overly cautious when it came to old women and guns.
With Brody’s help, Evelyn had finally emerged to listen to our story about what we’d learned from Todd and Jackson, and after a few minutes of coaxing, she had finally agreed that something was fishy about Sheriff Thompson and his department’s heavy use of civil asset forfeiture when it didn’t seem like it would be necessary.
And so, she’d agreed to go with me to the police auction in the morning, and Brody had agreed to stay back at the office to man the phone. Personally, I think he just didn’t want to go to the auction, but we needed someone back at the office anyway.
I was beginning to doubt Evelyn’s willingness to go to the auction, however, the longer I waited in her driveway.
I had told her I would be around to pick her up at seven in the morning, but the clock on my car’s dashboard read 7:09. If she took another minute, I’d have to get out and go get her myself.
I whistled along to the song on the radio, even though I couldn’t name it if I tried, but the tune was easy enough to follow. It also left me free to study Evelyn’s house, which was the perfect embodiment of her personality.
Evelyn’s yard was perfectly manicured with each blade of grass seeming to have been measured to be a precise height. Along the house itself were plenty of flower beds that were kept just as immaculate as the grass, and even the southern magnolia trees in her yard seemed to obey her whims, because there weren’t any stray petals that had fallen to the ground overnight to break the perfect sea of grass.
The first time I’d met Evelyn, she’d been perfecting the pruning on her rose bushes in her backyard. For someone that gardened as religiously as she did, she didn’t approach the activity like it was a hobby to relax with. Instead, Evelyn tended to her yard and garden like a drill sergeant with a complex.
Methods aside, her yard was always beautiful and impeccable.
I glanced at the clock once again to see that the time had officially changed over to 7:10, and just as I had unbuckled my seatbelt and stepped out of the car, Evelyn’s front door swung open and she stepped out onto her sidewalk.
I watched her from over the top of my car, and she apparently caught my gaze.
“What the hell are you doing, Archer?” she called out as her low heels clicked against the concrete.
I gave a weary sigh and wished I had thought to bring my mug of coffee with me because I could already tell this was going to be a long day.
“Coming to get you,” I said, even though I knew she’d hate it.
True to my guess, Evelyn’s face contorted into a scowl as she made her way up to my idling car and pulled open the passenger side door.
“I’m not infirm,” she said with an agitated huff before she lowered herself into the seat and pulled the door shut with a hard thud.
I looked up at the sky and took a deep breath before I sank back into my own seat as well. I buckled my seatbelt and waited until I heard her buckle click before I shifted gears into drive.
“No, but you were ten minutes late,” I said, even though I knew that was comparable to poking a bear with a stick. What could I say, sometimes I had an apparent death wish.
Evelyn shot me a cold look, and I couldn’t help but bite back a laugh. She was certainly frightening at times, but it had become almost endearing.
For better or worse, she’d already told me she liked me, and so in the months we’d known each other, I felt less guilty for poking at her buttons.
“This won’t make me late for my appointment this afternoon, will it?” She asked with a clear warning edge to her tone.
I gave a small chuckle and shook my head.
“No, it won’t make you late,” I promised her.
I had wanted to ask her what the appointment was for, and more importantly, if there was something wrong, but it was like she’d been able to sense the question on the tip of my tongue and fixed me with such a cool, withering glare that anything I might have said shriveled up and died, and so I wasn’t about to try and address it again.
&
nbsp; I was sure it was just some annual check-up, and in her Evelyn way, she refused to discuss it.
It was early, I was under-caffeinated, and I couldn’t always be perfect. Thankfully, Evelyn seemed to understand that as she settled into her seat with only a single huff.
We rode along in a companionable silence as I navigated out of her little neighborhood and gave polite waves to the herd of mothers in yoga pants pushing their strollers as we drove past.
Evelyn leaned forward to turn down the volume dial and sent the radio into near-silence.
“Are you aware that this is stupid?” she asked once she’d apparently deemed things quiet enough to scold me.
I can’t say I was surprised she’d decided to lecture me. I’d gotten off a little too easily the day before, probably because she doubted she could convince Brody and I at the same time, even though he probably would have agreed with her over me.
“I’ve heard that before,” I said as I started off down the road back to Crowley and toward the address Jackson had given me for the police auction.
While I didn’t distrust him, I had double-checked the address when I’d gotten back to the office, just to make sure we’d be going to the right place. And sure enough, I’d found the small tab on the website for the sheriff’s department that explained the auctions, and the addresses and times had matched.
“We don’t have the time for another case like this, and you’re too smart to pretend you don’t know that,” she huffed. “It’s not flattering.”
I did know that we were busy, how could I not? Between my own knowledge of our caseload, and both Brody and Evelyn taking the opportunity to remind me at each turn, it felt impossible to forget. If I thought I’d gotten no sleep before the Knox case changed our lives, I barely saw the inside of my own apartment now.
“I know we’re busy, and half of those cases are mine,” I reminded her with a sigh. “But like I said yesterday, they’re currently all in limbo. And this is important.”
“It could be important,” Evelyn said. “Or it could be nothing at all. It could just be three people in bad situations that happen to overlap.”
