Longhorn Law 2: A Legal Thriller

by Dave Daren

  Clara offered me a sympathetic smile as she shifted the car into reverse and backed us out of the parking spot. She very carefully drove toward the exit, and then aimed us toward home once she’d pulled onto the street.

  “So,” she began. She put plenty of emphasis on the word and let it drag out to fill the silence.

  I took a deep breath and debated how much I actually should tell her. I knew that talking shop with people outside of the office wasn’t the best thing to get into the habit of doing, but given the circumstances surrounding this case, it felt more like a public service than it was violating attorney client privilege.

  “Do you remember back during the Knox case when I was shot at?” I asked as a way to start everything off.

  I really wasn’t sure it was even the best place to begin, but we had to start somewhere.

  The dim, passing streetlights overhead painted odd streaks across Clara’s face and illuminated her features just enough that I was able to see her eyebrows furrow. Her eyes cut down to my knuckle, and I felt the strange urge to hide the injury, as if she hadn’t been the one to tend to it.

  “I have an inkling,” she said, and I realized it was a joke. “What does that have to do with this? Is Knox back?”

  She clearly tried to play it off, but I could hear the uptick of panic in her tone at the mere mention of Knox’s name, and I couldn’t blame her in the slightest.

  Knox’s petrochemical plant had nearly killed her daughter, Emma, and had left the girl with a lifelong condition. He’d also sued most of her neighbors when they’d fought back, and a few had lost their lives at the hands of Knox’s greed.

  I couldn’t blame her for being skittish at the mere mention of his name, so I gave a quick shake of my head and lifted my hands up to calm her.

  “No, no, nothing like that,” I assured her softly. “Knox is long gone, but Sheriff Thompson was on his payroll, which is why there wasn’t a proper investigation into the shooting.”

  Clara’s posture relaxed in a near-instant, and she exhaled a deep sigh as she processed my words. The furrow between her eyebrows had yet to smooth out.

  I noticed that she was driving much slower than the speed limit dictated, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was just general caution because it was ten-thirty at night on a Friday, or because she was trying to extend our time together.

  “So, if Knox is gone…” she trailed off and glanced over at me as she pulled to a halt at a stoplight.

  “It means that no one is trying to keep Thompson in check,” I explained. “And he blames me for getting rid of the man paying his bills. We had a client come to us about the sheriff’s department taking items during police raids that weren’t applicable to the warrant, and it launched our investigation into him.”

  It felt like I was drastically oversimplifying the situation, but there was only so much that I could say. In a way, I hated that I’d had Clara come pick me up from the sheriff’s department, because now there was a visible thread connecting her to me in the eyes of Thompson and the deputies and that could lead to trouble for her that I didn’t intend. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Thompson assumed that I’d told her everything.

  But who else could I have called?

  “Shit,” she said and succinctly summarized everything I’d felt that evening as she turned onto my street.

  I snorted out a laugh.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Shit.”

  I reached up to scratch at my cheek and exhaled a heavy sigh.

  “We’ve found some shit he’d rather we didn’t, and now he’s lashing out at me,” I added as if she couldn’t have possibly figured that out. “I think it was just great luck on his part that he ended up stopping me before a date.”

  I could tell that it would be a while before I quite let go of that grievance. Sure, things seemed fine between Clara and I, and we had no bad blood over the situation. But that didn’t mean I was suddenly alright with having left her alone for three hours at a restaurant while a power-mad deputy puffed out his chest in my direction. I’d been looking forward to the date and some quality time with a woman I admired, and instead, I’d been forced to stare at Quentin while he played Candy Crush.

  Clara slowed her car as she turned into the parking lot of my apartment complex. She’d been by my building once or twice before with Emma to drop off some of Emma’s drawings and once to bring a slice of birthday cake that Emma had insisted on bringing me.

  I’d been unable to attend the small party thanks to a court date, but that certainly hadn’t stopped the kid from making sure I was a part of her party.

  Clara nosed her car into an empty parking spot, just under one of the lamp posts, and shifted gears into park as she let the car idle.

  I didn’t make a move to get out yet, and she didn’t make a move to make me. So for a few extended seconds, we sat in companionable silence.

  “I’m sorry again,” I said to break the quiet.

  I couldn’t help it, honestly. I was still sorry, and I’d probably be sorry for a while.

  I thought back to the sight of her walking into the sheriff’s department to find me and the way my breath had caught in my throat at the sight of her.

  Yeah, I was really damn sorry.

  She turned toward me and gave a soft sigh and rolled her eyes.

  “Stop apologizing,” she insisted as she dropped her hands down from the steering wheel.

  “I will when I stop feeling bad,” I joked and leaned back in the seat to stare out through the windshield toward the darkness that swallowed the parking lot.

  Despite the handful of streetlamps, everything was still tinged with the looming darkness, and I could hardly see the apartment building that I knew was less than a few yards away.

  I wondered where the moon had gone that night.

  Clara chewed at the inside of her cheek as she smiled. She looked over at me, and the smile on her face faltered for a moment.

  I could feel a look of confusion cross my face as I waited for her to speak. I cocked my head to the side in question before she reached over and gingerly grabbed one of my hands. I watched as she raised it up toward the slightly better lighting from the streetlight above our heads. And then I realized she was studying the bruises left by the cuffs. I’d almost forgotten about the pain in my wrists over the course of the drive.

  Her eyes narrowed, and she looked between my wrist and my face as she set her jaw.

  “How tight were those handcuffs?” she asked with enough anger behind her words I was almost startled.

  I didn’t pull my wrist from her gentle grasp, though I really wanted to hide the marks from view now.

  “Probably a nine out of ten?” I suggested in a way that was almost a joke but clearly wasn’t.

  It wasn’t as if there had been much I could do about it, not with the way Deputy Quentin had been acting. I’d been surprised he hadn’t tried to use his taser, and that small blessing was about all I could ask for.

  “Jesus, Archer,” Clara said with a horrified softness in her tone as she shook her head.

  She gently ghosted her fingers over the angry red, and in some places, nearly purple, skin where the handcuffs had bitten into my wrists.

  I suppressed a shudder at the gesture but couldn’t help feel like my nerves were alight. I really hated that I’d missed our date, and once again, I cursed Thompson’s name.

  “We could always try to get something to eat?” I suggested in my version of a soft voice. I quirked one of my eyebrows as I asked the question.

  Clara looked up from my wrists with a small smile dancing at her lips.

  “It’s nearing eleven at night,” she pointed out, which I was at least glad wasn’t a no. “I think the only place open would be McDonalds.”

  “And we’d be the best dressed people there,” I reminded her with a grin, and my grin widened at the laugh my joke pulled from her.

  She shook her head, and her red hair bobbed with the gesture. She finally let go of my
wrist, and as soon as I could feel the absence of her touch, I missed the weight of her capable fingers.

  “Archer,” she tried again, still without much effort in her tone to sway me, but I knew it was a losing fight.

  It was late, we both had work in the morning, and I didn’t know when Emma’s babysitter was supposed to leave for the night.

  I leaned back into my seat and moved my hand to rest with my other in my lap.

  “When’s Emma’s babysitter leaving?” I asked because I needed something to say that indicated I understood that whatever had been planned for the night was going to be rainchecked for another time. “I don’t want to keep you too long.”

  Clara turned to look out the windshield for a second, and then out her own window, as if she’d found something deeply fascinating just to her left. She cleared her throat and reached up to tuck an already tucked piece of hair behind her ear.

  “She… isn’t,” she said with a slight, almost nervous lilt to her tone. “Emma is staying at her place, and she’s bringing her back over tomorrow after I get off work.”

  I suddenly felt like the biggest idiot in the world. My head dropped back against the back of the chair, and I couldn’t help the strangled sort of laugh that came out of my mouth.

  “You’re pouring salt in the wound here, Clara,” I said with another desperate, tired laugh inching into my voice.

  I reached up to drag my hands down my face as I thought about all the implications for the night. God, I really hated the sheriff’s department.

  Clara pressed her lips into a thin line and reached up to scratch at her cheek. It could have just been a trick of the light, but I could have sworn she was a little flushed.

  “You asked,” she reminded me, and I could hear the amusement and embarrassment mingling in her tone.

  “You could have lied,” I pointed out without any malice in my own voice.

  There I’d been, wondering if what we had planned even counted as a date, and she’d cleared the entire night. It was at least nice to be on the same page now.

  I rolled my head over on the car seat headrest to look at her and trace the shape of her dimly-illuminated silhouette.

  “I’ve got food upstairs,” I suggested without any real intention in my words.

  I knew she’d say no, and I knew that if she agreed, I’d tell her it was just a joke, and that I didn’t actually have any food, and that she should get home because she had work early in the morning.

  Clara looked over at me, and I could tell she’d run through the same scenario in her head as well. She just fixed me with a soft smile instead as she studied my expression.

  “We can always try again,” she said, and I knew she meant the post dinner events more than the actual dining experience.

  I gave a slow nod and a deep sigh. Knowing that she was right didn’t make me feel any less dejected by the way things had turned out.

  “We can,” I agreed with a smile.

  I shifted to unbuckle my seatbelt and reached back to pat my back pocket only to realize that both my wallet and phone were still back at the sheriff’s department. I exhaled a slow, exhausted sigh, and wondered what hell Thompson would put me through to get them back.

  “I was going to tell you to text me when you got home,” I began, and she seemed to understand.

  Clara gave another breathy laugh and shook her head.

  “They really hate you, huh?” she asked, even though we both knew the answer.

  I gave her a look that told her not to remind me, and she gave a tired grin in response. I reached over to open the passenger side door and felt a small rush of cool air fill the cab of the car.

  But, I couldn’t quite make myself step out yet.

  Instead, I shifted in the seat once again and leaned over toward Clara. I pressed my lips to her cheek in a quick kiss that I didn’t give myself the time to debate.

  As I leaned back, I saw her blink in surprise, but her cheeks had tinted a soft shade of pink I knew I wasn’t imagining.

  “Call my work phone and leave a voicemail to let me know you made it home, or send an email,” I said, and it was only half a joke. “Something to let me know you made it home alright, so I don’t have to send out the troops.”

  I grinned at her, a little wider than I had before, and slid out of her car and into the night air.

  Clara leaned over to peer up at me through the open door with one of her slim hands still curled around the steering wheel.

  “Whenever you get your damn phone back, call me,” she said without giving me any room to question it. “You owe me a real date, Archer.”

  I grinned down at her as I rested one of my hands on the top of her small, white car, and kept the other wrapped around the top of the open door.

  “You’ll be the first person I call,” I assured her as my grin slipped into something softer.

  The exhaustion of the evening had started to set in at full force and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it. I tapped the top of her car as I stepped back and pushed the door actually closed. I took a few steps away from her vehicle toward the curb of the building but turned to face her with my hands tucked into my pockets.

  Clara gave me a small wave through the windshield as she reversed out of the parking space, and I kept vigil until her car had completely disappeared from view down the dimly lit street before I made my way inside my building.

  Everything was quiet this late at night, and I couldn’t pick up all the usual sounds I heard when I got home from work. There were no pans clanging against the stove while someone cooked dinner, televisions turned up too high, or children screeching amongst themselves.

  My footsteps sounded deafening amongst the quiet, and I found myself practically tiptoeing as I made my way down the hall after exiting the elevator I usually opted against taking. I remembered then, as I stood there staring at my locked apartment door, that along with my wallet and my phone, Deputy Quentin had taken my keys. I heaved a tired sigh and leaned forward to drop my head against the solid wood of the door with a dull thunk as I let the realization sink in.

  It wasn’t like a missing house key was a death sentence, because I knew for a fact I still had the spare tucked up in the doorframe, easily within reach for someone my height. But, that knowledge didn’t make the situation any less exhausting.

  After I gave myself a moment to grieve the loss of my evening one more time, I stepped back and reached up to skirt the tips of my fingers along the white-painted wood of the doorframe.

  It only took a few seconds of brushing up dust before my fingers collided with the solid metal of the house key. I nimbly snagged it between my index finger and my thumb before I tugged it down.

  The shiny silver had been dulled by the thin layer of dust that had settled over it, and I felt the irrational urge to dust my doorframe. Who in their right mind dusted the outer doorframe of their home?

  I slotted the key into the lock and heaved an audible sigh of relief as the mechanism clicked, and I was able to turn the handle. The door to my apartment swung open with the sort of drama I was too tired to appreciate, and I stepped inside after it.

  I couldn’t see much past my own hand in the overcast darkness of my apartment. The windows that faced my front door were half-covered with the black-out curtains I’d brought with me from Mesa when I’d moved, but even the parts of the window left visible were still bathed in darkness from the starless, moonless night outside.

  I blindly reached over to flick on the light that illuminated the entry to the apartment before I let myself wallow in darkness for too much longer. Happily, the apartment looked the same as it had when I’d left it hours before, but I couldn’t help but imagine how different it could have looked if things had gone even remotely closer to plan.

  With one last sigh, I turned to flick the deadbolt lock into place. As I stepped farther into the apartment, I automatically snaked my hands into my pockets for my wallet, phone, and keys, only to once again be forced to r
emember that all three items were languishing in some outdated sheriff’s department evidence locker.

  Without even thinking about my movements, I had started toward the kitchen to deposit my things there, like I always did when I got home. I stood there for a moment in the half-dark with my hands still tucked in my pocket as I debated what to do with the rest of my evening.

  As tired as I was, I knew that sleep would be a creature I was unable to catch, much less with my bare hands, and I didn’t feel like using any tools. I found life was easier that way, and so I never kept too much liquor in the house.

  I was a man that had never been tempted to imbibe to excess, but I also knew to never look a gift horse in the mouth. I’d known too many men, too many lawyers at that, that had started to depend on things that came from the bottle to deal with the things they saw in their day-to-day life, and I was too smart to try and dance with the devil.

  But, my mind continued to whir and conjure thoughts I couldn’t shake away no matter how hard I tried to push them from my mind.

  I thought of Clara sitting alone at the restaurant as she undoubtedly cursed my name because even as wonderful as she was, no one was that much of a saint.

  I thought of the looks on Thompson’s deputies’ faces when they’d peered their heads in the doorway to gawk at me like I was some sort of zoo animal on display, and how willing they all seemed to let me rot in a pair of too-tight handcuffs until morning.

  I thought of Jackson, Todd, and Natalie and how distraught all of them were at the state of their pseudo-stolen belongings. And that made me think about how they had all looked to me for help, and right then, I felt unable to do anything substantial for them.

  I thought of Thompson and the way he carried himself through Crowley as if he was untouchable, like he was some sort of god-king who had the final say on all matters of justice.

  And then, as I continued to stand in the almost darkness of my apartment, I thought of the election and how nervous that seemed to make Thompson.