Whatever.
The atmosphere might be low rent, but the job promised to pay top dollar. If she pulled this off, she’d have enough bitcoins in her account that she wouldn’t have to work the truck stop parking lot for, like, the rest of the year. She might even be able to afford some pricey skin cream to take care of those wrinkles.
And, in a nice change of pace, she wouldn’t even have to screw this loser. Just deliver him to the agreed-upon location. Although, truth be told, he wasn’t hard on the eyes. He looked like he worked out, and his jeans hugged his butt nicely. Maybe she’d do a little freelancing before she handed him over—it might be nice to be with someone whose gut didn’t sag over his pants.
She pulled open her purse to make sure the bottle of roofies was in easy reach and patted the vial of pills for luck. She’d wait long enough for the guy to get himself seated and settled in with a drink, then she’d head across the highway and work her magic.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
To Joe’s disappointment, the bubbly redhead wasn’t working. Instead, when he pushed the steel door inward, he was greeted by Mikey’s ugly mug.
“Joe.” The bartender nodded and turned back to the hockey action on the wall-mounted television.
Joe settled onto a stool and looked around the narrow, dimly-lit bar. It was already crowded with bargain-hunting couples and buddies taking advantage of the two-for-one drink deal.
He felt conspicuous, alone in the sea of pairs.
The announcers threw it to commercial, and Mikey walked over to take Joe’s order.
“Two lagers?”
He almost said yes but considered a moment and said, “Nah. Two stouts.” There was no need to specify a brand—only Yuengling qualified for the two-for-one deal. Not that anyone in town drank anything else anyway. He didn’t know why the place bothered to stock other labels.
An eyebrow crawled up Mikey’s face.
“Thought Aroostine didn’t like you drinking during the week.”
Aroostine didn’t like him drinking, period. And she hated the Hole in the Wall. But he had no intention of getting into a discussion about Aroostine’s views with Mikey.
“Lucky the second one’s not for her, then, huh?”
Mikey chuckled and flicked his bar rag over his shoulder as he walked away.
Joe didn’t want to badmouth his wife, especially because it would just be a matter of time before the entire town of Walnut Bottom knew about the divorce. But, at the same time, he figured that he no longer needed to honor her views about drinking and slumming it in a place like this.
Not that he could really fault her. She’d come by her opinions the hard way. The whole reason she’d been adopted out of her tribe was that her parents had literally drunk themselves to death. Her grandfather, who’d pretty much raised her anyway, had made arrangements for a childless couple he knew from town to take care of her after he died. The old man had taken a keen look at the way the culture was disintegrating and decided his granddaughter would be better off away from her heritage.
He’d been right, too, Joe mused, as he hoisted the only-slightly dirty mug to his lips. The Higginses had given Aroostine a stable home, support, and a good start in life. She’d grown up surrounded by love. They’d adopted her formally when she was nine, and if you ran into them around town, they still just about burst with pride to tell you how successful and smart she was.
Joe loved her ambition, he really did. But she was just so serious and driven, always moving forward, never slowing down. He didn’t want to live in the fast lane, especially not cooped up like a chicken in some concrete pen.
He drained the glass and returned it to the bar with a dull thud.
The whole point was not to think about his soon-to-be ex-wife. Or her glossy curtain of hair. Her soft lips. Her silvery laugh.
“Mikey. Let’s have the other one now.” He gestured toward the empty mug and hoped the barkeep wouldn’t notice the thick emotion in his voice.
A blast of cold air hit the back of his neck as the steel door to the bar opened inward. He didn’t turn to greet the newcomer because he was studiously avoiding looking to his right, where Kirk Galeton was regaling the checkout girl from the Stop-n-Shop with tales of his quarterbacking prowess. Having graduated high school with Kirk, Joe was fairly certain Kirk had thrown his last touchdown pass before his rapt listener had graduated from diapers, but who was he to judge?
The arrival of the second beer coincided with that of a stranger. A curvy bottle-blonde, who squeezed herself in between Joe’s stool and Kirk’s and elbowed her way forward.
She paid no attention to either of them. Kirk threw her a dirty look but used the encroachment as a chance to sidle closer to the checkout girl, who giggled, revealing metal braces.
Didn’t Mikey even pretend to card anymore?
The woman drummed her long, painted fingernails on the bar.
Mikey pulled himself away from the hockey game.
“What’ll it be?” he asked.
“I’ll have a Yuengling.”
Mikey met Joe’s eyes and smirked.
“Good choice, darling. They’re two for the price one tonight, but what kind?”
She flushed. “Oh. Well, I just need one. Umm…” She glanced over at Joe’s glass, which somehow was already half-empty. “Give me what he’s having. And, uh, why don’t you give him my second one?”
Mikey gave her a close look but didn’t say anything. When he’d left to get her drinks, Joe turned toward the woman.
“You didn’t need to do that.”
She took off her jacket and folded it over her arm, then leaned in toward him. He caught a glimpse of black lace and the swell of a breast under her tight purple sweater.
“I wanted to. I really don’t need two—I’m driving. And you look like you could use another one.”
“I do?”
“You do.” She gestured toward his stool. “Mind if I hang my jacket over your seat?”
He jumped up. “I’m so sorry, where are my manners? Here, you sit.”
“No, I’m fine. Really.” She smiled.
“Please, I insist. After all, you bought me a drink. It’s the least I can do.”
He swept his arm toward the seat, and she ducked her head in thanks and slipped onto it in a fluid motion, made all the more impressive by her painted-on jeans and stiletto boots.
Once she was perched on the stool, she leaned toward him again, with another flash of skin and lace.
“Technically, I didn’t buy you a drink. It’s free, remember?”
A real smile spread across his face. The simple banter with a pretty girl was lifting his spirits. He suddenly felt much more charitable toward Kirk’s penchant for reliving the glory days with every single female he could corner.
“I guess that’s right. I’m Joe.” He stuck out a hand.
She giggled and offered him her fingertips in return. Her hand was soft and warm. Her skin smelled vaguely like fruit, like the stuff they sold at the Bath & Body Works at the mall over past Firetown.
“Jen,” she said.
“Nice to meet you, Jen.”
“You too, Joe.”
“You aren’t from around here, are you?”
She shook her head and her hair bounced off her shoulders. “No,” she began but stopped when Mikey arrived with the drinks.
She hefted the mug in her hand and said, “To Two-fer Tuesday.”
He laughed and clinked glasses with her.
And they began to talk. It was easy and light, with none of the awkward pauses or stiff pick-up lines that usually attended a conversation between a strange man and woman in a bar, at least in his experience.
She seemed interested in hearing all about his furniture business, Rufus, even the defunct blues band he and Brent had started right out of college. She asked him a ton of questions and laughed whenever he said something mildly funny.
He managed not to mention Aroostine at all. And while he hadn’t been attracte
d to Jen, so much as glad to have someone to talk to who didn’t have a tail to wag, somewhere around his fifth beer, he felt something shift between them.
He thought she must have felt it, too, because she ducked her head and fiddled around with her shoulder bag—a nervous tick she’d been exhibiting off and on all night.
He smiled at her and tried to think of a way to tell her how he felt without sounding sleazy. It turned out he didn’t need to form the words.
She put a warm hand on his forearm and leaned in close. Her breath tickled his neck and she murmured, “What do you say we get out of here and go someplace more private?”
Arousal overwhelmed the sliver of guilt that had managed to pervade the alcohol, and he slipped a hand around her waist.
“Sounds like a plan.”
His voice sounded slurred to his own ears, but she didn’t seem to notice. She gathered her coat and bag while he closed out his tab.
He stumbled into the bar as he turned to leave, and Mike eyeballed him hard.
“You sure you’re okay to drive, Joe?” the bartender asked.
Jen waved off the question. “I’m gonna drive. He’ll be fine.”
She nestled her hip against his and they walked out of the bar with their arms around each other. Joe was glad for it, because his legs felt awfully unsteady, and his vision was blurring.
He blinked, trying to clear his head, but everything was swimming. He was hot. Shaky. And so tired. The cold air hit his face as she hurried him across the highway, but still he felt dizzy, nauseous, and thick-headed.
He wanted to tell her he was sick—must have caught a stomach bug—but his tongue was too heavy to lift.
Then he was falling into the cab of her truck. She pushed him unceremoniously, dumping him inside.
His arms dangled loosely, and his head lolled back. He thought he must look like an ass, but he was too exhausted to care.
He closed his eyes and heard the engine roar to life. Then everything went dark and silent.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Aroostine chewed the end of her Mirado Black Warrior pencil and considered her edits to Rosie’s witness outline. The pencils were her lawyer magic. Every trial attorney she’d ever met had some pretrial superstition, and this was hers.
Not appreciably more expensive than the government-issued yellow No. 2s, her Black Warriors smelled like fresh cedar, wrote in thick, dark strokes, and, because they were perfectly round and smooth, rolled right off the table unless they were angled just so. They were the pencils she’d used ever since her first year of law school, when Joe had presented her with a finals care package of chocolates, tea, and the black pencils.
“They just reminded me of your glossy black hair and warrior spirit,” he’d shrugged when she’d held up the package of pre-sharpened pencils with a quizzical look.
She used them. And she aced her first semester with a rock-solid 4.0 average. After that she refused to use any other pencil. Throughout law school, studying for the bar exam, or her trial work back home, it was the Black Warriors or nothing. When she’d landed in D.C., she’d been too timid to ask the taxpayers to fund her pencil obsession, but she’d found a stationery store in Dupont Circle that kept her in a constant supply of Black Warriors on her own dime.
An unexpected but happy extra benefit of her obsession was that writing her comments and critiques in pencil, rather than the standard red ink favored by senior attorneys the world over, seemed to soften the blow for the recipient of those comments. As Rosie put, at least her drafts didn’t look like they were bleeding when Aroostine handed them back to her.
As if she’d summoned her by thinking of her, Rosie eased the door open and poked her head in.
“I’m about to head into a meeting with the computer guys to finalize the exhibits for the expert’s direct. Do you have any more notes for me on the witness outlines?”
Rosie’s excitement at the prospect of going to trial was palpable, almost visible. Despite the fact that they’d been at it all day and the sun had long since slipped beneath the horizon, she seemed to shimmer with energy.
Aroostine hid a smile. She remembered that feeling of barely-contained anticipation, although it had been a long time since trial preparation had held all the allure of Christmas morning for her. Even though this was her first trial at the Justice Department, she’d stood up in court dozens, maybe hundreds, of times. She suddenly felt world-weary. Old.
“Hang on, my comments are here somewhere.”
She pawed through the pile of outlines on her desk and found her comments on the direct of the Mexican bureaucrat who’d been approached and offered the bribe. Jorge Cruz spoke impeccable English, and Rosie’s Spanish was only marginally better than the little Aroostine could manage to recall from eighth grade with Senora Anderson. But when Aroostine had mentioned to Sid that she planned to let Rosie examine a minor witness or two, he’d surprised her by insisting Rosie take the lead on Mr. Cruz’s testimony—testimony that was particularly crucial if the recordings were excluded from evidence.
Uncharacteristically, Sid hadn’t explained his reasoning. He loved to explicate. At length. About everything. In light of his silence, Aroostine hoped his analysis went beyond the fact that the witness and lawyer shared a heritage. But the truth was, it was a plum assignment for Rosie, so neither she nor the junior lawyer was inclined to delve into the reasons.
A frown creased the younger woman’s mouth and a worried wrinkle crawled across her forehead as she scanned Aroostine’s comments. Aroostine winced. Had she been too harsh?
She hadn’t had much experience—or any, really—supervising junior attorneys when she’d landed at Justice. She’d borrowed a set of textbooks from some friends of the Higginses, whose daughter had majored in industrial management and had spent a weekend giving herself a crash course in how to manage and supervise personnel.
Had she forgotten to use a compliment sandwich? Or to phrase her suggestions as ‘I’ statements?
“Everything okay?”
Rosie looked up from the page. She chewed her lip for a moment before answering.
“The edits? They’re great. We’re going to pulverize these idiots…” she trailed off.
“But?”
“But,” she began, hesitantly, “can we talk about what’s going on here?”
Aroostine pasted a neutral expression on her face and tightened her grip on the pencil. She couldn’t know about Joe. Could she?
She forced the thought from her mind and cleared her throat. “What’s going on?”
Rosie perched on the chair next to hers and leaned in. “You’re in some kind of denial, right?”
The pencil snapped in Aroostine’s hand. She dropped it to the table, her heart hammering. How had Rosie found out about Joe?
“Uh—”
Rosie rushed to continue. “I know it’s not my place. This is your case, your trial. But, for goodness’ sake, you nearly died.”
Aroostine blinked.
“My surgical mishap? You want to talk about that?”
Rosie let out a short, frustrated huff of breath.
“Come on, Aroostine. First the court loses your filing. Then your apartment catches fire. Then the equipment malfunctions while you’re in surgery. Does that really sound like a regular old string of bad luck to you. I mean, really?”
“Well, yeah. What else would it be? Do you think Womback and Sheely put a curse on me?”
She laughed at the image of the two sales representatives poking at a voodoo doll in her image.
“No, not a curse,” Rosie said slowly, like she was speaking to a not-particularly-bright child. “But have you considered the possibility that these events may not be accidents? Or unrelated?”
“You think someone is doing these things to me intentionally?”
Rosie shrugged.
“I don’t know. I just think there are no coincidences. And all of this started to happen after we turned over the list of exhibits we intend to use at tr
ial.”
Aroostine cocked her head. “And?”
“And as soon as they got our exhibit list, the defendants filed a motion in limine.”
“Now you sound like Sid—there’s nothing remotely unusual about moving to exclude evidence. I mean, their attorneys do seem to take laziness to a new level, but they have to do something to earn their fee.”
“Is it usual to only object to one proposed exhibit? Defense counsel finally stirred themselves to action, went through all the trouble of actually filing a motion, and only bothered to object to a single exhibit out of hundreds?”
Aroostine’s pulse thrummed in her ear. When Rosie put it that way, she had to admit it certainly was not usual. In fact, it was highly unusual. So unusual as to be downright bizarre—a fact that she might have homed in on earlier, had she not been running as fast as she could on a treadmill of disaster and destruction. And now, divorce.
Rosie watched her face, waiting for an answer.
“No,” she said slowly, “it’s not typical.”
“Right. It’s almost like the defendants don’t really care about winning the case.”
“Okay, you lost me again.”
Rosie pawed through the piles of documents stacked on the table and pulled out the exhibit list. “There’s lots of stuff on here they could have objected to. Really, there’s lots of stuff they should have objected to.”
She passed the list to Aroostine, who flipped through it.
Rosie had a point. They had padded their list with dozens and dozens of exhibits that simply weren’t admissible. It wasn’t Aroostine’s personal style to hit the other side with a document dump, but Sid had informed her in excruciating detail that the attorneys in his department strove to be over-inclusive, not selective. He’d given her his trademark sniff of exasperation and said ‘It’s not your job to decide what’s in, Higgins. It’s the judge’s. Or do you think you’re smarter than Judge Hernandez?’
“Okay. So?” she said now to Rosie.
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