by Erin Lyon
Logek tipped her head at him, eyebrows raised.
“What? They’re relaxing.”
Logek smiled. “I could see that.”
“I’m gonna go take a look at what they’ve got in there. See if I can help.”
“I’ll come with you,” Logek said.
Adam and I looked at each other. I shrugged and nodded toward the bar, after Jared and Logek.
“Brad and I are gonna go play some pool,” Mags said, gesturing toward the two pool tables across the room.
I looked at Adam.
“Well, what do you want to do? Go play fish detective or play pool?” Adam asked.
“Well, when you put it like that, who could pass up being a fish detective?”
“You’re dark. You just want to see another fish get eaten.”
“You got me. I’m just a dark and twisty soul.”
“I learn new things about you all the time.” He turned toward Mags as she and Brad walked away. “We’ll catch up with you,” he called.
Mags waved at us and kept walking.
I sidled up to the bar next to Logek, who seemed fairly engrossed in what Jared was telling her.
“That one—that’s a Siamese fighting fish,” Jared said, with a finger to the glass. “Let me know if you see another one. They’re fine in a group of other kinds of fish, but you usually don’t want to have more than one or they can be aggressive.”
“He’s pretty,” Logek said.
I glanced at Logek. She was studying a fish in the tank, and Jared was studying her. Then he caught me looking at him and tried to cover.
“That one,” he said, reiterating what he had told Logek.
The four of us focused on the tank, and within a couple of minutes I could see why Jared said fish tanks were relaxing.
“Ooh!” I said, pointing at a black and white, spiky-looking fish that swam in front of me. “Isn’t that one?”
When I looked over, Logek and Jared were both looking at me.
“That’s the one I just pointed out,” Jared said with a slight smile.
“Oh. Oops.”
“Wait!” Logek said. “There!” She pressed her fingertip to the tank and watched another fish with the same markings.
Jared smiled. “They need to get rid of the thugs.”
Jenny stopped in front of us, eyebrows lowered. “Whatcha doing?” she asked.
“Looking for Jaws,” Adam said, with a grin.
“Why?” Jenny asked, focusing on the tank. “Did you see something else?”
“You have multiple Siamese fighting fish in the tank. I read somewhere that they can turn homicidal if there is more than one in a tank,” Jared said.
“Really? That’s fantastic. I’ll let our fish guy know to come get the damn things out of the tank. Thank you so much, Jared.”
Jared shrugged, modestly.
“No, seriously,” Jenny added, putting a friendly hand on Jared’s shoulder. “Next round is on the house,” she said with a broad smile, displaying gloriously white teeth.
“Well done, Holmes,” Logek said to Jared, leaning into him lightly.
“I couldn’t have solved it without you, Watson.”
* * *
After a couple more rounds and a few games of pool, Mags and Brad were ready to say their farewells.
I hugged Mags, and then Brad. I was feeling pretty huggy.
“Again, congrats on the hamster case,” Mags said.
“Guinea pig,” I mumbled under my breath.
Mags laughed and ignored my correction. “I think I speak for all of us when I say, way to settle things without any animal slaughter, Kate.”
“Oh stop. You’ll make me cry.”
Brad was in the middle of a friendly handshake with Adam, followed by Jared.
“See you Monday,” I called out to them as they headed for the door.
I turned back to the remaining group, smiling.
“It might be time to get this one home,” Logek said, wrapping an arm around my shoulder.
“You didn’t drive, did you?” Jared asked, pointing a finger between Logek and me.
“Do we look like amateurs?” Logek asked.
“No, you certainly do not.” Jared smiled and put his hands in his pockets again.
“Do you guys want a ride?” Adam asked. “I have my car.” Of course. He was always sober and in control. No cabs for Adam.
“Sure,” Logek said. “My car is at Kate’s.”
“How about you, Jared?” Adam asked.
“Oh, I’m in the other direction. I’ll just grab a cab.” He looked at me. “This was fun. And seriously, congratulations. That was an awesome win today.”
“Thanks, boss,” I said, with a silly grin. “I appreciate that. And thanks for the drinks.”
“Anytime. So, Adam, you’ll call me about racquetball?”
“Absolutely.” Then they did the manliest of handshakes. Psh. Alphas.
Jared turned to Logek and reached a hand out to her. “It was really great to meet you, Logek. Really. Incredible.”
She gripped his hand and then took charge by leaning in and giving him a quick hug. “Likewise. Hopefully I’ll see you around.”
“That would be great,” Jared said, with a nod of his head and small smile on his square jaw.
We walked to the door and waved a good-bye to Jared as he headed to a cab stopped at the curb. Adam’s car was only a couple of blocks away and we were quiet during the walk there.
When we reached his car, Logek gestured for me to take the front seat, so I did. Logek climbed in the back and we pulled away from the curb, heading toward my house. As soon as we were driving, Logek sat forward from the center of the back seat, putting a hand on each of the front seats, and leaned her head in between Adam and me.
“Seriously. What was that?”
“What was what?” I asked.
“‘Incredible to meet you’? ‘Hope to see you around’?”
“Actually, I think you said ‘Hope to see you around,’” I clarified.
“Not the point! It was incredible to meet me and then just … bye?”
I looked at Adam. He was listening but hadn’t chimed in. “You’ve known Jared longer than I have. Any input?”
“You know Jared?” Logek asked. I guess I forgot to fill her in on their connection.
“We went to college together,” Adam said. “We were friends, but not really close.”
“Why?” Logek asked, leaning forward a little farther. “Is he weird? Creepy?”
Adam gave a small shrug while turning down a city side street. “Not weird. Just … odd. Hard to get to know. Does that make sense?”
Logek nodded. “But he seemed like he liked me, right?”
Adam nodded. I said, “Yeah, definitely.”
Logek was nodding. “But he didn’t ask for my number or anything. He has no idea if he’ll ever see me again.” I don’t think Logek was accustomed to this phenomenon.
“He does work with your best friend. Maybe he figures he could just ask Kate?” Adam suggested.
Logek seemed to consider that, but I could tell she still wasn’t satisfied. “I guess.”
“You could have asked him for his number, you know,” Adam added.
Logek looked at him like he hadn’t used English. Logek was a strong woman, but needing to make a move with a man was still new territory for her. “Asked him?”
Adam chuckled. “I do believe that is done occasionally, yes.”
Logek made a grunt noise and sat back in her seat with a flop.
“So, out of curiosity,” Adam said, flicking his eyes toward his rearview mirror to look at Logek sulking in the back seat, “are you genuinely interested in him? Or just intrigued by a man that didn’t immediately fall for you?”
Logek sighed. “You sound like Kate. Not all guys go for me.”
“Okay,” he said.
“But,” she added, sitting up and leaning between us once more, “typically, when we hit it off
and they seem attracted to me? Yeah. Then they do.”
Adam gave an amused grin. “So is that a yes, you are interested in him?”
Logek shrugged and pulled her long blond hair up into a ponytail between her hands. She looked out the window for a moment before letting go of her hair and letting it cascade back over her shoulders. “He was interesting,” she said matter-of-factly. “He’s obviously attractive. He stares. He keeps fish…” On that list point, Logek frowned and shook her head at Adam, like she didn’t understand it. “He’s a little intense. He’s just … interesting.”
Adam shot me a quick, smiling glance before responding to her. “You mentioned that.”
CHAPTER 14
I woke up the next morning to my phone buzzing on the nightstand. I reached out with the blanket still over my head and grabbed my phone.
Scarlett. Crap.
“This is Kate.”
“Hi, Kate. It’s Scarlett.”
I pulled my phone back and looked at the clock on the corner of the screen. 7:42 a.m.
“Scarlett, it’s before eight a.m. On a Saturday,” I said sternly.
“I have a clock. I know what time it is. But this is important!” I’m sure it’s a matter of life and death. Again. “The bastard stole one of the cameras off my house.”
I flipped the blanket back from my face and sighed. “Any chance it was the one pointed toward his bedroom?”
“Yes. It was that one.”
“Any chance it was still pointed directly at his bedroom window?”
“Maybe.”
“Because you never moved it, even though you agreed to in the stipulation?”
Scarlett grunted. “I really don’t see what that has to do with him stealing shit off my house.”
“Because. You were basically violating the order, still having it trained on his bedroom.” I sighed then cleared my throat. “Scarlett, I can call Doug on Monday and ask him to ask Rhett to give the camera back.”
“But he took it. How is that not illegal?”
“Then call the police and report a theft.”
“I thought I was supposed to call you.”
“How much was that camera?”
“I don’t know. I think they were like thirty or forty dollars each.”
“Okay. Well this conversation has probably already cost you more than that.”
“I don’t care about the cost of the camera!” she said, starting to sound shrill. “I care about dragging his ass back into court!”
I raised my voice, since I was beginning to think my calm approach was being lost on her. “I get that. But you were supposed to move that camera and you didn’t. I’ve told you—repeatedly—you need to take the high road. That is the only way to get him in trouble. If you are doing everything right and not antagonizing him and he doesn’t leave you alone, you’ll have grounds. But as long as you are antagonizing him as well, we’ve got nothing. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
Scarlett was quiet when I finished, and I was a little worried that I might have gone too far. Where does yelling at a client fall on the bad lawyer scale? Then again, where does calling your attorney’s cell before 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday rate on the shitty client scale? I’d say we’re square.
“Okay,” she said finally. “If you can get the camera back, I’ll mount it somewhere else.”
“Good. I think that is the right decision. I’ll call Doug Monday and then let you know.”
“Okay.” Perfect. She was sulking again.
“I’ll talk to you Monday,” I said, when she went quiet again.
“Okay. Bye.”
I hung up and covered my face with my pillow.
* * *
Monday morning, Doug Simpson beat me to the punch and called while I was still looking over new emails.
“Good morning, Doug,” I said.
“Morning. Believe it or not, I’m not calling about Scarlett.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Well, I’m not only calling about Scarlett.” That makes more sense. “It took a little time, but I got Jennifer Roma to realize she wasn’t going to get far with her breach of contract claim post deposition. She’s willing to settle on the mutual termination provision.”
I’d just back-burnered Jim Trainor’s matter, since nothing was pending. Not to mention the fact that Jim’s awesome referral, Scarlett, was eating up a lot of my time. “Oh,” I said. “That’s good to hear. I’ll give Jim a call today.”
“Great. Let me know.”
“So … about Scarlett.”
“Yeah. I guess Friday night she was on his front porch screaming about something.”
“Pretty sure it had to do with Rhett taking one of the cameras off of her house.”
“He did?”
“Well, it’s the invasion-of-privacy one that’s missing, so I think Rhett is a safe bet.”
Doug chuckled. “Okay. I’ll ask him to return it.”
“Do you think that’s safe? I mean, I’m not sure we actually want to encourage contact between these two.”
“Fair enough. I can ask him to bring it to my office and Scarlett can pick it up here?”
“That’ll work.”
“I’ll let you know.”
I was looking up Jim Trainor’s phone number when Jared appeared in my office.
“Hey,” he said with a friendly smile.
“Hey, boss.”
“Friday was fun,” he said, walking farther into my office and leaning on one of the chairs in front of my desk.
“It really was.”
“It was really good to see Adam again, too. We’d sort of lost touch over the years. Funny that you two ended up knowing each other.” Funnier than you know. “And your friend Logek is … terrific.”
Hm. Terrific. “She’s the best,” I agreed. Come on, Jared. You know you want to ask.
“Anyway, we should all do it again sometime.”
“Absolutely.”
“See you later,” he said with a quick wave, and headed out of the office.
Almost like her ears were burning, I got a text from Logek.
Hey Kitty Kat. Want to grab lunch tomorrow?
Tomorrow is no good. I have to be in court by 1pm.
Wow. You sound so grown up and lawyer-y:)
Haha. Goal achieved, then.
How about Wednesday?
Yeah—that sounds good.
I’ll come get you. I haven’t seen your office yet.
No ulterior motives there or anything.
Kate. Whatever do you mean?
Shameless.
Your point?
Why would I possibly have a point? See you Wednesday.
I started reviewing Luann Sykes’s contract. It was fairly standard, but the damages provision was a little vague. The better contracts have the mathematical formula for calculating the damages right in the contract—which is usually some measure of the combined incomes of the couple and the percentage contribution the contract provided the nonbreaching party, blah blah blah. Then there’s a whole other calculation if the couple had children, which, thankfully, Luann did not. This provision just based damages on the maintenance of the current standard of living, which I was pretty sure Luann could maintain all on her own. Shit.
I grabbed her contract and headed to Jared’s office. I poked my head around the corner and found him looking out the window, which was a first for him, since any other time I’d dropped by his office he was buried in paperwork and super focused.
“Hey. Can I bug you for a second?” I asked.
He quickly turned back to his desk. “Of course. What’s up?”
“I was hoping you could read this damages provision and give me your thoughts on how to handle it.”
“Absolutely,” he said, extending his hand to me for the contract. I handed it over and he set it on the desk in front of him. I poked a finger quickly at the appropriate section of the page and waited quietly while he read.
“Ah. Yeah. I
’ve seen ones like this. Here,” he said, scribbling on a pad of paper. He ripped off the page and handed it back to me with the contract. “These are the cases you’ll want at your fingertips. They’re the leading authority that says just because she can maintain her current lifestyle doesn’t mean she’s not entitled to damages based on what his salary contributed to the partnership.”
“Oh my gosh. That’s perfect. Thank you.”
“Of course. Anytime.”
I gave him a grateful smile and headed back to my office to read these cases so that I could call Luann’s cheating hottie’s attorney properly armed.
While I was reading up on the cases, I remembered that I still needed to call Jim Trainor about settlement.
I dialed his number and waited.
“This is Jim,” he said abruptly.
“Jim, this is Kate Shaw.” Silence. “Your attorney.”
“Of course. Hiya, Kate.”
“So, as we expected after Jennifer’s deposition, her attorney just called and said that she was willing to settle on the mutual termination clause.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, though. She cheated. She admitted that it was before she found out about my DUI.”
“Yes, but she didn’t admit it was before you got your DUI—which is technically when you breached. Jim, I thought this is what you wanted … to just mutually terminate, with no damages.”
“I think I’m entitled to damages.”
See? Just when I start thinking my job isn’t completely awful. Jim Trainor, ladies and gentlemen.
“You would be, Jim. If you hadn’t breached the contract as well. But you did.”
“But I think she breached first.”
“Judges generally don’t care who breached first if you didn’t know about her breach. Which you didn’t.”
“I suspected.”
“So you want me to go to a judge and argue that you thought she was cheating on you so that’s why you thought it would be okay to get convicted of misdemeanor driving under the influence?”
“Well, not like that. In fancy lawyer talk, I bet it would sound a lot better.”
“There are no fancy lawyer words for that, Jim,” I said quietly, putting a fingertip to the bridge of my nose and closing my eyes. “My advice, as your attorney, is to agree to this settlement. The attorney fees you’ll spend fighting this you’ll likely never get back, because of your breach.”