Paige shook herself. She could consider that later. Right now, she had a client to see.
Arriving at her small law office, Paige flicked on the lights. It was as clean as it had been when she had left it, early last week. Wrinkling her nose at the slightly musty smell of a room being left alone for too long, she opened a window to allow a breeze in.
Thankfully, there was only a small amount of dust and the floors were mostly clean. Paige generally kept it clean herself. This office was her responsibility, and she needed to keep it pristine, even if she wasn’t getting many clients.
Once she had finished opening the rest of the curtains and windows, Paige made her way to her desk and sank into her soft chair. She put the newspaper that she had picked up at the store on the desk and looked between it and the file of notes she had started taking on her new client.
She could look at the file later, she decided with a shrug, opening the newspaper.
It wasn’t a very large paper. It was just the local paper from Newport, which was delivered to Otter Rock and other surrounding areas. Not interested in the front page article, Paige flicked through the paper, half of her wondering if she shouldn’t just go straight to the crossword to keep herself occupied.
Her fingers stilled, however, when she saw a picture of someone very familiar.
Paige laughed and took a picture of it. Remembering the last conversation they had had, she hesitated for a moment before she shook her head, feeling silly. Then she sent the picture to Jack.
“Found you in the paper.”
Her phone dinged barely a minute later.
“Looking good, right?”
Paige laughed out loud and set her phone aside, pleased with the response. Shaking her head, she read the article with a fond smile. According to this, Jack had been on the trail of some dog kidnappers for a while. She vaguely remembered him mentioning the case, but she hadn’t paid that much attention. She wondered what would happen to the case now that the murder had occurred.
She should probably ask him more about the dog case, though, especially since she now had a dog, herself.
Paige looked up as the front door opened, and she folded the paper up. A moment later, an unfamiliar woman appeared at the door of her office.
“Jessica Wilson?” Paige asked, standing.
“Yes,” Jessica said, striding forward. “Thank you for meeting with me.”
“It’s not a problem,” Paige assured her. “Come in and tell me more about how I can help you.”
She surveyed Jessica as the woman sat, smoothing down her business skirt. She was tall and lithe, her brown hair smoothed down perfectly, and she was dressed impeccably, as though she had somewhere important to be. She kept glancing at her watch, and her smile was strained.
“Is there a problem, Jessica?” Paige asked.
“I have another appointment at one o’clock,” Jessica sighed.
Paige glanced at the clock. It was barely nine.
“Alright, let’s talk a bit about the situation,” Paige said, leaning against her desk. “You told me that you and your husband are divorcing and that you’re struggling to split the assets. What is he doing about this?”
“He is out of town and avoiding all responsibility,” Jessica said with a scowl. “He told me he would be here, but then he decided to leave on the weekend.”
Paige frowned. She hadn’t expected both Jessica and her husband today.
“He wanted to be around while we did the preliminary stuff, and get your advice on what to do next,” Jessica said when she saw Paige’s expression.
“I think it would be a good idea for him to talk to his own lawyer,” Paige pointed out. “That would make this process go much smoother.”
Jessica’s expression twisted. “Wouldn’t that cost more?”
“Admittedly, yes,” Paige said with a nod. “But it keeps a line drawn between you and your husband as we try to reach a compromise. With both of you having a different lawyer, neither of you will feel like one lawyer is favoring you over the other.”
“I see,” Jessica said with a scowl. “Well, he won’t listen to anything I say, so you can tell him that. He’s always doing whatever he wants. Because he took off, I couldn’t even take Max to school!”
“The two of you have a child?” Paige asked, internally grimacing; custody always made these things more difficult.
Surprisingly, Jessica laughed as she pulled out her phone. “No, Max is my dog. I take him to the Comfy Canine Training School. I wasn’t able to attend the class on Saturday.”
“I’ve just started taking my dog there, too,” Paige said, blinking.
“I guess we’ll see you there next lesson, then,” Jessica said with another laugh. “Look, can you call my husband? He won’t pick up if I call.”
“What’s his number?” Paige sighed; she had a feeling that she was going to just have to talk to the husband herself to convince him to get another lawyer.
She dialed the number Jessica gave her and listened to it ring four times on the speaker before it was picked up.
“Daniel Wilson, speaking,” a man said at the other end.
“I’m at the lawyer’s,” Jessica growled before Paige could say anything. “You know, the lawyer we were supposed to see together?” She looked up at Paige, clearly unhappy. “Please meet my husband, Daniel.”
There were a lot of things Paige could say about this, including how she didn’t have to deal with this, but she decided to just go with the flow.
“Daniel, my name is Paige Moore, it’s good to speak to you,” Paige said, leaning toward the phone. “May I ask where you are right now?”
“Sherwood,” Daniel grunted. “I needed to get away from Jessica, and my sister is allowing me to stay with her.”
“What you needed to do was come and see the lawyer,” Jessica said, instantly flaring up again. “Or are you just hoping that all of this will go away?”
“Daniel, I need to speak to you about your plans,” Paige said, trying to stop them before they could begin arguing; she had known they were on bad terms, but it was different seeing it for herself. “During a divorce, it’s more beneficial for you to-”
“If you would stop riding me about it all, we could have come to an agreement!” Daniel said loudly, drowning Paige out.
“Oh, yes, because your agreement was fair,” Jessica sneered.
“Fairer than yours! What’s that lawyer going to say when she reads your demands?”
“She’ll probably say that I deserve it after putting up with you!”
Paige sat back, forgotten. Part of her knew that she needed to stop them, but the rest of her was too tired; her good mood from before gone. Sighing, she rubbed the bridge of her nose.
She would stop them during a lull in their argument. Paige grimaced. If she could. It looked like this particular divorce case was going to be one of the messiest ones she had ever seen.
Which was just the sort of luck she didn’t need.
Chapter 6: Approaching Trouble
6: Approaching Trouble
Paige was incredibly grateful when twelve o’clock came around, prompting Jessica Wilson to leave her office so she could rush to her appointment in Newport. Even though it was just over a ten-minute drive, Jessica had muttered something about paperwork before she had dashed off.
This left her in blessed silence. Jessica had hung up on her husband before she had left, so she didn’t have to deal with him either. Her head aching, Paige leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.
At least one good thing had come from that. She had managed to convince Daniel to find his own lawyer for the divorce, which would help her in the future. It was just unfortunate that they had spent all of this session arguing, which meant that she had just spent three hours in an appointment with a client that left her with nothing to show for it. The only thing she was left wondering is how Daniel and Jessica ever got married in the first place.
She glanced at her file. I really
should look over it, Paige thought. There was also a file from another client; the divorce of Fred and Lily Munroe was definitely a lot easier than the Wilsons’ divorce was shaping up to be, but she still needed to finish her paperwork before her next appointment with Fred on Thursday.
The idea of staying in this office right now, however, was unbearable. So Paige stood and gathered her work; she didn’t have to sit here if she didn’t want to. As the only worker in the little agency that she owned, she could easily take her work home if she wanted.
She thought about leaving Barkley with her parents for a little longer, then decided that she could use the company right now. She sent a text to her mother to let her know that she was on her way, and then closed up the office.
Paige felt better the moment that she stepped into the sun and cool air. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that it was lunchtime and that she had skipped breakfast that morning when she realized she was running late.
Reminding herself that it would be a bad idea to get back into bad habits, Paige bought a snack at the grocery store, begging out of a conversation with the owner, Andy Parker, by telling him that she had a lot of work to do, and walked down the street to her car. There were a few people around, and she returned waves and smiles to them all, but didn’t break her stride.
That was something that was very different in Otter Rock to Portland. In Portland, where many people lived, she would often traverse the streets without paying mind to whoever was walking around her. It was like she walked in her own personal bubble, and she ignored the other people on the street just as much as they ignored her.
Here, where everyone knew everyone, it was impossible to ignore them. She at once loved and hated it; she enjoyed feeling like part of the community again, but sometimes she sorely missed her privacy.
Not that she had much of that, even at home. As though her thoughts had summoned it, her phone buzzed in a reply from her mother.
“I did some baking. You can take some of that too.”
Paige sighed at the thinly veiled attempt to make sure she had food readily available. Her mother really meant well, she knew…but she was starting to really resent the way both her parents and Jack treated her like a child. That had been even clearer the other day when Jack had refused to allow her to even speak to him about the new case.
“Maybe I should have taken better care of myself in Portland,” a snide voice in the back of her mind told her.
She grimaced. The only reason she wasn’t in Portland now was that she had pushed herself so hard that her doctor had all but ordered her to leave her job and return to Otter Rock. It certainly hadn’t been her choice.
Paige paused, in the process of unlocking her car. The amount of bitterness in that thought, just then, startled her. She didn’t spend an awful lot of time thinking about what had led to her living here, but did she really resent coming here?
There were plenty of things she was grateful for. She enjoyed being near her parents again. She liked living next to the sea. She was thrilled to be reconnecting with Jack and exploring a relationship that they had been too young for many years ago. She was even proud of the little business she had created here in Otter Rock, even if it didn’t bring in nearly as much work as she got in Portland.
But, she realized as she got in the car, Paige resented the fact that she only had these things because the choice had been taken out of her hands. She directed her gaze at the steering wheel, not seeing it. If she had been given the choice, would she still have chosen to come here?
She didn’t know.
Paige pushed the thought out of her mind. It didn’t matter anymore. She lived in Otter Rock, now and she was healthier than she had been in a long time. There was no sense in thinking about it anymore.
Yet the dark cloud continued to hover over her as she left town, whispering “What if?” as she shoved the snack she had bought into her bag, suddenly not hungry.
In the end, picking up Barkley had been the right decision. Much like with Andy Parker, she begged off staying too long at her parents’ house by telling them that she was taking her work home, not willing to stay when she had all these thoughts whirling around in her head.
Once she was home, she finally relaxed and even managed a smile as Barkley raced away, chasing something only he could see.
“You don’t have a care in the world, do you?” she asked the dog.
Barkley didn’t answer; he had found his tail and was running around in a circle to chase it. She chuckled, feeling some of her dark mood lifting, and walked to the kitchen, flicking the kettle on. She didn’t care if she was about to break her self-imposed rule of one coffee a day; she needed the caffeine after the morning she had had.
She kept a careful eye on Barkley as she made her coffee, but he didn’t do more than run backward and forward over her carpet. When she returned to the living room, carrying her mug and the files she had taken from her office, he darted in between her feet.
“Watch it!” she yelped, almost spilling her mug. “Let me sit down first!”
She put the mug on the coffee table and dropped down on the couch cushions. Barkley yapped excitedly, running around her feet until he ran right into her ankle. Shaking her head at him, she picked him up and sat him on her lap. It was impossible to think dark thoughts about Jonathan Cook or her own life while he was around.
“What am I going to do with you?” she asked.
He wriggled on her lap until she let him go, and he was off again. For a moment she regretted that she didn’t have a larger space for him to run around in. Then she rolled her eyes, imagining just how much more trouble he could get into in a bigger area.
She watched him dart into the bedroom, and then Paige pulled the file on the Munroes toward her, opening it. She didn’t read more than two sentences, however, before there was an almighty crash from the bedroom.
Paige leaped up and ran to the room, her heart in her throat. She skidded to a halt, however, when she saw Barkley sitting on the floor, his tail wagging, turning large eyes on her as if to say “I’m innocent!”
She looked at the pile of books Barkley had pulled down from her dresser by grabbing the towel she had carelessly placed them on, and sighed. This was partly her fault; Barkley just saw something dangling and thought it was fun to play with. She was lucky none of the books had landed on him.
“Be more careful,” she scolded, picking the books and the towel up.
Barkley gave her a bark and jumped up onto her bed. She rolled her eyes; he avoided getting on the couch, but he had no problem with leaping onto her bed, no matter how many times she tried to get him to sleep on the dog bed she had bought for him.
“That thing cost me a lot of money,” she said to him now, giving him a stern look and pointing at the dog bed in the corner. “The least you could do is use it.”
Barkley just stared at her, his tongue lolling out. He obviously had no intention of doing something that he didn’t want to.
“Come on then, you obviously can’t be trusted in here by yourself,” she said, shooing him out of the room and closing the door.
Satisfied that he couldn’t get into the bedroom anymore, she sat back down on the couch. Only to leap up once more when she saw him jump onto one of her dining chairs, crouching as he prepared to leap onto the table.
“No,” she said, catching him before he could jump. “I eat at this table; you can’t be on it.”
Barkley gave her a pathetically sad look and whined. She scowled at him.
“Don’t give me those eyes,” she scolded. “You still can’t get up there. Look, I bought you some toys to play with, go mess around with them.”
She placed him down in front of the squeaky toys. He glanced at them and then dashed away, not caring about them at all.
“Well, that was a waste of money, then,” she declared to the room.
She sat down for a third time. But, now, her thoughts were full of Barkley. So, instead of working on the Munroes’ pap
erwork, she got her laptop out and started searching for companies that did fencing. Maybe if she gave him a place to run around outdoors she would actually be able to get some work done.
“I hope you appreciate this,” she said to him.
Barkley just huffed at her and gave her a doggy grin. Then he scrambled onto the couch and jumped onto her lap, snuggling down against her stomach.
Paige sighed and scratched his head, a reluctant grin pulling at her lips. It really was hard to stay mad at him.
Much later that night, as she was getting ready for bed, Paige’s phone rang. She was surprised to see that it was Jack.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Hi, Paige,” Jack said. He sounded tired, and Paige’s heart clenched. “Sorry it’s late.”
“I don’t mind,” she assured him. “How was your day?”
“Long,” Jack said with a sigh. “How was yours?”
Paige grimaced. She had the feeling she wasn’t going to get anything more out of him than that. It made frustration rise in her before she forced it down.
“Long,” she parroted, and he chuckled. “I had that new client today.”
“How did that go?” Jack asked.
Paige couldn’t help the groan that escaped her. “Terrible. Just…awful.”
“That’s no good,” Jack said sympathetically. “So, what was so awful about them?”
“Jessica Wilson got me to phone her husband and put him on speaker phone,” Paige scowled. “I had to convince him to find another lawyer so we didn’t complicate the divorce. They spent the entire session arguing and we didn’t get anything done at all.”
“So, you had to sit there and listen to them fight?” Jack asked incredulously. “At least you got paid for it.”
Paige wrinkled her nose. “I suppose. And I was wanting a little more excitement…but that wasn’t exactly the sort of excitement I wanted.”
The Comfy Canine Murder Case Page 4