Page 85 of Hidden Ties

“Would you like a refill, Mr. Beck?”

“No, thank you, Owen.” Desmond set his glass down, reaching out to take the check.

“Can I get you anything else, Mr. Bryant?”

“I’m good. I’ll take the ticket.”

Forestalling Desmond from taking the check, he gave the waiter his card. Desmond stared at him wonderfully as the waiter left.

“In all the times I’ve known you, you’ve never paid for our meal.”

Kent gave him a friendly smile. “With all the money I’m going to charge Lucca to take Valerie Monroe’s case, I can afford to buy you lunch,” he joked.

Desmond gave him a serious look that couldn’t be misunderstood.

“Tell Lucca to send my fee the usual way, and tell Ms. Monroe to refuse to speak to anyone until I can get there.”

“You’re not going to go see her now?”

“No, I have a small piece of business I have to take care of first.”

THREE

Sage barely made it back to her desk on time but tried to ignore the sick feeling in her stomach. Resuming the task before she had been pried away from her desk, she worked on a new client’s file—two hard copy files, which would go to the lawyer who was representing the client; the other would go in a labeled box that would then go to the firm’s file room after she uploaded all the information to the firm’s management system.

All three steps were set in place in case one of files was lost or became inaccessible due the Internet being down or the lawyer’s hard copy file being misplaced. The hard copy in the firm’s file room was never lost. It was harder to get into that room than Fort Knox. Mrs. Parsons, the chief file clerk, had a strict protocol for allowing anyone admittance inside the room. They would have to sign on the box and give a detailed explanation of why they needed access. If they wanted to take the box, they had to have permission from the head of the firm. Not even a senior partner was allowed to bypass the rules which Mr. Hollingsworth had been put in place to protect the clients’ files.

She wanted to hurry so she could take the box to the file room before leaving for the day but forced herself to slow down and be meticulous that all the individual forms were inside. The onlyway she was going to move into a permanent position and stand a chance of becoming full time was for her work to be perfect. One mistake, and she would be fired.

Just in the short time she had been working at Hollingsworth and Partners, two full-time employees and one part-timer had been dismissed. All had been employees of the temp agency she worked for. She hadn’t known the full-timers well, but she had become friendly with Paige.

Paige had been like her, wanting to become permanent. Unfortunately, she had been written up for being late three times. After the third writeup, she had been terminated. Sage thought they should have taken in the cause of her lastness due to mishaps that she had no control over—she had been in a car accident the first time; the second time, her ride hadn’t shown; and the last one, which had led to her being fired, was because she had a power failure at her house during the night and her alarm hadn’t gone off.

Paranoid at how easily Paige had been fired, Sage made sure she left for work a good hour before, kept a list of bus routes in case something went wrong with her car, and set an alarm on her phone. She had two alarms for her bedroom, one which was battery operated. Despite all her precautions, she thought there was little likelihood she would make it past her probation period.

After double-checking her entries, she closed the box and logged off the computer. Then she checked the time and carried the box to the file room. She had just enough time to drop the box off then go to Livvy’s office to ask for the money.

“Good afternoon, Sage. How are you today?” Mrs. Parsons greeted her warmly.

“Fantastic.” Sage was proud of herself that she had managed that fib with a straight face.

Mrs. Parsons eyed her disbelievingly. “Heard the diva squad suckered you for a free lunch.” The older woman gave her a compassionate look. “Don’t feel bad; you aren’t the first probie they duped and, sadly, you won’t be the last.”

Taking the clipboard back, Mrs. Parsons held an electronic device out for her to sign. “I was hoping to see their witches’ asses fired before I retire. Instead, those divas have outlasted me.”

“You’re retiring?”

Mrs. Parsons gave her a happy nod. “At the end of this month. My husband is, too. Jack and I are going on a month-long cruise to celebrate.”

“I’m going to miss you.”

She would. Glenda was only one of two people she worked with whom she enjoyed talking to. That she would never get to see the older woman again, even if she did get hired permanently, gave her a hollow feeling.

Glenda gave her gentle smile. “When we get back, we’ll have you over for dinner to show you all the pictures we took.”

“That’ll be nice.”

“Don’t sound so enthused.”