Page 57

F riday morning involved trying to keep very loud small people from jumping on my wounded shoulder. Plus, there were Cocoa Puffs for breakfast. The sugar high ought to get me through till at least midnight, I figured. Plus, another twenty-minute long phone call with Celia and Nathan, on top of the one I'd had with them last night after Connors'd hung up on them.

After I said goodbye to the kids and Emily and walked over to my house, I peered at the damage to the doorframe. Several gouges marred the surface of the wood, but it looked like most of the blast had hit the brick front of the house. Other than a few chips off of the brick surface, I couldn't see much damage. Either it had been a warning shot, not meant to hurt me, or the shooter had terrible aim. Either way, I felt pretty lucky to be walking around with nothing worse than a bandage where the splinter had been.

By the time I showered, pulled on a simple white blouse and pinstriped slacks, and put my hair back in a French braid, my mundane morning routine had calmed my heartbeat to within range of normal. The drive to the office helped, and the thought of another day helping pro bono clients raised my spirits a lot.

I drove into the parking lot, smiling in anticipation of seeing another long line of clients. But the parking lot was empty. Mr. Ellison must have let them into the office already. I parked the car, making another mental note to get it painted. Anything but pink.

Then I walked into my offices, humming under my breath. No mere gunshots could dampen my spirits. I was Super Lawyer, defender of the weak and innocent. I could vanquish evildoers with a single bound. I pulled the door open and practically bounded in.

To an empty office.

Completely empty.

Super Lawyer screeched to a halt.

"But . . . but . . . where is everybody?"

Mr. Ellison stomped in from the hallway, resplendent in a sunshine-yellow shirt and pink pants. "We're out of the good cream. How come I have to do everything myself?"

I blinked. "What? Who cares about cream at a time like this? Where are my clients?"

"Oh. Well. About that," he said, shuffling his feet a little. "Nobody's coming."

"What? Why not? How do you know?"

He wouldn't look at me. "Well, one of them deadbeats, er, I mean, clients showed up earlier. But he just wanted to know if you got anything done on his case. He said nobody else from Legal Aid is coming, on account of you're involved in some murdering drug cartel."

Super Lawyer shot down in flames.

I made it all the way back to my office and gently closed the door before I said any of my newly learned bad words.

W hen Max came in around nine and tried to tell me how Daisy was a guy magnet at the dog park the night before, I growled at her, picked the puppy up off the floor, and shut the door again. The less-than-friendly conversation I'd had with the folks at Legal Aid hadn't put me in a gossipy mood. Then I spent the rest of the morning working on the Deaver case with a warm puppy on my lap, only taking periodic breaks for doggy potty trips and play time.

Max knocked around lunchtime and held a Wendy's bag inside the doorway. "Hungry?"

I wasn't, but Daisy made track marks on the floor running her chubby little body over there. I sighed and stood up, contemplating the dog hair covering my pants. "Come in, Max. I need to apologize, anyway."

She walked in with two bags of food and a drink carrier and put it all down on my desk. "I talked to Celia. You didn't think I'd want to know that somebody is shooting at you now?"

"I'm sorry. I was so upset about our Friday clients. Everything I've tried to do with this practice is swirling down the toilet. I'm dead in the water here, Max. I may as well just pack up the practice and go." I opened the bag, took out a sandwich, then pulled a piece off the end for Daisy, who gulped it down in one piece.

"You shouldn't feed her people food," Max said.

"I know. I'm a total screwup. I shouldn't be allowed to even own a dog."

Mr. Ellison walked in, carrying his own bag. "A third of a dog."

"What?"

He sucked down some soda. "Technically, you don't own a dog. You only own a third of her. And it's my turn to take her home tonight."

"Hey! I'm the one who got shot! I should get to take her home tonight," I said. Daisy ignored this debate over her sleeping schedule in favor of sticking her face and then her entire body in Mr. Ellison's lunch bag he'd put on the floor next to his chair.

"Um, I hope you weren't attached to that lunch," I said, pointing at the frantically wagging curly tail sticking out of the bag.

"What do you mean, shot?" he asked. Then he noticed where I was pointing. "Daisy! Get out of my lunch!" He grabbed the bag and pulled it away from her, and she stood there blinking at us for a second, three french fries sticking out of her mouth. Then she dashed away to hide under the credenza and eat them.

I couldn't help it. I had to laugh at her funny little face. "Want ketchup with those?"

I dropped into my chair and grabbed a bag, searching for fries. Then I briefly filled them in on my evening's adventures.

Mr. Ellison clenched the arms of his chair so tightly his knuckles turned white. "This is serious, girlie. Somebody is sending you a hell of a message."

"Right. I just wish I knew what that message was," I said.

Max leaned forward. "More important, what was Jake Brody doing at your house last night?"

Mr. Ellison snorted. "If you can't figure that out on your own, you and me need to have a talk, Max. Now, back to important stuff. I have some . . . news, too."

We looked at him. "What?" I asked. "And if this is about your dating adventures, we so don't need to go there right now."

"Ha! At least somebody in this place is getting a little action," he said. "No, it's about a weird phone call I got at home last night. I figure I better tell you about it, since it was about you."

"About me?" I put my untouched hamburger down on my desk. "What about me?"

"Well, he said he was from the Claymore County Bar Association. He wanted me to report in on everything you was up to. Said you were a known drug dealer, and they needed to investigate," he said, then stopped and chewed on his lip a bit.

I couldn't believe this was happening. Now the Bar was investigating me? But . . .

"That doesn't sound right. I've never been investigated before, but it seems unlikely they'd try to spy on an attorney under investigation by contacting her employees. Also, why would the county bar be investigating me? Would it even work that way?" I pulled a legal pad toward me to take notes. "Who did you say called?"

"Well, he said his name was William Rehnquist."

I dropped my pen and looked up at him. "He said his name was what?"

"William Rehnquist. I even wrote it down. It's not spelled with a K, W, but with a?—"

"A Q. I know. Because William Rehnquist is the name of the late Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Mr. Ellison!"

He tilted his head, considering. "Maybe it's a common name?"

"No! It's not a common name. Somebody is playing games with us," Max said.

"Pretty deadly games," I pointed out, touching my shoulder and then the back of my head. "First painting my car, then a rock to the back of my head, and now a shotgun? What's next, a shoulder-fired missile?"

"I know where we can get a grenade," Mr. Ellison piped up.

"No grenades!" I said, feeling my teeth clench around the words. At this rate, I was going to have to buy migraine medicine in bulk.

"What are we going to do?" Max asked, handing Daisy a piece of her chicken sandwich.

"Hey! You said no people food," I said.

Max shrugged. "It seems like the least of my worries, suddenly. So what are we going to do?"

I shook off the sadness and self-pity that had swamped me all day. "We're going to figure this out," I said. "Who is doing this, and why?"

Mr. Ellison jumped up. "I'll get a whiteboard. Let's make a list!"

The phone rang, and we all flinched. I laughed a little and answered it. "December Vaughn."

Jake's voice came through, staticky but clear enough. "Vaughn, Gina took off from rehab, and they can't find her. They said she kept talking about how she was going to get revenge on you."

The connection died before I could respond, and I slowly put the phone back down. Then I looked up at Max and Mr. Ellison. "We have another name for the list."

Then I smacked myself in the head, which hurt my shoulder and sent a twinge through the healing stitches in my head. Stupid. "I totally forgot about Mrs. Zivkovich. We have to call her right away. And add Croc to the list." I picked the phone back up, wondering how my life and my practice had gotten so far out of control. Maybe corporate law hadn't been all that bad, after all.

A fter an hour of discussion, our list of suspects looked like this:

GINA SCHIANTELLI

NERVIL/CROC

ADDISON LANGLEY AND HIS FIRM; COVER UP?

SARAH GREENBERG; YACHT THREAT?

SOMEONE FROM BDC?

But our list of incidents didn't match up:

CAR PAINTING/ACID

ROCK IN MY HEAD

SINUS STALKER CALL

MURDER AT MUSEUM

SHOOTING LAST NIGHT

We could figure Gina for the shooting, but she'd been in rehab for the car painting and the rock throwing. Plus, the sinus stalker phone call had come from a man. And there was no way I believed she had anything to do with Richard Dack's murder. It didn't make sense.

"She could have talked somebody into making that call," Max said.

I shook my head. "Yeah, but it doesn't add up. She may be crazy, but this level of escalation doesn't sound right for a 'you talked to my boyfriend' issue."

"Crazy people do crazy things," she said.

"We're not getting anywhere this way," I said. Let's see what Jake's friend, Lieutenant Connors, turns up. He seemed pretty competent."

"Well, I gotta go," Mr. Ellison said, brushing crumbs off his lap onto the floor and standing up. "We ain't figuring out nothing like this, and I promised to help down to the Seniors for the big bingo party."

I looked up. "This has nothing to do with anything, but do you know my Aunt Celia?"

He stared down at me. "Know her? I woulda married her, if that rotten Nathan Judson hadn't cut me out of the picture." He bent down to pick Daisy up, then stomped out of my office.

I stared at Max, my mouth hanging open. "No way. No way was Mr. Ellison almost my uncle," I said, shuddering.

Her eyes bugged out. "Talk about a narrow escape. We have got to get her to tell us about that."

"No way. I never, ever want to hear a conversation that has the words Celia, dating, and Henry all in the same breath. I'm getting the creepy-crawlies just thinking about it."

She stood up. "I guess we'd better get to work. I'm assuming he's taking Daisy home tonight?"

I sighed. "Looks like it. I guess I'll get her tomorrow. You'd better give me his address so we can do the puppy handoff."

As Max walked back down the hall, my gaze strayed to our lists again. None of this made sense to me at all. What could possibly be behind these threats and attacks?

Nobody ever shot at me when I did corporate work.

Max and I spent the rest of the afternoon deep in the Deaver case, and I barely looked up from Faith's medical records when she stopped by to tell me she was leaving. "Sure, have a great weekend," I said.

About an hour later, I couldn't ignore the loud grumblings from my stomach any longer. I gathered up a pile of work to take home with me, turned out all the lights, turned the AC down (now that I had to pay the electric bill myself, I remembered stuff like that), and left the office. As I climbed in my car, an old pickup truck with Orange Grove Antiques stenciled in a small sign on its side pulled in next to me.

Bear rolled down his window and gave me a huge smile. "Miss December! I'm so glad I caught you! I have a present for you!"

I smiled back at him, almost despite myself. He just had that kind of face. Also, that kind of shirt — a purple one with a giant orange giraffe on it. "Hey, Bear. How's the new job? Staying out of trouble?"

He got out of the truck and hurried around to my side, clutching a package in his hands. "Yes, I am. Most definitely. Grandma even met Miss Lucinda, and they liked each other," he said.

"That's great, Bear. I'm thrilled for you," I said, meaning it. Bear may have been confused about property ownership, but at least he wasn't shooting at me or throwing rocks at my head, which made him okay in my book.

Sad, how my standards have lowered.

"So, what's up?"

He thrust the package at me. It was wrapped in what looked like the Sunday comics. "This is for you, to say thanks. But it's delicate, so be careful."

I took the package, feeling a lump form in my throat. It was funny how the simplest kind gesture could elicit the tears that all the assault and threat of painful, ugly death didn't. "Oh, Bear, that's so sweet. But you didn't have to do that," I said.

"I know, but I wanted to. Open it, open it!" he said, clapping his hands like a kid at Christmas.

So I opened the wrapping carefully and stared down at a truly gorgeous piece of pink Depression glass. I lifted it out of its paper nest and caught my breath. "It's beautiful, Bear. And in perfect condition."

"It's a syrup dispenser," he said, beaming. "Pretty rare to find them in such perfect shape."

As much as I lusted after the piece to go with my collection, I regretfully placed it back in the box. "Bear, I can't accept this. It must have cost you a fortune. You—" I stopped, suddenly worried. "You paid for this, right?"

He rolled his eyes. "Miss December, I told you no more taking things without paying. I spent my savings out of my sock that I keep under my bed. You're worth it. You kept me out of jail!"

I cringed, thinking back to my hideous performance that day. "Bear, you stayed out of jail because they decided not to press charges, not because of me. Really, I can't take this from you. It's the sweetest thing anybody has done for me in a long time, but you should spend your savings on yourself."

He frowned. "I wanted to spend it on you. Don't you like it? I know you collect it, and you don't have that piece."

"It's amazing, and I love it. Please – wait a minute. How did you know I collect Depression glass?" An icy chill raced down my body, and goosebumps popped up on my arms. A neat trick, since it was about ninety degrees outside.

"Even more, how do you know what pieces I do and don't have?"

He avoided my gaze and stomped back around the front of his truck and got in, slamming the door. "Fine. Give it away. Throw it in the trash. I don't care."

"Bear, stop! I?—"

But he slammed the truck into gear, reversed, and squealed out of the parking lot, leaving me standing there with my arms full of valuable Depression glass and my mind full of very unanswerable questions.