Chapter Twenty-Seven
Scarlett
My phone rings, and I glance down to see who would interrupt me on book 2 of my dragon romance series. It’s incredibly rude of whoever is calling. I have today off as well because two of our judges are on vacation. Believe it or not, people who work for the law take breaks too. And usually when they take breaks, I get breaks.
Glancing at my phone, I see that it’s Claire. That’s strange. Maybe she’s sick and needs me to cover for her.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Scarlett. It’s Claire.” Her voice is quiet.
How odd. I was expecting something snarky.
“What is it, Claire?”
Her voice cracks. “I’m about to be fired.”
The next few things she says come out in a warble. But once I recover from the shock that Claire has emotions, I try to pay attention to what she’s saying.
“One of the lawyers is claiming a mistrial because he didn’t receive the court report. He says he never got the paperwork.”
“Wait, they think you refused to give him the transcript? Or they think you took the paperwork? Don’t they know there are copies everywhere? Or do they think you gave the paperwork to someone you shouldn’t have?”
“I’m not even sure,” she says softly. “The attorney is trying to push for a mistrial, saying he didn’t receive the transcripts when he asked for them.”
I can’t believe that I actually feel bad for Claire Beckett. She’s been nothing but a menace to me—correcting my grammatical errors, moving my commas to places I don’t want them, and even talking about my clothes and my lack of a dating life. She is not someone I would consider a friend. But she is my coworker, and I know she wouldn’t do anything crooked. Her faults aside, it’s kind of killing me to hear her so broken up about this.
“I’ll be right there. I’ll bike over and see what I can do. It’s probably just a misunderstanding. Who is the lawyer pushing for the mistrial?”
“I’ll probably already be sacked by then,” she whispers into the phone. “This has something to do with the Higgins paperwork.”
Well, that definitely changes things. Now I know exactly what it’s about, and I know it isn’t Claire’s fault at all.
“Try to buy yourself a little bit of time. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I grab my bike helmet and my purse and run to the stairs leading to The Serendipity’s hallway. I rush upstairs and down the hall, seeing that Gloria is just now coming in through the front door.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” she asks me, hoisting her canvas tote higher on her shoulder.
“I have a friend who needs help.” I put on my bike helmet.
“You seem to be in a hurry. Do they need help quickly?”
I nod. She rummages around in her pocket and pulls out a set of keys, passing them to me. “Why don’t you just take my car, sweetie? You’ll get there faster than on your bike.” Then she walks past me toward the elevator like it’s no big deal.
I stare at the keys in my hand and then out at the car she’s parked in the no-parking zone. That’s probably the real reason she wanted to give me the keys, but I don’t want to drive. Then again, there is an injustice being perpetrated somewhere, and I can’t stand that either. So I hurry out the door and down the front steps of The Serendipity.
I climb into Gloria’s car and start it up. It’s a very basic model with the standard things most cars should have—a steering wheel, a gearshift, and two pedals.
It’s fine. I will be fine, I tell myself.
The emergency brake is on the left, and the radio is on the right. It’s not raining, so hopefully, I won’t have to find the windshield wipers, and there are no headlights necessary in the daytime.
I glance around, checking all the mirrors and windows. If it had a skylight, I probably would check that too. You never know when another automobile might be falling from the sky.
I grip the steering wheel like my life depends on it—because it does—and slowly pull out into the road. It feels weird to be behind the wheel of a car again. I’ve tried a few times over the years, and it has not ended well. So far, so good. Nothing bad has happened in the first five seconds. Now, I just have to get through the next five minutes. My bike ride to work usually takes me about twenty minutes, but in a car, taking the main road, I can get there much faster, especially if I park in the small lot directly in front of the courthouse. I’ll pretend I’m a visitor today.
My hands are shaky and my neck hurts from how I’m jerking my head back and forth, watching out for other cars. I don’t know how people calmly drive. It’s ridiculous. Don’t they know the statistics of how many car wrecks occur in a year? How many of them are fatal? It’s perfectly reasonable for me to be checking my rearview mirror every half-second.
I make it to the courthouse without blowing up in a blaze of glory. My heart’s pounding and I’m sweating, but I feel immensely proud of myself.
I pull into the small parking lot, which luckily has two open spaces. I park the car, accidentally taking up both spots, but I don’t think I could do better even if I tried another fifty times. It’s been a long time since I’ve driven anything. I turn off the car, engage the parking brake, climb out, and lock it with the key fob. I stare at Gloria’s blueberry of a car, so happy we made it. Gloria doesn’t know what a horrible driver she entrusted with her car, but I’ll make sure to pay her back with some cookies for letting me use it.
I hurry up the front steps of the courthouse and take the stairs up to the floor where all the courtrooms are located, as well as my office.
I see Claire standing in the hallway with Judge Mosher and Higgins, the lawyer who’s accusing her of causing the mistrial. I read the highlights of the case. The only way his candidate is going to walk is if he walks on a technicality. There’s too much evidence of his guilt. The only hope of getting him off is finding an error in the court system. I’ve heard rumors about Higgins—that he’s willing to stoop to petty things like this.
“I requested those papers, and you did not give them to me.”
I walk up behind Claire and stand between her and Judge Mosher. I watch as the lawyer’s eyes go wide. Oh, yeah, he knows. There’s a reason he brought this issue up on a day when I wasn’t working.
Judge Mosher looks at me and shakes his head. “I’m sorry, this probably doesn’t concern you, Scarlett. You’re supposed to have the day off. ”
“Oh, but it does, Judge,” I say. I look back at the liar and frown. I don’t do confrontations unless necessary. But this time? I might enjoy it. I don’t like it when people lie about other people, even when the person being lied about is Claire.
“Lawyer Higgins came into the office and requested those papers on Wednesday of last week. Claire was already at lunch, which I thought was strange since he hadn’t come in to get them in the morning or the afternoon when she was in. I saw him around the courthouse multiple times that day. Instead, he came to get the paperwork when she was at lunch, and he tried to grab it from her desk. I had to make him his own copy. I have confirmation that he took the paper copy and that I also emailed him the PDF.”
Judge Mosher looks between the three of us in confusion. “Wait, so he already has a copy?”
“Oh, yeah. Why don’t you check the security cameras? It was only last week. They should still have the footage, right?” I ask with a smile.
The lawyer pipes up, “You gave me the wrong paperwork. It was not the report from the right courtroom. I am requesting a mistrial because of this woman’s error.” He points at Claire. “She didn’t send them.”
I look at Claire who looks like she’s been through the wringer, but there’s a glint in her eye that makes me think she might be out for blood soon. “You sent him the file?”
“Yes, of course I did. Remember? You were staring at your empty coffee mug. I don’t know why, but that’s how I remember when I sent it to the email address he provided.”
“Well, that’s very interesting because when he came in, he told me that you hadn’t sent it yet and wrote down a different address on a piece of paper for me. Why don’t we just compare those two and see if he accidentally gave you the wrong email address on your form?”
Claire looks at me wide-eyed, a little surprise on her face. The judge and the lawyer follow us into the office, where we both pull up our computers and display the messages in which we sent the correct documents. We flip our screens around to show the judge that they are indeed two different email addresses. It does not look good for the lawyer because it means that either it was his mistake, or he was intentionally deceiving us. He wanted to have an excuse to call a mistrial, and he didn’t care that he might cost someone their job for it.
The judge does not look happy. “Well, then, did you give one of them the correct one and the other the wrong one? Either way, you have the court documents, and you do not need to be wasting our time.”
The judge turns around and apologizes to Claire. “I’m sorry this was even an issue. In the future, if you could both send copies to me, it would make it clear who the real problem is—because it’s obviously not you.”
He walks out of the office, berating the lawyer, and Higgins hurries after him, trying to explain himself.
“Was this over the fire insurance fraud?” I ask.
She nods slowly. Then she looks at me. “I don’t really know what to say other than thank you. I did not expect you to be the person who would save my job, but I really am grateful you did.”
I break into a big smile. “I didn’t know you were capable of saying nice things.”
She smirks. “Are your legs burning from biking that fast? How did you get here so quickly from The Serendipity?”
“I actually drove instead—my neighbor let me borrow her car. I knew it would be a lot faster.”
She looks at me in surprise. “Was that legal?”
“Driving the car?”
She shakes her head. “I guess I just always assumed you had a DUI and lost your license.”
“Valid assumption,” I say. “I just don’t like to drive. ”
Claire blessedly leaves it alone and doesn’t nag to find out why. “Whatever your reasons, thank you for doing that today. I might even owe you one.”
“Might?” I call back to her as I walk out of the office. “You mean you definitely do.”
I walk down the stairs to the bottom floor, where I exit the courthouse.
I stand in front of a car, staring at the parking ticket now stuck to the windshield for taking up two parking spaces. I can’t laugh.
I open my phone and make a call.
“Is everything okay?” Wade asks as he answers the phone.
“Yes,” I say. “You won’t believe this, but I got a parking ticket.”
“You got a parking ticket? With your bike?” he asks with a laugh.
“No, I got a parking ticket on a car.”
“I am really confused right now. But however it happened, I’m proud of you.”
“Do you have time to have dinner tonight? I’ll make you something delicious at home,” I say shyly. It’s weird to think that we can just make dinner plans together now.
Wade chuckles. “Is it Captain Crunch?”
“No, I just got a new box of Froot Loops.”
“How about I make dinner at my house, and you tell me everything?” Wade suggests.
“It’s a deal. But first, I have to return the car. I don’t want to drive one for a long time now.”