I did my zombie walk to the kitchen and had grabbed the coffee cannister and a filter before it registered in my sleep-addled mind that a full pot of coffee already awaited me. Have I mentioned how much I love Brian?
The coffee sucked as badly as ever, but I still smiled as I drank it, thinking of Brian thoughtfully setting the pot to brew before he headed home to get ready for work. I wandered out of the kitchen and saw that he had left me a note on the dining room table.
My happy little glow dimmed a bit when I saw that he’d made me an appointment with one of the lawyers he’d recommended. I know I’d been procrastinating about it, but I truly had been planning to make the call today. I guess Brian hadn’t believed me. My contrary nature immediately urged me not to show up for the appointment, but good sense prevailed over irritation.
My appointment wasn’t until two, so I spent the remaining hours of the morning cleaning up fingerprint dust and trying not to speculate too much about the package and its origins.
After a lunch of PB&J with a bad coffee chaser, I headed out to meet with my new lawyer.
As a general rule, I have a pretty low opinion of lawyers, Brian being a big exception. So I was prepared to despise Brandon Cook, Esq., long before I set foot in the offices of Beacham, Carrey, and Cook. And when I stepped into the ritzy, stuffy-looking lobby with its mahogany furniture and cigar-club decor, I mentally docked him another point. You may have noticed I’m not much for pomp and circumstance, and there was a hell of a lot of pomp on display. I was tempted to do an about-face and march right back out, but I resisted the impulse. I needed a lawyer, and this guy was someone Brian respected. The least I could do was give him a test drive.
Being me, I hadn’t dressed up for the occasion. The receptionist tried to be subtle as she took inventory of my outfit—low-rise jeans, my uniform of choice, along with a sleeveless cropped sweater that left my navel and the tattoo on my back on display. No doubt about it, I was underdressed. Ask me if I cared.
Despite her thinly veiled disapproval of my attire, the receptionist told me Mr. Cook would be right with me and asked me to take a seat in the waiting room.
Cook didn’t keep me waiting long, which was a good thing, or I might have bolted. I was relieved to see he wasn’t quite as stodgy as I expected. Yes, like everyone else in my field of vision, he was wearing a suit, but his tie was a cheery red with white polka dots instead of the ultraconservative brown, blue, and gray that everyone else wore. Then again, Cook was a partner, so he could get away with a little eccentricity.
He smiled when he saw me, holding out his hand for me to shake and greeting me without once seeming to notice my outfit. I’d guess his age at around forty-five, though he wore his years well. His salt and pepper hair was neatly cropped, and his gray-blue eyes looked disproportionately large behind his thick glasses.
“Come on back to my office,” he said, gesturing me to follow him as he headed down a long hallway to an impressive corner office.
“Nice view,” I said when I stepped inside, though I was thinking something more along the lines of “So this is the kind of office you get when you charge more than three hundred dollars for an hour of your time.”
The twinkle in his eye suggested he’d read my thought, but he refrained from commenting. I sat in one of the twin mahogany chairs that faced his desk and clasped my hands in my lap, not knowing where to begin.
“Brian has given me the basics about your case,” Cook said, “but I’d like to hear it all in your own words.”
I frowned. “So you and Brian know each other personally? I thought he was just making a recommendation based on your reputation.”
Cook shrugged. “I can’t say we know each other well, but you’re hardly the first client he’s sent my way.”
The fact that Brian knew him personally made me feel a little better, though I don’t know why. “Before I start telling you about my case, can we talk money? As in, I haven’t got any, but according to Brian I desperately need an attorney anyway.”
It was Cook’s turn to look surprised. “Brian instructed me to send the bills to him. I suppose he neglected to mention the fact to you?”
I wasn’t sure whether to feel amused, annoyed, or absurdly grateful. I settled for a mix of all three and spent the next hour explaining my situation and answering a dizzying array of questions. At least, I tried to answer them. Sometimes, all I could say was “I don’t know,” though I felt like I was failing some kind of test every time I did.
Most of the questions I couldn’t answer had something to do with statistical averages on exorcisms— the same kinds of questions Brian had asked when he’d browbeaten me into admitting I needed a lawyer. By the end of the hour, I was exhausted and well past the point of being ready to leave.
“I took the liberty of researching some of the questions I asked you before I met with you today,” Cook said just when I was starting to hope he was planning to let me go.
“Huh?”
“Brian told me he’d asked about exorcism statistics, so I went ahead and looked them up.”
I glared at him. “If you looked them up, then why did you bother asking me?”
“I was curious to see whether you’d looked them up after Brian asked you, but apparently not.”
Any suggestion of warm, fuzzy feelings I’d started to get over this guy vanished, and I seriously considered doing a Donald Trump “You’re fired!” Luckily, my temper isn’t quite that bad. And I did get the “You’re not taking this seriously enough” message.
“On average, twenty-one percent of exorcisms result positively with the host in full possession of his or her faculties,” Cook said. “Fifty-eight percent result in permanent catatonia, twenty percent result in temporary catatonia, and one percent in brain-death.”
From the tone of his voice and the expression on his face, I knew my statistics weren’t going to compare favorably. I gritted my teeth.
“And my averages?” I asked, even though I didn’t want to.
Cook glanced down at a piece of paper. “According to the U.S. Exorcism Board, they are seventeen, sixty, twenty-one, and two.” He glanced back up at me. “I haven’t had a chance to have a statistician look at the numbers yet to tell me whether the variation is statistically significant, but even if it isn’t, it’s not going to sound very good in court.”
A depressing thought, to be sure, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it now. Maybe I should start leaning on Dom to open his own restaurant so I could get a job waiting tables for him when I lost everything.
“It’s not a cause for despair,” Cook assured me. “It just means that there could be hard times to come. I’ll contact Mr. Maguire’s attorney and see if there’s any hope of convincing them to drop the suit. Considering your financial situation, Mr. Maguire will no doubt spend far more money pursuing the case than he can ever hope to recoup by winning it.”
“Good luck with that,” I murmured. I’d have liked to believe there was an easy way out, but I thought it was about as likely as me winning the lottery without buying a ticket.
Cook was escorting me down the hall toward the front door when something struck me, and I came to a halt with a frown.
“You work fast,” I said as a suspicion took form in my head. “You found out all those statistics in the time since Brian made the appointment?”
Cook looked surprised. “Four days was more than enough time. I certainly don’t consider that to be working particularly fast.”
I bit down on my tongue to stop myself from saying something I would regret. I’d save that for when I next saw Brian. I’d been somewhat annoyed to discover he’d made the appointment for me this morning. Finding out he’d made it four days ago and only got around to telling me about it this morning did not sit well at all.