While Justice Sleeps(12)
And she’d missed it. Shit. Throat closing over the return of the McMuffin, she sank into a conference chair that leaned drunkenly when she collapsed into its embrace. Trying to breathe, Avery contemplated the relative merits of matricide and suicide.
When Matt propped a bony hip on the polished surface at her hand, the scales tipped toward clerkicide.
“What do you want?” she mumbled, trying vainly to keep her voice from wavering.
“Did you see our boss’s performance yesterday? Wow.”
“He didn’t say anything he hasn’t expressed before,” Avery retorted. “They should lay off him.”
Matt smirked. In a tone designed to reach the rafters, he responded, “And you might want to lay off yourself. Too much fun this weekend? We’re not in law school anymore, babe. Save the binges for the recess, ’kay?”
Fun? That’s not how she would describe hours spent creeping along Sixteenth Street and into neighborhoods usually featured on Cops. Hours when she’d discarded her future. Hot tears burned against her lowered lids, stunning her with their appearance.
She didn’t cry. Ever.
Certainly not over an eternity spent looking for a woman who didn’t really want to be found and could have been in Dupont Circle or down in Shaw for all she knew. She’d spent the early morning pub-crawling and visiting heroin dens in search of the last person she wanted to see, while she had missed the one she’d wanted to speak with desperately.
Now Avery faced a long week of writing legal opinions for a man who seemed to consider her only a step up from the merry monkeys that could type Shakespeare. In cooperation with a raving asshole like Matt Brewer who made her life miserable. One of these indignities she could take—but not all of them.
She reached into her oversized bag for the Advil she was sure lay at the very bottom. Finding the bottle, she dry-swallowed one and then another.
Matt watched her and taunted, “Hungover? Hope Justice Wynn doesn’t find out.” They both knew he planned to tell him.
“Bite me.” Avery would have said more, but her head refused to sit still long enough to feed her the pithy insults she kept on hand for Matt “I Kiss All Ass” Brewer of the Boston Brewers. But the old standby was good in a pinch.
“You’re slipping, Keene. Need some hair of the dog? Or does that explain your appearance?”
“Screw you.”
Stroking a long, soft finger along her wan cheek, Matt replied, “I’ve offered. Happy to take a spin. After you shower.”
The slick rise of OTC pain meds and eerily round fast-food egg sandwich warned Avery to turn her head. She didn’t. Instead, she bent at the waist, opened wide, and let revenge run free.
“Goddamn it, Avery!” Matt leaped up and barely resisted the urge to kick her face with his ruined shoe. “These are John Lobbs. Three thousand a pair, for Christ’s sake! What the hell?”
Wiping vainly at her mouth, she mumbled, “Sorry…rough morning.”
“It’ll get rougher when you get my bill.” He spun toward the door and stormed awkwardly away.
Avery turned away to find something to mop up the mess. Grabbing a handful of Kleenex, she also retrieved her water bottle. She took a hasty swallow, then crouched down to clean as the justice’s phone rang. Several rings later, she noticed that neither of his secretaries had answered. With a curse, Avery snatched the receiver up. “Justice Wynn’s chambers. Avery Keene speaking.”
“Chief Justice Roseborough wants you in her chambers. Now.” Mary spoke quickly, her voice oddly muffled.
A second chance? Stunned by her good fortune, Avery quickly agreed. “I’ll be right there. Thanks, Ms. Gonzalez.”
In response, Avery heard a soft hiccup before the line disconnected. She stumbled to her feet and quickly swished more water, wishing she had time to make herself more presentable. As she tried to gauge how long she could delay, a new thought occurred.
Opportunity didn’t knock twice. How likely was it that her accidental meeting would be replaced by a real one for good reasons? Slim to none. The disquieting alternative occurred as she circled the table. She froze.
Rita.
Panic abruptly dislodged nausea. Somehow, Rita had managed to find her stoned way to the Great Hall and was downstairs, demanding to see her supplier. Or she’d been arrested and told the DC cops that her daughter worked for the Supreme Court. In Washington, that would either be laughed off or readily believed, depending on what Rita was wearing in lockup and who was taking her statement.
For the first decade of Avery’s life, Rita’s femme fatale skills, accented by wild red hair and emerald-green eyes, had kept her daughter in diapers and jeans and school. The following decade hadn’t proven as successful, which often left Avery to her own devices, a state Avery preferred. Left alone, she could occasionally provide for trips to rehab and nights at hourly motels when Rita crashed. The model worked—as long as Rita remembered the rules.
Avery took a slow, measured breath. She’d been at the Court for two terms now. She did good work. Too good for the sudden appearance of her strung-out mother to derail everything. Right?
With careful steps, she left the conference room and wound her way through the anteroom. Down the hallways and through the warren of spaces that lay between the associate offices and the sanctuary of the chief justice.