My Babies and Me

“Tell her I said hi.” Seth ordered another beer. He’d had more than two. But he wasn’t ready to stop yet.

“You could always come tell her yourself,” Brady offered. “Those cookies’ll be mighty good.”

“Some other time,” Seth said, shaking his head. He’d been shying away from family situations these past few months. They just seemed to make him cantankerous.

“Sure,” Brady called over his shoulder as he made for the door. “I hear ya.”

Brady sounded kind of offended. Seth was sorry about that. And he had a feeling he was going to remember every damn word of their conversation in the morning. He was sorry about that, too.

“JILL, GET ME Joe Burniker on the line.”

Though she suspected her assistant was trying to escape, at least for lunch, Susan continued to push. Both of them. She’d been doing little else in the week since she’d seen Michael.

She jotted notes while she waited for her phone to buzz back, Jill’s mission accomplished, and picked up on the first ring when it did.

“Joe? Susan Kennedy.”

“Susan, how the hell are you?”

She said something noncommittal, then asked about his wife. She told him she was sorry when he explained that they’d split about six months ago. They commiserated only long enough for her to figure out that Joe, every bit the playboy he’d always been, was really quite relieved by his personal situation. And then she got down to business.

“I need a favor, Joe.” She picked up the McArthur file. The boy was from Tennessee. And so, coincidentally, was Joe.

“I certainly owe you one after saving my butt in the Crone case last year.”

She’d given him a little piece of research she’d unearthed in a similar case the year before. It had been no big deal. But she was calling in the favor, anyway.

“I have a case I need you to take, no guarantee you’ll ever get paid.”

“I’m sure there’s a good reason you aren’t doing it yourself.”

“I am.”

“And you need my help?”

“I’ll be opposing you.”

Joe laughed. “I don’t know whether to be insulted or flattered.”

“Why’s that?” Susan sat back, starting to relax. Joe always made her feel better.

“Either you’re asking because you want to ensure a win and think I’m a guaranteed loss, or because you’re bored, want a good challenge, and I’m it.”

Laughing, she tossed the McArthur file back on her desk. “Wrong on both counts. Actually—” sobering, Susan leaned forward. “I’m pretty sure I can win, just not sure I want to.”

“Curiouser and curiouser.”

“I need to know that if I do win, I should have, Joe. And in order to do that, I need the best attorney I can find to fight the other side.”

Which all sounded great, except that Joe didn’t have a hope in hell unless he unearthed the one vital piece of information that Susan ethically, as Halliday’s attorney, couldn’t give him. She was gambling on the fact that Joe was no less thorough than he’d been in college.

“What are we fighting for?” he asked, suddenly as serious as she.

“A boy’s life.”

“How IS SHE?”

“You know you could always call her yourself and find out.”