Sustained (The Legal Briefs 2)

“Hi!”

I turn to my right, where a toddler—this one definitely a girl, with golden wispy hair and a stained pink T-shirt—sits on the floor, surrounded by books and blocks.

“Hi,” I answer, straight-faced.

She gets louder. “Hi!”

I nod back. “Hey.”

Her face scrunches, her voice drops lower, and she leans forward like she’s about to tell me something serious. But all that comes out is, “Hiiii.”

“Is there something wrong with her?” I ask.

“No,” Chelsea answers, sounding slightly affronted. “There’s nothing wrong with Regan. She’s two.”

And Regan is back to smiling at me. “Hi.”

“Doesn’t she know any other words?”

“No. She’s only two.”

“Hi, hi, hi, hi!”

I give up and walk away.

“So, how can I reach Rory’s parents? It’s important that I talk to them.”

Her face goes tight. Pained. “You can’t. They . . . my brother and his wife were in a car accident almost two months ago. They passed away.”

And all the pieces fall into place. The comments Rory made, his unsubtle anger at the entire world. But it’s the name that stands out most—the name and the accident. I point at her gently. “Robert McQuaid was your brother? The environmental lobbyist?”

She smiles, small and sad, and nods her head. “Did you know Robbie? DC’s such a busy city, but I’ve gotten the impression it’s like a small town too. Everybody knows everybody.”

When it comes to political circles, and legal ones, it’s exactly like that.

“No, I didn’t know him. But . . . I heard good things. That he was honest, sincere. That’s a rare thing around here.”

And suddenly she seems younger somehow. Smaller and more . . . delicate. Is she on her own in this huge house with the kids? Just her, Rory, One Word, and Baby Boy?

Chelsea looks up from her hands. “I’m Rory’s guardian, so whatever you were going to say to my brother and his wife, you can say to me.”

I nod, refocusing. “Right. I drove Rory home because—”

But I don’t get the chance to finish the sentence. Because the rumble of feet, like a stampede of rhinos, booms over our heads, cutting me off. Chelsea and I eye the ceiling—like it’s about to fall down on us—as the sound travels, getting closer.

And there’s screaming. The atom-splitting, banshees-from-hell kind of screaming.

“I’m gonna kill you!”

“I didn’t do it!”

“Get back here!”

“It wasn’t me!”

Even the two-year-old looks concerned.

The racket reverberates down the second staircase and spills out into the kitchen, and the two screeching, running kids who are making it do laps around the island like a fucked-up Hunger Games version of ring-around-the-rosy.

“I told you to stay out of my room!” one of them, a tall girl, yells. She’s a curly-brown-haired predator, ready to pounce.

“I didn’t do it!” the shorter one squeals, arms outstretched, searching for cover.

Jesus Christ, what kind of madhouse is this?

Chelsea steps between them, grabbing them both by their arms and keeping them separated. “That’s enough!”

And now they’re yelling at her, pleading their cases at the same time, each trying to be louder than the other. I can’t make out what they’re saying; it just sounds like: hiss, blah, she, hiss, squeak. But the aunt appears to speak the native tongue.

“I said enough!” She holds up her hands, bringing instant blessed silence.

It’s impressive. There are sitting federal judges who can’t rally that much respect in their own courtrooms.

“One at a time.” She turns to the taller girl. “Riley, you first.”

Riley’s finger slashes the air like a saber. “She went in my room when I’ve told her a thousand times not to! And she went through my makeup and ruined my favorite lipstick!”

Chelsea’s head turns to the smaller one, who, now that she’s not a screaming lunatic, reminds me of a blond Shirley Temple.

“Rosaleen, go.”

One Word and I watch eagerly, waiting for the rebuttal . . . but all she comes out with is:

“I didn’t do it.”

Which, in my professional opinion, wouldn’t be a bad defense . . . if her mouth and chin weren’t completely covered with thick, blazing pink, like she’s Ronald McDonald’s illegitimate daughter.

“You are such a—” Riley starts to yell.

But Chelsea’s raised hand stops her cold. “Tut, tut—shush.”

She scoops the little one—Rosaleen—up under her arms and perches her on the counter. “And I’d almost believe you,” Chelsea tells her, plucking two baby wipes from a tub next to the sink, wiping the girl’s chin, and showing her the pink-stained cloth, “except for the evidence all over your face.”

Great minds think alike.

The little girl stares at the cloth with quarter-sized blue eyes. Then, like any defendant who knows she’s nailed, she does the only thing she can—throws herself on the mercy of the court.

“I’m sorry, Riley.”

Riley is unmoved. “That won’t give me my lipstick back, you little brat!”

“I couldn’t help myself!” she pleads.

And I unconsciously nod. That’s it, kid—go with insanity. It’s all you’ve got left.

“The lipstick was in there, calling to me . . .”

Voices. Voices are good. Always an easy sell.

Her hands delve into her blond curls, ruffling and tugging at them, until they’re wild and crazed. “It made me nuts! It’s so pink and pretty, I had to touch it!”

Chelsea closes her eyes and breathes deep, making those fabulous tits press against her blouse even more. I enjoy the show, praying for a button to pop or for the sink to spontaneously spurt water all over that white shirt.

A guy can dream.

“Riley, what are your chores this week?”

“I have to set the table for dinner.”

Her voice is kind but firm. “Okay. Rosaleen, you’ll do your sister’s chores for the rest of the week. And when you get your allowance on Sunday, you’ll use it to replace the lipstick you ruined. Understood?”

“Okay. Sorry, Riley.”

Chelsea runs a tender hand through Rosaleen’s messy curls. “Now, go upstairs and wash your face, then come set the table.”

With a nod, she hops off the counter and skips past me up the steps.

Her sister vehemently objects. “That’s it? That’s all you’re doing

to her?”

Chelsea sighs, a little annoyed. “She’s seven, Riley. What do you want me to do—beat her with a stick?”

“It’s not fair!” she bellows. So much fucking louder than necessary.

“Sometimes life isn’t. The sooner you understand that, the better off you’ll be.”

Riley smacks the counter. “I hate this family!”

In a whirl of brown hair and fury, she stomps up the stairs, glaring at me along the way. Like I ruined her fucking lipstick.

“Sweet girl,” I tell Chelsea dryly.

“She’s fourteen. It’s a tough age.” She looks wistfully up the steps. “She’ll be human again . . . eventually.”

5

Sorry about that,” Chelsea says, grabbing a block that was kicked across the floor during the skirmish and handing it to the toddler. Next she walks back to the stove, dumping a heap of chopped greens from a colander into the boiling pot. Her movements are effortlessly graceful, and I wonder if she’s a dancer. “You started to tell me about Rory?”

“Right. He—”

But of course I don’t get to tell her. That would be too easy.

Instead I’m cut off by the appearance of a young boy walking through the kitchen door—a boy with Rory’s face. He’s slightly thinner, a little taller, with round, wire-rimmed Harry Potter glasses perched on his nose.

I can’t keep the horror out of my tone. “There’s two of him?”

Chelsea grins. “If that’s your way of asking if Rory has a twin, then the answer is yes.”

“I see you’ve met my brother,” the boy says, apparently used to this reaction. “Don’t judge me just because we share the same DNA. You’ve heard the term ‘evil genius’?”

“Yeah.”

“Rory’s the evil. I’m the genius.”