Legally Addicted - By Lena Dowling Page 0,12

Being right wasn’t much comfort when she had just cost Brad his client.

She glanced at Brad, wondering how he was coping with being fired by Douglas, but his face gave no clue as to what he was thinking.

Ruby kept talking, ‘I can see why they made you a partner, now, dear. She’s a clever little thing, isn’t she, Bradley?’

Chapter Four

That evening, Georgia took a taxi to the women’s shelter for her fortnightly rostered evening of volunteer work. She had been pleased to have a reason to escape the office at five, rather than working a couple of hours of overtime, as was her usual habit.

On her way out, she had walked past Brad’s office. She wondered if she should go in to offer words of commiseration, or whether it was too soon and Brad would misconstrue her comments as taking an opportunity to gloat about losing his client.

She was grateful to find that Brad had already left for the day, saving her the discomfort of having to decide.

The taxi turned into Dockton’s main street, and after the driver pointedly noted that Dockton was not a suburb he was familiar with, Georgia was forced to give him directions to the shelter a couple of blocks away.

There was a time when Georgia had walked the streets of Dockton after dark alone; not because she felt comfortable, but out of necessity. Now she had the luxury of alighting from the taxi right outside the building, and returning the same way, avoiding any contact with the streets that had once been her home. After paying the fare, she got out, closed the back door of the taxi, and stepped up on to the kerb.

For a moment she thought she heard a male voice call her name, but she dismissed it. She didn’t know anyone around here anymore. This part of Dockton had a highly transient population. It was years since she had lived in the area. Then she heard it again. She froze. This time the voice resonated; in a familiar, yet distant, way that sent the hairs on her neck standing on end.

A voice from her past.

‘Georgie — Maggie Murray’s little Georgie — I thought it was you.’

‘Jake.’

She shivered, gingerly sidling around him on the footpath, so that the last in the long line of her mother’s boyfriends no longer obstructed her way into the safety of the women’s shelter. But Jake followed her. He was far too close, all up in her face, her nostrils attacked by his rancid breath.

‘I heard you’re some hot-shot lawyer now, Georgie.’

‘I’m a lawyer — family work mainly — don’t know about the hot-shot part.’

She barely recognised him. Jake was only ten years older than she was, but he may as well have been in his fifties. Missing teeth and a face ravaged by drug use had prematurely aged him. His eyes darted around her, as if he were following a moving object, and his face twitched every few seconds.

‘We were a family once, Georgie. You, me, and your mother. You were like a daughter to me.’

Georgia bit down on her tongue. Literally holding it, gently but firmly, clasped between her front teeth. Jake was a disgusting creep, but he was showing the first signs of agitation due to withdrawal. She knew better than to say anything that might set him off.

Daughter, that was a joke.

He wasn’t so much a father figure as a lecherous pseudo-uncle. When her mother had found Jake, then a vaguely handsome twenty-something, roaming homeless in Dockton, she had teamed up with him to score and shoot up. By then Georgia was a teenager and had started to fill out. Jake was always perving at her.

Jake had soon moved in to their crappy dive of a house, but the abandoned terrace that was her mother’s squat had been her saviour. Built at a time when internal doors routinely had locks, somehow the key to her room had survived almost a century. Her room was a haven away from Jake. Many times she had silently thanked the unknown nineteenth century craftsman who had ensured her safety and probably her virginity until she could leave home. The thought sent nausea rising up in her throat and she fought the urge to wrinkle her face as if she had inhaled something putrid.

‘I have to go in, Jake. They’re waiting for me,’ she said, finally releasing her tongue, hoping the reference to others would send the message that she was expected by people close by. Nevertheless, she