took all five months, she would walk away feeling whole and new again.
Finally free of the first and only man she ever loved.
Six
The traffic on the way to the deposition in Pasadena the next morning wasn’t too bad, so she couldn’t blame her anger on that.
But she could easily blame it on how well-rested Joe looked, how nicely he smiled at his client, that familiar laugh of his she heard just as she opened the door to the hotel conference room.
Joe looked up, met her eye, then went back to talking to the young woman sitting next to him. She must have been in her early twenties, Sarah guessed, and whatever damage had been done to her hair had been long enough ago that it looked thick and lustrous now, covering her shoulders like a brown faux-fur throw, and Sarah had the brief thought that she would happily set it on fire again herself for the way the young woman was staring at Joe.
Hero worship. Sarah had seen it before. Not from anyone she had represented, but usually from women gazing with that same sort of stupid look, a stupid grin to go with it, at some smooth-talking lawyer who said all the right things and seemed to know all the answers.
Sarah wasn’t having any of that.
“How’s it going today, Number Eight?” she asked Burke.
He took his time shifting his eyes from the young woman to Sarah. “Just fine, Seven.” Then he went back to smiling at whatever his client was saying.
Sarah grunted in disgust.
“What’s seven and eight?” Paul Chapman wanted to know.
“I.Q.” Sarah answered. Then she went back to unpacking her laptop and files.
“You two know each other?” Chapman asked. “Before this?”
“No,” they both answered.
Chapman looked from Sarah to Joe. Then he smiled like the last kid to be let in on a joke. “I don’t get it.”
“I used to play professional ball,” Joe said. “Sarah obviously looked me up. Eight—it was my jersey.”
“What kind of ball?” Chapman asked.
Joe looked to Sarah for that one.
“Volley,” she said without missing a beat. “Shall we get to it, gentleman? And ladies,” she added, nodding to the court reporter and Joe’s attractive, worshipful client.
“Did you really play volleyball?” the young woman asked. “Me, too!”
“No kidding,” Sarah muttered.
She couldn’t help seeing the amusement on Joe’s face. She planned to wipe that off before the morning was over.
***
“Where were you born, Miss Lee?”
“Objection, relevance,” Sarah said.
Chapman turned to her. “Excuse me?”
“Just making my record.”
She waited until his next inane question—“What were your parents’ occupations?”—and objected again.
“Are you going to do that the whole deposition?” Chapman asked her.
“Yes, I am.”
“Off the record,” Chapman said to the court reporter, who promptly lifted her hands from the keyboard.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“You spent two hours on irrelevant questions yesterday,” Sarah answered, “and so I’m making my record. If the time comes when I need to bring this before a judge, I want to make sure I’ve preserved all my objections.”
“You can’t keep doing that,” Chapman said.
“Of course I can,” Sarah answered, motioning for him to continue.
Chapman scowled, then told the court reporter they were back on.
“Where did you go to high school, Miss Lee?”
“Objection.”
And so the next few hours unfolded.
After a break, it was Sarah’s turn. Rather than ask her few simple questions from the day before, she decided to expand her line of inquiry.
“Miss Lee, hi. I’m Sarah Henley, defending Mason Manufacturing, the subcontractor.” She said it all quickly, just to tax the young woman’s brain. “You’ve made a claim for emotional distress—are you aware of that?”
Joe’s client looked at him uncertainly.
“I can show you the complaint,” Sarah offered, already handing the file across the table.
Joe flipped through the pleading and pointed to where there was a separate claim for emotional distress.
“Yes,” Miss Lee said.
“Yes, what?” Sarah asked.
“Yes, I am aware I asked for that,” the young woman answered, scowling at Sarah.
Joe leaned over and whispered something to his client.
“The record will reflect that Mr. Burke is whispering to his client,” Sarah said.
Joe cast her a look of disapproval, but didn’t say anything.
“Now, Miss Lee,” Sarah continued, “can you please describe for me all of the elements of your emotional distress claim?”
“All the . . . elements?” she asked.
“Yes,” Sarah said.
Again the young woman looked to Joe. He said, “Off the record.” Then, “Sarah, where are you going with this?”
“Investigating the claim,” she said.
“Lawyers write the pleadings, their clients don’t,” he said.
“Are you saying you didn’t discuss the lawsuit with your client before filing it