any lawyer on the case should have noticed already if they had taken the time to read all the complaints Joe’s firm had filed, or if they’d read the interrogatory answers the plaintiffs had sent back.
But Sarah had seen this kind of waste before. It was easier sometimes—and definitely more lucrative, since it meant more billable hours—to have an attorney take a series of depositions in person, rather than ask questions on paper. If Sarah had been hired to work the case from a desk, she might have gathered all this same information more easily and cheaply than having to fly from city to city and stay in hotels and eat bad food on the road.
But she wasn’t in charge of any of that. And, she reminded herself, she never would have been able to negotiate the salary she was getting if she just sat at a spare desk in the law firm offices and typed up interrogatories and reviewed documents all day.
So she was on a plane to Salt Lake City the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and would see Boise and Pocatello, Idaho before heading home Wednesday night. Then she would have four long days all to herself, to drive home to see her parents and sleep in her childhood bed.
If she could make it that long.
She had been feeling a little tired. More tired than usual. When she saw Angie on Saturday for their now once-weekly workout sessions, Sarah dragged from one exercise to the next. Finally Angie called a halt to the whole thing and told Sarah to stretch.
“You need a break,” Angie said. “Fifteen hours of sleep. A bad-TV marathon. Something.”
Sarah had dutifully kept up with her exercise on the road, running on the hotel treadmills every morning, then doing pushups and lunges and squats in the privacy of her own room.
Now she lay sprawled on the padded mat while Angie stretched her aching limbs.
“I think you’re right,” Sarah told her. “I need to turn off my brain for four days. Just sit in a chair and stare at the wall. Or read all the trashy magazines my mom saves up for me.”
“How’s Joe been?” Angie asked.
Sarah shrugged. “You know.” Then she grimaced as Angie angled her leg into a brutal hip stretch Sarah always both loved and hated.
She had kept saga of Sarah and Joe to herself for a few weeks, but finally she couldn’t resist telling Angie about their history. The trainer approved of Sarah’s overall plan to make the man suffer.
“Glad you’ll get a little break from him next week?” Angie asked as she pushed Sarah’s straightened leg practically over her head.
“Yes,” Sarah grunted. “Definitely. And that other guy—Chapman. I can’t wait to not hear his voice for four long days. What a luxury.”
Before leaving the gym, Sarah pulled a stack of bills out of her wallet.
Angie looked at the amount. “Are you sure? This much?”
“Of course,” Sarah said. “Thank you.”
She had been paying Angie off a little more every week, not only for the current sessions, but for all the ones Angie gave her for free during Sarah’s six months of unemployment.
“I know you’ll find something soon,” Angie always told her, and then finally one day it was true. Sarah never forgot generosity like that. She planned on giving Angie a big bonus at the end of the year, once she paid down some of her other debts. Angie was just a small business owner like Sarah’s parents, and Sarah knew very well the risk Angie had taken in giving her credit for so long with no guarantee of repayment.
If only everyone who dealt with Sarah’s parents felt the same way about compensating them for their work, Sarah thought. But she knew that wasn’t how the world worked. All she could do was her part.
“What time do you leave tomorrow?” Angie asked her as Sarah pulled a sweatshirt over her sweaty T-shirt.
“Around three,” Sarah said. “I want to get settled in Salt Lake and have some dinner so I can go to bed early.”
“Get some sleep tonight, too,” Angie said. “You’ve got circles under your eyes.”
“Yeah, but you should see the other guys,” Sarah joked. It was true, Chapman looked like he had put on weight over the past six or seven weeks, and all of them could probably use more fresh air than they were getting, but Sarah had been disappointed to see how well Burke held up. He still looked fit and rested, even though they had just crammed in five