Ripple Effect

Chapter Twenty-Two: ...beneath the patio.

Jay

Monday, 5th November, 2018

9:12 PM

"Still no answer." Jay hung up his cell phone and slid it onto the dashboard. The metal casing grated against the plastic, and with its screen facing up, it caught the yellow glow of the street lamp—the shimmer was as soft as the nightlight that Chloe couldn't sleep without. He scrubbed his face, and then turned towards the ta-rum, ta-rum, ta-rum of fingers drumming against the door panel on the passenger side. "Any chance we can push on without her?"

The beat slowed and then stopped.

"I don't know." Kat tugged her lips to one side. "I mean, I've been pushing back as hard as I can, but they're still insisting on quibbling over every single point, as though we haven't been over them, like, a thousand times already." She let out a huff of breath that fogged across the glass before it shrank in on itself and faded into nothingness. She glanced at Jay. "What about her husband? Have you tried calling him?"

Jay scrabbled for the phone with his fingertips, not bothering to lean forward in his seat. The phone slid down from the dash, and he caught it, and then scrolled through the list of recently dialled numbers—McCord, McCord, McCord, Jackson, McCord, McCord, Weston and Weston Family Law, Abby, McCord, McCord, McCord...

With the phone held next to his ear, the dial tone rang out and pulsed through the hush. He peered across the street. Beyond the row of three black SUVs, pallid light seeped out from the house, into the darkness, and mingled with the low-lying fog.

"Hi, this is—"

He hung up. "Just voicemail."

"Well, her detail are here—" Kat stared towards the house as well. "—so she must be in. Assuming she hasn't given them the slip...again."

"They might have gone to bed already. Which is just about where I want to be right now." Jay chucked the phone back on the dashboard and it skidded towards the windscreen. "Matt said she was exhausted, and she certainly looked it." Amongst other things...

"I can image. I mean, staying in a hospital non-stop for God knows how long, with all the light and noise and...sick people. It can't be good for you."

Jay stretched his arms up until his hands pressed against the brushed nylon of the ceiling, and he stifled a yawn. "Yelling at her brother probably didn't help either."

Kat gave a half-shrug, still staring out the window. "I'd yell at my brother too if he was in a coma. It's the kind of thing he'd do just to irritate me, you know, just so I'd have to pay attention to his mundane life. I actually think a coma might be an improvement, break up the monotony."

Jay picked up the manila folder from where it was wedged between the passenger seat and the handbrake. He rested it against the steering wheel, and flicked through the sheets, the text no more than haze on the page in the dim light. It ought to have been Little Blue Truck, or The Very Hungry Caterpillar, or Where the Wild Things Are. But it wasn't, and it wouldn't be until the secretary returned to work. And even then, if Abby—

He snapped the file shut again. "What about handing it off to Cushing?"

Kat spun to face him. "With the way he's been eyeing up her office? I don't think so."

She twisted around fully in the seat, so that her back rested against the car door, one leg folded in front of her. She held out one hand, palm facing up. "Best case scenario, things work out and he takes all the credit." She did the same with the opposite hand. "Worst case scenario, he completely guts the deal and we lose everything the secretary's fought for."