Page 26 of First Date: Divorce
“Of course.”
She let that draw a smile, even if someone saw it.
But her smile faded as she asked, “Why are you doing this, Eric?”
It came out abrupt, but wasn’t an off-the-wall question.His motives mattered.
“Figure lawyers have enough of an image problem without something like this.”
She looked over at him.The crinkle at the corners of his eyes invited her to smile.She didn’t.
Her job required reading people.
Though she’d picked up the skill well before becoming a deputy.She’d honed it on the procession of boyfriends her mother trailed through their various apartments, campers, rented rooms.Read them fast and well to avoid … anything unpleasant.
She’d bet there was more to his motivation than one small step for rehabilitating the image of lawyers.More he kept tucked away behind the humor.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier about your wardrobe.”Eric’s words pulled her out of her thoughts.“This divorce lawyer and her Marriage-Save conspirator or conspirators are after money.So the more money it looks like we have, the more likely they’ll zero in on us.Your clothes don’t have that look.”
She appreciated that he said it bluntly, didn’t try to sugarcoat or lead up to it.That kept it as an issue to work out for the operation.Nothing personal.“You’re right.I could have done a little better packing if I’d known, but not much.A cop’s wardrobe tends toward uniform and casual.”
“It suits you.”
Such a simple thing for him to say, so why didn’t it leave her cold the way most would-be compliments did?Of course, it didn’t have a lot of competition considering theYou’re really built— or less subtle — comments she got when breaking up bar fights.
“I have a solution,” he added.“There’s a store in Billings that a couple clients swear by.We’ll drive up and put you in their hands.”
“I can’t afford—”
“Operational expense.I’ll cover it and get reimbursed.”He parked his vehicle and opened his door.“In the meantime, c’mon, let’s get you introduced to Jessa, Cully’s wife, since she’ll be our contact.”
He got out and closed the door, allowing her no time to argue because they’d be on stage again as soon as she stepped out of his vehicle.
*
The sense of being on stage didn’t last long with Cully Grainger’s efficient introductions, followed by warm greetings from his wife Jessa, then Ellyn and Grif, plus the couple new to K.D.— Cambria Weston and Bodie Smith.
Especially not when Cully quickly cut to the chase.
“Before you get fed, you have to give me your phones.The department’s tech guy will clone them—”
Eric said, “The department’s tech guy—?”
“All right, he’s a retired guy who’s taken up tech and lives next door, but he’s good and he’ll get it all done while we have dinner and you’ll get them back before you leave tonight.But you can’t take them to Marriage-Save.We’ll give you new ones that will be loaded with the wedding pictures and stuff Kendra’s taking.We’ll feed in some of your real-life stuff, but nothing to give away the whole show.If something major comes in, we’ll either feed it to your temporary phone or wait until this ends.”
“No way,” Eric said immediately.“I can’t have clients unable to contact me for a week.And I’m not trusting you or your tech guy monitoring client messages, much less deciding which ones I see right away.Not to mention attorney-client privilege.”
“You lawyers,” Cully grumbled.
“This lawyer came in pretty handy when we wanted the right kind of legal help,” Grif said to Cully.“How’d you like to have had those messages intercepted?”
“All right, all right.”Cully stared off for a beat.“We won’t read anything.We’ll make sure your phone’s at Jessa’s store when you get yourself there.You can also pick out messages that don’t infringe on your ethics that we can send through to your new phone so it looks active and legit.You, too, K.D.”
She nodded.“That’s good.It will look more like normal communications.”
“Fine,” Eric said.
They handed over their phones, but as Cully headed for the back door to take them to his neighbor, Eric added, “You better pull out the good stuff for drinking, Grainger.That time you served moonshine, I thought my head would explode.”
