LITMIR.BIZ

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sorry,” he called after her, momentarily forgetting that they were far from alone. Sarajane didn’t stop walking or even turn around. But she did raise her hand over her head and made a little waving gesture, as if to brush away his words from the air.

      For the time being, given the source, he took it as a supreme compliment.

      

      The action continued nonstop. They were joined by Harry, who finally showed up sometime before eleven, and a woman named Rachel Sands, who was on loan from somewhere for the week. Both were lawyers. But Jordan quickly learned that Sarajane ran the show. It was Sarajane who directed the almost constant influx of human traffic, organizing them, getting them to fill out a minimum of forms and seeming to prioritize their cases and degree of need.

      But even with Sarajane at the helm, the work was daunting and constant. It didn’t even let up long enough for him to duck out for some lunch. Instead, after his stomach had rumbled a number of times, he was given a sandwich from a local take-out place. The wrapper on the sandwich sported a logo: What’s For Lunch? He vaguely recognized it as belonging to a place he’d passed in his search for Advocate Aid’s office.

      As with the coffee, Sarajane dropped the sandwich off at his desk. Jordan looked at her quizzically as the man sitting before him continued with his narrative about losing his job after not giving in to the sexual advances of his female boss. In response to his silent query, Sarajane merely shrugged.

      “Don’t want you keeling over from hunger,” she told him as she walked away.

      The next moment, he realized that the man had stopped talking and was eyeing his sandwich.

      “You going to eat all of that?” the man asked him sheepishly, then added, “I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday morning.”

      He supposed skipping lunch wouldn’t kill him. Jordan pushed the sandwich over to the man who accepted it with profuse thanks.

      

      Jordan realized that his eyes had slipped shut. He stretched out his legs beneath his desk, trying to shake sleep from his body. It was, in his estimation, one of the longest days of his life, including the time when he was nine and had broken his leg. His parents had been vacationing in Europe and it had been his nanny, a no-nonsense young woman from Australia named Emily, who’d brought him into the hospital emergency room. Because Emily insisted, he’d been kept overnight for observation. The TV in his room was broken and he’d spent the duration of the evening staring at a spider weaving a web in the corner of the ceiling. Time had dragged by like a sloth climbing up a tree with glue on its feet.

      What he’d gone through today made him long for the serenity of the hospital room.

      The moment he saw Sarajane flip the lock on the outside door, pulling down the shade that indicated they were closed for the night, he could have cheered. It was past eight. Darkness had long since descended on the city.

      All he wanted to do was go home and pour himself a tall drink and forget about this place. “Is that it?” he asked rhetorically. “We’re done?”

      “For the day,” Sarajane replied crisply. About to walk right past him, she abruptly changed her mind and paused at his desk.

      Jordan was in the process of shutting down his computer. Or trying to. The closing message seemed to have frozen on his screen and showed no signs of making good on its promise. He hit several keys that ordinarily sped up the process, but all he heard was clicking noises. The message continued to sit on the screen.

      “What?” he bit off, feeling her eyes on him. All day long, he’d had the sense that he was being dissected and evaluated, part by part. Which was all right, except that he also sensed that in her estimation, he was coming up lacking. Which was not all right.

      “Is there a problem?”

      The cheerful note in her voice seemed out of place and irritated him more than he was willing to admit. Jordan reined himself in. “Can’t seem to shut down the damn computer.”

      “Move aside,” she directed, using her small body to edge him out of the way.

      “It’s all yours.” Annoyed, he took a few steps back.

      Taking his place, Sarajane proceeded to hit the same keys he had. The machine continued to be just as unresponsive. He felt oddly vindicated and then was surprised as she suddenly dropped down on her knees. As he watched, mystified, Sarajane crawled under his desk. She hit the switch on the power strip that his computer and monitor were plugged into, first once, then again. The first time she drained all the power from his computer and monitor, the second hit brought the electricity flowing back to them. Since she hadn’t turned either the computer or monitor back on, they continued to remain dormant, ready to go through their paces another day.

      The view from where he stood was nothing short of intriguing. The trials, literally and otherwise, of the day were mentally shelved as Jordan found himself staring at the woman’s rather tight posterior muscles and the way her skirt strained against them when she reached.

      He wondered if she worked out or if nature had been incredibly kind and generous to her. He had a feeling it was probably a little bit of both.

      Sarajane wiggled back out again. He stepped to the side and offered her his hand to help her up. She stared at it for a second, then chose to use his desk for leverage and rose to her feet.

      He decided her action said more about her than about him. “Independent to a fault?” he guessed.

      She supposed that was one way to put it. Sarajane dusted off her knees, plucking out a staple that had gotten caught in her skirt. “That way, I don’t get disappointed.”

      He shook his head. “Cynical attitude for someone so young.”

      She didn’t particularly like the patronizing way he’d said that. “Practical,” she countered, then blew out an annoyed breath.

      He was astute enough to pick up on the warring vibrations she was giving off. “What?”

      She was tempted to say, “Nothing,” but that wasn’t exactly truthful and the truth was very important to her. So she told him. “I was going to tell you that you did good.”

      Jordan studied her for a moment. Several times during the course of the day, he’d heard her being incredibly sympathetic and considerate with the people who’d crossed their threshold. Yet her tone now indicated that kind words did not come easily to her.

      “But?”

      “No buts,” she told him. “You did good today. Better than I figured you would.”

      “Thanks. I think.”

      She began to walk away, then stopped. “By the way, Mary Allen is holding back.”

      “Excuse me?” After seeing more than twenty people, plus the crowd scene that comprised the Tran family, he was getting the names and faces confused. He tried to remember which one had been Mary Allen.

      “She’s holding back,” Sarajane repeated. “She’s not giving you the full story about the parental abduction charges.”

      Now he remembered. Mary Allen was the young single mother trying to regain custody of her two daughters. She looked like a little girl herself, hardly old enough to have children, especially not children aged seven and six. Talking to her, and watching her flirt with him, he’d gotten a sense that something was missing from her story. But he hadn’t pressed her for it. By the time she had come to his desk, it was after four and all he could think about was getting out and going home to his wide-screen plasma TV and his comfortable sofa that didn’t tip dangerously when he leaned back.

      Walking away from his desk, he saw that Sarajane was moving about the rear of the office, shutting down lights and checking to see that computers were off. “You know her?” he asked.

      One of the phones had the receiver off. Sarajane replaced it. She shook her head in response to his question. “No.”

      “Then

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