LITMIR.BIZ

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she’d been doing on the computer. Maybe she wasn’t the receptionist at all. She could be one of the investigators who had decided to use this computer for one reason or the other.

      “Is he in?” Willow prompted after another awkward moment elapsed. And here she had thought she’d already seen the most bizarre and unprofessional this business had to offer.

      “How do you know the person in charge isn’t a woman?” The woman tucked a handful of sandy-brown hair behind one ear and gave Willow a pointed look.

      Too taken aback to be embarrassed, Willow struggled a moment to come up with an appropriate response. “Well… who is in charge?” Maybe this woman didn’t work here at all.

      “Mr. Jim Colby,” the woman behind the desk said with a smile that wasn’t really a smile, more a fleeting tick. “Do you have an appointment?”

      Willow looked around the small reception area. There was no one else there. Unless Mr. Colby already had a client in his office or was expecting one momentarily, she didn’t see the point in the question. But then she remembered the discreet way Davenport had operated.

      “No,” she admitted. “I don’t have an appointment. I flew in from St. Louis this morning in hopes that Mr. Colby could make some time for me.”

      “Calling first would have been smarter.”

      Willow reminded herself that she needed to get past this woman and to the man in charge. Giving her any advice on how a proper receptionist conducted herself might not be conducive to making that happen.

      The truth was the woman was right. But Willow managed to keep her voice calm. “I know. I apologize for just showing up like this, but the matter is urgent.”

      The receptionist, who didn’t wear a name badge or have a name plate on her desk and who looked utterly unimpressed, smiled another of those unsmiles. “I’m new here. I’ll have to check his calendar first.” She flipped through the calendar taking up space on the oak desktop next to the telephone. Not a single page she previewed had anything at all written on it.

      “He appears to be free,” the receptionist announced. “Just have a seat, Ms. Harris, and I’ll find out if he can see you today.” She gestured to a chair.

      Willow settled into a chair and tried to slow her mind’s frantic churning. Exhaustion simply wasn’t an adequate description of just how tired she felt. It was, however, the only word she could think of at the moment. This man—Jim Colby—had to help her.

      The receptionist buzzed her boss on the intercom, using the handset to keep his end of the conversation private. A couple of pauses and yes sirs, and then she placed the handset back in its cradle.

      “Up the stairs and the first door on the left.”

      Evidently that was a yes to the question of whether or not he was available. Willow offered a polite smile, deserved or not. “Thank you.”

      The woman didn’t say anything, not even a “You’re welcome.” She swiveled in her chair and resumed her work at the computer. Mr. Colby needed to seriously consider public relations classes for his receptionist.

      The desperation clawing at Willow’s heart was the only thing that kept her from walking out, considering the vibes she’d gotten so far. If she’d wasted the money coming here… if she’d made a mistake…

      She blocked the thoughts. Stay focused. There hadn’t been any other choice. This was her last hope.

      A man she presumed to be Jim Colby waited in the doorway of an office in the upstairs corridor.

      “Ms. Harris.” He thrust out his hand. “I’m Jim Colby.”

      She placed her hand in his and he gave it a firm shake. “Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Colby.”

      “Can I get you some coffee or water?” He directed her into his office as he made the offer.

      Expansive oak desk, a credenza and lots of file cabinets along with numerous unpacked boxes took up most of the floor space in the office. Mr. Colby had, literally, just set up shop. “Ah… no, thank you,” she abruptly remembered to say in answer to his question. Though she appreciated that he appeared determined to be polite, getting right down to business was her priority at the moment. She sat down in one of the upholstered chairs and waited for him to do the same on the other side of his desk.

      He studied her a moment, intense blue eyes looking right through her as if she were an open book published in easy-to-read large print. His assessment, however, appeared far less suspicious than that of his receptionist.

      “What can I do for you, Ms. Harris?”

      This was the hard part. How did she adequately relay the volatility and urgency of her situation as concisely as possible?

      “It all started four years ago,” she began, without allowing the gut-wrenching memories that attempted to bob to the surface to do so. She’d learned long ago not to revisit that past. It was too hard to maintain her sanity otherwise. “I was traveling on business in Kuwait. I met a man and we had a… sort of whirlwind romance. We married only a few days later.”

      She didn’t see any reason to give him the trivial details of her lapse into stupidity. She’d relived those days over and over again already in an attempt to pinpoint something—anything—that should have served as a warning to her. So far she’d found nothing.

      “Two years ago we had a child, a boy.”

      Something in his expression changed when she said boy. She already knew what he was thinking. A boy was a far more prized asset than a girl, even in a country as liberal and progressive as the State of Kuwait, making her quest a far more difficult one.

      “Eight months ago I realized I couldn’t live the way my husband wanted me to for a moment longer.” It was not nearly as simple as that, but she knew from experience that he would ask questions until he had all the information he needed. No need to go into the gory details until she knew whether he intended to take her case or not. “I decided that a divorce was the only option. I could return to my home in the States and put those years in the Middle East behind me.”

      “But your ex didn’t want you to take his son out of the country.”

      Before she could stop the onslaught, memories from that day swarmed inside her head, making her want to cry. She blinked back the emotions. This might be her last chance. She couldn’t screw it up.

      “Not only did he not want me to take him out of Kuwait, he wanted me to go and he never wanted me to see my child again.” How could she have lived with him for nearly three years and not noticed how little he actually cared for her? She’d gotten a crash course those last few months.

      Focus, Willow. No drifting.

      Jim Colby waited for her to continue. She licked her lips, swallowed at the emotion pressing at the back of her throat and said the rest. “He had me exported out of the country like black-market cargo. He left me at an airport in California with no ID at all. He took everything to ensure I couldn’t immediately return. Then he filed for divorce and claimed I had deserted him as well as our son.”

      “The Kuwaiti legal system ruled in his favor, of course.”

      She nodded, unsure of her voice now. Images of her little boy kept swimming in front of her eyes.

      “When was the last time you saw your son, Ms. Harris?”

      “Eight months, one week and two days ago.” She could give him the actual hour, but she’d given enough.

      “Why seek professional help now? After so many months? Did your attorney give you reason to believe your situation could be worked out some other way?”

      He cut right to the chase. She liked that. Hope glimmered inside her.

      “I started with the legal system. But I soon figured out that I wasn’t going to make this happen through legal channels.

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