Page 38 of With a Grain of Salt

Sure enough, it says that there's a four-hundred-thousand-dollar payout through something called the Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance. And to think I felt lucky when I received the little over twelve thousand I got.

I know tomorrow is my one day to spend uninterrupted with Larkin, but I'm already wishing it were Monday so I could see about an attorney to figure out if the SGLI is something I qualify for. Even a quarter of that amount of money would change my entire life.

Chapter 17

Walker

"Did you finally get busted giving adolescents alcohol?"

That's how Barrett Hyde, the local attorney, answers the phone when I call him first thing Sunday morning.

"You finally move out of your grandmother's house?" I jab back.

He scoffs. "I own the house. Grandmother lives with me."

I've heard it a million times before. The part he doesn't explain is that he bought the house after law school when his grandparents about went bankrupt putting him through school. It was a bailout filled with guilt more than anything else.

"Is it hard for you to bring women home?" I continue, knowing almost verbatim his response before he even opens his mouth.

"I'd never disrespect Grandmother that way. I take my ladies to the hotel out on the highway. They have a special on the Jacuzzi tubs the third weekend of the month."

"If you knew how to please a woman, you wouldn't need a jetted tub toget the job done."

"At least I didn't jizz in my pants in a janitor's closet," he snaps.

I huff a laugh. "I bet you fucking did but the girl who made you do it didn't go tell a friend who then told the whole school about it."

We both laugh. High school was so long ago, but for some who never really left town and experienced things outside of the city limits, it seems those stories will never die.

What happened with Sage Douglas was old news to me, but Barrett went to school here. Other than a vacation or so a year he’s never really left town or experienced life outside of Lindell, Texas. It's why he's insistent on bringing up those stories. Honestly, the guy needs to get out of his grandma's basement and see what the real world has to offer, but I guess I can't really talk. I saw what the real world was, and I couldn't seem to get back to town quick enough.

I swallow, thinking how I thought Lindell was safe, a community protected somehow from the traumas and pain occurring elsewhere in the world. Pain and tragedy struck our quiet town two years ago, and my world has never been the same.

Jason, my twin brother, was shot and killed in the middle of the town square along with two other people by men who were angry that their illegal sex trafficking ring was dismantled. I was so angry for so long about losing him. There are still days I want to hunt those men and the ones just like them until the world is eradicated of men who think it's okay to take others' liberties the way they did.

"Is there a reason you're calling me on a Sunday?" Barrett asks, his tone still light with the laughter we shared, whereas my mood has taken a sharp right turn into misery.

"I want to talk to you about Claire Kennedy," I begin, my anger shifting away from the terrorist to him when he whistles in a suggestive way that makes me want to jump through the phone and wrap my hands around his neck until he turns purple.

"That is one fine specimen of a woman."

"She's the widow of a serviceman," I correct. "She didn't get her SGLI payout. Are you able to look into it and see where it went?"

"Is there a reason you're calling about this instead of her?"

"Can you look into it or not?"

"For you? No. The government just doesn't hand out information because someone wants to know something. Hell, it's a battle to get information when you have a legal right to it. For Claire, however, as his widow, I'm sure I could get some information, but she'll need to be the one to retain me."

Retain me... short for give me money, something I know Claire doesn't have.

"I'll pay your retainer fee," I say because the last thing I want is this guy talking her into some form of a percentages of her payout. I'm not saying the guy is a jackass, but he's also running a business. If she can't pay his fee upfront, this would be her only other option.

"That still won't give you rights or access to the information."

"I don't need the information. I want her to have the information," I explain.

"Have her call me," he says. "And if you're paying, I'm going to bill you for this time."

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