Page 18 of King of Justice

“For you? They’ll make it happen. Trust me.”

“So, who will you bring?”

“I don’t know. Nobody?”

“Scandalous.”

I looked at the time on my laptop and realized that I only had five minutes until my next work call. “Okay, gotta go.”

“Dude—”

“Some of us have real jobs?”

“Ouch? I’ll have you know that I start shooting in Buffalo in January. I dare you to come out there and freeze your balls off with me in the wild.”

I laughed. “Buffalo is hardly the wild. Seriously though, I have a call with D.C. Later, man.”

“Use your plus-one powers for good! Later.”

Hanging up, I shook my head and pulled the bud out of my ear. All that talk of freezing weather reminded me of Sophie. If she were to ever meet Chad in real life, she would deem me a saint in comparison. Wondering if she ever managed to get on a flight to Paris, I wished I could reach her somehow.

But then again, I knew where she worked. Seeing that I still had two minutes until the call began, I picked up the phone and reached out to Stacey.

“Hello, Mr. Wright.”

“Hey. Listen, do you have a direct number for a Miss Sophie Jones at Creators’ Rights?”

“Uh—The NGO? Let me see… hmmm. No, but I do have their landline.”

“Please call them and try to get me her number. I’m signing into the conference call now.”

“You got it.”

“Thank you.”

***

After the virtual meeting ended, I called Stacey again. “Any luck with Ms. Jones?”

“They gave me another landline; it’s supposed to go directly to her desk. I’ve emailed it to you.”

“Great, thanks.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s it for today. You can sign off. Thank you.”

I dialed the digits my assistant had shared with me and the line kept ringing with no answer, so I tried again. This time, someone picked up.

“Creators’ Rights, how can I help you?”

“Hi—Sophie?”

“No, this is Zoey Spence. Sophie’s out of town, so her number diverts to me for emergencies. Who is this?”

“Nathan Wright. I recently took—”

“Of course! Mr. Wright, yes. We really appreciate your support.”

---