Page 81 of A Dead End Wedding

Her fingers worked at the clasp on her handbag. "It's . . . it's my son-in-law. He wants me to sign everything over to him. Some kind of power of eternity. He says I'm too old to make my own decisions, if you can believe that. And me only seventy-two!" She glared at me, indignation all over her too-young-looking-to-be-seventy-two face.

"Wow!" I said, staring at her.

"Wow? What do you mean, wow?" she snapped, leaning forward in her chair.

I laughed and shook my head. "I'm sorry, I just meant Wow, I hope I look as great as you do at seventy-two. I was thinking sixty, tops."

She relaxed back into her chair, smiling, her cheeks tinting a pale rose. "Why, that's very sweet of you, young lady. Celia saidyou had a sharp legal mind, but she didn't mention that you were a sweetheart and a flatterer."

"No flattery, I assure you. But back to your pest problem. Does your son-in-law—and what's his name?" I asked, pulling out a pad of paper.

"Nervil. He likes for people to call him Croc, though, if you can believe someone would want to be named after a giant reptile," she said, sniffing.

"Well, at least it's better than Nervil, I guess. Let's figure out what you can do about him, and you certainly don't need to sign any power of attorney over to him. What does your daughter say about all this?"

Her face darkened. "I think he might be threatening her. She was my miracle baby—I had her when I was forty-four years old—and so she's very young. They have a baby, too. So she's trying to stay out of it for now."

My eyes narrowed. I hated wife abusers with an enormous purple passion. If Croc was threatening his wife, things were going to get ugly.

Really ugly.

"Okay, let's figure out some options for you. Don't worry about a thing. You did the right thing to come to me. Be sure and call me if you have any problems with him, all right? And call the police if he threatens you or your daughter or grandbaby. Some bullies will back down at the first sign of police involvement."

She nodded and smiled a little, fluttering fingers finally calming from her compulsive fidgeting and resting in her lap.

"Thank you for coming in, Mrs. Zivkovich. I'm so pleased to be able to help you."

As I walked Mrs. Zivkovich out to reception to fill out our new-client form with Max, it hit me just how much I reallywaspleased to help. Not only that, but it was a relatively simple fix. Not like the corporate cases I'd spent my entire waking life for the past several years working. Those cases usually took years and years to resolve.

This one might be over with a phone call.

Not so great for the billable hours, but pretty fantastic for the sense of accomplishment.

Life is good.

"Life is good, girlie."

I jumped. "Don't sneak up on me, Mr. Ellison! And why are you reading my mind—er, I mean, what do you mean, life is good?"

He nodded at Mrs. Zivkovich where she stood chatting with Max. "If we keep picking up hot numbers like that for clients, I might have to make this job permanent."

I rolled my eyes. "No hitting on the clients, Mr. Ellison. It's on page seven of the employee manual." I turned and strode down the hall back to my office.

"I didn't get no employee manual, girl—December," he called out after me.

"I didn't write one yet," I muttered. "But that rule is definitely going to be in it."

A few hours later, as I waded my way through scientific studies of the mechanism of insulin and wondered how much money expert witnesses were going to run me in Charlie Deaver's case, the phone rang. Inside line.

"Hey, Max. What's up?"

"I forgot to mention this earlier, but when you were meeting with Mrs. Zivkovich, I got the weirdest call about you." She sounded worried, which was totally unlike Max.

"What do you mean, weird?"

"Well, the guy said he was from the Ohio Bar Association, and wanted to confirm your Ohio bar number and your new address. But since when do they make phone calls for stuff like that?"

I shrugged, already back to scanning the data on the FDA's role in regulating insulin. "I don't know. Maybe some new intern is all eager-beaver or something. Did you eat lunch yet?"

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