"Cathy?" Joe called out to her from the doorway of his office. "A word?"
She was covered in case files and had at least four calls to make before lunch. She sighed, pushed herself off her desk and waltzed into Joe's office.
"What?" she asked. "You are keeping me rather busy in case you hadn't noticed."
The sun peered through the blinders behind Joe's desk and he had already loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves.
"I hear you've been digging into Jonas Williams."
Catherine could not contain a sarcastic grin.
"He's been complaining to Moreno! That's what this is about."
Joe pressed his eyebrows.
"Jonas Williams is a powerful man," he explained, "and a close friend of judge Sims."
Catherine sighed.
"I'm trying to find a little girl," she pleaded, "who's been separated from her mother."
"The prostitute?" Joe asked, lifting his eyebrows. "That child has been taken away by the state. The mother was found unfit."
"She's not unfit!" Catherine called out, waving her arms in the air. "She's a struggling single mother!"
"Okay …"
Joe sat on the corner of his desk and stared at her.
"… You tell me what's going on then?"
His posture calmed her somewhat.
"I know the mother," she confessed. "She's had some problems in the past, but she's a good woman and she loves her baby. Jonas Williams didn't call social services to give the child a better life. He did it to spite the mother."
"Let's say that's true," Joe said. "Why would he do that?"
"Because he's obsessed with her," Catherine answered, "and taking away her child gives him power over her."
Joe ran his fingers through his dark, wavy hair.
"I can find out where she is," he said, "but if the mother wants to regain custody, she'll have to defend her case in court."
"That was the problem in the first case," Catherine objected. "Jonas Williams knows how to manipulate the court. He's smart and rich and well respected whereas Lena is just another ex-prostitute who got pregnant by mistake."
Joe ignored her ramblings.
"Do you want me to find her or not?" he asked.
Catherine pressed her hands on his desk and lowered her head in thought. Her thick, shiny hair rained down on her chest.
"Find her."