Chapter 20
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It was no secret that Berman, Rautbort, and associates had trouble recruiting lawyers ever since Portland got their very own Grimm. It didn't matter that Portland's metro had a population of two and a half million people, or that it was now ranked as third most Wesen Friendly city in the entire United States. Adalind herself had sworn she would never step foot back into the city four times, and four times she had been carried back. With Kelly, Nick, and her friends, it felt a little more like home.
Kelly giggled as she stroked through his wispy hair. Although she would never have admitted it at the time, Adalind Schade's plans for her own life ran completely off the rails about five years ago. Not a single soul would have predicted things would have turned out like this. Well, maybe the smart ones had, but not her mother.
The waiting area had been remodeled since the last time she had been here. The sharp angles and uncomfortable furniture was gone. In its place were blue upholstered chairs divided by blonde wood tables. Swooping concrete forms sprouting wooden shapes had been replaced by clear vases full of natural looking greenery. It held a few clients. One or two looked familiar, probably from The Spice Shop. The larger corporate clients didn't sit in these waiting rooms. The new receptionist gave her a polite but vacant smile. She didn't recognize the girl, but her aura was definitely Wesen. She also had all the qualities Berman valued in a receptionist: Big tits, a small waist, and a pretty face. The ability to work an electronic calendar was an added bonus, but not strictly mandatory.
Adalind really enjoyed their current situation. It was nice to putter around the house and take Kelly to the park or have lunch with Nick while maintaining her freedom to help out with The Spice Shop or do easy legal work on the side, but there was no avoiding the truth.
They needed money.
How many times had she cursed herself for not building a nest egg like Grandma had advised. A single woman making a six-figure salary, and yet she managed to blow it all. Closets full of five thousand dollar skirt suits, thousand dollar purses, and five hundred dollar shoes ended up in the dumpster or thrift stores. Never mind the agreements that she wouldn't get paid unless she delivered the key or the Grimm or the bastard. She had been an idiot.
Even with Nick putting in forty-plus hours of overtime a week and herself watching sales and thrift stores, they lost ground. Nick's thirty year old Land Cruiser was pushing three hundred thousand miles. The air conditioning was long gone, the seats were ragged, the dash badly cracked, and the floors threadbare. On top of that, old faithful needed a set of tires. Juliette's thirteen year old Subaru was new in comparison, but it needed front shocks. That would have cost two hundred bucks on a normal car, but a Subaru? Four grand for the parts alone. Monroe and Bud kept them going for the price of parts, but it was money they didn't have. Just two days ago, she had walked away from a beautiful glider rocker at the Disabled Veterans thrift store. It was only thirty bucks, and she dearly needed one for rocking Kelly, but they were already in the hole for the week.
The magazine articles prominently displayed on the walls reminded her that the city was threatening to jail almost all her friends and confiscate their property. A fire burned in her chest. They wouldn't get away with this on her watch, and now she could do something about it.
After a few minutes recounting his recent Marlin fishing trip to Puerto Rico, Berman got straight to business. He was hissing with excitement when they went over the asbestos case. His eyes glittered as he reviewed the filings and her client list. This wasn't some cut rate firm picking up the left overs. Adalind Schade was back in the big time where results mattered.
His eyes came up over the top of the paperwork and landed on her breasts. "This has Supreme Court written all over it."
Same old Berman.
Perhaps she could have negotiated a better salary, but the flexible schedule, ability to work from home, and limited hours were far more important. Even then, she was walking in the door at four times Nick's salary plus bonus. She would start interviewing paralegals and junior lawyers for the asbestos team Tuesday.
It didn't take long for the word to get out. Two hours after she accepted the job, she still hadn't told a soul. One of the legal secretaries called to tell her people were already contacting the firm, asking for her by name. Berman wanted to know if she could start this afternoon. The ink was barely dry and Adalind was rummaging thrift stores for professional clothing so she could meet with a half dozen clients first thing tomorrow.
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She hadn't even managed to slip out of her work clothes. The last chunk of a pack of ground beef was in the fridge. A yellow onion sat on the counter beside a can of condensed mushroom soup and the tail end of a bag of egg noodles. The last of the beans and rice would be lunch tomorrow. Living on the street had taught her a thing or two about being cheap. Two hundred dollars had to last through the rest of the month, so tonight, Adalind would be mending thrift store blouses and skirts while she reviewed today's filings. The interview had spiralled into a long day of work. Berman had been hissing with glee at the influx of billable hours, and promised her a hefty three-month bonus if she continued to deliver.
The security alarms bleeped. She shifted and pulled up the monitors, but the elevator was already grinding its way up. The wooden door clattered open, and Juliette sauntered in.
Adalind's mental shields were a solid granite monolith, but Juliette was an open book. Nick's ex had murder on her mind and Adalind's baby was asleep in the next room. May as well break the ice. Adalind swallowed hard and focused her powers. The first thing was to get Juliette talking. "Are you here to kill me?"
"Juliette might have been. I'm not. We haven't had a chance to talk face to face." The entire Eve persona was fake. She was wooden, like a bad actor straining to stay in character.
Why was she here? Adalind had honed a particular little gambit when dealing with people who are trying to hold their cards close to the vest. She glanced at the door, tilted her head into a self-assured smile, and said, "I'm not sure we have much to talk about."
And just like that, Eve was talking. "We don't. Things are happening very fast and there's something you need to know. You will be approached by black claw. they will try to draw you in."
"Why do they want me?"
"Hexenbiests are valuable." The woman was lying through her teeth.
Calling her on it would simply have shut her down, so Adalind baited her with as much smugness as she could muster. "I'm not a hexenbiest anymore."
To her credit, Eve was at least minimally paying attention to her powers, and Adalind hadn't been trying to hide anything when she said it. Eve's eyes narrowed, and she said, "You're lying. I don't blame you. You're scared. You have a child, and that makes you vulnerable. But if you hurt Nick, I will come for you.
Eve peered around the room for a bit. "I like the new place."
There was something behind the threat. For all her stony exterior, Juliette's thoughts and emotions were a wild mess. The woman had zero mental shields. No wonder she was a wreck. The eye of the maelstrom swirled around one specific worry. Adalind decided to pry as Juliette stepped back into the elevator. "What happened?"
Juliette huffed, "Have you ever died? Like actually gone through the whole process of dying, and then died?"
Adalind shook her head. She was too busy searching Juliette's mind to really pay attention to all the blood and guts of Juliette's ordeals with zombification after sex with Nick.
Eve's scowl and crossed arms brought her back. She was staring straight at her when she huffed out, "You're immune? Of course you are. That's rich."
Adalind resisted the urge to tell her how much she liked that part about Nick. Better to keep it safe. "Many of our kind are."
"Not this one. Nick and I are like the trifecta of shit. I swear, I will not kick my way out of a drawer in the morgue one more time. Not for Rosalee or Renard or anybody else! I will burn this whole city to the ground before they make me go back to him. God, I hate him so much."
With that, Eve stomped back out, leaving Adalind wondering how she had never noticed that the woman's ass was so bony. Fire and jealousy flickered in her chest. What she really wanted right now was to ride Mr. Zombie Grimm until her legs turned to jelly. She loved every single thing about him, from the cold against her skin, to the silence in his chest, to the tinny snap of his blood that sent her powers swooning, to the depth of his character.
But... His ring on her finger would make everything better.
She was still sulking when Nick called to congratulate her, and break the news that he was stuck pulling another all-nighter. Another freaky decapitation had showed up. She decided to take him up on the dinner offer. Meager as it was, the grilled chicken sandwich and water with a lemon slice was a lot better than eating alone.
Nick worked his way through a burger and fries while Hank busied himself with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy. The offer of a cookie left Hank's eyes glazed over and snatching greedily like Golem from Lord of the Rings. Nick laughed and elbowed him, but he simply drew it into his chest and curled around it. His eyes popped open as if out of a daze after he had gobbled the thing down. He glanced around the room and whispered, "I did it again, didn't I?"
Nick leaned in and whispered that Franco and five or six other officers had started calling him "Cookie Monster." She wondered if Evangeline couldn't help sort him back out, while concealing a chuckle under her hand. It was pretty funny.
Washing, ironing, and prepping clothing for the rest of the week took up most of her evening. She nursed Kelly, got him down for the night, and stared at the glass of water in front of her. Her mind was spinning a thousand miles an hour with anticipation and worry all mixed in together. She had never once seen a lawyer with a kid in tow, but Berman made a point of working with her situation. Of course, he wasn't stupid, and neither was old man Rauthbort. Nobody dared mention a word about Nick, but they knew. Maybe she was cheap insurance, but Adalind Schade had always taken pride in her professional competence. She won cases because she was smarter and worked harder than her opponents. Things ran off the rails the instant she tried to play the badass hiding behind attorney-client privilege. Lesson learned.
She wandered back to the kitchen and checked tomorrow's consultations. Half a dozen Eisbeibers from the lodge, including Bud and Phoebe were coming in for wills and property work. There was a fuilcre whose name she didn't recognize for something to do with his farm. The last name, however, gave her pause. Lucinda Logan, the Mellifer queen.
As she laid in the bed alone, wishing Nick was next to her, her thoughts drifted back. How had Juliette gotten in?
Somebody had given her the code. Her teeth ground when she checked the logs.
Trubel. A few clicks deleted her access and tightened the security parameters.
She replayed the conversation. The taunt. The smirk. One phrase stuck out like a turd in a punchbowl... You have a child. That makes you vulnerable.
The bitch had visited her daughter barely a month ago. Fucking Meisner sent that woman to blackmail her. There was no entreaty to join their cause in exchange for custody. Nope, only the threat: Stay out of our fucking way because we have your daughter.
Adalind's teeth ground.
They were going to take Nick.
Meisner was going to pay.