“Excuse me…”
Quinn turned in her chair to see who was standing at the receptionist desk. Sure enough, the woman who had tried to fool her earlier this week was standing there, looking just as pathetic as before.
Quinn was no longer a fool. She’d done some research and was prepared.
“I’ll handle this,” Quinn announced when a certain “Ms. Marjorie Johnson” appeared in the small reception area of The Legal Aid Group. “Ms. Johnson,” she greeted the woman who was wearing another threadbare dress but clutched the same old purse. She held that purse as if it were some sort of treasure, but looking at her now with new eyes, the woman appeared…contrived.
Quinn wondered if she would have seen the telltale signs of a con artist during their last meeting if she hadn’t just spent a glorious night in Bryce’s bed. Then she remembered that even Susan had been fooled.
Looking at the woman now, she noticed the shifty eyes, the calculating look that furtively glanced around the room as Quinn led the woman into the conference room. Another clue…the manicure. Yes, the woman’s hands looked perfectly manicured! Darn it, how had she missed that the last time?
And the highlights in the woman’s hair? That was a four or five hundred dollar stylist’s job. This was no beggar, Quinn realized. This was a woman on a mission.
Maybe those clues hadn’t been there two days ago when “Ms. Marjorie Johnson” had shown up the first time. Quinn sat down across from her, taking it all in and trying to appear professional, all the while, she was seething with fury and embarrassment at how she’d gone off on Bryce just because one person said something negative about him.
No, it wasn’t that someone had said something negative. That probably happened all the time. It was that she’d believed this woman. She’d believed the vile things, even after Quinn had given her heart and body to Bryce over the weekend.
No, that wasn’t quite it either. And in truth, there was no one she could blame but herself. Quinn had been scared. Yes, she had to concede that Bryce had been right on target there. What he made her feel…that scared her and she had been looking for an escape route, a way to protect her heart from being hurt.
Because…yeah, she cared too much. She loved too much. It was one of the reasons she was so good at her job. She never relented and fought hard on behalf of her clients. She might not always win, but she always gave her best, and worked the system to their advantage.
With Bryce, she didn’t know what to expect. He was so powerful, so raw, and focused. And all of that focus had been on her all weekend. So walking into the office that morning, she’d been scared. No, that wasn’t quite right. She’d been terrified.
Left to her own devices, her imagination had simply taken off, gone overboard, and she’d convinced herself that Bryce was the enemy.
When in fact, he was the love of her life. She knew that now. They’d spent the last two days talking. Well, and making love but still, a lot of talking and communicating. She was still scared, but the man had a way of reassuring her that things would work out, that they could make things work out for the best. She was starting to believe that…that he was her happily ever after! And that was both exhilarating and scary. Because…what if he wasn’t? What if he changed his mind?
He wouldn’t, she told herself, thinking back to the way he’d held her in his arms last night. Even while sleeping, the man wouldn’t let her get away from him. She’d been plastered against him all night long, warm and secure in his arms. In his love.
“So…what’s the next step in saving my farm?” Marjorie asked, interrupting Quinn’s memories of the night before. And this morning. Goodness, the man made showering an adventure, she thought, lowering her eyes so that the woman sitting on the opposite side of the table couldn’t see her blush.
“Well, the next step is to validate your claim,” Quinn told the woman. She’d worked up a plan for Ms. Marjorie. Bryce had taken her to see Ms. Emily Johnson, a sweet, older woman, who had a brilliant smile that made her wrinkles almost disappear. Sure enough, Ms. Emily was able to produce all of the appropriate documentation for the land and even had pictures of that burned up shack. It hadn’t really been a house so much as a storage area that the family had used about thirty years ago. No one had used the land since then and Ms. Johnson was eager to sell it all and give some to her favorite charities, one of which was her nephew’s mission work down in Nicaragua.
So now, it was payback time.
Quinn watched carefully, noting the smooth way the woman opened up her purse and pulled out some documents. “Here’s the will in which my father left the farmland to me,” she said, and pulled out a mostly crumpled piece of paper. She grimaced with an embarrassed shrug of her thin shoulders. “The county clerk said it was all legal and stuff.”
Quinn took the paper and smoothed it out, writing down several points in her notes. She recognized the fraudulent information on the document and wrote that down as well.
“Do you have a driver’s license?” she asked.
Marjorie quickly pulled out a torn up wallet from her purse and handed Quinn a Washington State driver’s license.
Quinn took that and gathered up her notebook. “I’m going to go make a copy of these. You don’t want to lose them. I’ll be right back.”
Quinn walked out of the conference room and into Harry’s office. Handing both documents to her boss, he quickly inputted the driver’s license information into the Department of Motor Vehicles database. When the system returned the true owner’s picture, both of them stepped back.
Harry was the first to speak. “Marjorie Johnson is seventeen years old?” he asked.
Quinn was almost rubbing her hands together. “Okay, so we have her on identity theft. I’m pretty sure that the teenager in that picture has no idea that this other woman has stolen her license number. What about fraud?”
Harry put the clerk county registration number into the system but the results came back with nothing. The numbers on the county in which the will was allegedly filed didn’t even have a notary with that registration number.
“Excellent!” Quinn cheered, her fist going up into the air with a victory pump. “We’ve got her!”
“Think she has any accomplices?”
Quinn shrugged. “I think that’s more up to the district attorney’s office.”
Both of them turned to face the assistant district attorney, who had been standing in the corner, a smile playing across her features as the scene played out. “I guess this is where I come in,” she said with relish. She, in turn, spoke to the police officer standing next to her. “Are you ready?”
Quinn folded her hands across her body, a deep sense of satisfaction seeping into her soul. “Go get her,” she urged.
The police officer was already taking his handcuffs out of the pocket on the back of his leather belt. “My pleasure,” he said, and winked at the assistant district attorney.
The two of them walked out of Harry’s office and into the conference room. A few moments later, Harry and Quinn heard shouting. Apparently, “Marjorie” was no longer the quiet, submissive woman worried about keeping her inheritance.
They stepped out and watched along with Susan, Mike, and their two clients who sat at their desks, smirking because they were all aware of what was going on. Even the clients had been apprised of the saga. They’d been warned because they didn’t want the clients to see someone being arrested and worry about what might happen to them as well. The Legal Aid Group had to be seen as a source of help for those who needed it. But Quinn didn’t want their assistance to be a source of fraud either.
The woman was pulled out of the conference room, still shouting epithets and threats while still trying to convince the officer, as well as the assistant district attorney, that she was innocent and that she deserved the money. But by the time they’d hauled her to the doors, she was singing another tune. “The lady is ancient!” she scoffed. “What’s she going to do with the money anyway? I would put it to better use!”
The officer rolled his eyes while the assistant district attorney kept on writing down notes. All of the woman’s words would be used in her trial and, if she pleaded guilty, the words and her actions would be used to help determine punishment during the sentencing phase.
The commotion ended as soon as the elevator doors were closed on the woman’s vile temper. As Quinn looked around, she noticed everyone smiling. “All in a day’s work, right?” she asked to the crowd staring at her.
“Yep!”
One of the clients laughed and clapped her hands. “Word on the street is that you’re tough,” she said, a woman going through a divorce with a man who had just vanished, leaving the poor woman with piles of debt. “I’m glad you’re on our side!”
Susan lifted her hand and the woman high-fived her. After that, everyone went back to work. There was too much to do, too many cases to handle, to let one crazy woman distract them from the business of their mission.
As soon as Quinn sat down at her desk, she picked up her phone and sent a quick text to Bryce. He’d demanded earlier this morning that she let him know what happened. As soon as she hit send, there was a response. “Good!” was all he said. “Dinner tonight, I’m cooking.”
She laughed, shaking her head as love surged through her once again. The man was a great cook, but even more, he wanted to cook for her because he liked taking care of her. He knew she would skip dinner or just grab a bowl of cereal if she was on her own.
Which only made her want to take care of him in other ways. She wasn’t sure what those ways were yet, but she had the next fifty years to figure some of them out!