Yes!
Kendall:
Secret, huh?! Can I guess?
I could hear a pin drop when I walked into the office. On the long table, my brother, Logan, sits with his head cradled in his hands, frustration seeping into the air. The case we’re working on has proven to be a relentless storm of complications. The sun blasts through the wall of windows, illuminating the huge glass-topped conference table. With over a dozen chairs around the table, it’s hard to think that this is our second home these days.
I pause at the doorway, silently bracing myself, and then stride in, closing the door firmly behind me. “What now?” I ask, my tone half-ironic and laced with exasperation.
Logan lowers his hands to his face, mumbling between strained breaths, “This case is going to be the death of me.” His voice is heavy with despair as he gestures vaguely toward a corner where the clutter of a dozen boxes looms ominously.
My jaw is tight. “No shit! Another endless cascade of problems?”
With a frustrated sigh, Logan explains, “The prosecutor’s office dropped off all those damn files after you left last night.” He points toward a mountain of evidence-filled boxes, as if they were ready to engulf us entirely.
I rub my temples. “Alright, let's recruit a couple of interns for this. We need to move through these quickly.” I stride purposefully over to the pile, methodically shifting boxes onto the conference table, each thud echoing our shared exasperation.
The two of us quickly sift through the first stacks, sorting them into piles of obviously irrelevant documents and a separate stack we plan to catalog. Amid the controlled chaos, Logan can’t help but tease, arching an eyebrow as he jabs, “Why are you so late this morning, Dane? Another late-night rendezvous with the flavor of the night?” His tone is teasing, yet laced with genuine curiosity.
I shoot back with a curt, “Fuck off,” all while rifling through yet another box. “Gram had me doing chores early this morning. I can’t ever say no to her,” I add with a dismissive shake of my head.
Logan chuckles, shaking his head as if recalling an old, inescapable charm. “Nobody can say no to Gram.”
I offer a wry smile as I continue pulling out files. “Yeah, I ended up moving furniture for a downtown business owner.”
“You need to give me more than that vague answer. This is the second time. Give me the details on her,” Logan probes with a hint of amusement.
Desperate to steer the conversation back to our ever-demanding case files, I avert my gaze from Logan and focus on the documents spread before us. “Oh, just the hair salon that Gram goes to,” I say vaguely, hoping to keep it light, and he’ll be satisfied with that information.
Logan’s eyes widen with curiosity as he leans in slightly. “Are you talking about Kendall’s salon? Wait, she's the one you went downtown for, too?” His tone betrays genuine interest as he contemplates the unexpected twist in our morning chatter.
“Eh, yeah, how do you know her?”
“I’ve had to drop Gram off there a few times over the years. The fiery redhead. I’m sure you noticed.” He winks at me knowingly.
I rub the back of my neck. “Yeah, I noticed.” Feeling thankful Logan wasn’t there at Buena Vista's the night I met Kendall. The night she crept into my subconscious. Not knowing what I was getting myself into. Shaking off the feeling, I look up to see my brother staring at me. “What?”
He searches for something, anything to give him a clue. Looking at me with his skeptical eyes, “So…”
Shit. He knows me too well. As I try not to give away too much, I say, “Yes, she seems nice enough.” I keep myself moving and distracted from this conversation. “These files are chock-full of irrelevant paperwork. It’s going to take us hours to rifle through all this crap to find the one or two pieces of paper they fucking buried in here.”
Logan stands up and moves to the boxes that sit on the table. He riffles through the pile of irrelevant paperwork to confirm it’s not worth keeping. “Yeah, I don’t know how an intern is going to help. We might need to pull Kai in for this. He’s detail-oriented, and we had him on this case earlier. Let’s get him in here.”
While Logan takes care of the pile, I pick up the conference room phone and slam my index finger onto the keys for Kai’s number. It rings three times before he picks up. “Kai, can you come to the 5th-floor conference room within the hour?”
Without hesitation, he says, “Be right there.”
“Before Kai arrives, is there something going on between you…and Kendall?” His eyes are soft, and I’m wondering what he’s thinking.
“Nah, she’s just another really hot chick I wouldn’t mind fucking,” I say with as much conviction as I can muster.
“Cool, cool,” he says before moving on to the next pile.
Kai doesn’t live far from the office, so it was no surprise he’d show up quickly. The minute he walks in, we debrief him. The rest of the morning was spent sorting through the boxes. Kai finds an important piece of paperwork—a document that the prosecutor definitely tried to hide in these boxes. It could be our smoking gun. Dragging the whiteboard over to connect the dots of the day in question, we comb through the day minute by minute. We mark down the holes in the prosecutor's timeline, and this document proves our guy wasn’t where the prosecutor says he was. Finally, we catch a break.
It’s well past lunchtime, and I hear Kai’s stomach growl. “Let’s take a break.”
“I’m hitting up the corner diner; want something?” Kai offers.
