The drive to the courthouse took twelve minutes at this hour, the Friday traffic already thinning as people scattered toward restaurants and homes and anywhere that wasn't work. Astoria drove on autopilot, her mind cataloging what she'd need: the article Gerald mentioned, supporting precedents, and anything from recent appellate decisions on business judgment exceptions to marital notification requirements.
The courthouse law library occupied the third floor of the older judicial building, a relic from before the sleek modern courthouse was built next door. It smelled like old paper and furniture polish, and the fluorescent lights hummed at a frequency that had given Astoria a headache more than once. But it had the most comprehensive collection of family law resources in the county, and on a Friday evening, it would be nearly empty.
Astoria pushed through the heavy wooden doors and nodded to the librarian at the front desk, a gray-haired woman who recognized her from previous visits. "Working late, Ms. Shepry?"
“Unfortunately.” Astoria managed a small smile. “I’ll be in the research room if anyone needs me.”
“I’ll be closing the main floor at eight, but attorneys can stay in the research room as long as they need. Mr. Bracks already called ahead, so you’re all set. Just make sure the door latches behind you when you leave.”
“Thank you.”
The research room was a glass-walled space at the back of the library, furnished with long tables, power outlets, and access to the legal databases that weren't available on thepublic terminals. Astoria chose a seat facing the door and began unpacking her laptop and notes.
Gerald’s email had arrived with the article citation and a list of relevant case numbers. She pulled the first volume from the shelves and settled in to work.
This, at least, she could control. Valerie couldn’t file whatever motions she wanted and time them to disrupt her. She could lie with a smile on her face and manufactured righteousness in her voice. But she couldn’t change the law, and she couldn’t change the facts.
Astoria found the first case and began taking notes. An hour passed, then most of another. Astoria worked methodically through Gerald’s list, pulling volumes from the shelves and flagging relevant passages. The research room was quiet except for the scratch of her pen and the occasional hum of the air conditioning cycling on. She’d removed her blazer at some point, draping it over the back of her chair, and her heels sat abandoned beneath the table. The fluorescent lights cast everything in the same flat, shadowless glow.
She was deep in a 2024 appellate decision—a case where a husband had claimed his wife violated temporary orders by authorizing routine maintenance on a shared commercial property—when the door opened.
Astoria looked up, expecting the librarian to let her know she was locking up for the night.
But it wasn’t the librarian.
Miller Scott stood in the doorway, a canvas bag over one shoulder and a stack of files pressed against her chest. She wore well-worn jeans and a soft blue sweater, her hair loose around her shoulders instead of pulled back in her usual twist. She looked like she had been called away from something else, a Friday evening interrupted, just like Astoria’s had been.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
“I didn’t—” Miller started, then stopped. Her eyes swept the room, taking in Astoria’s spread of documents, the empty tables, and the glass walls that suddenly, to Astoria, felt like a cage. “Rachel sent me. For research.”
“The emergency motion.”
“Yes.”
Of course it was the same emergency. Rachel would need the same precedents Gerald did and would be building the same arguments, just from opposite angles. It made perfect sense that she’d send someone to pull cases on a Friday night, and it made perfect sense that the someone would be Miller. Astoria had just somehow failed to think it through to this logical conclusion.
“The library is large enough,” Astoria said, and her voice came out steadier than she felt. “We don't have to work on top of each other.”
Something flickered across Miller's face, there and gone before Astoria could fully name it. “Right. Of course.”
Miller chose a table on the opposite side of the room, near the windows that looked out onto the darkening courthouse square. She unpacked her bag with the same methodical efficiency Astoria had used an hour ago: laptop, legal pad, a handful of pens. She didn’t look in Astoria’s direction.
Astoria returned to the appellate decision, but the words swam in front of her eyes.
“The court finds that routine maintenance expenditures, when consistent with historical patterns and within the scope of ordinary business operations, do not constitute a violation of…”
She read the same sentence three times without absorbing any of it. Across the room, Miller’s pen scratched against paper. Minutes later, a chair creaked and pages from an old book turned with a soft whisper that Astoria’s ears tracked without her conscious permission.
This was fine. They were professionals. They could occupy the same space without?—
Miller stood to retrieve a volume from the shelves. Astoria watched her move across the room in her peripheral vision, watched her reach for a book on a high shelf, her sweater riding up just slightly to reveal a sliver of skin at her hip.
Astoria looked back at her documents so quickly she nearly gave herself whiplash.
Focus, she chided herself.
The minutes crawled past. Astoria forced herself through the appellate decision, taking notes she’d probably have to redo later because her handwriting had gotten tight and cramped. She pulled another volume from the shelves, intentionally choosing one on the opposite side of the room from where Miller was working, and found two more relevant cases. She was making progress.
