“Ten.”
William was blown away. “A ten-year-old with that level of responsibility?”
She nodded. “I didn’t want the responsibility. But if I wanted to eat and have a place to stay, I had to do it.”
“Thank God you could trust Gramps.”
“For real though. He was all I had.” Then she scrunched-up her face. “And still is.”
William hated that such a pitiful thing was probably true. And the idea that a sweet young lady like her was in jail the entire time he was gone, still cut him deep. “Drink your champagne,” he said.
“I told you I don’t drink champagne.”
“I don’t care. Drink it. You need it.”
“No I’m good.”
Then William realized what she was doing. “You think I spiked your drink, don’t you?”
She looked at him. “You could have.”
William laughed. “Good for you,” he said. “I would never do that, but how are you to know? Right?”
She nodded and smiled relieved too. “Right.”
Then, as William drank his own glass of champagne, Joy wondered if she should ask him the question. So she just askedit. “Are you the Skeffington in Skeffington PR? When I was being arrested, that was who they said you were.”
“That’s accurate.” He stared at her. “Is that problematic for you?”
“Me? No sir. But what does PR mean? Does PR mean public relations or something like that?”
“That’s exactly what it means, yes. We’re a consulting firm. Among other things.”
“Does that mean you own that whole building then?”
William smiled. “And the company inside of it, yes.” Then his look turned serious again. “I’m sorry your visit to my organization wasn’t what you had hoped it would be.”
“But that’s not your fault. That’s not even your company’s fault. It’s the fault of the people who treated me badly. That’s who I blame.”
“I’ve taken care of every one of them involved,” William said.
Joy looked at him. “You have?”
“You’d better believe it. I saw what they did to you. Those security guards are no longer with my organization, and charges have been filed against the one that body-slammed you. My team showed the video to the DA.”
“Good,” said Joy, nodding her head. “He took my breath away.”
William was still seething about that one. “And that crooked cop that they bribed to take you in was fired as well.”
“I’m glad about that too. I don’t usually like people losing their jobs, but he had no business taking me in in the first place. But he only listened to them. He didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. Prayerfully, it won’t happen to anybody else.”
“Right.”
And then his intercom buzzed.
“What’s that?” Joy asked.
He looked at the buzz pad on the wall. The origin of the buzz was his front gate. He went over to the bar and pressed the button beneath his bar counter. “Yes?”
