CHAPTER
22
Bria Gaines
UNION SPRINGS, ALABAMA
Didn’t take long for Bria Gaines to discover a basic fact. Being charged with a felony was bad for business.
The destruction of her medical practice was an overnight phenomenon. Bria hadn’t expected it, couldn’t have foreseen the cancellations, the no-shows that left her pacing her empty office. She’d sent the receptionist home. Indefinitely.
When it became apparent that the downturn wasn’t a temporary blip, but would continue, she cut her hours of operation. Open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 8 a.m. to noon. The sign she printed for her office door saidWALK-INS WELCOME!in bold print.
That’s why Bria was sitting at home on Monday afternoon at two thirty, parked in front of her television. A reality TV program was playing out on the screen, two people engaged in some ridiculous argument. Bria didn’t know what they were fighting about,hadn’t paid sufficient attention. She kept it on for background noise. When the house was silent, she was left to her own thoughts. And currently, she preferred the sound of battling strangers to the voice in her own head.
The doorbell rang.
It startled her. She still had some friends left in town. They had reached out, and she was grateful for that. But nobody would be stopping in on a Monday to have a friendly chat over a glass of tea.
On the other hand, since she’d been doxxed online by pro-life vigilantes, some crazy people had been pounding on the door. Shouting out of car windows as they drove past. Somebody scrawledMurdereracross her garage door in red spray paint. Bria had made a quick repair as soon as she discovered the vandalism the next day, but it needed a do-over. She fancied that she could see the red letters bleeding through the coat of white paint she’d slapped on the door.
When the bell rang again, she tiptoed to the door to look through the peephole. A young white man was standing on her front porch. He was wearing a dark blue suit, paired with a bright purple tie.
Sharp dresser. Probably a journalist,she thought. She definitely didn’t want to talk to the press. No effing way.
Bria didn’t open the door. She called to him through the crack. “Go away, please. I don’t want to see anybody.”
She squinted back through the peephole, to watch him depart. She wanted to be certain he’d understood her, that he needed to walk away. But he was still standing on the welcome mat. She saw him reach out toward her door.
He knocked. A nice knock, not too loud. But not timid, either.
So the guy was persistent. But not frightening. Bria took a deep breath and unlocked the dead bolt. When she pulled the front dooropen, she kept her screen door latched, to keep a barrier between them.
As soon as the door opened, he broke into a brilliant smile.
Definitely a journalist,she thought.TV, not print, from the look of him.
“Dr. Gaines!” he said through the screen door. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“I’m not seeing you. You heard what I said two seconds ago. I’m not talking to anybody. Just making that clear.”
“I’m here to help you.”
At that, she choked out an involuntary laugh. And she hadn’t laughed in a long while. “Yeah, I bet. Really, I need for you to leave me alone. Just turn and go. Please.”
Her voice wobbled on the wordPlease.It embarrassed her. She would have to toughen up if she intended to survive this ordeal in the months ahead.
“May I give you my business card?”
He pulled a white card from a pocket inside his jacket and held it out. Bria kept the screen door closed, thinking:No way am I letting him in.She shook her head in the negative, to make it clear.
The man had a lot of confidence, she had to give him that. He pressed the card to the screen and said, “Take it. Check me out. I think you’ll like what you find. You can google me. I graduated from Duke Law School. Top of my class. Not number one. But close.”
Through the screen mesh, Bria read the embossed black lettering:Benjamin C. Meyers, Attorney-at-Law.So. A lawyer, not a reporter from Fox or CNN.
He still wasn’t getting past her door. “You carry your diploma around with you? To impress people?”
He laughed, flashing the megawatt smile again. “Hey, I’m proud of going to Duke, I won’t lie. A family tradition. My motherwent there. Back when women were just breaking into the legal profession.”
