“You’re a lawyer, right? Why wouldn’t she hire you?”
“I’m a general practitioner, remember? From the little research I’ve done, it sounds like she needs somebody who does eminent domain law. But she seems like quite a character, so I’m gonna go see her anyway.”
“Text me some pictures of the house, okay? I’ve never actually been inside. Jaxson and I used to ride over to the island on his brother’s boat last summer to party at the top of that old lighthouse, but I hear she’s got an armed security guy roaming around now.”
“Talisa is private property. You and your friends had best stay away from there,” Brooke said, trying to look severe. “Unless you want to share a jail cell with your cousin.”
“Whatevs.” Farrah set the bottle of nail polish aside and turned the music on again.
Brooke promptly turned down the volume. “Who is that, anyway?”
The girl’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding, right? Seriously? You never heard Luke Bryan before?”
“These days my playlist mostly consists of Kidz Bop and the Wiggles,” Brooke replied.
“Girrrrrl, you need to get in the now,” Farrah said condescendingly, reeling off her current favorite country music acts before stopping abruptly. “Hey, I almost forgot to tell you the good news.”
“What’s that?”
“I might have gotten us a new client. Jaxson’s mom left his dad again this week, and she swears this time it’s for good. So I gave her your card. If she hires you for the divorce, do I get, like, a finder’s fee or something?”
Brooke laughed. “We’ve got to find a way to get you into UGA, kid. Someday, you’re gonna make somebody a hell of a lawyer.”
***
The municipal marina was quiet at midday. The tide was dead low, and most of the serious fishermen had set out earlier in the morning. Seagulls screeched and swooped for fiddler crabs scuttling across the exposed gray pluff mud of the riverbank. A couple of derelict-looking shrimp boats creaked at their moorings at the end of the wharf, along with a handful of the open, shallow-hulled center-console boats favored by local crabbers. There were seven or eight shiny new cabin cruisers and three sailboats scattered along the wharf too, but most of the larger, more expensive boats were to be found up the coast, on St. Simon’s Island, which was where really wealthy boaters congregated.
Brooke gazed along the length of the long wharf, wondering which of the boats belonged to Josephine Warrick.
She heard a sharp whistle and swung around to see who it was meant for.
Finally, she spotted a modest, faded-yellow craft bobbing at its mooring at the end of the dock. A lone man stood on the bow, waving at her. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called to her.
“Are you Brooke?”
She nodded and hurried toward the boat.
He was skinny, with thinning hair bound into a scraggly gray braid that hung down his neck, bow-legged and sun-bronzed, wearing an ancient green army fatigue shirt with the sleeves hacked off and unbuttoned to his bare bony chest, and cutoff jeans that had seen better days. Clipped to the belt of his shorts was a holster with a large pistol. Brooke wasn’t good with guns, but she was pretty sure it was a 9 mm.
His face was shaded by a sweat-stained ball cap, and his eyes were hidden behind cheap aviator sunglasses, but she felt the intensity of his stare.
“Are you C. D.? From Talisa?”
“That’s me,” he said, offering her a hand. “C. D. Anthony, in the flesh. Come aboard.”
He motioned for her to sit atop a cushioned bench at the stern and busied himself untying the boat.
“All set?” he asked, and without waiting for her reply, he gunned the motor and expertly backed the boat away from the wharf.
The man turned to look at her as the boat putted quietly through the marina’s no-wake zone.
“Nice day for a boat ride,” he said abruptly. “You ever been over to the island before?”
“A long time ago,” Brooke said.
“I don’t reckon it’s changed much, no matter how long ago it was,” he said. “You a friend of Miss Josephine’s?”
“Not really,” Brooke said.
