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Realization setting in, her eyes narrow to thin, leery slits. “Then who the fuck are you?”
“I’m Dwayde’s lawyer.”
ChapterTwenty-Seven
Dee
“Guard!” Joyce surges to herfeet.
“There a problem?” she asks, coming forward.
“No, Officer.” I hope to stall. “Joyce.” My eyes move back to her. “Just sit down for a moment and let me explain.”
“Fuck you, lady. If you got no cause to get me out of here, you’re useless to me.”
“Please.” I make another attempt. “It involves your parents.”
That momentarily stills her movements. “You work for them?”
“No. Not at all.”
She waves the guard away and plunks back down on the bench, her knees bouncing again. “Start talking.”
“Dwayde is healthy and living with a loving family. He’s smart, talented, doing well in school. He’s happy.”
“So?” She shrugs and chews a nail. “What’s that got to do with me?”
I push past her cold response. “A couple of months ago, your parents found out where Dwayde was and began custody proceedings. He doesn’t want to go live with them, he wants to stay where he is. It’s my job to ensure that he does.”
“And you came here looking for dirt on ole Charlie and Joan,” she says shrewdly.
“Is there dirt?”
“Don’t fuck with me, lady. The kid must have told you something, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
“He hasn’t told me much,” I admit. “But I gather there’s something worth exploring. Something he might be afraid to tell me. That’s why I’m here. To get the specifics from you.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“A chance to do right by Dwayde.”
“Pfft.” She spits out a piece of nail before attacking her finger again. “I don’t give a shit about him.”
My distaste for this woman curdles the contents of my breakfast. But I don’t have to like her. I just have to get her talking. “What about your parents then?” I bait her, anticipating that’s the hook.
“What about them?”
“They claim you gave them custody.” I reach into my bag and pull out a file with the documents I’d printed off at work. I hold the custody agreement up against the see-through barrier. “Did you sign this?”
Her eyes scan the page and the blankness in her expression conveys she has never seen this document before. At least not in her sober mind. Yet that doesn’t stop her from trying to play an angle.
“All depends.”
“On what?”
“My daddy,” she says with a trace of her Southern twang.
“What about him?”
