Family Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 2) by Debra Trueman Read Free Book Online

heard from your investigator friend?”
    I looked at my watch.  “Felicia, it’s not even 9:00,” I pointed
out.  “He’s probably just now getting the information to his staff.”
    “Did Maddie get back okay?” she asked.
    Thinking of my wife made me smile.  “She did.  Why don’t you
call her.  I told her about your brother.”  I thought Maddie could be a calming
force to her; a voice of reason that Felicia so sorely lacked. 
    “What about the guy who ran me off the road.  When are we going
to sue him?”
    I’d hoped that with the development on the brother front, she’d
have lost interest in the Porsche guy.  I should have known better.
    “I haven’t had a chance to look over Russ’ notes.  What exactly
happened?”  I sifted through a stack of papers and pulled out a legal pad.  I
heard Felicia slurp something and swallow before she started. 
    “I was driving down Highway 281 in the inside lane, this is
during morning rush hour mind you, and this guy in a Porsche cuts right in
front of me, wedging his car in between me and the Suburban in front of me.  I
had to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting him.”
    “Okay.” I was taking notes as fast as she was talking.
    “So I backed off and put some room in between us.  Then he
couldn’t get around the Suburban lady, so he whips back into the center lane
and cuts off the person next to me.  She had to swerve into the right lane to
avoid an accident.” 
    “Okay.”
    “Then I sped up so he couldn’t get back in between me and the
Suburban.  I mean, I was tailgating the woman so there was no room whatsoever, and
the asshole whips over anyway, forcing me onto the shoulder.”
    “What’d you do?”
    “I laid on the horn and flipped him off.”  Exactly what I would
have done.  She took another slurp of her drink before she continued.  “So now
I’m behind him again, and I decided I didn’t want to be anywhere around him.  I
moved into the center lane to get away from him and the jerk cut right in front
of me again !  So I floored it and rammed my truck into the back of his
car.”  Slurp.
    I could just picture it.  Felicia would suck on the witness
stand.  As a client, she was an attorney’s biggest nightmare. “You mean, you
weren’t able to hit your brakes in time, right?”
    “I mean I rammed the shit out of that prick’s shiny little
Porsche.  He deserved it!”
    I put my pen down and leaned back in the chair, rubbing my
temples.  How could I make her go away?   “What happened next?” I asked without
enthusiasm.
    “We pulled over and he got out and he acted like he was going
to hit me, so I told him to go ahead.  I dared him to,” she said defiantly. 
    “Do you think that was smart?”
    She ignored the remark and continued.  “I have a witness too. 
The Suburban lady pulled over.  Actually, she had to exit and circle around,
but she came back and gave me her name.”
    “You’re kidding?”
    “No, I’m not kidding.  He could have killed us both, the way he
was driving, and she had a kid in the car!  The jerk needs to be taught a
lesson, and I intend to do it.  With your help,” she added.  “So what do we
allege?”
    I didn’t want to encourage her, but I figured I could at least
look into the guy’s driving record before I told her no.  “What’s the guy’s
name?”
    “Hold on.”  Shuffling papers; slurp.   “Hawthorne Graves.”
    I’d written half the name down before I realized what she’d
said.  “Hawthorne Graves!”
    “Yeah.  Don’t tell me you know him?”
    “Hawthorne Graves is a big-shot Federal judge here in town.”
    “A judge?  Well now I’m really pissed off.  If anybody needs to
be taught a lesson, it’s a Porsche-driving Federal judge who runs people off
the road.”
    On the whole, the prospect of suing a judge was daunting, but I
must admit that a part of me was dying to do it.  “Listen, Felicia.  There are
all kinds of implications in suing a judge.