Drue wiped her hands with a paper napkin. “I hurt my knee kiteboarding. Right before my mom got sick. Some quack at an emergency room at Delray Beach sewed me up, and I’m pretty sure he botched it. So now, I can’t do the one thing I was good at, the one thing I loved. And, oh yeah, I’m essentially an orphan because my mom is dead and my dad doesn’t actually consider me real family, hence the not letting me know about that ‘intimate wedding’ to you.”

She turned a level gaze at Wendy.

“You and I were best friends a long time ago, whether or not you choose to admit that. Now you’re married to my dad, who happens to be, what, thirty-five years older than you? Swell. Good luck with that, because he’s such awesome husband material. I know he cheated on my mom, and I’m guessing he cheated on Joan too. I don’t know and I don’t care. But don’t expect me to throw you a lingerie shower, m’kay?”

Wendy’s face turned pale. She brushed imaginary crumbs from the front of her dress. “Look,” she said, her voice dangerously calm. “First off, he’s only thirty-two years older than me. And since we’re being so brutally frank right now, let me just go on the record as saying I was against Brice offering you a job here, but he absolutely insisted on hiring you out of some sense of misplaced obligation. You’ve got, what, two years of community college? You can’t even keep a job waiting tables at some shitty beach bar. You’ve clearly got anger management issues, and it’s a total conflict of interest to have you working for this law firm. As for my marriage to Brice, let me point out that you know absolutely nothing about your father. He’s the finest, kindest man I’ve ever known, but you’ll never figure that out, because you’re thirty-six years old and still whining about being from a broken home.”

Drue stuffed the sandwich remains in the paper bag. “Are we done here? If so, I think I need to get back to my training manual.”

“Oh, we’re more than done,” Wendy said. She looked at her watch. “When you’re finished with the manual, go out to the reception area. We’re so shorthanded I can’t spare anybody to train you on the phone the way I’d planned, but Geoff can show you how everything works. He’s got a copy of your phone script too. And they’re expecting you at Medical Associates on Fourth Street no later than five. No test, no job.”

“I’ll be there.”

4

Drue was walking out the office door for her drug testing appointment when the black Mercedes zoomed up to the curb and Brice leaned out the open passenger window.