Court Papers in the Locked Drawer of a Community Doctor
And Marcus was supposed to be waiting outside the corner window to document it.
I walked out onto the back deck, the night air smelling of damp earth and fallen leaves. The sky was clear, but the stars offered no real light to the dark yard below.
The yellow roses David had brought home were sitting in a jar on the deck table. I had put them there to keep them out of the warm kitchen, but now they looked like plastic props under the porch light.
I picked up the jar, the glass cold against my fingers, and carried it to the big green trash bin beside the back porch steps.
The lid of the bin opened with a heavy plastic groan.
Dropping the damp yellow roses directly into the trash bin beside the back porch.
Karen did not look up from her computer screen when I sat down in the leather chair opposite her desk. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard for a second, then came down in a sharp, final tap that echoed in the small office.
