Free Reasonable Doubt 3 by Whitney Gracia Williams Page A

“H” frames that hung on the wall—trying my best not to look too hard.
    I didn’t need to make myself another drink tonight. I needed someone to talk to.
    I grabbed my phone from the night-stand, scrolling down my contacts for the one person who’d once kept the nightmares at bay. Aubrey.
    It rang four times and went to voicemail.
    “Hi. You’ve reached Aubrey Everhart,” it said. “I’m unable to take your call right now, but if you leave your name and number I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
    The second the beep sounded I hung up. Then I called again, just to listen to that small snippet of her voice. I told myself that I wasn’t being pathetic by calling her five times—knowing damn well that she wasn’t there, but when I called the sixth time, she picked up.
    “Hello?” she answered. “ Andrew ?”
    “Hello, Aubrey…”
    “What do you want?” Her voice was cold.
    “How are you?”
    “What do you want, Andrew?” she asked, even colder. “I’m busy.”
    “Then why did you pick up?”
    “It was a mistake.” She ended the call.
    I drew in a sharp breath, shocked that she hung up on me. I started to type up an email, chastising her for being so rude, but I noticed that she hadn’t responded to my last three in months:
    Subject: Your Resignation.
    Even though the last two words of your resignation letter were ridiculous and unprofessional, I’d like to take you up on your offer to fuck you.
    Name the time.
    —Andrew.
    Subject: My Suit.
    Since you have yet to pick up your final check, should I assume that’s your way of letting me keep it to replace the suit you ruined?
    —Andrew.
    Subject: BALLET.
    I stopped by your dance hall earlier. You weren’t there.
    Did you quit that, too?
    —Andrew.
    I decided that I needed to replace her. Fast.
    I grabbed my laptop from my nightstand and logged into LawyerChat, looking for another Alyssa-type.
    I spent all night roaming the chat rooms, answering questions left and right—gauging the personalities of the askers, but none of them grabbed me. Still, one woman who was listed as a high profile lawyer with ten years of experience seemed promising, so I clicked on her chat box.
    “If you have ten years of experience, what could you possibly need help with on this site?” I typed.
    “You’re never too old to learn new things…Why are you on here?”
    “I’m looking for a replacement.”
    “You’re trolling for an employee?”
    “No, just someone I can talk to and make cum occasionally.”
    She blocked me.
    I tried talking to a few other women—keeping my true words to myself, but ultimately they just wanted to use me for information. They weren’t open to talking about anything else, and since LawyerChat had expanded its site recently, there seemed to be an influx of law students using it as a complaint board about their professors.
    I shut the laptop and took another swig from my bottle—immediately realizing that there was only one “Alyssa-type”: Aubrey…
    Maybe I made a mistake…
    Out the corner of my eye I spotted an envelope under the slit of my door. It hadn’t been there when I first arrived home, and it hadn’t been there a few hours ago when I ordered my dinner.
    Confused, I walked over and picked it up.
    It was an official court summons to testify in a New York hearing, but it wasn’t addressed to my new name. It was addressed to Liam Henderson.

Remedy (n.):
    The means to achieve justice in any matter in which legal rights are involved.
    Aubrey
    The Firebird.
    Jewels.
    Swan Lake.
    I wrote down the roles I wanted to audition for in my planner, smiling as I ran my hands across my acceptance letter for the umpteenth time. I had ten copies of it—two of them were framed, seven were for inspiration whenever I was feeling down, and one was for my parents. (I just hadn’t had the time or energy to draft an “I fucking told you so” letter to mail with it.)
    I looked at the clock on my wall and checked my phone, trying