I left the phone ring twelve times before I hung up.  This was going to be a lot harder than I thought.

“Want lunch.  Lucky sends his Sweet & Sour Chicken.”  

I smiled at Madison as she dropped the take-out on my desk.

“How’s it going?”

“Great!  Bradshaw is finally being more helpful.  I’m pretty sure we can work out a deal and save him a lot of money.”

She rolled her eyes.  She definitely didn’t care about Henry Bradshaw.

“Yay!” she exclaimed with cheerleader arms and everything.

“Any other case that you might be working on going okay?  Are we going to you know ever tell him that we’re getting divorced?”

“It’s going.  I don’t want to mail him divorce papers until I know his tragic flaw.  Otherwise, he’ll swoop in and steal this whole thing out from under us.”

“Of course.”

“You don’t want any of his money?” I asked her.  She had sworn up and down that the case wouldn’t be about any money.  She just wanted her daughter.  I found that weird.  This was Madison.  Even after I loved her as my best friend, I knew she was the greediest person I’d ever met.

“None.”

“Okay.  I need your help though.”

“Anything,” she said while shoving a piece of spicy chicken in her mouth.

“How the hell do I get hold of Elizabeth?”

“You don’t,” she said simply.

“What?  I have to.  His father’s definitely not going to talk to me, and she’s an old friend.  Well, we weren’t really friends, but we were acquaintances, and she might be the only person who can tell me anything about her brother without fearing him.”

“I’ve only met her once.  She just doesn’t come out to play.  She’s an introvert.  Wait, did I forget to tell you about the drug problem?”  

She was trying to be cute, and it was annoying me.

“Yes, you told me.  Cocaine.  Got it.”

We finished our lunch, and Madison went back to her job, while I sat thinking about Elizabeth.

Cocaine.  Glen had a cocaine problem for a while.  He too had become a recluse.  He only came out of hiding when he needed more cocaine, and finally when he was hospitalized.

I grabbed my coat.  I decided that I needed to make a trip to Atlanta, but before I could do that I had to tell my boss about my case.  Otherwise, the company wouldn’t pay for the flight.