Justice

Minerva had sewn the letters onto more than one of Alex's sports jerseys, so she understood the circumstances being described. She chuckled and said, "So your team had a 'HI' and a 'HO'. I bet the cheerleaders loved that."

"Did they ever," Hayden laughed. "He was a running back and I was the quarterback, so one or both of us was involved in almost every offensive play. The 'HI/HO' combo as we were called made a good match. We help our high school win the state championship four years in a row. Henri went on to play for Army. He was killed in Afghanistan six months after graduating from West Point."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Minerva said. "What about you, did you play college ball too?"

"No, I chose to work summers at Coastline while attending Coastal Carolina University. That prevented me from participating in the practice sessions over the summer that would have been necessary to make the team."

"How long have you worked at Coastline?" Minerva asked. She wanted to gauge whether this guy might be someone she could use for information on the company if the potential cases moved forward.

Hayden didn't hesitate to answer, "I started working there as a laborer while in high school. I guess that I have done just about every type of job there is to do at Coastline."

"You must really like working there," Minerva said.

"I wouldn't want to work anywhere else," Hayden assured her. "What type of work do you do?"

Hearing her cell phone ringing in her purse, Minerva quickly retrieved it. Recognizing Lana's number, she held up one finger to Hayden before answering the call.

The conversation was over in seconds. Minerva explained as she returned the cell phone to her purse, "My associate was supposed to meet me here for dinner, but got a call from her mother on the way over. She's begging off to go take care of something important, so do you mind if I eat here next to you?"

Hayden shrugged, "I usually eat at the bar myself."

He motioned for Candice but John came over instead, "HO, why aren't you sharing your bread with the lovely lady? You were raised better than that."

Turning to Minerva, Hayden said, "There's John being cheap again. Rather than bringing you your own bread, which you are entitled to, he's trying to get me to share mine with you. Watch closely, he'll soon have us served a single glass of water with two straws."

"Listen, wise guy," John retorted, "There's a reason that I have Cori's number on speed dial."

"Who's Cori?" Minerva asked with a grin.

Hayden flipped John the bird and explained to Minerva, "She's my mother. John knows that I have her wrapped around my little finger, but he tries to threaten me with telling on me every chance he gets."

"Ha!" John said. "Wrapped around your little finger my ass. I've seen her take you over her knee too many times for me to fall for that bullshit."

"All right, all right," Hayden exclaimed, "Just let us order our meals and eat here in peace for once."

John turned his attention to Minerva and asked, "What can I get for you?"

Minerva grinned broadly and asked, "Other than a momma's boy as a dining companion, you mean?"

"Say the word and I'll give him the boot," John assured her. "A pretty lady like you could do far better than this lout."

"I'm seeing another one-star review in your future," Hayden growled. "Great food but abusive service."

Pausing her laughter long enough to speak, Minerva told John, "I'd like the eggplant rollatini appetizer, please."

"An excellent choice," John said. He then shot a look at Hayden and said, "You just shut up. You'll eat what I serve you or go hungry tonight."

Minerva didn't fully understand why HO had suddenly started laughing at John's retreating figure, but she accepted it as the same type of friendly banter that she had seen at the Ole Irish pub. People might look up to this HO guy; revere him even, but they certainly felt extremely comfortable teasing and taunting him in friendly ways. These certainly weren't sycophants. He might be the "prime" alpha male around this area, but his pack adored him.

HO's words brought her attention back to him, "As I was asking before we were so rudely interrupted, what type of work do you do?"

"Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I'm an attorney. I have my own practice specializing in employment law. My main office is in Greenville, but I have a satellite office over on Oleander Drive that my associate, Lana, the woman who was with me on Saturday, runs."

"Ah, yes, Oleander Drive," Hayden remarked. "Affectionately known in these parts as 'Attorney Alley'."

Laughing, Minerva said, "Yes, just like poor defenseless impalas on the plains of Africa, we lawyers must congregate as a herd for safety..."

"Really?" Hayden asked in feigned shock. "You're really going to go with that explanation? Damn, you must be a killer in court."

Minerva was laughing so hard that her eyes began watering. She used her napkin to dab the tears away as she tried to remember the last time that she had laughed so hard or enjoyed the company of a man as much as she was right then.

For his part, Hayden was recognizing that other than their similar appearances, Athena and her sister were total opposites. Athena had always been an introvert, most at ease left alone or with only one or two people to interact with. During their entire relationship, they seldom went out anyplace where there were likely to be crowds of people, which for a tourist destination such as Myrtle Beach, didn't leave them many options. Almost all of their alone time together had been spent at either the beach or at his house. Even their times together on the beach had been limited to early mornings and late evenings to avoid most of the crowds.

Her younger sister, whom he had only heard Athena mention a couple of times, seemed to be extremely comfortable around people, either as individuals or in crowds. She demonstrated a self-confidence and vivaciousness that had always been lacking in Athena. Hayden had loved Athena with all of his heart and was prepared to devote his world to her right before she destroyed it.

He had loved Athena with the full knowledge and acceptance that she would be a high-maintenance partner; someone who would always need reassuring of her beauty, intelligence, worth, and his devotion to her. She would never have been the type of independent, effervescent, outgoing person that Minnie appeared to be.

Their conversation flowed easily as they waited for their meals, and once Minerva had stopped laughing at Hayden's animated surprise over being served his favorite dish, they continued growing more comfortable with each other. Minerva was comfortable enough to grab a piece of bread that he had just finished buttering to eat it herself, and boldly used her fork to sample Hayden's meal, giggling for several minutes at his stunned but accepting reaction.

Hayden realized that the playfulness displayed by Minerva Hart was something that he had always wished he could have experienced with Athena. With the younger sister, Hayden was seeing the warmth and beauty that Athena had possessed, combined with the exuberance for life that she had lacked. There was a moment of guilt associated with him making these comparisons between the sisters, but that was swept away by the memory of betrayal that Athena had rained down on him.

He didn't want to paint her sister with the same brush that had blackened his heart all those years ago. Getting the opportunity to see her for more than the beauty that reminded him of Athena, Hayden was finding it easier to view Minerva as a different woman. But, was she a woman that he could trust?

Chapter Six

"I don't mean to be crude or anything, boss, but did you get laid last night or something?"

Although she understood why Lana would be asking the question, Minerva laughed anyway. She heard the difference in her own voice this morning and had to assume that the shiny lilt came across the phone as clearly as it did her own ears.

"Can't a person be in a good mood without facing accusations of deviant transgressions?" Minerva laughingly asked.

Lana returned the laugh and said, "It's nine o'clock in the morning and you sound like a teenage girl who just found out that her school crush likes her too. Either you got your cookies crumbled last night, or you're thinking about accomplishing the feat when you get back to Greenville. And, since I know that today is Alex's birthday and you are committed to making the night special for him, my money is on the former."

Minerva snorted and said, "Well neither is true. However, I did have an enjoyable dinner with someone last night and maybe those pleasant feelings are obvious in my voice."

Although she considered Lana a friend, Minerva felt that she still needed to maintain a professional relationship as much as possible, especially when they were both "on the clock". There was no way that she could divulge the thoughts and feelings within her that the presence of a strange man had introduced. She doubted that she would have been able to share with Athena, in the times when they were so close and confiding everything to one another, the primal, animalistic urges that she had felt last night. How could she explain that even now, hours later and hundreds of miles distant from her encounter, her body still held a feeling that the future existence of mankind as a species depended upon her breeding with a man that she barely knew?

"So, tell me about it..." Lana implored.

Minerva could share some aspects of her night with Lana, and thought that she might even get a kick out of them, "You'll never guess who I ran into at Maggi D's last night."

"Christ," Lana exclaimed. "Maggi D's is one of the most popular restaurants in Myrtle Beach. You could have run into anyone there. I'm not even going to try and guess."

Minerva couldn't hide the smile from her voice, "Do the initials, 'H' and 'O' give you any clues?"

"No wucking fay!" Lana gasped, using her trademarked method of inserting veiled profanity into her phrases. "God, what a time for me to get waylaid by my mom. What happened?"

Once she stopped laughing, Minerva said, "Well, to begin with, his initials stand for 'Hayden Oliver'. He got the nickname in high school because of his initials being on the back of his football jersey..."

"I remember hearing about that," Lana said. "It was a few years before I started at Myrtle Beach High. Our football team sucked while I was there and classmates often wished that we had the 'HI/HO' team from a few years prior. This Hayden guy must have been the 'HO' half."

"That's him," confirmed Minerva. "Anyway, it turns out that he works at Coastline Multimedia and knew my sister from when she was an intern there. He saw the similarity in our appearance and asked if I was her sister."

"His reaction in the pub was not one of fond remembrance," Lana observed. "What did your sister ever do to him?"

"Oh, I don't think it was Athena that he was remembering, but she probably reminded him of someone else," Minerva explained. "Although, I did get the impression that he might have had a crush on my sister. Maybe it was the fact that any crush that he had on Athena would have been unrequited."

"Why do you say that?" Lana asked. "The guy was likely just as good-looking then as he is now."

"Because Athena only had eyes for one guy her entire life, and he broke her heart. She never told me who the guy was, but based upon a few things that I've learned since her death, it had to have been someone with some major influence within Coastline Multimedia."

"Why?"

Minerva contemplated what she had discerned from conversations with her parents, and said, "When my sister started as an intern that first summer, she told my parents that she didn't like working there because they had placed her in a department totally irrelevant to her chosen career path in marketing. Within a week, her whole attitude had changed. She told them that she had met someone who would make certain that her internship was relevant and look out for her while she was there."

After a brief pause for further recollection, she continued, "When my parents questioned her about returning to Coastline the following summers, Athena had assured them that she knew that she would always have a spot at Coastline, whether as an intern or as a future employee. When they questioned her confidence, she had implied that her 'boyfriend' had the clout to ensure her a place there."

Lana asked, "But you don't know who the boyfriend was? How do you know that it wasn't this HO guy?"

"Because," Minerva said, "Hayden told me that he started working there in high school as a laborer. You tell me, did he look or act like the executive type when you saw him in the pub?"

"You can't base anything on how he looked while in a place like a pub," Lana countered.

"Oh, come on," Minerva chided. "You've seen his muscles bulging under his shirt. He has the physique of someone who does manual labor, not someone who sits behind a desk all day. I didn't notice how big he was until he walked me out to my car last night. I'm five-foot-eight and he towered over me by at least ten inches. And finally, he drives a pickup truck with the Coastline Multimedia logo on the sides. It's a well-used work truck, again, not something an executive with any company would typically drive."

Lana considered Minerva's observations, and while she wasn't as convinced as her boss about what appearances proved, she acquiesced to her judgment for the time being, "So, if he is just a worker bee at the company, did you feel him out for any insights into the claims by the two female employees?"

"Briefly," Minerva admitted.

"What do you mean?" asked Lana.

"Just that our conversation topics seldom ranged into an area where I could interrogate him about the HR policies of the company," Minerva said. "I did mention that my sister had once commented about feeling less valued working there as a woman, and he challenged my understanding of what Athena might have said. He told me that his own mother worked there and that she would pitch a fit if she ever learned of a complaint such as that."

"But if it's his mother," Lana reasoned, "She would probably be of a generation that viewed the role of a woman in the workplace much differently than women today do. I mean, what is her role there likely to be? A secretary, or something of equal authority and influence if I had to guess. She would probably be perfectly accepting of having her fanny smacked by her boss or her breasts ogled by male coworkers."

"Regardless," Minerva said, "I don't see Hayden being any help to us with either of the two cases should we decide to move forward with either or both. Have you learned of any other complaints against Coastline Multimedia?"

"Nope," Lana replied. "At least not through any of the state agencies dealing with employment. I am running a search of the Horry County court records for any signs of past litigation that might be relevant, but that will take me a few hours. Hopefully, I will have it completed by the time the first woman is scheduled to come in to provide her statement."

"What time is that scheduled for?"

"One-thirty," Lana advised. "That will be for Carlotta Lima. I scheduled her first so that we have her statement by the time Ashanti Cox comes in at three. I suggest that we get Ashanti's statement on her discrimination claim first, and then question her as a witness to Carlotta's claim."

"Good idea," Minerva said. "Send me the Zoom meeting details once you have them and I'll jump on. I may ask TJ to join us, but I need to call him after we're done to see what he has on his calendar for this afternoon."

"Sounds good," Lana said. "Say hi to TJ for me."

"I'll do that. Talk to you at one-thirty unless you find something on Coastline Multimedia that you feel I need to know beforehand."

Lana said, "I'll keep you posted. Bye."

Before Minerva could dial her Greenville office, her phone rang with TJ calling her. She answered, "Good morning. I was just about to call you..."

"Good morning," TJ replied. "I figured that you might be on your way in, so I wanted to remind you that I won't be here when you arrive. I am attending the judiciary committee meeting this afternoon so I'll be heading down to Columbia within the hour."

"That's right!" Minerva exclaimed. "Thanks for reminding me, and good luck. How do you feel about you being prepared?"

"I feel pretty confident," TJ assured her. "The precedents that you gave me have strengthened my confidence if not my actual knowledge."

"Well, you'll do great," Minerva gushed. "Call me as soon as you're done to let me know how you think you did. I know that the committee won't make its recommendations for a while, but I applaud you for speaking before them today."

TJ had become involved with a growing group of law students and their professors who felt that the way that judgeships in the state were handed out was almost like rewards from politicians to those who supported them. The group was pushing legislative changes that would result in judges being elected by popular vote rather than appointed by politicians.

TJ chuckled at his boss' enthusiasm. He then said, "I got your text last night and I have submitted a request for the Dun and Bradstreet report on Coastline Multimedia. I used your e-mail address as the preferred destination for the report, so you might want to watch for it to arrive early this afternoon. Is there anything else that I can take care of for you before I head out?"

Minerva thought for a second and then said, "No, just focus on speaking to the committee. I'll look over the D and B report after our clients give their statements and decide if a LexisNexis report on any of the principals at Coastline is something that I will want to pursue. If so, I'll leave the instructions for you to deal with tomorrow."

"That sounds good," TJ said. "Oh, the settlement paperwork for the Draper Holdings case was signed by the client yesterday morning, and I got it filed with the court in the afternoon, so there shouldn't be anything more for you to do on that for now."

"No. Lana has the meetings with the prospective clients scheduled for this afternoon. She and I can handle those, but I will record the Zoom sessions so that you can review them later. I would like to get your opinion on each case before deciding whether or not to proceed with either or both."

"I'll get to them first thing in the morning," said TJ. "Wish Alex a happy birthday for me, and wave as we pass each other on 26."

Minerva was laughing as she disconnected the call. She saw the sign for the rest area off I-26 just before the Newberry exit and debated whether to stop there or wait for a few more miles and stop at the rest area in the center of I-385. Her biological urges won out so she changed lanes to take the exit.

After returning to her car, Minerva checked the time and decided to do something totally out of character for her. She opened up the contact list on her phone and quickly found the most recent entry, There was no name entered yet, just the number that had been provided to her. As soon as she had backed out of her parking spot and started for the onramp back to the freeway, she hit the dial icon.

Two rings later, "Good morning, Counselor. To what do I owe the honor and pleasure of this call?"

Minerva couldn't hide the smile from her voice when she asked, "Are you always this formal when you answer the phone or am I receiving special treatment? I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Hey, law school is tough from what I understand. Completing that and then passing the bar exam should merit you some special treatment in my opinion. And, no, you're not interrupting anything. I was just finishing my morning workout. What can I do for you?"