Losing Hope Read Online Free Page A

there. Besides the fact that all of them seemed a little off their rockers, I saw on my car clock that it was now inching closer to three o’clock. I still had to go back to the office to do paperwork and then get home before Roman did at five.
    RiChard.
    Somewhere inside of me, pain wanted to swell up and take over. But I did not let it. Instead I reached for the play button of my car’s audio system. The sudden movement of my hand knocked over my attaché.
    â€œDarn it,” I mumbled as I reached out to keep my big brown workbag from turning upside down on the floor. It was open and filled to the brim with papers, charts, and other work junk. I caught it just in time, but in doing so, a little torn piece of purple paper that had been sitting on top fluttered out. I did not recognize it at all, so when I stopped at a light, I picked it up and examined it.
    I frowned at the four single words written in big, sloppy letters.
    Her name is Hope.
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    â€œHope Diamond? Hope Diamond. As in the big blue diamond on display at the Smithsonian?” My office mate, Sheena Booth, flicked some lint off her plum blazer with her long, perfectly manicured fingernails. “Seriously? That’s the best name she could come up with? Creative. I give her that. I can’t believe you are even giving this a second thought. You know our clients are crazy.” Sheena adjusted the rhinestone-studded Bluetooth in her ear and turned back to her computer. Web sites for Facebook and Nordstrom filled her work screen. A half-written case note blinked underneath the open Web browsers. “Hope Diamond.” She shook her head as she turned.
    â€œThat’s assuming they have the same last name,” I offered.
    â€œThat’s assuming she actually exists.” Sheena shrugged and then looked back at me. “You’re not really buying into that mumbo jumbo are you? Didn’t Ava tell you that Dayonna Diamond had some weight on her from all her medications? But when you saw her, she was as skinny as a stick? That should tell you something. That girl ain’t taking her meds!”
    â€œI know it sounds crazy, but sometimes you have to wonder where our clients get this stuff from. You know?” I had been at my desk for twenty minutes, trying to summarize my first visit with the Monroes in a coherent, professional-sounding note. You never know when your documentation might be subpoenaed for court . These words from Ava Diggs always stayed with me. “I mean, some things they say are so out there, you have to wonder where it comes from.”
    â€œBroken families. Messed-up childhoods. Crack in utero. Bad weed. Name it, Sienna, and our clients have lived it or said it, if only in their heads. There’s a fine line between sense and insanity, and if someone’s spent their whole life dealing with drama and trauma, it’s not hard to see how the two can get blurred.”
    â€œHer name is Hope.” I studied the scrap of purple paper one more time before sticking it back into Dayonna’s chart. For good measure, I had rechecked her chart and confirmed that there was no mention of any other siblings except the older brother. Dayonna was just trying to get to me. I was sure of it. I shook my head, trying to dispel the unsettled feelings my new client had brought me. “Whatever. I need to get out of here. My son should be home in forty-five minutes, and I want to get there before he does. I don’t know why this little fourteen-year-old is getting under my skin.”
    â€œHe’s fourteen. He’s supposed to get under your skin.”
    â€œI was talking about Dayonna Diamond, but Roman is pulling a close second.” There was no way I was going to share with Sheena my real reasons for wanting to get home before Roman. Nobody at Holding Hands Agency—not even Ava Diggs—knew the full story about my complicated past with RiChard Alain St. James.
    â€œLook, if