So Sweet a Changeling: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 6)

Chapter Twenty-Three: Sunny, Thursday

If any of Sunny's friends had told him to keep an eye out for Valeria DiTomaso and call them if he saw her, he would have, but they hadn't, and when she walked into his office on Thursday afternoon and asked to see him, she immediately changed from being Joe's brother's wife to Sunny's client, and it was no one's business but theirs where she was and whom she was seeing.

Valeria didn't have an appointment. "She said she'd wait until you were free," said Tori Ramos. She was his paralegal, but she was so much more than that. Last Fall, she was his campaign manager when he ran for his seat on New Westminster City Council. She ran his office with a general's authority, made sure he went home in time to see his family every night, and she earned every penny he paid her. Tej called her his work wife, but she was more accurately his sister from another Mister; on the surface the two of them seemed mismatched, the Sikh man and the self-described hot-blooded Latina, but the two of them were as close as could be without being romantically involved, something neither of them would ever consider.

He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Shit," he said.

"Is something wrong?" she asked. "Do you know her?"

"I guess her last name isn't familiar to you. She's my friend Joe's sister-in-law."

Her face fell. She was acquainted with Joe and all his friends from a previous case. "Oh. Do you think this will cause strife with your friend?"

"Well, he knows why she might be coming to see me, so it wouldn't be a surprise. It's just sad."

She nodded. "It usually is."

He looked at what was on his desk, what he had open on his computer. "Give me five minutes to clean this up," he said. "I'll give her a few minutes, but I'll get her back for a proper appointment if we go in the direction I suspect we will."

She nodded and left. Five minutes later on the dot, Valeria crept inside, closing the door quietly behind her. For a woman who only yesterday had been yelling at the top of her lungs at Joanie Mara, a woman who could have put her in the hospital, she seemed oddly sheepish today. Perhaps she was embarrassed about seeing him, knowing he'd witnessed that display.

"Hello," she said, almost too low for him to hear. She didn't wait for him to return the greeting, just sat across from him and hunched into herself.

She was a beautiful woman. Sunny remembered the svelte teenage girl on Johnny's arm at the famous ten-year celebration dinner the DiTomasos had thrown at their church hall. Many older men had leered at her in her wispy dress, but her eyes had only been on the broad-shouldered basketball star with his Elvis quiff and his paisley collared shirt, who'd translated his father's speech with such affection that even the young Sunny had been moved. Time had taken their toll on all of them, but that girl was still there, and Johnny was a fool for cheating on her. Sunny suspected Johnny knew it, too.

"Mrs. DiTomaso, hello," he said. 

"Please, call me Val. Mrs. DiTomaso is my mother-in-law."

"Okay, Val. I have to admit this is a surprise."

She tucked a stray lock of greying black hair behind her ear and looked him in the eye. "Is it really?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Well, maybe not that you would need the services of a lawyer, but certainly that you'd come to me."

Now it was her turn to shrug. "You're the only divorce lawyer I know. The Catholic Church doesn't recognize divorce, so it's not like I can ask around in my circles."

"Fair enough. Are you seriously considering filing for divorce?"

She shrugged wearily, and her eyes filled with tears. "I don't know. I just feel so low. I can't get over what he did. I feel sick all the time. Why would he do that? Why? I thought we had a good life!"