“I’m okay, really,” Hailey told him, gripping the hand he extended. “And I wouldn’t try that. I’m a lawyer.”
“Me too.” He held her arm as she got to her feet, and before she could stop him, he pressed her to his chest in a massive bear hug, right there in front of an entire restaurant full of Cleveland’s white-collar workforce. They clapped and cheered, and for a wild minute, Hailey wished that Mack had been there to see it.
* * *
By 3:00 p.m. Hailey was all patched up, with fresh makeup and a spritz of perfume to hide the sweaty, steak-y smell that clung to her blouse. She took her place in the conference room across from Rebekah Rainier, who was, in a manner of speaking, their small firm’s biggest client. Rebekah was closing in on a divorce settlement of almost $7 million, although she was doing her best to screw it up. Today’s meeting was a strategy session to get her back on track, and Rebekah had brought her business manager (whatever that meant; she had no income and didn’t work), her mother, and, for some completely unknown reason, a man she had matter-of-factly introduced as her hairdresser.
“I just don’t know that I can fight David anymore,” Rebekah was saying to Hailey and two junior associates. “You can’t do battle with a sociopathic narcissist. My personal stress levels are unsustainable. I can hardly function. I’m not living my life, I’m justexisting. While he’s over there in Europe fucking everything that moves.”
“We don’t have any proof of that,” Hailey told her. “And for our purposes it doesn’t really matter anyway. What concerns me here is the change in custody arrangements—”
Rebekah’s phone rang. As she answered it, she held up a finger for silence, and Hailey came to the sudden realization that she had never hated anyone as much as she hated this woman. She watched as the silicone blobs that stood in for Rebekah’s lips gave instructions to someone who was obviously packing up her house, a Crystal Lake McMansion worth less now than when the Rainiers bought it thanks to the “improvements” Rebekah had overseen. “Don’t damage the shoeboxes,” Hailey’s client was barking. “And I want the clothes packed hanging. And don’t crush them.”
The pain in Hailey’s ribs made tolerating this almost impossible. “I don’t recall being told that you are vacating the marital home?” Hailey said as Rebekah hung up the phone. “That has big implications. That’s abandonment. That’s what we’re trying to hit David with.”
“How could I abandon him when he hardly even lives here?”
It was a fair point. Rebekah’s husband had indeed spent many a night away from Cleveland in the past six months—Hailey’s team had tracked his movements—and yet the man’s presence couldn’t have loomed larger in his adopted city. Rainier had swooped in two years back with big plans to revitalize Cleveland’s eyesore of a lakefront. He had sunk many millions into a deal to buy the old chemical plant that ate up acres of valuable shoreline, and local columnists fizzed with anticipation about what Cleveland’s white knight had in mind for the land, how he was working on a new stadium, condominiums, a shopping pavilion, a marina.
Right then, though, Hailey happened to know that Rebekah was right: the man was in Europe. On vacation. Hailey had seen Rainier’s social media, had stalked him moving through Paris with his and Rebekah’s young twins. She had seen snaps of them outside the Louvre and rowing along the Seine in a little boat—the three of them smiling the squinty, happy smiles of those who had time and money for adventure. And Hailey, with the ball and chain of the new house and the looming outcome of this settlement keeping her firmly planted in northeastern Ohio for the summer, had been insanely jealous of this man even as she plotted to carve out a chunk of his net worth.Yes, some of it was probably staged for the courts, andyes, maybe David Rainier was committing a little adultery in between family outings, but the fact remained that Rebekah hadn’t seen her children in months and had never thought to complain about it.
Until today.
“I just don’t think I can fight him anymore,” Rebekah was saying again. “He always wins. I just want to have my babies with me and move on. If I take the place in Short Hills, I’ll get the kids sometimes, he’ll give me an allowance... it’s not like I ever want to get married again anyway, not after what I’ve been through—”
“Wait, what?” Hailey’s cool professionalism, honed by a decade of watching couples humiliate themselves, bolted from the room like it was on fire. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m saying I want to move on. I want to put this behind me.”
“That part comes after the actual divorce, Rebekah.”
“My mental health can’t wait that long. I’ve got to handle this another way.” Rebekah’s mother was nodding in agreement, and Hailey’s heart began smashing against her tender ribs. She had to have this wrong.
“Are you saying you’re no longer going to divorce him?”
“No.” Rebekah tilted her head and flashed her Chiclet veneers in a way that made Hailey want to reach across the table and strangle her. “I mean,of courseI’m going to divorce him.” But just as the air returned to Hailey’s lungs, Rebekah came out with a doozy: “I’m just going to divorce him mentally and spiritually, as opposed to legally.”
It took Hailey a beat or two to comprehend the Rainiers’ plan: Rebekah would stay married to David. David would let Rebekah live in theirotherMcMansion back in New Jersey, give her an allowance, let her see the kids, though they’d live with him in Manhattan. There would be two very separate lives, but no divorce.
And no divorce settlement.
“I’m sorry to bring this up in front of your...companions”—Hailey threw a grim smile in the direction of her client’s entourage—“but you already owe this firm a quarter million in fees. Does David know that he’ll be absorbing this debt?”
“You’ll have to talk to him about that,” Rebekah said, getting to her feet. “He’ll just stonewall me, and I’m not in any state to cope with this.”
Hailey fought the urge to drag her back down to the table. “Rebekah, this firm made an exception for you when we extended you a line of credit.Imade an exception for you, as a woman and as a mother, because I knew David had all the assets and all the power. But this outstanding legal bill is your responsibility. If there’s going to be no divorce settlement to take our payment out of, it will have to be paid outright. As soon as possible. This is a business, and we did a tremendous amount of work on your behalf.” Almost eight hundred hours of work, the last time Hailey checked. Not to mention that they had paid outside experts and asset tracers to try to find David’s money. Even the firm’sbankknew about this pending settlement, was actively waiting for it.
“You’re so full of crap,” said Rebekah, and Hailey noted that her client’s mother didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow as the tone went nuclear: “I was in no state to make any arrangement with you. You didn’t give two shits about me. You just saw the dollar signs and went for it, so now you can take it up with David. Good fucking luck.”
The associates fled the room almost as fast as Rebekah and her flotsam did. Hailey stayed. She put her head down on the cool surface of the marble table and visualized Rebekah Rainier getting hit by a high-speed train, then dying in a fiery plane crash, and finally getting torn apart—slowly, lips saved for last—by a rabid dog.
Even then, though, Hailey still wouldn’t see any money. Rebekah had nothing in her own name, and David Rainier had huge pockets, probably even deeper than they knew about. His wealth was spread all over the world. All Hailey had been after, all she had stuck her neck out for, was a little piece of it for Rebekah. But now, without the looming threat of the family court system and the bargaining chip of his children, the firm would have to go after David using its own resources. They might be successful in some small way, eventually, but it would take years. It would cost millions. It was all Hailey’s fault.
Hailey vomited into a trash can. Her head was throbbing, and even though she knew that Mack (who because of his mother still suffered from extreme paranoia about headaches) would never forgive her for it, she prayed this was a brain hemorrhage from hitting her head earlier. That had to be an easier road forward than the one she had just veered onto.
4.
Bratenahl, Ohio, is a strange little suburb. In the space of just over one square mile, there is a real mixed bag of property offerings. You’ve got your newer developments like Magpie Court, for the trendy millennials and the smug early retirees with huge savings pots who think they are millennials. Then there are those big mansions I told you about—truly spectacular by any standard, at least from a distance. Even the scruffy ones that the old fogies don’t maintain properly.
