“But youcan’tjust think about that kid. He’s part of a bigger picture that we’re already too much a part of. We took the money, and you did what they wanted, and if anyone starts looking intoanyof this, we’re implicated up to our eyeballs.”
A thought slipped into Mack’s head then, like a rat into a sewer: What if Hailey knew more about that forty-seven grand than she was letting on? She’d had an affair. What else had she done? He studied her face; her skin was sallow, and there was makeup smudged beneath her eyes that gave her a witchy appearance that was entirely new to him. He thought of someone else’s hands on the buttons of her shirt, of some guy’s lips—he shook this off. The first check had come to him, hadn’t it? To Malcolm P. Evans.
“Implicated in what, exactly?” he asked her.
“I have no idea. I just—I mean, what does this person want? To destroy our family?”
“He’s not going to do that.” Mack stood facing her as the room began to fill with tendrils of acrid smoke; the goddamn fireplace was not remotely functional.
“You checked the back door too?” Hailey asked him after a minute.
“I checked everywhere.”
“I knew we should have gone for the security system. Everyone in Bratenahl has a security system. Everyone inCleveland.”
It was another dig at Mack, one more than he was prepared to take. “Even if we had one, Sunshine Enterprises would probably have the code. Anyway, breaking into our house would be a whole other level.”
“Is it, though?” Hailey’s voice cracked, and Mack steeled himself for the continuation of her here’s-why-you’re-a-moron lecture. Instead she whispered, “You don’t understand. If it is somehow David Rainier.... He’s right here, Mack. Or at least he was. Helivesin Bratenahl.”
“Who does? David Rainier? David Rainier lives in Bratenahl?”
“Yes.” He could barely hear her.
Mack’s mind went back to the sewer. It flashed through graphic images of his wife and some shadowy figure in a fancy suit, and then it plunged into the depths of conspiracy.
“Did he move here for you?”
“No! It isn’t like that. I told you—it was only once, and it was acoincidencethat he was in Bratenahl. Or maybe he set me up.... I was drunk and upset about losing the firm’s money and frustrated with... he could have set me up just like he set you up.”
She was right about one thing: Mack had been set up. He turned away from her, grabbed a putter that had been resting against the wall, and used it to push the last remnants of his plant into the flames. He took another deep, toxic breath. They couldn’t go on like this.
“Okay, listen to me, Hailey: I know things aren’t great between us, but for right now we have to trust each other. Itrustyou, even though... even though what happened, happened. And you trust me, right? We have to plan what to do together, for Mabel and Gigi. Nothing happens without each other. We decide every move together. I won’t go to the hospital again, I promise.”
All he could read in her eyes was exhaustion, but she let him put his arms around her and pull her toward him, and he was hit by another slap of strangeness: when he hugged her, Hailey felt small and bony andfluttery, like a bird, not at all like someone who knew what she was doing. A single thought circled through Mack’s head as he lay down next to her, on top of the covers, and stared at a new crack in the ceiling for six hours: he was completely alone in this.
Then again, he had always been alone. How stupid to ever think otherwise.
35.
Hailey
Hailey stood outside Jackson Clarke’s thick office door, felt the reassuring weight of it as she pushed it open. Cocooned in the firm’s dark wood paneling and pristine bookshelves, she felt better than she had last night, when Mack was burning up houseplants and spouting bullshit about being in this together. They weren’t together, Hailey knew now, not in any sense, and the best Mack could do was to set things on fire. She hoped he would at least manage the conversation they’d planned that morning, about telling the girls’ schools to keep a close eye on them and to release Mabel and Gigi to no one but their parents. Hailey doubted Mack would convey the seriousness of it like she would have, but she’d had no choice but to delegate: she had to be here. Clay Straus was already in Clarke’s office, slouched in a big armchair. The two most senior partners fell silent as she entered. Their faces were tan and leathery; she had been lucky to catch them both in town. Under normal circumstances, Hailey would have called them snowbirds and asked about their golf handicaps, safe in the knowledge that she was their silver bullet. Hiring her had made them look good—apart from that unbearable six months between bar exams—and, once she had proven herself, promoting her to junior partner had made them look even better. Her ascent up the ranks of Cleveland divorce attorneys had made thema lotof money, which was the most important thing, and had more than redeemed her in everyone’s eyes.
But today was not for office banter.
“So.” Clarke gave a deep sigh, and his watery eyes met Straus’s in a way that Hailey did not like. “Mr. and Mrs. Rainier.”
This was the moment Hailey had been dreading for months, ever since Rebekah had announced her grand scheme to stiff them for a quarter of a million in advanced fees and expenses. Since then, Hailey had been hiding from these two men who had once been her mentors. More recently she had been hiding fromeveryone, and the feeling was mutual: the rock-star paralegal basically avoided Hailey like the plague, and even Dennis—Dennis who might unlock the secrets of the iPad, Dennis who Hailey still hoped could be the key to saving them—had started “working from home.”
“Yes, the Rainiers.” Hailey’s voice came out stronger than she’d thought it might. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Straus did: “This can never happen again, for a start.”
“No, of course not,” said Hailey. “It was a huge mistake to advance the wife the credit.”
Own it,Hailey thought to herself. Don’t try to explain. Own that you screwed up and then beg for their help. You need them.
“Yes. What a delightful woman Mrs. Rainier is.” Clarke rolled his eyes. “In all my years I’ve never had a phone call quite like that one.”
