Straus curled his lips in disgust and nodded: he had heard about this call, or received one of his own.
Hailey’s chest tightened. It felt like ants were crawling down her arms.
“She made some pretty serious accusations about your relationship with her husband,” Clarke went on. “And she claimed to have proof. Is she lying?”
Hailey didn’t answer, and that was enough.
“I suppose I understand why you wanted to meet, but let me just say that I’m not inclined to get wrapped up in this,” Clarke said, “unless Mrs. Rainier files an official complaint.”
There it was. They knew Hailey had slept with a client’s husband, and they were prepared to do nothing. All those late nights, the ferocious fights for and with her clients and their counsel, had paid off in loyalty. These two had taken her side over Rebekah’s.
But it wasn’t Rebekah that Hailey was afraid of.
“I just don’t know how else to go after the money,” she said. “I’ve tried everything. I don’t think for a second that we should swallow the loss, but David Rainier—”
“Swallow the loss?”
This was good; Straus at least had no intention of giving up the fight. Once she’d told them David was messing with her family—or possibly messing with her family—they’d pull out the big guns: more IT sleuths like Dennis, maybe some security, definitely a truckload of legal reinforcements. Clarke was widely reputed to be the most aggressive attorney in Cleveland; he could take on David Rainier.
Hailey’s voice gained strength. “Of course, I know we’d never walk away from an outstanding fee like that, it’s just that Rainier is—”
Straus shook his head violently, and Hailey froze. “Walking away isexactlywhat we do,” he said, his voice like steel. “The man has paid his bill, and that’s the end of this discussion as far as I’m concerned.”
“What?” Hailey’s knees threatened to buckle.
“We’ve got our money back, so whatever personal entanglements you have are not this firm’s business. I trust that whatever happened between you and your client’s husband is now over—if indeed it happened,” Straus added, ever the lawyer.
Hailey couldn’t breathe, and she couldn’t help herself: “Rainier paid... he paid in full?”
Now, finally, Straus lost it. “You didn’t even know he paid us?” he roared. “Where the hell have you been? That should have been the most important thing on your plate!”
There was nothing to say. How could no one have told her? Where was Marla the rock-star paralegal? Where was Dennis?
Clarke couldn’t even look at her. “I’m so disappointed in this, Hailey,” he said to the wall opposite her. “To conduct yourself like this—letting Mrs. Rainier run up a huge balance to start with, but also publicly carrying on with this man—if this is true, what on earth were youthinking? You’ve obviously lost the respect of your colleagues, and... just stay well away from this man in the future, if you want to keep working for this firm.”
At once Hailey was the teenager whose father had caught her making out with the quarterback right in her own bed. She was the tipsy college girl who had fled the South of the Border restroom in shame as truckers looked on and jeered. She wasworsenow, actually, because she should have been old enough to know better. Her face was hot enough to melt.
When Straus spoke again, he was calm. “Listen. It’s almost Christmas. Take some time off, relax with your family. It’s been a rough year for all of you.”
Mack. He was talking about Mack’s scandal. Hailey had brought shame on top of shame to Arthur, Clarke & Straus.
“We’ll speak again in the new year,” Straus went on. “But I’ve got to tell you, Hailey, your balance sheet is looking grim. This is not a bonus year for you, just so there are no surprises in January.”
This news didn’t even register; Hailey’s mind was focused on a more pressing subject. Why would David suddenly pay? What was his move here? Was this whole thing about to be over, or was it about to get worse?
In the end, it was Marla the rock-star paralegal who told her what had happened, and it had nothing at all to do with Hailey, or with Rebekah. David Rainier’s decision to settle his bill at Arthur, Clarke & Straus had just been a shrewd business move: Rainier was assembling a board of directors for his new Burning River superdevelopment, and the mayor of Cleveland himself had suggested that Jackson Clarke was the perfect choice to be on it. Rainier and Clarke had met for drinks, Marla told Hailey; they’d shot the shit and hit it off; and the rest, Hailey knew, would someday be Cleveland history. Rainier had agreed to pay his wife’s legal bill before the ice in the empty Scotch glasses had melted because hey, what was two hundred and fifty grand between friends?
Although it sure had felt like a lot to Hailey.
* * *
She hardly trusted herself to drive home. Her hands shook on the steering wheel—but was she afraid, or angry? Mostly she felt a void: there was a dark shadow that followed her everywhere now, and suddenly the person who cast it was less clear. Which, in a way, was more terrifying. The old boys’ club had closed ranks like it always did, but who or what had it left her out in the cold with? A gray sky stretched over the interstate; the road was slushy and slippery from the drizzle that morning, but Hailey did not slow down. Normally all she would have wanted was the sanctuary of her bedroom, that view out over the lake reassuring her that she was somewhere safe and warm, but now the house felt like it was conspiring against them, crumbling under some unknown force and taking their investment with it. Two Magpie Court was in no shape to protect them from... whatever this was.
She was halfway to Akron before she really even knew where she was going, and then the yearning for her parents overcame her. To know they could never fix this, that they couldn’t even provide a temporary shadow of relief from this terrible thing beating down on her life, filled Hailey with loneliness, and she wasn’t sure she could face being in their presence.
She ended up in Marc’s. She wandered the aisles, stacking a plastic shopping cart with out-of-date candy corn and lip smackers for the girls’ Christmas stockings. She bought her mother an ice-skating penguin statue to go on her front steps, and her father a needlessly elaborate handheld sidewalk de-icer.
When Hailey got to the checkout, the bank card was declined. The checkout lady had seen it all before, but Hailey could sense the eyes of the other shoppers taking in her big diamond, her designer bag. Here was a different poverty—fresh—and they smelled it on her. The Visa was declined too, as a line built up behind her, and in the end only a tiny amount left on the Amex saved the day. Out in the parking lot she stood in the rain next to her plastic bags full of junk and scrolled the bank account: Had Sunshine Enterprises cleared them out? Why hadn’t she thought of this, that if someone could get in, they could surely take money out? How could she be so stupid?
