“What’s a shame?”
She stared at me, a puzzled expression on her face. “That you’ll have to sell it.”
“Why would I have to sell it?”
“Come on, Susan,” she said patiently. “I don’t know what kind of people you’ve gotten caught up with, but this whole thing is shady as hell. I read the purchase agreement. The whole thing is cloaked in so much mystery, it’s insane. You’ve got shell corporations inside of shell corporations.” Her piercing eyes held mine. “Someone sold it to you for one dollar, and they paid an absolute fortune in taxes to do it. What’s going on?”
“I have a very generous new employer.”
“You’re not going to tell me?”
“I am. This building is part of my remuneration package.”
She eyed me beadily. “You’re still working for Base Budget Insurance.”
I shrugged. “I’m moonlighting.”
“Well, I’m sorry to say that it’s all going to be in vain.” She rummaged in her briefcase. “You know that Delilah and Gordon aren’t going to back down. They want to see you completely fucked over.” She threw her hands up helplessly; it looked like a fake gesture. “You know I keep my fees low for you, but I can’t work pro bono anymore. The Andresanos are going to drag this out until you go bankrupt, and I can’t see any way out of this lawsuit. They won’t rest until they peel apart this whole bureaucratic nightmare. It’s in your best interests to sell the building and give half to Vincent.”
I stared back at her. “Really? You’re not even going to try to fight it?”
“Come on now, Susan.” A smile curved her lips. “The rumor mill in this city is in overdrive. You’ve got some mysterious new patron who is pulling your strings. I’m guessing you probably won’t want people digging too hard into his business. It’s best if we get the Andresano suit out of the way quickly.”
Why did she look so different to me? Courtney was a friend. But now, her pale face with its careful contouring seemed so cold, so cruel all of a sudden. Courtney was a fantastic lawyer, one of the top partners at her firm. “That’s what you said about that taxi driver who sued me.”
“Well,” she said, tossing her head. “I was right about that, too. You smashed his windows. If we didn’t settle, you would have lost much more if the case went to court.”
That was the first incident when I truly started doubting my sanity. “I told you I didn’t do that.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t.”
Her eyes widened. “I believe you.”
My skin buzzed at her lie. It never mattered before. I hesitated for a second. “You pressured me to settle.”
“Not because I didn’t believe you.” Buzz. “You know how these things drag out. It was just quicker and cheaper to settle out of court.” She tilted her head, her face concerned. “What’s gotten into you?”
I didn’t respond; I just stared at her. Oh, God, how could I have gotten this wrong, too?
When the taxi driver sued me, I went to her office and cried on her shoulder. I was so confused, and I didn’t really know what had happened. I’d had such a bad day at the office, and the driver had been an obnoxious jerk, first leering at me, then snapping at me. My temper boiled over, and suddenly, the back windows blew out.
“Courtney.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Tell me the truth. Do you think I smashed the windows?”
“Oh, come on, Susan.” She arched an eyebrow. “Of course you did it. We all understand how menopause-brain works. You just forgot that you did it.”
I remember how she kept saying that. I forgot. I had a mind-fart due to a quick drop in estrogen. She kept pushing it as a reason for the driver to accept the settlement offer. I was a poor, sad, menopausal woman, worthy of pity.
“I didn’t do it.”
She let out a bark of laughter. “How else did his windows get smashed from the inside? It’s okay to be wrong about things, you know.”
A buzz ran over my skin at her lie. She didn’t think it was okay to be wrong. It was one of the things me and Courtney had in common—we were both very confident women, so sure of ourselves. It was why we had bonded in the first place.
A little wriggling worm of suspicion burrowed into me, and I looked at Courtney again with new eyes.
Was she on my side? I wasn’t sure anymore. I’d been wrong about smoking. I’d been wrong about Seraphina, and I’d been very wrong about Vincent.
Had Courtney ever been on my side? Now, knowing that I was never crazy, it really didn’t look like it. Courtney pressured me to settle the taxi driver’s lawsuit even though she regularly fought much tougher cases, and she won every time.
She’d lied about taking care of my dog, Rusty, when I went to prison, and Vincent had him put down. And now, in the face of Gordon and Delilah’s lawsuit, she wanted me to roll over, sell the building, and give half the money to Vincent, even though I knew that legally, according to the terms of our divorce settlement, they didn’t have a leg to stand on.
“Honestly, Susan.” She leaned forward, looking me in the face. “Are you okay? Do you need me to call someone?”
I looked at her. “Did you sleep with Vincent?”
Her mouth dropped open; she gasped, and reared back, offended. “Of course not!”
Buzz.
“Oh, my God. You’re lying.” My words came out in a mumble; my lips felt numb. “You did sleep with Vincent.”
“I would never!” The buzz of her lie ran over my skin, electrifying me.
“When did you do it? Was it after I went to jail?”
“No!” Buzz.
