House on Fire (ARC)

by Bonnie Kistler

  Yana was still perched on the hood of the car, and as Drew stomped to the driver’s side and slammed his door she unfolded her flamingo legs and got into the passenger seat without a word.

  Chapter Four

  Leigh dressed that morning in her standard first-meeting-with-a-client ensemble—dark suit and pearls—and started down to the kitchen with her heels clicking sharply on the back stairs. But halfway down she slipped out of the heels and turned back and crept down the hall to the children’s rooms. It was silly, of course they’d be in their beds, but still she pressed an ear against Chrissy’s door until she heard the slow, steady rhythm of her sleep-breathing. Then she stole across the hall and did the same at Kip’s door. No sleep-breathing there, but she could hear the quick, steady rhythm of his fingers tapping on a keypad. Not asleep, but at least where he was supposed to be. Both of them, safe in their own rooms.

  Downstairs in the kitchen she found a fresh pot of coffee and a note from Peter. Gone to the site. Obviously there would be no big breakfast celebration today. But he signed it with a string of x’s and o’s that gave her hope that his good mood would be back by tonight. Maybe she could switch their dinner reservations to tonight. A noisy restaurant, a sparkly cake, a kazoo band—surely that would help ease the tension. On Monday they’d hear from Shelby that baby DUI would be the only charge and the tension would be gone for good.

  She left her own note, reminding the kids of her meeting, and headed for the garage. The radio came on with the engine, still tuned to one of Peter’s news channels. She switched to a music station and backed out into the morning sunshine.

  And instantly slammed on the brakes as a girl sprang up behind the car.

  Leigh’s heart clutched. “Jenna!” Recognizing the girl only barely tempered her fright. She jumped out of the car. “Jenna! What are you doing? I could’ve run over you!”

  The girl’s hands went defiantly to her hips. Her own car was behind her in the driveway, and like Leigh’s, the engine was running and the door flung open. She was barely dressed, wearing only a jacket over her pajamas. The jacket didn’t close and the pajama top didn’t meet up with the pajama bottom, exposing six inches of swollen belly. “You need to get me a restraining order,” she shouted. “Like, today!”

  “Okay, now let’s calm down.” Leigh put an arm around her ­shoulders—not her standard behavior with clients, but this one was the daughter of an old friend, and she’d known her since infancy. “Take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”

  “He’s stalking me, that’s what!” Jenna shook her off, wild-eyed. “I knew he would, and last night he was there, lurking right outside my window!”

  “Hunter?” Such behavior wasn’t unheard of in divorcing husbands, but Leigh couldn’t quite picture the tech billionaire crawling through his in-laws’ rhododendrons.

  “Him or one of his goons.”

  “You didn’t see him, then.”

  Jenna tossed her head, but her mouth was trembling. “I heard him! Or more like, I felt him.” Below the too-short pajama top, her navel protruded like a pop-up timer announcing the turkey was done. The baby wasn’t done yet, though. She was only five months along. “It was like this disturbance out there, you know? Like electricity buzzing through the air. He gives it off, that vibe. I used to feel it all the time whenever he was close. I used to think it was exciting, you know? But now? It’s like this evil force in the universe. It totally freaked me out! You need to get the judge to issue a restraining order. Today!”

  Leigh tried again to put a soothing arm around her. Jenna wasn’t always this high-strung, and it was tempting to blame the pregnancy hormones for the transformation, but that was Hunter Beck’s excuse (We had the perfect marriage, he told the judge, until the hormones made her crazy), so Leigh was more inclined to blame Hunter. “Did you call the police?”

  Jenna shook her off again. “What’s the use? They won’t believe me. Even my own parents don’t believe me!”

  Her parents lived on Hollow Road, a half mile from Peter’s job site, on a farm they operated as a nonprofit retirement facility for aging horses. Jenna grew up there, a pretty girl who’d enjoyed all the conventional successes in school—cheerleader, homecoming queen, sorority president. After college she went to New York and took a low-level job in a high-tech company where she made the conventional mistake of sleeping with her boss. A rite of passage, some would say, that would have left her older, wiser, and working somewhere else—except that her boss then made the unconventional move of marrying her. Less than a year later she was here, half-dressed and hysterical in Leigh’s driveway.

  “I understand,” Leigh said. “But we need to prove he was there. There has to be some actual violence or threat of violence before you can get a protective order.”

  “But the judge likes me. I know he does! He took my side on every one of Hunter’s stupid motions.”

  After she fled their marriage, Beck filed a bizarre, grandstanding lawsuit demanding the right to attend all of her prenatal checks, access to the obstetrical records, and regular visitation with his unborn child so it could hear his voice in utero. Leigh got the case dismissed—not because the judge liked Jenna better, but only because the law was clear that a woman’s body was her own and a father had no rights until the child was actually born.

  But Hunter Beck wasn’t a typical father. He was a man unaccustomed to hearing the word no, and he would never accept defeat. He held a press conference on the courthouse steps decrying the court’s undermining of the sacred bond between father and child. His wife would return to him, he assured the reporters; their marriage would be fine. All he wanted in the meantime were the same rights that every other expectant father enjoyed. The judge’s ruling meant this precious time would be lost to him forever. He filed an appeal, too, which was even more grandstanding: by the time the upper court heard the case, the baby would be born and a whole new set of rules would apply.

  “It wouldn’t necessarily be the same judge,” Leigh said. “And no matter who it is, he can’t issue a protective order unless there’s been violence or a threat of violence.”

  For a moment Jenna stared blankly. Then her wild eyes squeezed shut, her lovely complexion erupted in mottled red patches, and she shrieked, “By then it’s already too late!” and burst into furious tears.

  “Jenna, honey—”

  A third vehicle rattled into the driveway, and Leigh was relieved to see the Dietrichs’ old farm truck. Carrie jumped down from behind the wheel, a faded blonde with a hard-muscled body clad in denim from collar to cuff. “Jenna, my God, look at you!” she said, charging up to her daughter. “Not even dressed and bothering Leigh at this hour!” She took the girl by the arm as her husband, Fred, climbed out the other side of the truck cab. “Come on now, let’s get you home before you catch cold. Out here in this damp with practically nothing on.”

  Jenna flailed for a bit but there was no vigor in it, and she didn’t resist as her parents hoisted her into their truck. Carrie looked at Leigh and mouthed Sorry as Fred headed for Jenna’s car. He was a stoop-shouldered man in glasses and a gray cardigan, a gentle soul Leigh always thought, but he was scowling ferociously now. “You didn’t hear anything?” she asked him.

  He shook his head. “No footprints either. With all that rain yesterday, there’d have to be some kind of tracks.” His mouth pulled tight. “That son of a bitch did some number on her. I don’t know what.”

  Nobody did. Leigh had questioned Jenna about physical abuse or any other fault grounds that would have allowed her to file for divorce without waiting out the year’s separation, but Jenna refused to answer. “Try not to worry,” Leigh said to Fred. “She’ll be herself again when this is all over.”

  He sank behind the wheel of Jenna’s car. “You know the worst of it? We were thrilled when they got married. It was like our girl won the lottery. Like she was crowned Miss America.” He look
ed up at Leigh with bleak eyes. “Some parents we turned out to be.”

  “No, Fred—”

  He shook off her attempt to reassure him and slammed the door and followed his broken family as they clattered down the road.

  Leigh’s meeting this morning was in an odd venue—the Saks Fifth Avenue store in Tysons Galleria—and at an odd time, since the mall wouldn’t be open for another hour. Nevertheless, a well-dressed young woman was waiting outside the main entrance to greet her as she pulled up. “Leigh Huyett?” she asked through the car window. ASHLEY GREGG, her name tag read, PERSONAL SHOPPING CONSULTANT. She placed a parking permit on the dash and pointed Leigh into a towaway zone next to the entrance. She used a security card to unlock the door and led the way through a cool array of glass-encased cosmetics and perfumes until they reached a private elevator at the back.

  Upstairs Leigh followed her past racks of beautiful clothes and around headless mannequins draped in exquisite fabrics and finally into a room lined with three-way mirrors and furnished with divans upholstered in a pale mauve silk. It was the designer wear salon, a place Leigh had only ever dreamed of visiting. A silver tea service gleamed on a glass-topped table next to a plate of berry-studded biscotti. “Please help yourself,” the young woman said as she took her leave. “The sheikha should be here shortly.”

  Sheikha? Leigh’s eyes opened wide in twelve different mirrors around the room. Richard Lowry hadn’t mentioned that when he called with the referral. He said only that she was the wife of a wealthy Middle Easterner. He received the referral from a solicitor in London who was relaying it from his correspondent counsel in Dubai. Richard received many such referrals—he was internationally known as the dean of U.S. matrimonial law—but divorces were intensely local affairs, which meant he usually served as a kind of switching station to refer the matter out again. When he learned of the Washington locus for this case, he thought of Leigh. He remembered a journal article she’d written a few years ago dealing with the intersection of religious law with U.S. divorce law—specifically whether the Jewish ketubah and the Islamic mahr could be viewed as enforceable prenuptial agreements. That would be the key issue in this case, he told her. That article contained the sum and substance of Leigh’s knowledge of Islamic matrimonial customs, but she was intrigued by this new case. A wealthy client combined with challenging legal issues was at the top of every lawyer’s wish list.

  Her phone beeped as she opened her briefcase, and she frowned when she saw Kip’s name glowing on the screen. She knew why he was ­calling—to lobby for her support in this fracas with his father. He’d make her the first stop on his comeback tour. Loosen her up with his patented Kip Conley charm, and let her do all the heavy lifting with his dad. Leigh had a real soft spot for Kip—he was smart and lively and she loved how he made her laugh—but he could be manipulative. Christopher Con Man, she called him whenever she caught him running another scam. She often joked that he was either headed for two terms in the White House or one long term in the penitentiary. But this was no joke. She mustn’t let him manipulate her into taking sides against Peter. She turned the phone off and put it away.

  She took out the checklist she’d developed for initial client interviews in cases like this. Matrimonial law was all she’d done for most of her career, though not by choice. She started her career as a litigator with dreams of trying the big corporate cases: IBM, Microsoft, Pennzoil versus Texaco. But when her first baby turned out to be twins, she quickly got mommy-tracked at the firm. The big cases were all-consuming, and the wise old men who ran the management committee didn’t believe she could handle them and motherhood, too. They shunted her off to the family law department, and she didn’t have the energy to fight back, which probably meant the old men were right after all. She made the best of it, though. Earned a pretty good living and built a pretty good reputation. Good enough at least to land her this referral today.

  The door to the salon opened, and a Middle Eastern man in a dark suit entered and swiftly surveyed the room. He looked like a Secret Service agent except without the sunglasses and coiled wire at his ear. He stepped back with a bow, and into the room swept a figure swathed in black silk from head to foot. Nothing of her was visible but her eyes behind a gauze-veiled slit in her niqab. She murmured something to the man, and he backed out of the room and closed the door.

  Leigh rose to her feet. “Good morning.”

  The woman didn’t speak as she glided across the floor to the mirrors and slowly began to remove her wrappings. They came off in a spiral, a whisper of tissue-soft silk that drifted slowly to her feet. Underneath was a stylish figure wearing a St. John suit in a bright coral pink. She turned, a beautiful woman on the bright side of forty with a chic layered haircut and eyes like black coffee. “I must apologize for the cloak-and-dagger,” she said. At the word cloak, she cast a look down at her abaya where it lay puddled on the floor.

  “How do you do—sheikha?” Leigh said uncertainly. “I’m Leigh ­Huyett.”

  “Please. You must call me Devra.” The woman set what looked like a genuine Birkin bag on the floor beside the divan and sat down with an elegant cross of her legs. She nodded for Leigh to sit as well. “You come highly recommended. I’m told you specialize in divorce cases?”

  “Yes. Are you contemplating divorce?”

  “Every moment of every day.”

  She pronounced the words like a death sentence. Leigh had represented a lot of distraught wives and a lot of angry, vindictive wives, too, but there was something peculiarly desolate in the sheikha’s tone.

  “How may I help?”

  The woman poured herself a cup of tea and took a delicate sip. “I wish to understand what my rights would be should I seek a divorce in your American courts. Whether it is even possible for me to seek a divorce.”

  “So long as you meet the residency requirements, of course it’s possible.”

  “In my home country, it is not. Under sharia law, I have no right to divorce my husband absent his consent.”

  “Which you don’t believe he would grant?”

  The woman let out a mirthless laugh. “Never.”

  “May I ask how long you’ve been living in this country?”

  “A little more than one year.”

  “I would have thought much longer. Your accent is flawless.” Leigh would have guessed that most highborn Middle Easterners had English accents, but the sheikha’s was distinctly American.

  “My mother was an American. Which makes me an American, too, I suppose. But I never lived here until my husband brought us over last year.”

  Leigh picked up her intake form. “May I have your address?”

  “No.”

  Her head came up. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m afraid I cannot disclose my address at this time. Or, indeed, my true name. I do apologize for the secrecy, but there are—circumstances.”

  “Sheikha—Devra—you do understand our discussions here today are confidential? Even if you decide not to retain me, I can’t disclose anything you tell me.”

  Devra shook her head. “In our next meeting perhaps.”

  Leigh couldn’t proceed on this basis. She couldn’t advise this woman of her rights until she knew where she lived, because each jurisdiction’s laws were different, and she couldn’t represent her at all until she knew her name. Whenever she took on a new client, she had to first confirm there was no conflict of interest with any other client her firm represented, and the only way to do it was to run the full legal name through their database.

  “In that case.” She slid her useless checklist back in her briefcase.

  “Oh, but—”

  “We’ll discuss these matters on a hypothetical basis, shall we?”

  The sheikha sank back against the divan cushions. “Thank you, yes.”

  “I practice in the courts of Virginia, Maryland, and the District of
Columbia. May I assume you reside in one of those three jurisdictions?”

  “You may.”

  Leigh briefly summarized the grounds for divorce under Virginia and Maryland law: no-fault if the parties were separated for at least one year; otherwise the petitioning spouse had to prove one of the enumerated fault grounds. The District of Columbia was strictly no-fault, but the spouses had to be separated for at least six months, or separated from bed and board for at least one year.

  “What does this mean? Separated from bed and board?”

  “Living under the same roof but not as a married couple. Essentially, not having sexual relations.”

  “I see. This is true also in Maryland and Virginia?”

  “No, there you must be physically living apart for a year before seeking a no-fault divorce.”

  “And if this is not possible?”

  Leigh cocked her head. “You’re still living with your husband?”

  Devra nodded.

  “Well, if he won’t leave, then you should. If money’s the problem,” Leigh added, “we can petition for a temporary support order.”

  “That is not the problem.”

  “If there are children to consider—”

  “There are none.”

  She was at a loss. “You wish to divorce him but not to leave him?”

  “Of course I wish to leave him. But he would never allow it. You must understand. In my country, in our culture, a wife cannot leave her husband, not without his consent.”

  “But you’re in America now. Things are different here.”

  Devra sighed. “One does not live in a country. One lives in a marriage and a household and a culture.” She folded her hands. “And so you are telling me divorce is not possible for me in my circumstances.”

  “Not in the District,” Leigh said. “Not unless you can prove you’re not living as husband and wife. But it is possible to divorce in Maryland or Virginia, even in the absence of separation, if you can prove one of the enumerated fault grounds.”