I Married a Billionaire: Lost and Found(15)

I had to smile, in spite of myself.

I started drawing a weeping willow, its trunk gnarled and twisted with knots. There was one down by the creek where I grew up, and if I concentrated hard enough I could remember the exact feeling of the leaves brushing against my skin when I sat underneath it.

There was a light tap at the door.

My heart actually leapt into my throat, which was, quite frankly, embarrassing.

"Yeah?" I called out, my hand frozen in midair.

"Maddy, can I come in?"

It was Lindsey.

I let out a long breath. "Yeah, of course."

She came in and shut the door quietly behind her, walking in and sitting gingerly in the armchair by the window.

"So," she said. "How you holding up?"

I shrugged, staring at my drawing. It was actually pretty good. The landscape needed a lot more detail, but…

"It's good that you're drawing," she said, making a vague gesture towards the easel. I nodded, still only looking at her from the corner of my eye.

"I know it seems bad now," she continued, crossing and uncrossing her legs. "But everything will get straightened out. The trick is to not let yourself get overwhelmed. Take it one day at a time. Don't think too far into the future - let someone else handle that for you. Danny's been talking to his attorney."

I made a face.

"Don't worry," Lindsey said. "I've met this one - I recommended her, actually. The thing about Daniel is that he…" she considered her words for a moment. "…he doesn't exactly have, uh, the gift of discernment. Especially when it comes to people's characters. I know it probably doesn't seem like it, most of the time, but he trusts too easily."

"I guess I could see that," I replied, adding a few more branches to my tree. He had, after all, trusted me with a marriage of convenience when he hardly knew me at all.

For a while, Lindsey was quiet. When I finally met her eyes, I could tell she wanted very badly to say something, but she couldn't quite bring herself to do it. It wasn't like her to hold back. Whatever it was, she must have an awfully good reason for not wanting to say it.

And for once in my life, I was content to let sleeping dogs lie.

***

Daniel's lawyer was a brusque middle-aged woman with short brown hair and - I imagined - an equally short temper. Her mouth was set in a permanent frown. I didn't think I could stand to work with someone like that, but Daniel seemed to appreciate her businesslike attitude.

I'd met her briefly a handful of times, but this was the first time she'd been to the apartment. Daniel had consulted with her already, a few days after the phone call, but it was going on a week now and brokerage had made next to no progress on their "forensics." They’d apparently decided to proceed with the case as if that evidence might never surface. On the plus side, several of Daniel’s original key investors agreed to pour some more money into the company, enough to keep manufacturing going and prevent it from going into the red while this whole mess got sorted out.

The lawyer, Ms. Greenlee, stayed for quite a while, going over paperwork with Daniel and reviewing his options for going forward. She was recommending that he petition the judge to have his assets un-frozen, as a first order of business. Despite the fact that it had been enacted very swiftly, she informed us that it might take several weeks for a reversal to process, so it was best to start it sooner rather than later.

"We need to establish that you're not a flight risk," she said, sipping at a glass of water, eyeing Daniel from over her half-moon reading glasses. "That means you need to look calm at the hearing. You need to be assured of your own innocence and you need to meet his eyes and answer all his questions honestly. Are you prepared to do that?"

"Yes," he said, actually looking slightly cowed. Come to think of it, I could actually appreciate this lawyer quite a bit.

"It's very, very important that you keep your story straight," she said. "I know - you didn't do it - but that doesn't mean the facts won't change in your memory from time to time, and that will look like dishonesty to him. Establish the facts and stick to them, don't let yourself waver."

Daniel was nodding, scribbling in his little notepad.

The lawyer shuffled her papers a bit. "With someone of your means, there's always that concern. That you'll just head off somewhere and disappear. Now, luckily, you've got one thing going for you - despite your dual citizenship, Canada would still extradite you at the drop of a hat, so you've got no shelter there, and they know that."

Daniel nodded again. "Is there anything else I can do to make myself seem more stable?"

"Well, the rest is pretty common sense - don't book any plane tickets or boat charters or anything like that."

"That might be difficult anyway, without any credit cards."

She didn't miss a beat. "Remember that you're in the public eye now. Even if you go to a store and pay cash, you might be spotted. Don't buy any luggage, don't apply to renew your passport - nothing."

"Would I use my own passport if I were trying to flee the country?" he looked up at her, still scribbling in his notepad.

"I wouldn't know," she said, dryly.

She left him with mounds of paperwork, and he sequestered himself in the bedroom again, making phone call after phone call. I could hear him talking - dimly, through the door - but I couldn't distinguish any words. Lindsey had to teleconference into a meeting for most of the day, so I found myself alone for the better part of it. I spent a while in my studio, staring at my new sketch, and trying to figure out how to make something of it. It was a nice enough landscape, but it was missing something.