Chapter 27
To Do:
- Iron court outfit
- Look over opening remarks
- Get Aaron’s final choice on caterer
“We’re goingto crush that dried up, one-dimensional sycophant,” Mindy said as she crossed the threshold of Claire’s apartment and flung her overnight bag into the living room. The blonde wig from earlier poked out through the zipper.
“Kyle sounded pretty confident,” Claire conceded. They had called him on the way back from the stakeout. She threw a pile of mail onto the bar and let Rosie off her leash. Kara, her downstairs neighbor, had agreed to doggysit during the stakeout. Not that she knew about the stakeout.
Rosie sprinted for her latest favorite chew toy, a fish taco.
“I can’t believe the mediation meeting is on Monday.” Claire rubbed her sweaty palms on her jeans.
“Everything will be fine,” Mindy said. “Kyle is going to threaten to counter-sue for intentional affliction of emotional distress, and if that doesn’t work, you’ll drop the bomb about her sleeping with the councilmen and threaten to go public with it.”
“I do feel a little bit bad for Jason. Should I tell him?”
“Don’t,” Mindy said, pulling two wine glasses from Claire’s cabinet. “He deserved it. He cheated on you, then he stalked you for almost a year while living with Wendy. He’s the textbook definition of trash.”
Claire groaned and pulled a bottle of pinot grigio from the fridge. She dumped some into their glasses and retreated to the living room. “I’m so ready for things to go back to normal.”
Mindy snorted. “Are you kidding me? With Wendy? It’ll be months ‘til this thing is sorted out. But at least we can look forward to drinks tomorrow night.”
Claire frowned. Right. Mindy’s blow-off-some-steam night. She would be surrounded by couples and fifth-wheeling it with Sawyer in tow. “Right. Want to go over some finishing touches for Aaron’s proposal?”
“Definitely. I have some thoughts about the lighting.”
An hour later, every detail was hammered out for the gallery proposal. It was going to be magical. Claire carried their wine glasses to the kitchen and put them in the dishwasher. She picked up her stack of mail and flicked through it. Bill, bill, spam.
Oh, hell. A plain white envelope with no return address was nestled between a bridal magazine and her water bill.
Her hands shook, and it fell to the floor. She bent to get it, and her elbow slammed off a cabinet door. She stared up at the ceiling. Why was she being punished?
Mindy’s head popped up from the couch. “What’s wrong?”
“Pretty sure my friends sent me another note.” Claire opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of rubber gloves. She slid them on and ripped open the envelope. For once, she wasn’t full of dread. She was sick of this childish game of notes and empty threats. If they wanted her, why hadn’t they come to claim her?
Mindy stood and wandered into the kitchen. Her face was grim. “Want me to call Officer Shiccitano?”
Claire skimmed the contents and rolled her eyes. She tossed it onto the bar. “I’ll give it to him tomorrow. It’s just the usual, we’re watching you and we’re going to cut out your liver and make cookies with your spine, etcetera. Get in line, bitches. They’ll have to get past Wendy first.”
Mindy bent over the note and read it. She didn’t laugh. “Claire, this is serious. We should tell the police.”
“It’s just another stupid message saying the same thing as always. Trust me, this can wait until the morning.” And if the delay irritated her father, even better. “For a supposed organization of female-hating serial killers, their threats are incredibly underwhelming. Let’s go to bed.”
“If you say so,” Mindy said, but she was still looking at the note. “Have you told Luke about all this? The cult and everything?”
“Nope.” Claire pulled a sandwich bag out of her drawer and deposited the note and envelope inside.
“You don’t think he’d want to know?”
“Of course he’d want to know. That’s exactly why I’m not telling him. I’m not going to write his next documentary for him.” She flung the bag into her purse.
“He’ll find out eventually, though. I’m sure Nicole told Kyle.”
Claire shrugged. “I don’t care if it makes him angry.”
“You know what? You’re right. Fuck him.”
Finally, they agreed on something.
Claire whistled for Rosie, and the three of them collapsed onto Claire’s bed. The note intruded into Claire’s thoughts as she settled down to sleep, but she pushed it away. Every minute of this week was already accounted for, and “worrying about notes from murderous idiots” was not on the agenda.
It was Monday,and that only meant one thing—mediation.
“So, what are we not going to do this morning?” Kyle asked as he held the door of the courtroom open.
“Get angry and flip the table over,” Claire muttered like a chastised child. How was she going to sit through an hours-long meeting with the woman who was determined to make her life hell without inflicting some kind of bodily harm? It would take a miracle. “You’re sure we shouldn’t even offer to cover her copays from the emergency room visit?”
“I really don’t think we’ll need to. I know John. He’s a good guy and a great mediator. He’ll see right through her circus. It’s going to be fine. Chances of achieving a favorable resolution in mediation are much higher than going in front of a judge.”
“I hope you’re right,” she muttered. If she had to pay Wendy a shitload of money on top of watching her sabotage her life on the daily, she was going to lose her mind.
“It’s the meeting room down the hall. Third door on the right. I’m just going to grab a coffee.” Kyle veered off in the other direction.
“Okay.” Claire wandered down the hall. A shiver went down her spine as she passed the annex where she’d awaited news from Barney’s preliminary hearing. Her prison visit was scheduled for next week, and she would be face-to-face with Barney Freakin’ Windsor. Not to mention his lawyer, Luke’s velociraptor of a mother, who was also sure to be there. She pushed the thought from her mind as she entered the meeting room. One crisis at a time.
The mediator, someone Kyle knew from law school, was already there.
“Hi, John,” she said, reaching out a hand to the portly, brown-haired man. His pants were an inch too short, and he wore blue socks with bulldogs on them. “I love your socks. I have a corgi at home.”
“Miss Hartley,” he said, returning her handshake and turning back to the material in front of him. Apparently, he wasn’t much of a talker. Or maybe as a mediator he wasn’t allowed to chat.
Claire settled into a swiveling office chair and put her purse in the one beside her. She pulled out a notebook with an elaborate “Mediation” label. If only Rosie were here. Mindy had taken her to the office.
Kyle walked in a moment later and sat next to Claire. He spread his notes out in front of him and glanced over them once more. “Remember,” he whispered to her, “you’re doing most of the talking. Stay calm and speak your heart. Don’t let her get in your head.”
“Thank you,” she whispered back.
Someone screamed in the hallway. Claire and Kyle jumped.
The door banged open. Wendy strutted into the room, clad in a fur shrug and a skintight blue dress. She wore a floppy-brimmed sun hat and sunglasses, like a celebrity avoiding the paparazzi. Her left arm was in a sling even though it surely hadn’t been when Claire had spotted her at the hotel. Interesting. “What do you mean we’re only going for half a mil? You promised me five mil.”
Claire’s heart thudded in her chest and her stomach twisted. Half a million dollars? While it wasn’t as terrifying an amount as five million dollars, they couldn’t seriously believe she had that much liquid cash on hand. She would lose everything.
“And I told you we had to be more reasonable about our expectations, Miss Flutter.” A harried-looking man in a suit followed her into the room and shut the door.
“I’ll fire you, you know. My dad says I can have whoever I want.” Wendy lowered her sunglasses and stared at her lawyer.
“Let’s just get this over with,” he muttered. His shoulders slumped like he was already resigned to a very long day. “John,” he said, extending a hand to the mediator.
John shook it. “Miss Flutter, I assume?”
“Yeah,” Wendy said, collapsing into the seat directly across from Claire with a humph. She didn’t bother to shake the mediator’s hand. Hopefully, that would work in Claire’s favor.
“Thank you both for joining us today. Miss Flutter and Miss Hartley, you haven’t participated in a mediation before, correct?”
The women both shook their head.
“Great. So, my name is John Garcia. I’m simply here to help you reach a resolution. If we can’t reach a resolution during today’s meeting with the two-hour time limit, we’ll continue to schedule individual and joint meetings until everything is resolved. You can confer with your attorneys, but generally in my mediations I like to hear directly from the participants so I can understand your unique situation. And on that note, please do not interrupt each other. You’ll each have a turn to explain your side. Understood?”
Claire nodded. It would take an act of god to prevent her from interrupting Wendy’s unending spew of lies, but she would give it her best shot.
“All right. It looks like we’re here to discuss an altercation that occurred on May 25th, which resulted in injuries for Miss Flutter. Miss Flutter, would you care to make your opening remarks?”
Wendy spit a wad of gum into her coffee cup. “Yeah. So, Claire here beat the shit out of me?—”
“Miss Flutter,” her lawyer warned.
Wendy sighed. “Me and my boyfriend went to leave this party and Miss Hartley attacked me. She owes me reparations for my medical bills and pain and suffering. Every night when I go to sleep, I have nightmares of her just sitting on top of me, hitting me. I had to go to therapy. Oh, and she got my boyfriend arrested.” She stood up and slammed her hands on the table. “I want five million dollars for the trauma.”
Her lawyer sighed. Claire gripped the edge of the table. Don’t flip it.
“Okay,” the mediator said, “it looks like I have some itemized medical bills here. Mr. Collins, you’ve got a copy as well?”
Kyle nodded and slid a sheet of paper between him and Claire.
“I don’t see anything on here about an arm injury, Miss Flutter.” He gestured to the sling on her arm. “Was that something you sustained during the altercation?”
Her lawyer cleared his throat, but Wendy plowed on. “Oh, yeah. The doctors missed it at the emergency room visit, but it’s really been acting up.”
“Noted,” the mediator said. “Miss Hartley, would you like to make your opening remarks?”
“Sure, thank you.” Claire flipped to the first page in her notebook and took a deep breath. “So, in order to fully understand the situation that led to the altercation, I think it would be beneficial to tell you about our shared past.” She looked at the mediator. He nodded.
Claire dove into her years-long professional rivalry with Wendy. She brought up the previous year’s Planner of the Year awards and Wendy’s seduction of her fiancé.
“And that brings me to our terms,” she said. Her insides twisted. “If Miss Flutter isn’t willing to drop this lawsuit, I’m prepared to counter-sue for intentional affliction of emotional distress. I have a few documents for you.” She slid a small stack of paper from a manila folder to the mediator.
Wendy leapt up from the table. “Me? You’re gonna sue me? After you beat the shit out of me?”
“Miss Flutter,” her lawyer warned.
“Yes,” Claire said calmly as she slid a DVD down the table. “I have copies for you as well.” She slid them to Wendy’s lawyer. “You’ll find a timeline of stalking behavior dating back three years, including security footage from outside my office.”
She glared at Wendy. That’s what she got for sitting outside the warehouse with a camera.
A sheen of sweat appeared on Wendy’s lawyer’s forehead.
“Also on the DVD, you’ll find the television interview where Wendy committed libel and accused me of sleeping with an employee,” Claire continued. “And in the same interview, she became so enraged over questions about her relationship with my ex-fiancé that she flipped a table on live TV.”
The mediator raised his eyebrows.
“And all of this evidence doesn’t even take into account the incident of professional sabotage that’s still under police investigation. A hooded figure loosened a wheel on the carriage we were riding in, causing the carriage to fall apart and injure my best friend in the middle of her marriage proposal. Wendy brought up this incident during the night of the altercation even though it was never publicized. How did she know about it if I never advertised the problem? Unless she was the one who did it.”
Take that, bitch.
Claire cleared her throat. “And that brings me to the night of the altercation. It was the evening of my best friend’s engagement party, an event I had painstakingly planned with very little time to prepare. Imagine my surprise when Wendy and Jason showed up uninvited and threatened me for turning him in to the cops. She then proceeded to insult my best friend’s life work. I’m not proud of my actions that night. But twenty minutes after the altercation, I was chloroformed and abducted by the West Haven Widowmaker. So, my memory of the events right before aren’t perfect.”
“Blah, blah blah, we get it.” Wendy slapped the table again. “Poor little Claire, kidnapped by an ex-boyfriend. Stop playing the victim card and take responsibility for your actions.”
Claire moved to stand up, but Kyle laid a hand on her shoulder.
The mediator frowned. “Miss Flutter, please don’t interrupt Miss Hartley when she’s speaking.”
“I almost died that night,” Claire said rigidly. “You think I owe you something after what happened. I almost paid for that mistake with my life. If I hadn’t been alone in the bathroom cleaning up after our disagreement, I wouldn’t have been abducted.”
“Cry me a freakin’ river, Claire. You’re alive. And you have to deal with the consequences of what you did to me.” Wendy leaned across the table. There was cold hatred in her eyes.
“And one more thing regarding your alleged arm injury.” Claire stared back at her as she fished a glossy 8x6 picture out of a folder. She slid two copies across the table slowly. “This picture was taken two days ago. As you can see, Miss Flutter was not utilizing a sling at the time of this entanglement with a married man who conveniently serves as a judge for the award Wendy recently won. But I’m sure those events are totally unrelated.”
Wendy’s mouth dropped open. She immediately ripped the picture in half and stuffed it in her mouth. She ran down to the other end of the table and snatched the other copy from the mediator.
“You have no proof,” she said over a mouthful of photo paper.
“We have more copies,” Claire said, leaning back in her chair. “We haven’t released any of this to the press out of respect for you as a colleague. But if the lawsuit remains, we may re-evaluate.”
“We need a recess,” Wendy’s lawyer declared, grabbing his client by the elbow and dragging her out of the room.
The mediator let out a long, slow breath and leaned back in his chair.
“You nailed it,” Kyle whispered to her.
Claire took a sip of water. Rehashing her past with Wendy had taken a lot out of her. She would kill for a quick yoga flow and a brief nap.
“No!” Wendy shouted in the hallway. Through the window, Claire noted her gesturing with both hands despite the sling. “I’m not dropping it. She owes me.”
Apparently, the courthouse couldn’t spring for soundproofing in their mediation rooms.
“Every injury you sustained during the fight was superficial. It even says it in your visit notes in the emergency room. At best, she might owe you a couple hundred bucks in copays. And this isn’t even a receipt from a therapist, it’s from some nail place on Broad Street.”
“Jolisa is my therapist,” Wendy shouted. “I tell her everything.”
“That’s not how it works. If they counter-sue in front of a judge, they will win. You could lose your entire business. Then you won’t even have a platform to challenge her. Is that what you want?”
“I’m not giving up!” Wendy let out a frustrated scream. Suddenly, a fire extinguisher crashed through the window into the conference room. Claire gasped. Acting on instinct, she turned and threw herself across Kyle. Shattered glass scattered everywhere.
“Oh my god, are you okay?” Claire asked. Blood dribbled from a cut on Kyle’s cheek. She pulled a tissue from her purse and dabbed at it.
“All good,” he said, brushing a shard of glass off his lapel. “Mondays, am I right?”
“John?” Claire glanced at the head of the table. John had scooted his chair back until he hit the opposite wall. He looked terrified, but no worse for the wear.
Kyle failed to suppress a grin. “What the hell was she thinking?” he whispered to Claire.
Claire shrugged. She would rather light herself on fire than delve into the bag of angry cats and strap-on dildos that was Wendy’s mind.
Wendy’s lawyer poked his head through the now glass-less window. “On behalf of my client, I’d like to request that we schedule individual meetings. Thank you for your time.”
John shook his head. “I think that’s best.”