The Last Invitation (2)
“Baines, what the hell? Where are you?” Her voice bounced off the two-story entrance as she moved around.
He didn’t pop up with his perfectly dimpled cheek and his usual what’s wrong with you? expression. She assumed her very busy, very important ex was trying to make a point.
She walked across the entry to the paneled library at the opposite side. “Hey, are you on the phone?”
She stepped into the doorway and . . . red. The shocking color flashed in front of her. Bright and out of place. In spots and splashes. Splattered across the painting next to him in a random pattern of dots. Dripping down his white shirt. Oozing from the hole right by his ear.
The panicked screaming in her head told her to run, but she couldn’t move. She stumbled. Off-balance, she slammed into something hard. The wall, a piece of furniture—she didn’t know or care because every part of her, from her brain to her bones, went numb.
He couldn’t be . . .
Baines. She tried to say his name. She thought her mouth opened but couldn’t be sure. All that noise pounding in her head, the jumble of thoughts, but no sound came out.
The air in the room wrapped around her, cutting off her breath. The sensation of being hunted and stalked hit her right before the room went dark.
Chapter Three
Jessa
“You’re pathetic.” His rage, usually tamped down and reined in, hidden behind a baby face and black thin-framed glasses, whipped out without warning.
Jessa Hall didn’t panic because she’d been called worse. She regularly received comments about her alleged incompetency, or how ugly she was, and how she’d ruined everything. She was a divorce lawyer. Misplaced hate came with the territory.
The issue right now was Darren Bartholomew’s unraveling. Forty-six years old, probably objectively attractive to some in a rich-white-guy kind of way, but not to her. He came to court dressed in his usual nerdy, pressed-to-perfection look. He could pass as a college professor, but he was vice president of . . . something in a century-old family business, which meant he didn’t do much of anything but collect checks from a trust fund.
She’d known his family for all of three weeks. In that time, he’d never raised his voice. Never showed any outward signs of anger. Never yelled. He’d been a model of calm, practical decency. The smart, reliable one. The one who listened and said all the right things. That he let the mask slip—chose to show the real him, the him his wife said she feared—in the open area right outside a courtroom, less than twenty feet away from two sheriffs, surprised Jessa.
She refused to show weakness as she turned to face him. “Calling me names isn’t going to help your case, Mr. Bartholomew.”
She’d hoped the teacher-like snap in her voice would bring him rushing back to reality and click his usual well-meaning fa?ade into place. The discussion provided his estranged wife with the cover she needed to sneak away and make a dash for the elevators behind his back.
Darren didn’t blink as he faced Jessa down. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
“I haven’t done anything yet.” The judge had handled all the talking during the hearing, but Jessa understood that she’d be the target. In part, that was her job as the guardian ad litem. She’d been appointed by the court to represent the best interests of Curtis Bartholomew, the five-year-old being pulled apart by his parents’ very ugly divorce.
Her firm, a boutique family law practice that produced a string of judges to the Montgomery County Circuit Court and the Maryland Court of Appeals, agreed to GAL appointments as a service to the court. She’d been assigned to the Bartholomew divorce, and to Curtis, and she really wished she was back in her office, doing just about anything else right now.
“She has custody,” he said. She, presumably, being Ellie Bartholomew, his wife.
“Your wife has temporary physical custody. You have visitation.” Something his attorney should be explaining to him, not her. Jessa stretched up on tiptoes and looked around for the overpriced, business-and-not-really-divorce-attorney good old boy who represented Darren.
“No overnight visits.” Darren shook his head. “I’m limited on how much I can see my own son.”
“I know that’s upsetting.” Jessa tried to signal for Darren’s attorney, a reinforcement to explain to Darren that physically removing his wife from the house and throwing a duffel bag at her in front of Curtis and his friends had started the custody case off in a very bad way. The judge had not been impressed with Darren’s in-court not-really apology for his behavior, which was why they were all in this mess. “But it’s just until the psychologist, Dr. Downing, finishes her custody evaluation and—”
“She isn’t smart enough to make Curtis’s lunch.” Darren’s soft, nonthreatening tone was back, but it didn’t match the heat behind his words.
Jessa assumed he again referred to his wife’s perceived failings. But maybe he meant Dr. Downing. Maybe all women. Who knew? But that summed up his entire custody argument—the woman he’d married was too incompetent, stupid, ill-equipped, to even see their son, let alone have custody.
Darren was an all-or-nothing guy who’d already made it clear that his family’s influence and money should mean everything when it came to who was best able to parent Curtis. He could give Curtis things. Vacations. Private school.