“As sorry as I am that you’ve found yourself in need of our assistance, I’m happy you’re allowing us to be here for you. How can I help?”
Nora bit her bottom lip and lifted her purse into her lap. “I’m not sure anyone can help me.” She began to dig through the seemingly bottomless bag. “I wasn’t going to come, but there was nowhere else to go.”
“I hear that a lot, actually.” Most of the women who came to Open Arms had a million reasons why they shouldn’t be there. They had lived with the shame and the fear so long, it prevented them from believing they could escape. “I’m more helpful than people think.”
The woman set a manila folder on Lucy’s desk. “I’m pretty sure my husband has something in these files that can get me in trouble, but I don’t know what it is.”
Lucy often helped women obtain an order of protection or explained the confusing language lawyers and courts loved to throw at the layman. This was the first time someone had come to her about something a bit more complicated.
The folder was filled with bank statements, spreadsheets, invoices and other financial documents. As Lucy perused the paperwork, Nora told her story. She and her husband had met at work when she was hired as his personal assistant seven years ago. He had climbed the corporate ladder quickly. The more money he made, the bigger his ego—and temper—grew. They had still just been dating the first time he hit her, but she’d believed him when he remorsefully pleaded for her forgiveness and promised it would never happen again.
He had lied.
Instead of breaking things off, Nora had believed she could change Wade by proving her love and married him six months into their relationship. The only one who changed, however, was Nora. Wade quickly had her cut ties with everyone in her life. She’d been “encouraged” to stop talking to her parents, her brother and her friends. Wade had told her they didn’t care about her the way he did, weren’t responsible for her the way he was.
As she became more isolated, he became more controlling. He picked out all her clothes, told her when to get her hair cut, had rules about how she should clean the house. When she didn’t comply, she was punished. If he left marks, he made her stay home, and since he was her boss, no one questioned it.
Wade soon left his job to start his own wealth management corporation with a couple of other guys, taking Nora with him. It had been his way of removing all her social connections outside of him.
Alone and unable to meet her husband’s unreasonable standards, Nora had considered several means of escape. Some were more desperate than others. There was no telling what she would have done if she hadn’t seen a flyer for Open Arms tacked on a bulletin board at the coffee shop where she bought Wade’s morning latte.
“I’m grateful for everything Open Arms did for me, but when I left him the first time, he sent me a warning via my mother. He said if I didn’t come home, he would have no choice but to tell the world about what I had done. I hadn’t done anything, but that didn’t mean he had nothing to tell. Wade doesn’t make idle threats.”
“I see you have several accounts in your name—that was smart,” Lucy said, paging through the other files. It would take time to make sense of all this.
“I thought about opening up an account a couple of years ago. I figured if I ever wanted to leave, I was going to need some cash. The only problem was Wade watched every penny and nickel I spent—my checks from work were deposited directly into our joint account. There was no way for me to funnel money into anything.”
Lucy was confused. The statements in the folder were for three separate bank accounts, all in Nora’s name. “You didn’t open these?”
Nora shook her head. “I came across all that by accident. He was hiding it in a drawer in his office at home.” She pulled out a flash drive. “This, too. I don’t know what’s on it, but I have a feeling it’s all connected.”
“You need a lawyer.” Lucy had heard some crazy things working here, but this was the wildest of them all.
“That’s why I’m here. You’re a lawyer, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“I have no credit cards, no access to the money in our joint account, nothing. All I have is this.” She pulled out an envelope with several hundred-dollar bills in it. “I pawned my wedding ring this morning. You can have it all if you’ll help me.”
Lucy knew better than to take this case. It had trouble written all over it. Yet, if there was one thing Lucy couldn’t resist, it was putting someone in their place.
“That’s your money. My services are free.”
Nora sighed with relief. “Thank you.” Her teeth dug into her bottom lip again. “One more thing—he’s going to kill me when he finds out I took all of these files.”
“Not if I can help it,” Lucy said with a sure smile. She wasn’t afraid of anyone.
* * *
PAIGE HAD SET UP a meeting with the board a few days later, and with Lucy’s help she’d convinced them to hold off on accepting any offers before they put forth their best efforts to save Safe Haven. However, the board also thought it was important to meet with the prospective buyers to hear them out, at least.
Lucy had appealed to her two allies on the board. They seemed to be in agreement with her about the necessity of keeping possession of both the shelter house in Logan Square and the office space in Lincoln Park. They promised to make some calls and find some money. There were two other board members who were less opposed to selling the house. Their contacts were tapped out. The fifth and deciding member always voted however Paige wanted her to vote. She trusted Paige’s judgment unequivocally.
In order to prove to Paige that Safe Haven could be saved, Lucy had spent countless hours during the week brainstorming ways to raise the money to keep up with the payments. She had even enlisted the help of her sisters. Emma came up with the idea of having a live auction at the fund-raiser this year in addition to the small silent one they usually did. Kendall agreed to donate her time and talents to the cause.
Lucy was confident they could find a way to keep things going through the new year. That was why she wore an easy smile the morning of the meeting with the developers. They were going to show these people that the women who spent time in Safe Haven had been pushed around enough; they certainly weren’t going to be pushed out of a neighborhood that provided them with much-needed security.
“You look like you don’t have a care in the world. How do you do that?” Paige asked, appearing quite the opposite. Her hair was slipping out of its barrette and the worry lines on her forehead seemed almost permanent.
“They can offer us any amount they want. The board will side with us.”
“What if it’s a lot of money?” Paige wrung her hands as she paced around the reception area of Open Arms.
“We don’t need their money.”
Paige nodded and repeated Lucy’s words a bit less confidently. “We don’t need their money.”
The front door to the office opened and a parade of people waltzed in. Lucy hadn’t expected the buyer to bring an army. Perhaps they really were at war. She put on her game face until the last man stepped over the threshold. Her breath caught and her face fell. She hadn’t seen him since she’d told him to stay away from her almost five years ago.
Dylan Hunt had always been a golden boy. Blond hair, blue eyes, broad shoulders and a brilliant mind. He had also broken Lucy’s heart. It didn’t matter that she was the one who’d