Bad Habits Part 46

"He'll think it's a set up. He won't go for it." Keith's eyes went to Andrew across the room.

"Not if you a.s.sume the risk. All of the risk."

"Then it is a set-up?"

"No, you can tie it all back to your investigation, right?"

Keith dropped his hands in his pockets. Cain imagined he wasn't as straight laced as he pretended. But breaking the law, corporate law, that came at a big risk. "We have to be careful. No one can trace us to it, if I'm in. I need a.s.surance that there is a way out."

"We'll be careful. But it's an all or nothing kind of deal. Think about it." Cain stepped away to let him stew. He walked toward his father in-law.

"Sweetheart, I say this with love, okay? How could you let it get that far out of hand?" Joan asked.

Simone sat in the pa.s.senger seat, staring straight ahead. Seeing the house, the others, but not really. What she saw was her marriage and what it had become. They chose Joan's car to chat. She didn't even trust her own house anymore and it was just next-door. Her new friend had sat quietly listening to a twenty-minute dump on the h.e.l.l her marriage had turned into. Her reaction was expected. When Simone heard herself detail it out, she cringed inwardly too.

"I trusted him," she answered.

"Honey, you didn't trust him. You just went deaf, dumb, and blind through the whole thing. I can only come at you straight," Joan sighed. "Look, I know you're beating yourself up, and you don't need me to add to it. h.e.l.l, we all do things for love, I guess. s.h.i.t, I sold out to the establishment too."

"Establishment?" Simone frowned.

"Henry Nelson, my husband. Though the b.a.s.t.a.r.d would never try that s.h.i.t with me," she ground out through her teeth, "he did come with his conditions. He was a client, the calm to my storm and the only man that didn't become intimidated by me. I thought that made him heroic. It just made me ordinary." Joan's tone went distant. "We all compromise for the ones we love, but not at the cost of our own happiness. Never mind that. Keith's power is your naivete. You have to stop that now. Right now."

"His power isn't in my head. It's real and complete," Simone argued.

"Bulls.h.i.t!"

"You're saying he doesn't have control?"

"How long have you been living here?" Joan asked.

"A few weeks."

Joan chewed on her bottom lip. "Please tell me that New York wasn't your primary residence."

"Why? Is that bad?" Simone's heart leapt to her throat. "We've been married six years and we're both from New York. We got married there."

Joan dropped her head back and closed her eyes. "Okay, here it is, baby doll. There's good news and there's bad news."

Simone braced herself.

"First, what you need, honey, is a no-fault divorce. Quick and clean. We can bring his c.o.c.ky a.s.s down."

"Okay, why can't I have one?" Simone perked up.

"In this state you can. But you have to be a resident for six months."

"And New York?"

"New York is not a no-fault state. The mandatory separation is a year, and in the case of a contested divorce, which you will obviously have, it gets worse."

"How? He's the liar, the manipulator and the cheater," she said, but looked away masking her own guilt.

"Can you prove it?"

"That he committed adultery? Well yeah. I know his mistress, Stacy. I got all the facts on her. She even thinks she's carrying his kid."

"So this Stacy will stand up for you in court and call your husband an adulterer?"

"Does she have to?"

Joan gave her a sad smile. "In New York, you have to prove your case for adultery. The evidence has to be irrefutable. It has to be as detailed as dates, times, meeting places, emails and all of it. If you go in and make the claim and the third party denies it and your husband denies it, then the courts will default to your husband and he will take it all. All of it. So I'm going to ask you again. Will Stacy help you?"

"No," Simone said hollowly. She bit back her sadness and looked down to her lap. "What are the grounds for divorce in New York?"

"Abandonment is one. Adultery the other, and I believe there is cruel and inhumane treatment."

Simone looked up.

"Be honest, sweetie, has he ever been violent, physical?" Joan asked.

"No. We had a fight and I fell, but it was totally an accident. Keith isn't a violent man."

"You fell?"

"He wasn't violent. He gets angry and yells, but I don't fear him. He would never hit me. He'd find it too undignified. He'd rather use intimidation. He's better at it."

Joan nodded. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. "Did you sign a pre-nup?"

Simone blinked. She doubled back to their wedding. The fight he had with his parents echoed back through her memory. It had left his mother in tears and his father exasperated. Keith wielded all of the control. To teach his parents a lesson in trying to order his life, he married the girl from the wrong side of his tracks. "No, I didn't sign one," she said, looking over to Joan shocked. "He wouldn't do it. He was so c.o.c.ky, he just wouldn't do it. I thought he was courageous, brave. Now I see Keith hates being told what to do. His father was adamant about the pre-nup. Said he wouldn't allow the marriage. Keith laughed it off. It was like marrying me put them in their place."

Joan smirked. "Well good. There's that."

"What about adultery?"

"What about it? I told you." Joan shrugged.

"Not his," she said softly.

Joan's eyes reflected her surprise.

Simone closed hers. "What if I had adultery? Can he use it against me?"

"Does he know?"

"No."

"Can he find out?"

"I dunno." She looked up to the Gatlin's house. Cain walked out from around the house. He stopped, with his hands in his pockets. The night breeze tussled his hair, forcing it over his brooding brow. He looked over to her house. He was looking for her. She and Joan watched him walk toward her house in silence. They watched as he knocked on the door, waited a beat, and then knocked again. Soon the seconds ticked to minutes and he turned away.

"Not him! Say it isn't him," Joan moaned.

Simone put her hand to her eyes to stop the tears. Joan reached over and touched her hand. "Okay, it's okay. Hey listen to me. Look at me."

Simone did. "You need a no-fault divorce. It's your best chance. Can you hold out for four months? Just four months until you can file residency here?"

"No. How can I? You saw how I was tonight. Every time I look at Keith, I want to scream at him." Simone looked back up to Cain going through the front door of his house. "Then there's him. Cain. What I did with him."

"Is it serious?"

"He's married."

"No s.h.i.t! And that matters now?" Joan frowned.

"My life is a mess."

"Sorry, my mouth sometimes. Oh, honey, it's okay. We'll fight back. There's something. I don't know the New York laws, but I will find out. There has to be something we can use."

Simone felt stressed. Joan smiled. "You're in deep but not too deep that we can't dig you out. We need to be smart though. No more hot freaky s.e.x with ole 'blue eyes', okay?"

Simone laughed. "How do you know it was freaky?"

"Are you kidding? Clark Kent over there makes every woman on the block's panties wet with a smile. If I were to cheat, it would have to be the opposite of Henry in the bed, girl. I would need swinging from the ceiling fan kind of s.e.x to help me cope with the guilt."

Simone covered her mouth, laughing.

Joan smiled. "Cain's a good guy, but he's a Hollingsworth puppet. The man is yoked around by the Hollingsworths on a very short leash. His wife keeps him tied to her wrist at all times. Always thought he was miserable, but he seemed like a stand up guy, not a cheater."

"He is," Simone quickly defended. "He really is."

Joan shook her head. "Not if he stepped out on his wife, Simone. Sorry, that speaks to his character."

"And mine," she said looking away.

Joan took her hand and squeezed it. "Never seen Cain Gatlin take a stand on anything. He's just always there, in the shadows, going with the flow. He will only hurt you, sweetheart. He sure as h.e.l.l won't leave princess and all her riches for you."

"He isn't with her for money," Simone quickly added.

"Well it sure as h.e.l.l ain't her personality," Joan snipped. She sighed, and corrected her tone. "It isn't love if he's sleeping with his boss's wife." Again, Joan delivered a hard truth. She knew all the reasons why she fell in his arms and why she ached so bad to return to them. But his story was so incomplete. What makes him stay, other than his mother?

"Are you okay to wait it out while I make some calls and do some research?"

"Yes."

"And your sister, does she know yet? About her house?"

"No."

Joan frowned. "Why not?"

"I can't do that to her. She's going through too much."

"It's already done to her, sweetie. You need to let her know, immediately. Personally it sounds like bulls.h.i.t. There is no way he can just magically become the primary on her mortgage and she not know it. You need to check into that."

"No. Not yet. Not until we have a plan to deal with Keith. I won't risk anything until then."

Joan smiled. "You're cute, seriously. Honey, there is no getting it back if she signed it over to him. What we have to do is show a pattern of his deceit. Pull the blanket back on all his dirty deeds. Do you understand? You call your sister, and you get her ready for war. You will need all the allies you can get."

"Does that mean you will represent me?" Simone asked.

Joan chuckled. "I told you I sold out to the establishment. I don't practice law anymore. But I got friends. I know a lesbian feminist who will eat Keith Livingston's b.a.l.l.s for breakfast, filet his d.i.c.k for lunch, and then boils his a.s.s for fun."

"I don't have any money, nothing. He's frozen me out of all of the accounts."

Joan sighed. "Okay, let me see what we can do."

"I can't let you-"

"She owes me one." Joan waved off the grat.i.tude. "I got pictures of her a.s.s from when she wasn't so 'lesbian' and so 'political'," Joan laughed. "She'd cut off her t.i.ts to get those back from me!"

Simone shook her head at Joan's humor.

"But we need to give her something, Simone. Something on him, that is something solid."

"What?" Simone asked.

"You live with the man. Is there a safe or cabinets that he keeps locked? Where are his secrets?"

"He works all the time. Castle Rock is his-" Simone stopped, thinking of his mission to bring down Andrew Hollingsworth. Her mind then flipped to Cain. "I know somebody who may be able to help us."

"Good." Joan expelled a deep breath. "The first thing I want to do for you is get his a.s.s out of your house."

Simone eyes blinked. "My house?"

"Your house."

"But my name isn't on it."

"Don't matter. Let me think on it. We might be able to do something when we get the ball rolling. I'll call Sue."

Simone let go a deep sigh. "Oh, G.o.d, thank you, I was so scared, so trapped."

"Are you a victim?" Joan's nose wrinkled with distaste.

"Huh? No."

"Then stop acting like one. Get mad, get smart, and get some control. And no more hokey-pokey with Cain Gatlin, okay? That can get real messy for you, and fast."