A Place Called Home (2 page)

Mitch waited until she was sitting before he speared her with a glance. She held it steadily, he’d give her that, just as if she hadn’t been trying to avoid a confrontation all along. Without preamble, without any attempt to soften his tone, he asked bluntly, “Where’ve you been?”

Her lips parted fractionally. God, Mitch thought, if she wet her lips with that little pink tongue of hers, he was going to cry foul. She had a great mouth. Always had. Wide and lush but not with that bee-stung look that screamed collagen injections. What she did was take a short, indrawn breath and catch her bottom lip between her teeth. It was not precisely a foul, Mitch decided, but she was playing fast and loose with the rules.

She let her lip go when his eyes strayed purposely to her mouth. He noticed that she wasn’t wearing any lipstick. To get that particular shade of rose she must have been worrying her lip the entire way to this meeting. Good. He hoped her nerves were as taut as his own.

“Well?” he asked again.

Avery broke in. “Mr. Baker. You should address your questions to me.”

“Why?” he asked insolently before Wayne could stop him. “Has she lost her voice since she sat down?” Under the table Wayne kicked him. Mitch slumped in his chair, stretched his legs out and away from further abuse. “Go on. You two talk to each other. Thea and I will await your verdict.”

Avery had mastered the cold smile. He gave it to Mitch now. “We’re not making a judgment, Mr. Baker.”

Before Mitch could respond to the other lawyer’s patronizing tone, Wayne opened the folder in front of him. “I have copies of the agreement.” He passed one to everyone. “This was drawn up shortly after the twins were christened. The same language was used in the will. I know, because I was the attorney for the deceased.” He slid a copy of the will across the table to Avery. “Duly witnessed. You can see, Mr. Childers, that both our clients agreed to the terms of legal guardianship in the event of the deaths of Gabriel and Kathryn Reasoner.”

Mitch kept his eyes on Thea. He thought she winced but he couldn’t be sure. Except for that brief thing with her lips she hadn’t given him another sign that she was moved in any way by these proceedings. If he was giving her the benefit of the doubt, he’d say she was still in shock. He’d had a month to get used to the idea that Gabe and Kathy were dead. He’d had to arrange the funeral, attend the viewings, speak at the memorial service, and go to the grave site for the burial. He’d had a month with Gabe and Kathy’s children to know how devastatingly final it all was.

Thea? She couldn’t be bothered.

Literally.

She’d gone to ground. It was hard to believe that in this day of electronic accessibility, Thea Wyndham had effectively disappeared. No cell phone. No e-mail. No voice mail or answering machine. Until four days ago no one knew where she was, or at least no one would give her up. She reappeared on Monday morning in her offices at Foster and Wyndham, the advertising firm her grandfather had founded, just as her weekly planner suggested she would, vacation over. It was then that she was informed of the deaths of her friends.

Mitch wondered what had gone through her mind. Had she regretted for even a moment that she had been so completely out of touch? Mitch didn’t know the answer. The truth was he didn’t know Thea Wyndham well at all. There were times he had wished that were different, but not just now. Right now he didn’t give a damn.

Something Wayne was saying drew his attention away from Thea. He still watched her, watched her tuck a strand of red-tinted hair behind her left ear, watched her finger the onyx pendant around her neck, watched her keep her expression perfectly still while he studied her, but he finally was listening to Wayne again.

“It’s clear Gabe and Kathy’s intent was to have Ms. Wyndham
and
Mr. Baker jointly raise the children. The language reflects that decision. I drew up the will and the agreement to their exact wishes.”

Avery’s eyes fell as he peered at the documents through the lower third of his progressive lenses. He grunted softly, a sound that committed him to neither agreement nor disapproval.

“It’s unusual,” Wayne went on. “As you know, in most cases the parents assign guardianship to one person. If there are two, typically they’re a married couple, more often parents themselves.”

Mitch did not miss the faint widening of Thea’s almond-shaped eyes. If she’d been a deer he would have already made her a hood ornament. His lip curled at one corner in a smile that was clearly not meant to be one. Thea Wyndham actually flinched.

Refusing to acknowledge the undercurrents between Mitch and Thea, Wayne continued addressing opposing counsel. “You will notice it was duly signed and witnessed. Ms. Wyndham—”

Avery Childers looked up over the top of the glasses. “Didn’t you try to talk Mr. and Mrs. Reasoner out of this course of action?”

“I wouldn’t characterize it as trying to talk them out of it. I counseled them regarding the potential difficulties. They were convincing in their own arguments, Mr. Childers. They believed that their children needed the guidance of two adults whose values and backgrounds were similar to their own. Mr. Baker and Ms. Wyndham were the two people they trusted with the lives of their children.”

“Relatives?”

“Mrs. Reasoner had a maternal great-aunt.” Wayne thumbed through some notes he had scrawled on a legal pad. “Mrs. Edna Archer. They were not close. Her age, I believe, is seventy-six. Mrs. Archer has three children and there are assorted cousins in Mrs. Reasoner’s generation, none of whom she knew as well as she knew Mr. Baker.”

Avery’s brows knit. He glanced at his client. Thea nodded slightly, confirming that it was Kathryn Reasoner who had selected Mitch Baker as one of the children’s guardians. She had been Gabe’s choice.

Wayne continued. “Mr. Reasoner had no one that he knew of. He was adopted by the Reasoners when he was four. He was their only child, and they passed away when Emilie was an infant, a few months apart. He also had no biological siblings, at least at the time of the adoption. Unlike many adoptees, Mr. Reasoner never expressed any interest in searching out his birth parents.”

Mitch saw Thea stir. For a moment her mouth had become tight, her eyes distant. Impatience? Discomfort? He didn’t know but he found himself irritated rather than sympathetic. Hadn’t she taken the time to explain any of this to her lawyer? As far as he was concerned, Wayne was going over information everyone in the room should have known.

Thea stood abruptly. “Excuse me,” she said quietly. “I need—” She didn’t finish. Rounding the table quickly, she let herself out of the windowless conference room and into the hallway.

The silence didn’t last past the door being closed behind her. “What the hell?” Mitch asked, looking at Childers. “That question
is
for you, by the way.”

Wayne’s attempt to nudge Mitch under the table fell short of the mark. Leaning back in his chair, Wayne surreptitiously looked to see where Mitch had moved his feet. The next time he wouldn’t miss his target.

Avery Childers neatly squared off the documents in front of him, running his index finger along the side and bottom to even the stack. “Ms. Wyndham is not the enemy,” he said finally, looking up at Mitch. “Neither am I, for that matter, but if you’re going to try to intimidate one of us, save it for me. I’m paid handsomely to be impervious.”

“My client is not trying to intimidate anyone. For God’s sake, he’s a
cartoonist.
”

Mitch smiled blandly and fought the urge to cup his balls to make sure they were still there. “Think Charles Schulz,” Wayne went on. Inspired, he added, “Or Cathy Guisewite.”

Avery wasn’t having any of it. “He’s a
political
cartoonist,” he said to Wayne. His tone made Mitch out to be the Antichrist, but it also gave him his balls back. “I’ve seen your work, Mr. Baker. In fact, I saw it in this morning’s
Chronicle.
If I were the speaker of the house, I’d want to sue your ass.”

“Careful, you’ll turn my head with compliments like that. Anyway, it was a good likeness. Flattering, I thought.”

“I was referring to the subject matter.”

“Aaah. The pissing contest.” Mitch’s rendering of the speaker pushing the minority whip out of the way to be first to register for a pissing contest was front and center on the editorial page. “You realize, of course, that in the tradition of the great Thomas Nast, it is symbolic of the struggle for power and suggests a manner in which the struggle could be ended, in what I like to think is a rather whimsical fashion.”

“I understood the symbolism,” Avery said dryly. “I missed the whimsy.”

Mitch sighed, feigning disappointment. “I can only hope that
Newsweek
doesn’t. I’m hoping they’ll pick it up for their Perspectives section.”

Avery pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and gave Mitch a level look. “Stop trying to intimidate my client, Mr. Baker. Wayne, if you can’t get him to stop staring at Ms. Wyndham like he’s measuring her for a noose, this meeting is going to be over when she steps back in here.”

“Look here,
Avery,
” Wayne began, gloves off. “My client—” He stopped because out of the corner of his eye he saw Mitch’s small negative shake. He wasn’t entirely certain what Mitch was trying to communicate until he heard the door handle turn. Thea was just on the other side of the door. If Mitch had really been trying to intimidate Thea before, he was now trying to protect her. Wayne shot Avery a look that said, See?

Avery Childers rose slightly as Thea entered. She waved him back. “I apologize,” she said. “What have I missed?”

Mitch didn’t hear what was said in response, or who said it. His attention was riveted on Thea’s left hand, most particularly on the oval-cut diamond that had almost blinded him when she waved her attorney back in his chair. It took a measure of self-control not to blink. How had he missed it the first time? The diamond was the size of an ice cube. He wasn’t certain he could have looked away if Thea had not finally sat down and folded her hands primly in her lap. Mitch half expected to see a band of white light rimming the horizon of the table, rising from her lap like a winter sunrise. He glanced at Thea, but if she was aware of it, she gave no indication. Her head was turned from him in three-quarter profile and she appeared to be listening intently to Wayne. Mitch couldn’t imagine that Wayne was all that interesting.

“Both of our clients agreed to this shared guardianship arrangement,” Wayne was saying. “It is for us to determine the actual physical custody. Mr. Baker has been taking care of the Reasoner children since the death of their parents. As Ms. Wyndham could not be reached, this only made sense. Now that she is available, Mr. Baker is requesting that a shared custody arrangement be drawn up and presented to the family court judge for approval. I have several proposals for you to discuss with your client. Each of them has their own advantages and drawbacks. I’m afraid there is no perfect solution. Judge Carmody is no Solomon, either. I don’t expect that we’ll be saved by a particularly thoughtful or wise decision if we approach her without a solution ourselves. She’ll appoint a guardian ad litem and order a home study. She may still do that, in any event. I’m sure your client does not want to make the children the subject of a custody battle or pin our hopes for a reasonable outcome on being able to get another judge to review the matter.”

Avery let silence settle as if giving careful consideration to this last statement. Then he pounced. Timing was everything. “Then you’ll be pleased to hear that Ms. Wyndham is willing to give full custody to Mr. Baker.”

Mitch’s head snapped up and his internal threat level went from blue to orange, skipping yellow entirely.

“Moreover,” Avery went on, “my client does not want to disrupt the children’s lives further by devising a visitation schedule in which no one is served. Rather, she is proposing that while the children remain with Mr. Baker, she will visit them as she has always done when the children were with their parents.”

Mitch felt Wayne’s restraining hand on his forearm. Did Wayne really think he was going to jump up and slug somebody? Wayne’s hand should have clapped itself over his
mouth
. “This is a joke, right? Thea? What the hell is he talking about?”

“Address me,” Childers reminded Mitch. “Or better yet, leave it to your attorney.”

Mitch’s nostril flared slightly and a succinct profanity hovered on the tip of his tongue. He held it back, but he saw Thea Wyndham flinch as if he had shouted it at her.

Wayne removed his hand from Mitch. He took a gold Mont Blanc from his jacket and made a few notations on his pad. The scrawl was perfectly illegible to everyone but him. After a moment he looked up at Avery. “This is Ms. Wyndham’s idea?”

“Whose else would it be?”

“Her fiancé’s.”

Mitch had a vision of his head doing a three-sixty. “You
knew?
” he asked accusingly.

Wayne shrugged. “If you had gotten my message ...”

“Is Wayne right?” Mitch asked Thea. “Is this your fiancé’s idea?”

Avery said, “You don’t have to answer that.”

“For God’s sake,” Mitch said. “It’s a simple enough question.”

“You wouldn’t think that if you were sitting in her chair. For the full effect you need only add a naked white bulb over her head.”

Mitch had the grace to look abashed. His voice gentled. “Thea?”

She answered before her lawyer could cut her off again. “Joel and I discussed it, Mitch. It was a mutual decision.”

“Joel?”

“Strahern.”

“Strahern Investments? That Strahern?”

“Yes.”

As a financial force to be courted and respected, the Strahern banking family was second only to Mellon. “I see,” Mitch said softly. He turned back to Wayne. “I suppose there is no sense in not sharing my own news.”

Wayne was surprised and wary but neither of these expressions showed on his face. “Perhaps now is not the time,” he ventured, feeling his way in the dark.

“I don’t see why not. If Ms. Wyndham hadn’t been incommunicado this last month, she would know by now.”