If the Shoe Fits (23 page)

“So for a relatively new law practice,” Melanie Larsen summarized, “you’re doing well already.”

“They say it takes the first year to become established, so we don’t have any false sense of security or anything. We’re still in the growth phase, but Will and I both feel pretty confident that we made this decision at the right time.”

“Well, that about does it for the interview portion,” Melanie said with a rehearsed smile. “My photographer, Jasper, is all set up in your office to get some shots of you behind your desk. While he does that, I’m going to stay here and clean up my notes, and maybe have another coffee and one of these delicious biscotti.”

“Help yourself to the fruit as well,” Julianne offered as she unfolded from the chair and glided around the conference room table.

“Thanks so much, Julianne.”

She joined Jasper in her office and settled into her desk chair while he adjusted the portable light stands.

“Let’s get something nice and professional,” he suggested. “Do you wear glasses?”

“No,” she replied, and he clicked his tongue in a way that made her want to apologize for her 20/20 vision.

“All right then. How about you lean forward slightly, arms propped on the desk.” She did as he asked, and his photographer’s eye bore down on her like a butcher checking out the cow on the meat hook.

Jasper’s long brown hair was tucked neatly behind his ears and pulled back into a loose ponytail. His faded denim jeans were clean but well-worn, and the tails of his black denim shirt hung loose, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

“Very pretty,” he remarked, and he began clicking away. “Chin up slightly? … Nice! … The color of your eyes is really spectacular. You have a real sparkle.”

She imagined this to be pretty typical photographer-speak in an effort to get the subject to relax and lean into their confidence a bit more; and it was working, too. For those first eight minutes, at least; before the commotion erupted in the front office.

“Jasper,” Melanie said as she pushed her head through the opening in the doorway. “Bring your camera, quick! You’ve got to catch this.” Jasper headed past her into the reception area, and Melanie turned back and looked at Julianne. One corner of her mouth quirked as she said, “You’d better come, too.”

She rushed around the desk and hurried out of her office to find Phoebe standing there, her hands behind her back as a uniformed police officer snapped handcuffs into place while Jasper snapped away, capturing every movement.

“… can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney …” She recognized the policeman as the arresting officer who had testified in one of her final cases as public defender.

“What’s going on here?” Julianne demanded. “You’re handcuffing my assistant?”

“Sorry, Ms. Bartlett,” Officer Peck said with a shrug. “I’m just serving the arrest warrant.”

“What are the charges?” she asked with a groan as she pressed her hand in front of Jasper’s camera lens. “Melanie, please!”

“Fraud,” he stated, leading a tearful Phoebe toward the door. “Let’s go.”

“Phoebe, don’t say anything to anyone. I’m right behind you.”

Melanie and Jasper exchanged glances before Melanie muttered, “Oh, this is too good.”

Glaring at her, Julianne nudged Jasper toward the door. “You have to go. Now!”

“My lights …”

“You can come back and get them later,” she said, grabbing her purse from the hook inside her office door. “Go on, both of you. I’ve got to get to the police station.”

“Just let me drag them—” Jasper shoved his camera at Melanie before he rushed into her office and wrapped his arms around the lights, yanking them through reception “—out into the hall so I can take them down properly.”

The minute all three of them made it to the corridor, Julianne pulled the door shut and locked it.

“I’m sorry,” she offered halfheartedly as she poked the elevator button again and again until the door slid open. “It’s not usually like this. Please don’t—”

“Go,” Melanie said with the nod of her head.

All the way down to the lobby, Julianne paced inside her small enclosure, imagining a handcuffed Phoebe gracing the cover of the May issue of
Queen City Magazine
.

When she finally made it to her car, she simultaneously turned the key in the ignition and dialed Will on her iPhone. His voice mail kicked in as she threw the gear into reverse.

“Will, it’s me. I hope your day is going better than mine,” she said on a groan. “You’re probably still tied up at the arraignment for Rand, but you sure have missed a truckload of action at the office. Right in the middle of my photo shoot, our assistant was arrested on fraud charges. I’m on the way to the police station now. Call me when you get this, huh?”

Julianne tried to imagine Phoebe committing fraudulent acts of any kind. What on earth could have led police to believe her sweet, twenty-year-old angel-faced assistant could be guilty of fraud? More important, how could Phoebe have brought this sort of past infraction into the law offices with her?

“Attorney Julianne Bartlett,” she stated to the officer on duty. “For my client, Phoebe Trent.”

“Sign here.”

By the time they led Phoebe into the stark gray room and she collapsed to the metal chair across the stainless steel table from Julianne, her eyes had swollen so much that the girl was hardly recognizable. Mascara streaks formed deep scoops beneath her bloodshot eyes, and her hair looked as if patches of it stood on end.

“Julianne, I’m … so … sorry,” she meted out.

Julianne handed her a fresh tissue and, as Phoebe blew her nose, Julianne leaned across the table and looked her squarely in the eye. “What is this all about? And don’t tell me any half-truths or leave anything out, do you understand me? We said there would be no more deception, didn’t we? I need to know the truth, Phoebe.”

She nodded, dropping the crumpled tissue to the tabletop.

“The report says you stole checks from someone you worked for, wrote them to yourself, and cashed them. Did you do that?”

Phoebe’s eyes welled up with tears again. “Yes.”

“More than eight thousand dollars?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Why did you do that, Phoebe?”

“I had to.”

Julianne sighed. “A person has to do a lot of things, but steal someone else’s money isn’t one of them.”

“I had to get out of Arizona.”

“You’re from Arizona?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever actually work in Florida like your résumé says?”

“No.”

Julianne swallowed hard and considered her next question. “What were you running from?”

“My husband.”

Over the next hour, a sad and frightening tale of abuse and fear unfolded. At the end of it, Phoebe had used the stolen money to escape to the last place she thought anyone might look for her, to a place she’d seen on the evening news: Cincinnati, Ohio. She’d been living a cash-only lifestyle ever since, sleeping in her car six days a week and renting a cheap motel with a shower every Sunday night.

“I’m going to see if I can get you arraigned today so you don’t have to spend the night in jail,” Julianne told her.

“Thank you.”

“I can’t promise you I can do it. But I’m going to try.”

“Thank you,” she repeated without lifting her eyes to meet Julianne’s.

“Think about this very carefully before you answer me, Phoebe, because I need the absolute truth. Okay?”

She nodded tentatively, wringing her hands as she waited.

“Have you ever been in trouble with the law before?”

“No,” Phoebe answered immediately.

“Never.”

“Never. I promise.”

“I don’t like surprises,” she warned. “So you need to tell me if there’s anything else I need to know. Like … is Phoebe Trent your real name?”

She smiled slightly. “Yes.”

“And you’ve never killed anyone?” Phoebe’s eyes popped open wide, and Julianne chuckled. “I’m joking. Just relax, and I’ll see what I can do, okay?”

She heaved a shaky sigh and nodded. “Thank you. Really.”

Julianne gathered her purse and paperwork and knocked on the locked door. “You sure did liven up my interview this morning.”

Phoebe’s face curled into a clenched fist as she collapsed into both hands, sobbing.

Julianne hurried back to her and rubbed her shoulder. “Okay, cut it out. I’m sorry. I was just trying to cut the tension with a little humor. Stop crying, Phoebe. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to sort through this.”

“I have a friend
in the district attorney’s office,” Julianne said as she plopped tea bags into two mugs of hot water. “He called the prosecutor in Maricopa County where the charges were filed. The agreement is that you’ll make full restitution and I’ll oversee two hundred hours of community service here in Cincinnati.”

Phoebe crumpled like a wax figure near a flame and sobbed. Julianne hurried around the kitchen counter and slipped her arms around the girl.

“What is it?”

“Now he’ll know where to find me,” she said, sniffling. “He’ll know where I am.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“You don’t know what kind of person he is,” she interrupted. “You don’t know what he’s capable of, Julianne.”

“But the State of Arizona does.”

Phoebe looked like a child just awakened from a bad dream, convinced that the monster still lurked beneath the bed.

“The district attorney’s office tells me your husband was indicted on a whole slew of charges. He’s been incarcerated for a period not less than five years.”

Julianne couldn’t do anything except stand back and watch as Phoebe’s emotions swept over her and carried her away. She crumpled, sobbing, and Julianne slipped her arms around the girl and spoke softly.

“It’s going to be okay, Phoebe. I promise. You’re going to be okay.”

She lifted her drenched and reddened face. “I’m … so … relieved.”

“I know. I know.”

“And you know … I always intended to pay back the money, but I just have never been able to save up that much. It’s not like I could start making payments without them finding out where I was, you know? I don’t know how I can pay back eight thousand dollars, but I’ll figure it out somehow. I can give them the two thousand I have saved up. I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me, Julianne.”

Julianne grabbed several tissues from the box on the counter and dabbed Phoebe’s tear-drenched face as she smiled at her. “Two thousand is a great start. And I wired them the money this afternoon, so you’ll pay me back out of your salary.”

Phoebe looked as if she might choke. “You’re going to let me keep my job?”

“Of course. Will and I have no hope of survival without you. Don’t you know that by now?”

She shook her head and stammered, no real message emerging.

“Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to move out of your car and into my guest room.”

“No!” she objected, but Julianne took a firm grip on her wrist.

“Yes,” she corrected softly. “You’ll work at the office during the week, and on Saturdays you’ll work off your community service at a few of my favorite charities. I’ll deduct one hundred dollars from your paycheck every week toward the restitution and, when it’s paid off, you’ll start looking for somewhere to live. There will be no more sleeping in your car. Do you understand?”

Phoebe didn’t look like she understood anything at all, but she nodded anyway.

“I’ll cover your room and board until you can get on your feet, and tomorrow we’ll go to the bank and start checking and savings accounts for you,” she continued. Julianne rubbed the back of her hand. “This might all have happened exactly the way it was supposed to, Phoebe. You’re getting a whole new start, so let’s work together to make sure you take full advantage of it, okay?”

A fresh stream of tears plunged down Phoebe’s face as she nodded.

“Why?” she asked Julianne. “Why are you doing all this?”

“Don’t you know?”

Her brow furrowed, and she shook her head.

“Because I adore you,” she told her. “And I think this is what you do when someone you love is in trouble. Now what do you like in your tea? Sugar or honey?”

“I have no idea,” she admitted, and they both laughed at that.

When her cell phone rang, Julianne slid one of the mugs toward Phoebe as she answered it.

“This is Julianne.”

“Julianne. It’s Paul Weaver.”

Her stomach took a dive down to her knees, and she swallowed hard around the sudden lump.

“Paul. Thank you for calling me back.”

“Sure.”

A man of so few words.

“Well,” she finally said, “I was wondering if I could ask a favor of you.”

Julianne grabbed her tea and a sweater. She gave Phoebe a quick nod before heading through the kitchen door to the glass-enclosed porch on the back of her small condo.

“What kind of favor?”

She set her cup on the small glass table next to the overstuffed chair in the corner before slipping into her sweater and sitting down.

“A sort of unorthodox one,” she said. “But I hope you’ll let me explain.”

“Have at it,” he replied.

“When we were going out, I’d been kind of hoping I could get you to be my date to a big gala at the end of the month.”