Page 71 of Sweet Ruin

“Thanks for the visual,” I mutter. I feel like a popped balloon. All the fight has gone whistling out of me.

But Skye is far from finished.

“They’ll say a lot of things. You were complicit, you told your husband what to do, how could you not know, yada yada yada. They’ll demand your bank records, your business records, your tax returns, your phone. Then they’ll depose you, and that’ll be the worst day of your life. You’ll be begging for the electric chair by the time they’re done. These guys are velociraptors in Brooks Brothers suits, basically.”

I gulp. “So say I do wanna fight anyway. How long will it take?”

“In this county? A year to a hearing on the merits. Longer if they drag their feet, and they will, because time costs them nothing and it costs you everything.”

“And if you had to assign a dollar amount to ‘everything’…?”

Skye folds her hands together and gives me sympathetic eyes. “My retainer is ten thousand, cash or cashier’s check, due before I lift a pinky on your behalf. Litigation against real counsel runs on billable hours and there is no lid on it. That handwriting examiner will run you four to six thousand for the report. If they hire their own expert—and, again, they will—we gotta do it all twice. If they take multiple depositions, that means transcripts, motions, et cetera.”

She sees me wilting and sighs.

“Look, honey, you seem like a woman who values certainty. But this is an uncertain endeavor. Best I can figure it, we’re looking at two hundred grand, easily. Quite possibly much, much more.”

I laugh so hard that it comes out as a hiccup instead. “I clear about forty a year,” I tell her. “And that’s after I pay my four people and the ingredients and the gas and the insurance that keeps going up on every fucking renewal.”

“I hear you, sweetheart,” she says kindly. “That’s why I’m telling you all of it in one sitting instead of taking your retainer today and telling you the rest in March.”

I put my face in my hands and breathe for a moment. I was hopeful when I came in here. Not, like, radiantly hopeful, but plucky, you know? A determined heroine, ready to do battle with the forces of evil.

Now, I’m a worm getting crushed under the boot of the system.

“I don’t understand,” I protest. “You just told me the signature’s fake, the expert would agree, and the lien is a waste of paper.”

Skye nods. “All true.”

“So how do I lose?”

“You don’t lose,” she clarifies. “You just run out of time. Most of the losers in courtrooms across the country are right. They’re simply too poor to prove it.”

“That’s not—” I stop. I was going to say that’s not how it’s supposed to work, but I sound like such a whiny, naive baby that I can’t bring myself to say it.

“No,” she agrees anyway. “It isn’t.”

She writes something on her pad, tears the sheet off, and hands it to me. A name I don’t know, and a phone number.

“Volunteer clinic in Boerum Hill. Wednesdays. They’re overloaded and they’ll take four months to look at what I looked at in a few minutes. But they’re free and they’re not crooks, and if you really are brave enough to go toe to toe with the big guys, then I wish you all well.” She tucks her pencil into a holder on her desk. “The divorce, I can do. That’s a flat fee, nothing crazy.”

“Great,” I say. “So I can be single and homeless.”

“Take the win that’s available,” she advises. “You don’t know when you’ll get another.”

I put my things back in my bag. The pages. The freezer bag. It’s a sad magician’s act, like my chance at a free future is getting hidden out of sight.

Skye walks me to the door of her office. “Can I ask you something that isn’t about the loan?”

“Uh… sure?” I say.

“There’s a video going around.” She’s got her arms folded and her head tipped, and her face has changed a little, gone from lawyer to intrigued bystander. “Christmas party. Somewhere in Sunset Park. A woman with a projector.”

Everything in me halts at once. “A projector?”

“My niece sent it to me two days ago. Then my sister-in-law sent it to me. Then it was on my own feed yesterday morning, which is how I know it’s not just my family.” She’s watching me. “Was that you?”

“I, uh… I don’t know. What’s in the video?”