Meredith sank down onto the sofa, her stomach beginning to churn, her mind already numbly accepting what Parker was going to tell her father, while her heart screamed a denial that it couldn't be true. Parker's voice droned on as if from a great distance. "He'd had some law school training, and he knew just enough legal jargon to draw up a fair representation of a legal pleading. When a client came to him wanting a divorce, he first made certain the other spouse was either in full agreement—or nowhere to be found. If that was so, he charged his client whatever he could get them to pay him, then he drew up a petition for divorce. Knowing he'd never be able to pass himself off as an attorney long enough to get a judge to sign the petition, he signed them himself."

"Are you trying to tell me," Philip said, his voice strained almost to the point of unrecognizability, "that this lawyer I hired eleven years ago was not a lawyer?"

"I'm afraid so."

"I don't believe it!" he said in a low shout, as if he could frighten the possibility away with his own fury.

"There's no point in giving yourself another heart attack over it, because it won't change anything," Parker pointed out quietly and reasonably, and Meredith felt a mild sense of relief as she saw her father make an effort to calm himself.

"Go on," he said after a moment.

"Today, after I verified that Spyzhalski isn't a member of the bar association, I sent an investigator over to the courthouse—a very discreet investigator we use for bank matters," he reassured Philip, who had clutched the back of a chair. "He spent the day and part of the night verifying and reverifying that Meredith's divorce is nowhere in the court records."

"I'll kill that bastard!"

"If you mean Spyzhalski, you'll have to find him first. He's vanished. If you mean Farrell," Parker continued in a resigned voice, "I strongly suggest you reconsider your attitude."

"like hell I will! Meredith can solve the whole thing very simply by flying to Reno or somewhere and getting a quiet, quick divorce."

"I've already thought of that, and it won't help." He held up his hand to silence Philip's angry outburst. "Listen to me, Philip, because I've had time tonight to think this thing through. Even if Meredith did as you suggest, it wouldn't unsnarl the legal tangle of their property rights. That would still have to be done through the Illinois courts."

"Meredith would never need to tell him that there is a snarl!"

"Besides being morally and ethically wrong, it's also completely impractical." With a frustrated sigh, Parker explained. "The ABA has already had two complaints against Spyzhalski, and they've turned the matter over to the authorities. Let's assume Meredith did as you just suggested, and Spyzhalski is arrested and he confesses. The minute he does, the authorities will notify Farrell that his divorce isn't legal—assuming he doesn't read about it in the newspaper first. Do you have any idea of the lawsuit he could slap against you for all this? In good faith, he allowed you and Meredith to assume the responsibility for handling the divorce, and you were negligent; furthermore, you've exposed him to bigamy all these years, and—"

"You seem to have the problems figured out," Philip snapped. "What do you suggest we do?"

"Whatever we have to do in order to pacify him and make him agree to a quick, uncomplicated divorce," Parker replied with calm implacability, then he turned to Meredith. "I'm afraid that job is going to fall to you."

During the entire discussion, Meredith had been sitting, reeling from it all, but that remark served to stir her out of her blank stupor. "Just exactly why does he have to be pacified by me or by anyone else?"

"Because there are enormous financial implications here. Like it or not, Farrell is your legal husband of eleven years standing. You are a wealthy young woman, Meredith, and Farrell, as your legal husband, could conceivably demand a share of what you have—"

"Stop calling him that!"

"It's true," Parker said, but gently this time, "Farrell could refuse to cooperate in getting a divorce. He could also sue you for negligence—"

"Dear God!" she cried, standing up and beginning to pace. "I can't believe this! No, wait—we're overreacting," she said after a moment. Forcing herself to start thinking logically, as if she were dealing with a problem at work, she paused and then said, "If what I've read is true, Matt is far wealthier than we are—"

"Far wealthier," Parker confirmed, smiling approvingly at her for the calm logic she was exercising. "In which case, he would have a hell of a lot more to lose in a fight over property than you do."

"So there's nothing to worry about," she concluded, "because he'll want to get this thing over with just as badly as I do, and he'll be relieved that I don't want anything from him. In fact, we have the upper hand—"

"That's not quite true," Parker denied. "As I just explained, your father and you assumed the responsibility for obtaining the divorce, and since you failed to do it, Farrell's attorneys could probably convince the courts that the fault is yours. In which case, the judge might even grant him punitive damages. You, on the other hand, would have a hard time getting any money out of Farrell, because you were supposed to handle the divorce from here, and I suspect his attorneys could convince the court that you deliberately failed to do that out of some premeditated belief that you might later be able to squeeze him for money."

"He can rot in hell before he gets one more cent out of us," Philip snapped. "I already paid the bastard ten thousand dollars to get out of our lives and forgo any money of Meredith's or mine."

"How did you pay it to him?"

"I—" Philip's face fell. "I did what Spyzhalski told me to do which wasn't extraordinary—I wrote a check made jointly payable to Farrell and him."

"Spyzhalski," Parker pointed out sarcastically, "is a swindler. Do you honestly think he'd have scruples against forging Farrell's endorsement and cashing it himself?"

"I should have killed Farrell the day Meredith brought him back here!"

"Stop it!" Meredith cried. "Don't give yourself another coronary over this. We'll simply have an attorney contact his attorney—"

"I hardly think so," Parker interrupted. "If you want the man to cooperate and keep this mess quiet—which, I think, is a primary goal for all of us—then you'd better start by smoothing things over with him."