"Hm," Reagan said, leaning back in her chair, eyes far away, thinking through what Lo had--and hadn't--said.
"Want to fill me in?" I prompted.
Lo looked to Reagan first, waiting to get a nod before pinning me with her almost unsettlingly intense gaze.
"We have no evidence that randomness is part of his M.O.," she started. "There is a good chance that we would see results more quickly if we introduce a possible victim that he already has a connection to."
And back to where we left off.
"Absolutely fucking not."
Lo's brow rose at that. "I don't believe we were asking your permission," she told me, the authority in her voice making me feel five inches tall, like a little kid trying to stick his head in grown-up business. I suddenly saw the reason Lo was someone both respected and feared in our town and beyond. "Do you want us to have him removed?" she asked Reagan.
"No," Reagan said. "Well, maybe. If he keeps looking at me like that," she said, but her lips were twitching.
"Babe, fucking no. You can't be considering this."
"It makes sense, though," she said, shaking her head. "Especially because," she started, needing to stop, take a deep breath, eyes closing for a second. "Especially because he calls me that word. Like he did Sammy."
"There is often a pattern to this sort of thing," Lo piped in. "The asshole might only have things for young women from his circle. Or, worse yet, women he watched grow up from little girls. And since none of my people are from his circle, the best chance of catching him in the act would be to use Reagan as bait."
"Bait gets fucking eaten," I reminded Lo, teeth gritted, hands curling so hard onto the armrests that I was a little surprised they didn't crumble in my palms.
"You're underestimating us," Lo shot back. "We would never send her in there unprepared, not surrounded by backup. Without cameras scattered around. Without a listening device on her. She would be monitored every single move she made. She couldn't be safer."
"Sure she could. If she didn't fucking do it. And she's not."
"She," Reagan cut in, voice a little firmer than she generally used, "gets to make her own decisions. Even if she thinks you are kind of sexy when you get all riled and protective like that."
"I can't let you go in there. Fuck no."
"Nixon, be reasonable," she suggested, placing her hand on my arm, squeezing my wrist. "In one or two nights, I might be able to put an end to all of this. Instead of having it go on for weeks or months."
"You seriously think you are going to be able to let your sister's rapist hit on you, corner you, take you to another location, and start assaulting you? You think you can handle that? Not just in the moment, but in the long run?"
She already had it bad enough to begin with. She struggled with Sammy's passing every single day. She could constantly be seen picking up the picture on her desk at work, looking at her siblings' faces, and the same at home with the one on her vanity, the collage in her living room.
Sammy's passing was a wound that just didn't heal right.
And I had a feeling that that bastard putting his hands on her, calling her princess like he had with Sammy, it was going to plunge a knife into it and dig it deeper, wider, making it impossible to ever heal correctly. "I think that, if it means we can catch him in the act, that I can. Besides, like Lo said, there will be a whole team there to make sure I'm safe."
That was a hollow sort of comfort.
"Babe, you could barely speak to him on the street that one night."
"He caught me off-guard. I wasn't expecting him. I wasn't prepared for an interaction. This will be different. I will have been coached by Lo and her people. I will know what I am supposed to do and say."
"You're going to have to feel his hands on you, Reagan," I told her, being brutal because she responded to it, because the situation called for it. "Those same hands that touched your sister. You're going to feel his body on yours. That same body that forced Sammy."
Her face paled, her throat working as she swallowed hard, fighting back the sick feeling rising.
"I realize that. But it's my body. It's my decision."
Lo's voice broke into what was shaping up to be an argument, rattling off a team she was going to compile, explaining what their roles would be, going over the list of local charitable events in the area that Michael might attend, that she would need to RSVP to, even if she just dropped in to see if he was going to show up or not, then went home.
I sat there in silence.
Seething.
But held my tongue as they worked out the kinks, as paperwork was drawn up, as an arrangement to hand over the cash was concocted.
I held it as we were led back through the building, out to our car.
I even held it as Reagan fiddled with the air and radio for a long moment before settling into her seat.
"Don't make me call Helen." Those were the first words she'd spoken directly to me since she told me it was her body and her choice.
"What?" I asked, pausing in snapping my belt into place.
"If you start getting all red-faced and yelling about me not doing this, you are going to force me to pick up my phone and call Helen. And if I call Helen, she calls Fiona. Who calls Lea, then Dusty, Autumn, Peyton, your sister, and likely the whole of this girls club I keep hearing about. And they are going to come corner you at work and scream at you until your balls shrivel and recede back into your body," she told me, voice comically light and sweet given the subject matter. "And I would really hate for you to lose the function of your manly bits. I have quite the fondness for them."
"Reagan..."
"Can we have this conversation back at the office?" she asked, reaching for her phone. "I have to do a quick conference call with the video editor for the commercial. Don't worry. No one is going to be there but us. You can do all the ranting and raving you want without being overheard."
It was right about then that I realized she wasn't going to listen to me, no matter how sound my argument might be. She had her mind made up. She wasn't going to change it. She was just stubborn enough to commit to this and see it through no matter the opposition she might get.
I was stubborn enough to want to fight her every step of the way, but I was beginning to understand that doing so wouldn't produce the results I wanted. It would just drive a wedge between us, make her feel more alone in the whole situation.
"It's fucking killing me that I can't be there," I admitted when we reached her office, idling outside for a long moment.
Lo had made it infinitely clear that she would let me nowhere near the operation. Because I'd worked for Michael. Because my presence in his life in another capacity might prove problematic. And because she didn't trust me not to fuck everything up.
Which was honestly fair.
I didn't think I could stand there and watch or listen to that bastard trying to charm her, let alone start to force himself on her. Even though I knew it wouldn't go that far before Lo's people would charge in and put an end to it.
I had no fucking idea what I was supposed to do the night she would walk into that party as bait.
But I understood that I really didn't have any say in the matter.
"That's what makes you such a good guy," Reagan assured me, giving me one of her smiles. "I know you don't like this, but I appreciate you not going all Nixon on me," she said, giving me a smirk at using a phrase my fucking family had taught her. Anytime someone got unreasonably upset about something, they called it "going all Nixon."
I probably earned that over the years.
But I had a feeling I wasn't being unreasonable about this.
It was just going to happen regardless.
THIRTEEN
Reagan
I understood why he was angry with me.
It was hard not to see his side, to believe he had some valid points.
Lo, despite her firmness in the meeting, had been quick to remind me via text message that should I have any secon
d-thoughts, she could easily slip someone else in, that they could get to work on trying to gain Michael's attention.
She made it clear that her people were trained to handle situations such as these, and that they would be able to separate themselves from the situation. But that I likely would not be able to do that. That there could be long-lasting psychological trauma I would need to deal with after all was said and done.
I didn't disagree with that. I wasn't naive. And I wasn't completely lacking in self-awareness.
I was perfectly aware of the fact that this was going to be one of the hardest things I had ever done, that there would be a part of me that would forever be scarred from it. That there would be quite a bit of therapy in my future.
That said, I was already in therapy. I was already hurting. I was already trying to heal from past trauma.
Yes, this would pile onto all of that, but it would pile on in a good way, it would bring some closure to the first issue, even if I needed to seek out closure for the new one I would inevitably be creating.
I would struggle, I knew. But in that struggle, I would manage to right a wrong. I could give my sister justice. I could expose the evil of a man who wore the face of a good one.
If there were other victims out there--and Lo highly suspected there were because Michael was the sort of man who had the power and money to get away with it over and over without any word of it ever getting out--then they could get a small bit of justice as well.
It wouldn't be easy for me, but it would serve the greater good.
I wouldn't claim to be brave like Lo and her team. But I could do this. I knew I could. I could slip into a dress. I could go to an event. I could let Michael approach me. I could agree to go to a second location with him.
And I damn sure knew I could hit and kick and scream when his hands started touching me, especially knowing that there was an entire team of highly trained ex-military people who would stop things before they got too bad.
Then, well, it could be over.
At least as much as it could ever truly be over.
It would put an end to my hunt for retribution. It would prove to my family that I was right. It would put a bad man behind bars.
I would be able to start moving on for real.
With Nixon.
I caught him giving me hard looks on occasion when he thought I wasn't looking. I knew it pissed him off that I agreed to this when he tried to talk me out of it. And I knew it was creating a tension between us that shouldn't have been there. At least not so early on in a relationship.
I tried to keep the two things as separate as possible. When I was around Nixon, I silenced my phone, refusing to answer Lo and her team until I wouldn't be seen. I knew he knew we were still in contact, but I think he understood just as I did that we needed this tiny bit of separation if we were going to keep the peace.
Outside of that situation, this dark cloud we were pretending to ignore, things were good. Better, even, than I had anticipated when things finally started to happen with us.
Nixon fit in surprisingly well with my employees who were also the closest things to friends I had. I was welcomed with open arms into the Mallick/Rivers clan. After having sat the women down and telling them the whole story about Nixon and me, they had folded me even deeper into their life.
Before I knew it, I was touring a For A Good Time, Call..'s Headquarters, Fiona's phone sex business. In doing so, I got to see Rush at work, looking completely out of place amongst a sea of women, but somehow utterly comfortable with his place there. I was dragged by an enthusiastic Peyton to her sister Autumn's sex toy store, Phallus-opy, where the two of them filled two bags full of fun things to try out at home with Nixon.
I had been invited to Chaz's, the bar Charlie and Helen owned. Hunter had helped me draw up a sort of memorial tattoo for Sammy that I was pretty sure I would always be a little too chickenshit to actually get stabbed into my skin, but I appreciated his time and artistic abilities nonetheless, and had gotten his sketch framed for my office. I'd been approached by Mark, who owned a landscaping business, to handle the "mess" that was my office grounds. He looked at me like I had three heads when I told him that the wildflowers were intentional, that I was trying to create a bee haven. Still, it was a sweet offer.
I really didn't realize how badly I had been craving the loving embrace of a family until I had them all there. Believing me. Supporting me.
Luis had yet to blow back into town to meet Nixon, and I found myself with a knot of anxiety at the idea of those introductions, knowing Nixon was not typically tolerant of people like my brother--vain, a little shallow, rootless, and lacking anything even hinting at seriousness.
The anxiety was likely misplaced, though, seeing as he didn't struggle to get along with Krissy who was basically a female version of Luis except a sight more grounded. If anything, he found her amusing. And I hoped he would feel the same about Luis.
I didn't tell my parents I was dating anyone new. Our calls over the past several months had been reduced to talks of the weather, Devil Tears, and a recap of all the functions they'd been to recently, and what shows or exhibits they had been to.
It would feel weird to bring up something so personal to them given the obvious tension between us since I had made my accusations, since I had hightailed it out of California--and, for the most part, their lives--nearly two years before.
You're going to have to work on that when all this is done Nixon had advised me one night when I had gotten off the phone with them, walking away from where he was sitting in the living room with Mal happily purring on his lap to have my awkward conversation before rejoining him. I get that shit is weird now, but when all this is done, you have to repair that. Family is important.
Nixon had very strong feelings on family. Coming from such a tight-knit one, joining an even tighter one, I understood his stance even if he clearly couldn't grasp the fact that my parents and I never had the relationship that his siblings and he had with their mother before she passed, or the kind he currently shared with Helen and Charlie.
He was right, though, of course.
He so often was.
It was a fact everyone around him found infuriating because he could be rather smug in his rightness.
I, however, appreciated that I could count on him for sound advice, for impartial council when I was too emotionally invested in something to see it from a different angle.
And he was right about my parents.
I was pretty sure once Michael was outed, once they knew I was right, once the resentment I felt at them not believing me had a chance to dissipate, I knew I would have to make a trip back there; I would have to have those hard discussions. I would need to repair the split. We would all need to learn how to move forward as a family after all we had been through.
It would happen.
But not yet.
First, Michael needed to be brought to justice.
And I was fretting over my dress to wear to the local art opening Lo believed Michael might attend.
It had been longer than I realized since I attended any sort of function that wasn't drinks with my brother and Krissy or Sunday dinners. Both were somewhat informal affairs.
Suddenly, I found something that used to be second-nature to be foreign and frustrating.
"Not the red one," Nixon told me, the first words he'd spoken to me since the text came in, since I told him I would have to go, that he would have to stay home.
We weren't in a fight. Nixon wasn't even freezing me out, giving me the juvenile silent treatment. He was just processing. And I understood him enough to know that he needed to do so without being pressured, so he could come to terms with things more easily. The fact that he was speaking to me, especially about something relating to a night he most definitely did not approve of, said he was there. He had come to terms with it.
"Really?" I asked, scrunching my nose at my reflection as I held it in front of my body. "I was leaning toward it ac
tually."
"It's too sexy. Too attention-grabbing."
"You think the white?" I asked, reaching for that one. "More, I don't know, virginal?"
"The flowers," he suggested, jerking his chin toward the pile hanging over the back of a chair. "The blue one with the white flowers. It's... understated. I think that's the route you want to go. If Lo is right and he is into the women he enjoyed watching grow up..."
"Right," I agreed, lip curling. "I'm going to have to burn this after tonight."
"You okay?" he asked, waiting for me to turn to face him. He sat off the end of the bed, gaze on me, shoulders tense.
"I think so," I told him, nodding. "I'm just happy to get this over with."
Though, as it turned out, it wasn't my night.
Michael did show up.
And he did talk to me.
But he didn't hit on me or ask me to meet him anywhere for dinner.
I went home tired and frustrated, to find Nixon already running me a bath full of soapy water, seemingly knowing I felt slimy and achy. He even stripped out of his clothes with me, climbing in, pulling me against his chest, holding me.
I never thought having a steady man in my life would change it so much. I already had a good life. I had a great career, loving friends, a lovely home, a cat that tolerated my presence. I didn't imagine having someone there would change things too much.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
I went from being alone much of the time to having someone to share meals with, someone to ask about my day, someone to fight over TV show selections with, someone to curl up to in bed.
My life had been good before, but having Nixon there made it better than I could have anticipated.
Feeling his arms close around me, hold on tight, as I tried to process an event he hadn't approved of in the first place, well, it just showed me how good of a man he was underneath all the sarcasm and eye rolls.
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