“Exactly.”
We faced off in silence before finally turning away from each other. We were near UCLA when Hawkins said, “Adam, are there any more debutante auctions in the campaign schedule?”
“Let me check,” Ho answered. “None on the West Coast.”
“Does that meet with your approval?” Hawkins asked.
“Yes, thank you,” I answered. Great. So, I’d gotten myself out of going to any more auctions, but …
I toyed with the pleated folds on my skirt. How could I strut around in this dress declaring I wasn’t a slave when I acted like one, doing exactly what Hawkins wanted, supporting a cause I despised?
And the searing look in Zara’s eyes when she saw me? My stomach tightened, remembering.
Yates was cruel, saying what he did, but he wasn’t wrong. I was just as guilty as Hawkins.
If I didn’t want to be Hawkins’ lapdog, I had to do more about auctions than just not show up. I had to act.
40
Hawkins knocked on my door the next morning, the first time he’d ever done that. Even more bizarre, he was wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, and he’d traded his tasseled Italian loafers for walking shoes. “Get dressed. We’re going for a drive.”
I leaned against the doorway, curious. “Now? It’s not even eight.”
“Best time to go. No traffic.”
“Fine.” I went to close the door.
“Downstairs in fifteen.”
“Jeez. I’ll be there, okay!”
I pulled on some jeans, and the closest thing I could find in my closet to hiking boots. The only clue I had to where we were going was that it wasn’t like anywhere we’d been before. When I came down to the kitchen, Hawkins handed me a to-go cup and a slice of toast. “Let’s go.”
“Wait. Just the two of us?”
“Yes.”
I followed him to the garage, surprised we were leaving the compound without Deeps and Ho tagging along after what happened driving into town last night.
Hawkins opened the passenger door of a red Ferrari convertible and held my cup while I got in.
I had just buckled my seat belt when Deeps charged out of the house. “Wait, Mr. Hawkins, you aren’t planning on going out without security?”
“That’s absolutely what I’m planning.” Hawkins pushed a button, and he and Deeps watched the top lift up and fold into the trunk with an elegant, silent motion.
“Sir, at least put the top back up.”
“You really think there’s an assailant waiting outside that gate at eight in the morning on the off chance I’ll suddenly appear?” Hawkins slid into his seat. “We’ll be back in a couple hours.”
The engine’s rumble echoed in the subterranean garage. Hawkins guided the car up the drive. The gate opened as we neared, and he eased the Ferrari onto Pacific Coast Highway. We left the compound behind, and the ocean spread blue and wide on the right, while the Santa Monica mountains loomed on the left.
Wind whipped my hair as Hawkins accelerated, and I closed my eyes, and almost felt free. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d ridden in a car with the top down. The closest I’d come to this was riding on the back of Yates’ motorcycle.
I leaped off that thought and let it disappear. Yates and me—that was the past. I had to live in the now.
Pacific Coast Highway was mostly empty, and the Ferrari sailed past every car we met. After a few miles, Hawkins turned off the highway into the mountains.
The road climbed, cut out of the rocky hills with miles of switchbacks and short, sharp turns. Hawkins pushed the accelerator and the engine roared. I gripped the door handle until I caught the rhythm of the car and the road.
We flew past low brush and red-barked manzanita. Summer dust still coated the leaves on the sycamores, and caked on the roadside boulders. We charged past two life-sized bronzes of rearing stallions decked out in Santa hats at the gate of a private road.
Across the canyon, acres of black earth surrounded the shells of a dozen burned-out mansions where a wildfire had come through. The fire line stopped suddenly, and then the houses ended, and it was just us out here.
The car felt so connected with the road that it anticipated every turn. I began to love the roar of the engine, and the wind whipping my sleeve.
I looked over, and Hawkins was smiling. Not the tight, fake smile he’d had when he’d shaken all those hands at the auction, but a relaxed, genuine smile.
When he saw me looking at him, he said, “I needed this. What about you? You enjoying it?”
It was the first time he’d ever asked me that. “Yeah, I am.”
We zigzagged up the jagged ribbon of road into the hills for miles until we reached the crest. On the left stood a huge sign saying COMING SOON! with a painting of a Tuscan-style mansion and a red Ferrari parked out front.
Hawkins turned onto a dirt road and slowed to a crawl over the rutted track. A steel cattle gate appeared after about a mile and we drove through, closing the gate behind us.
The mountains spread out below and the ocean was a blue border alongside, until the road dipped and we lost sight of the water. A half mile later, we drove up to a house that looked like it was wired together with parts salvaged from old barns and farmhouses. The wood was unpainted and not one window matched another. Copper bells hung from the porch and beehives studded the ground beneath the fruit trees out back.
A man loading wood into his pickup watched us pass. He and Hawkins exchanged glances, but not friendly ones.
“Who’s that?”
“That’s Roy.”
“He doesn’t look thrilled to see you.”
“He’s not. But I don’t give a flying fuck how he feels.” Hawkins guided the car into an open area past the orchard, then got out and tossed his jacket on the seat. “Let’s take a walk,” he said, handing me a bottle of water.
We started down a path through the waist-high scrub, and I still had no clue what we were doing here. Maybe Hawkins thought I’d be easier to deal with if he let me walk around in the open—like letting a dog run off leash.
Dust powdered my boots and the sun was hot enough that I peeled off my shirt and walked in my tank. A red-tailed hawk circled silently above us. The hills on either side were empty of houses and fences, and the only sounds were birds rustling in the brush. The air carried a faint scent of sage.
“Does Roy own this land or is it part of the state park?” I said.
“Neither. I own it.”
No wonder Roy wasn’t friendly. His wild backyard carved up into mansions. “So when are you going to start building homes up here?”
Jessop gave a laugh. “You noticed the sign.”
“It’s six feet tall. It’s a little hard to miss.”
“I don’t intend to build anything up here, but I’ll never let Roy forget I can.”
“Whoa. You guys really don’t get along.”
“I didn’t buy this land to irk Roy. The acreage will go to a conservancy group after I die. My sister fought for years to preserve cougar habitat in these mountains.”
That’s just like you to do a good thing, and add your own vengeful twist.
We continued down the trail until we got to a lookout. “I haven’t been up here in a while. Not since Livia—” Jessop paused to gaze out over the hills. “She used to love it up here.”
With that one little sentence I knew: he’d loved her. He’d actually loved someone outside of himself. And she’d loved him back. How was that even possible?
“What do you think?” He tipped his head at the view.
“About this? It’s beautiful.”
He took off his baseball cap and a breeze ruffled his hair. “Yeah, it’s a good place to clear your head.”
“Is that why we’re here?”
“No. We need to work things out between us, preferably in private.”
I shifted from one foot to another. “What do you mean?”
“Your Contract says you will love, honor, and
obey, not that I expect compliance with regard to love. But I demand you treat me with respect. Especially in front of the staff.”
My heart crawled up my throat, hearing the hard tone in his voice.
“I mean it, Aveline. No sulking, no outbursts. No smart talk.”
I was supposed to heel like a goddamn dog? I wasn’t even allowed to express myself? “Oh yeah?” I cried. “What about respecting my feelings?”
“Your feelings? I gave you what you wanted. I used my connections, my influence to get your precious boyfriend out of prison!”
“You didn’t give me that. That wasn’t a gift. We made a deal.”
Hawkins gulped the last of his water and crushed the plastic bottle with one hand. “What do you want? Clothes? A trip to Hawaii? Europe?”
“Clothes! You think I want clothes?”
Hawkins went to pitch the bottle into the brush, but caught himself. “Then what?”
Let me go.
My heart was racing. There was no point in asking for my freedom. Of all the things I could ask for, he’d never give me that. “I want you to listen to me. To my opinions.”
“About what specifically?”
“Politics.”
Hawkins began to laugh. “Seriously?”
“Auctions need to end,” I snapped.
“This is about last night.”
“You said yourself you’d never let your sister be auctioned.”
“Yes, I did.”
“But you support them.”
“Of course I do. I’m campaigning as a Paternalist.”
“Last night you kept talking about how it was time to rethink the party. Can’t you start with auctions?”
“No! You don’t understand: auctions are an industry. They throw off millions in taxes and licensing fees, not to mention import duties, at a time when legislatures are hungry for revenue. I’d be crucified if I took that on.”
Coward. I didn’t need to say it aloud. Hawkins read my face.
“I’m not taking on that fight. That idea is going nowhere, so don’t bring it up again.”
I spun around and started marching back to the car. Hawkins was right behind me. “This is why I don’t listen to you: because you’re a teenage girl who doesn’t know the simplest things about how the world works.”
I spun back around. “But you’d listen to Livia, wouldn’t you?”
Hawkins held a finger up in warning. “Don’t.”
“I bet Livia wouldn’t be a big fan of the Paternalists.”
He swung his hand back, and I straightened my shoulders and looked him in the eyes. Go ahead.
A moment passed and he dropped his hand. “Go get in the car.”
I stood there just long enough to make it clear I wasn’t rushing to obey. I’d gone a few steps when his phone buzzed.
The car was in sight when Hawkins trotted up behind me. “We need to go. There’s a situation.”
41
We turned onto PCH, and started passing news vans, headed in the same direction. As we drove up to the compound, Deeps was painting over PIMP, the first in a long line of equally ugly words sprayed in six-foot-high letters on the wall along the highway.
Deeps moved aside the handful of reporters who’d gathered in front of the gate. He jogged after us into the garage and walked us inside to the big cement table, where Sig and Ho were streaming the news on their tablets.
Ho, who never broke a sweat, had big stains under his arms. “We have an issue. One of the girls from last evening’s auction was arrested for murdering her father.”
My stomach lurched. “Tell me it’s not Zara.”
Ho ignored me. “We’re trying to contain the fallout,” he told Hawkins.
Sig guided me into the chair next to where he was sitting. “Do you feel faint? Do you need a glass of water?”
“Answer me, Sig. Is it Zara?”
Sig nodded and moved his tablet so I could see the video. The headline read “Girl Murders Father,” and there was the two-story house with the red tile roof and pink bougainvillea over the front door I’d gone through dozens of times for birthday parties and sleepovers.
The police brought Zara out. She stared straight ahead and walked to the squad car, arms cuffed behind her back, her cami and pajama pants splattered with blood. Then her brother ran out of the house, screaming, “You bitch, you used my bat! My championship bat. I hope they lock you up forever!”
I rocked in my seat, shaking my head at how I’d had a hand in this disaster. Zara had looked right at me last night, and I hadn’t done a thing. Not a single, freaking thing.
“This is a public-relations nightmare,” Ho muttered. “Reporters are asking for a comment regarding Aveline’s former classmate.”
Sig held my hand under the table.
“Avie has no comment,” Hawkins said.
“The press is asking for a comment from you, too, Jessop.”
“No comment.”
Ho’s phone buzzed. “Senator Fletcher’s office.” Ho turned away to take the call, but we could still hear him. “Mr. Hawkins is in the air. I expect to hear from him in about—ninety minutes. Yes, he will call the senator when he lands.”
Hawkins leaned on the window, clenching and unclenching one fist.
A reporter standing on Zara’s lawn addressed the camera. “The victim was found facedown on the carpet in his bedroom alongside a bloodied aluminum baseball bat which police believe to be the murder weapon. Police suspect that the motive for the attack was the girl’s opposition to her auction the night before.”
“Your school seems to be a breeding ground for violent young women,” Hawkins muttered.
“Zara wasn’t violent,” I said. “She was the kind of person who’d stand up for you if someone was picking on you. She would never have done this if her father hadn’t put her up for auction.”
“That’s no excuse,” Hawkins snapped. “Plenty of girls are auctioned and none of them has ever murdered their father.”
“Zara was in love.”
“Again, no excuse.”
I wanted to rage. He thought this was simple—like me and Yates. “She was in love with another girl!” I yelled.
Hawkins’ neck was turning crimson. “Take. The volume. Down. Avie.”
“You said you would never have auctioned Marielle. How come it’s okay for everyone else and not her?”
His mouth twitched and Sig’s hand crushed mine.
“We were there,” I said. “You and I stood up on that stage and showed the whole world that we support auctions. So now we can’t say ‘no comment’ and pretend we’re not partly to blame for her father’s death!”
A voice burst in. “Reporting live from St. Mark’s Church, we’re here with activist Yates Sandell.” Ho rushed to mute his tablet, while Sig fumbled with the controls on his. “We need to send a message to politicians like Jessop Hawkins that we oppose Signings, especially nonconsensual Signings. Candidate Hawkins and his fiancée, Aveline Reveare, took part in the auction last night, supporting the monster who sold his gay daughter against her will.”
“Turn that off!” Hawkins roared.
I didn’t care if he yelled, didn’t care if he hit me. My legs were shaking, but I got to my feet. “I am going to comment. I am going to walk out there and tell the reporters exactly what I think.”
“NO, YOU ARE NOT!” Sig shoved away from the table, and if it hadn’t weighed as much as a boulder, it would have fallen to the floor.
“Sig?”
“Obviously, you feel guilty about your friend, but she killed her father, not you! And you are not going to endanger this campaign and everyone else’s efforts by spilling your adolescent guts to the media.”
“Screw you, Sigmund.” How could he have turned on me, too?
“The safest place for her right now might be in her room,” Sig said to Hawkins, who nodded.
Deeps reached for my arm and I whirled out of reach. “Don’t you touch me! I’ll go, but you keep your
hands off me.” Deeps escorted me up the stairs and held the door to my room open.
“I hate you,” I said as he let it close. The magnetic lock clicked and I grabbed hold of the handle and shook it with all my strength. “I won’t be silent! I won’t. You can lock me up in here, but you can’t silence me forever!”
I flung myself at the bed and ripped off the sheets. Then I launched myself against the windows, pounding them with my fists. “We are monsters!” I screamed. “Monsters!”
Hawkins came out on the terrace below, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He turned and looked up at me as I hammered the windows. “Do you hear me? We are monsters!”
Hawkins continued to watch as flat steel security shutters slowly rolled down outside the windows. I slid down the glass, screaming, “You think this is going to stop me? You think you can shut me up?” I was on my hands and knees when the room went completely dark, and the shutters locked in place.
I collapsed in the corner. I could feel the floor, but not see it. The only sound was my ragged breathing. I had stood on that stage, Hawkins’ obedient little trophy, and I did nothing. Nothing!
In the dark, images flashed before me. Zara standing over her dad. The bat swinging down. His skull exploding across the pillow.
Andrew, her brother, screaming at her, “You bitch, you used my bat. My championship bat! I hope they fucking lock you up forever!”
Oh God, the baseball bat.
I buried my face in my knees and began to sob, remembering our last slumber party: Zara braiding Portia’s long, blond hair into an elaborate crown as she told us, “My dad used my college money for a professional pitching coach for Andrew. He told me to go get a scholarship.”
Of course Zara used his baseball bat.
Hours later, Sig unlocked the door. By then, I’d cried myself out. He turned on the light and sat down next to me.
I glared at him through the hair hanging in my face. “Get away from me. You’re on their side.”
Sig raised an eyebrow so high I thought his face might split. “Do you not know why I did what I did down there?”
“You wanted to protect Luke.”
“Not just Luke. There are other lives at stake here, including yours.” We sat in silence for a moment then Sig said gently, “They took your friend Portia to Cedars-Sinai. Suicide attempt.”
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