17. Lacey
CHAPTER 17
LACEY
The motorcycle club actually has an attorney. And while that alone surprised me, what got me even more shocked was the man’s name.
Eagle nods at the man behind the desk. He looks old, and he could definitely use some modern technology. His desk is covered with papers, some so yellow, they can’t be part of active cases. He’s smoking cigarettes, and when he’s not smoking, a thin line of smoke drifts from the cigarette in the ashtray by his phone toward the ceiling.
“Lacey Mercer, Lacey Mercer.” The man cocks his head as though he’s thinking about whether he knows me, but then he sticks out a tobacco-stained hand. “Call me Fingers.”
Fingers, which is yet another club nickname, is a real lawyer, if you believe the single framed degree on the wall, but I’m not exactly filled with confidence at first sight.
I look from him to Eagle, not sure where or how to begin.
Eagle nods, quietly telling me to trust Fingers with my most private shame. “You want me to leave?” Eagle asks.
I shake my head. He’s going to learn the whole truth eventually. It might as well come out now, before I get in too deep. Before I start to really fall.
“Well, Mr. Fingers,” I start.
“Just Fingers.” He takes a long draw on his cigarette and blows the smoke respectfully in the opposite direction of where I’m sitting. “Go on,” he urges.
He’s not taking any notes but leans back in his chair and listens as I explain. “Well, I had a brief relationship with a man who I thought was single, a widower, actually. That was a lie, as I found out later. Turns out, the man is the father of a bride who booked her wedding at the venue where I work—or worked.”
“Where’s that? What venue?” Fingers asks.
“Villa Lantana.” I don’t expect him to have heard of it because Fingers doesn’t exactly look like the kind of guy who attends many weddings or upscale events, but he nods.
“Sergio Lantana. Nice guy, for the most part.” Fingers taps the side of his head. “Give me a second.” He closes his eyes and seems to be thinking. “I’ll have to have my girl run a conflicts check,” he says, although I saw no girl and don’t know what a conflicts check is.
My face must give that away, so he explains.
“I gotta decent memory despite all the drugs I did in the seventies,” he cough-laughs, and Eagle smirks. “Guess I did the right kinds of drugs. Anyway.” He taps his head again. “I don’t think I’ve ever represented Lantana in the past, but I’ll have my part-time girl check. If I ever did any work for the guy, I couldn’t help in a case against him now. But I think we’re clear. Go on.”
I explain in the very barest detail how Olivia must have found out about the affair at the rehearsal or after it. I tell him about the wedding, how Don sent me home, and the allegations that the Acostas later made against me.
Fingers blows air through his mouth, and I think I feel the tiniest bit of spittle hit my face, but I don’t dare lift my hand to wipe it away. “Employment cases. Handled a million of ’em.”
He asks me a bunch of personal questions, like how long I worked for the Lantana, how much I made. If I worked on commission or if I was ever pressed to upsell clients on any product or service. I answer honestly. No, no, it’s a salaried job that I always loved. We never had to use heavy-handed tactics to sell things. We charged a lot of money because we were the best, and our clients expected to pay for that.
“Sergio got any other disgruntled former employees? Or current employees, for that matter?” Fingers asks.
I shake my head. “We have no turnover. My assistant is the most recent new hire, and she’s been there over three years. People love the place. We get hired and don’t leave.” I frown because that reputation is definitely going to stop me from finding another job. There’s no moving up from the Lantana. Only moving on.
Fingers seems to get this as he charges on with a plan. “I need to see everything,” he tells me. “Anything you ever signed and anything they made you sign, even if you don’t have copies of it. You got the employee handbook? Your evaluations?”
We talk through what I have, and he makes a list, writing things down for the first time. Then, as if it only just occurs to him, he looks at me and points a pencil in my direction. “What do you want?” he asks me. “In these situations, we usually go for money or your job back.”
I shake my head. “I don’t see how I can get my job back. And I don’t think I’m entitled to?—”
“Ahh-ahh. Never say what you think you’re entitled to. That’s what the law is for. It’ll tell us what’s yours and what’s not.” He writes down a dollar sign and then holds up a hand. “One last question. You got money?”
I look to Eagle, not sure what he means. “I mean, some. I’m not rich, if that’s what you mean.”
“For me,” he explains. “Case like this, I’d normally take on an hourly basis.” He explains that, because I don’t make a ton of money, the amount he might be able to get me in settlement from the Lantana isn’t a lot. If he takes fifteen percent, that brings the amount down even more.
“How’d you get involved in this?” Fingers asks all of a sudden, looking at Eagle.
“Working security at the place,” Eagle says. “I got up close and personal with Acosta when he grabbed Lacey’s arm at the rehearsal dinner. Been wondering if me putting him in his place has anything to do with him trying to put Lacey in her place on the wedding day. It all feels pretty tit for tat to me.”
Fingers slams a hand down on the desk, and a bunch of papers shift around. Miraculously, nothing falls off, but his cigarette does wobble out of his ashtray. Fingers grabs it and bites it between his teeth. “He assaulted her? He touched her? Why the hell didn’t you say so sooner?”
I start to interrupt. This could go way too far. “He didn’t assault me,” I rush to explain. “He grabbed my wrist, but?—”
Fingers holds up a cigarette like a finger to silence me. “Don’t you worry. We’re not going to lie and say you’re hurt or traumatized. We deal with the facts, and the fact is, if a guest touched you, laid his hand on you, there could be a bodily injury component to this deal. That means insurance might pay, there could be a claim…”
He looks excited for a minute, but then he explains. “The messier we make this for Sergio, the more he’s gonna want this over and done with. If I tell him I have a premises bodily injury claim he needs to report to his insurance company, he’s gonna freak out. Most insurance policies don’t cover that shit.”
I’m literally lost. I have no clue what any of this means. “Are you going to sue Sergio?” I ask. I don’t think I can handle that. I don’t think I want that, even if it’s potentially something I’m entitled to. I don’t like any of this. I just want it over. I want my job back. I want the fantasy. But unless Fingers can turn back time, I know I’m in for a painful disappointment.
“No lawsuit yet,” Fingers says. “That shit’s expensive, and we don’t want him to lawyer up. I’m going to shake the tree. Send a letter. See what falls out.”
He stands up and shakes my hand over the desk. “No charge for today,” he says, nodding at Eagle. “You’re with this guy?”
I look to Eagle, who answers for me. For us.
“Will being with me hurt her case?” Eagle asks carefully.
Shit. I never thought about that.
Fingers gives Eagle a crooked smile. “Attorney-client privilege.”
Eagle nods. “We’re together,” he confirms.
Fingers nods. “About time you got yourself an old lady,” he says. “I hope this one sticks around.”
Eagle doesn’t blink, doesn’t respond to that. Fingers charges on. “I go way back with Eagle and his brothers,” Fingers says, “So, I’ll send a letter to Sergio and see what he says. If I can help you, I’ll do it on the cheap.”
I sign a retention agreement and fee disclosure. It all scares me, but Eagle stands over me and reads the docs. “It’s all right,” he assures me. “You can trust Fingers. He won’t do you wrong.”
Since I don’t have time to shop for a lawyer, I sign the papers, trusting my fate and my future to a man named Fingers. No, that’s not true. Eagle brought me here. I’m trusting my fate and my future to a man called Eagle.
Eagle and Fingers slap each other on the back, talk for a couple minutes about people named Morris and Crow, then names I recognize—Brute and Tiny and some others. After, Eagle grabs my hand, and we leave the small office.
Once we’re out in the afternoon sun, I take a long breath of the humid but blissfully smoke-free air.
“You all right?” Eagle asks.
I don’t answer right away. I am not okay. I am not okay with communicating with my old company through a lawyer. I’m not okay trusting my fate in the hands of someone who knows my secrets but doesn’t know me.
And worse than that, I’m scared. Scared that I’m in too deep with Eagle. I’m trusting him, but not only that, I’m trusting people he trusts. What’s to stop Fingers from sending a letter, sending me a bill, and getting nothing done to help me? What’s to stop Eagle from blocking my phone, dropping me like a hot rock once I have no job? Will he keep working at the Lantana?
“Lacey?” I feel Eagle’s rough but now-familiar hand snake along the back of my neck. He lowers his face to mine and kisses me lightly. “Hey,” he says. “It’s gonna be okay. Fingers knows his shit. I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t think you could trust him.”
Trust. That word again. It’s like the universe is teasing me, tormenting me. Throwing the very thing I do far too easily right in my face. I trusted Dylan. I trusted myself. Am I a fool for trusting Eagle and, through Eagle, this Fingers character?
I grab the helmet and start to put it on, but then I stop. I need to say something, and I want to say it now. Before we get on the bike and the noise of the engine and the speed of the road distract me from what I’m feeling.
“Eagle,” I say, holding the helmet between us like a shield. I look into his face, his sunglasses on the top of his head so I can see into his deep blue eyes. “Please,” I whisper, fighting tears. “Don’t break my heart. I honestly don’t think I could take it.”
Eagle’s mouth falls open, but then he leans forward and kisses me again. “I won’t,” he promises, saying the words so firmly I want to believe him. “I won’t,” he repeats. “You too,” he says. “Got it?”
I pull away from his kiss and nod. But I’m not sure what I’m nodding to. Could I ever break his heart? I don’t know. But the way I feel right now, one wrong move from this tattooed former employee of mine, and the last of my faith in dreams will shatter. And I don’t know if I have the strength to put the pieces together even one more time.