Chapter 51. Isabel, the Assistant
Isabel, the Assistant
PRESENT DAY
I sat in my backyard and fed two decades of Scout’s diaries to the fire.
On the lounge chair beside me, my laptop played footage of the press conference, Captain Randall Xie breaking the news that Scout had surrendered peacefully after confessing to bombing Knox Aeronautics, while CNN commentators dissected it in an incredulous voice-over.
I longed to cut through the screen and answer them.
Oh, you can’t believe the turn the Scout Sage saga has taken? Join the fucking club.
Unsurprisingly, news of Scout’s arrest was on every channel, every social media platform, every text and voicemail clogging up my phone.
Unfortunately, I was addicted to stewing in it, like the masochist I was beginning to discover I was.
Or maybe I was just lonely. Every single person I knew had either abandoned or betrayed me.
The camera cut back to the studio, where a perfectly coiffed anchor wore a deer-in-the-headlights expression.
“If you’re just tuning in, a bombshell of a confession from musician Scout Sage: She claims to be the Knox Aeronautics bomber—the LAPD arrested the wrong woman on what is now believed to be a false tip.
” The anchor turned to the man beside him.
“I’m almost too stunned for words. Has there been a famous young woman more scandalously swept into counterculture since Patty Hearst ran into that bank on behalf of the SLA? ”
“And like Patty, I’m wondering whether Scout can even have a fair trial, given her notoriety,” said the man—a legal expert, according to the chyron.
I snorted and tossed a notebook of old lyrics into the fire, watching as the flames blackened the loose-leaf papers. Scout’s lawyer had warned her it would take a long time to figure out the mechanics of a jury. Where could she go where no one knew her name? But she’d pressed on anyway.
Another expert wondered if Scout would be charged with arson or something more serious, like domestic terrorism, and I pointed a bingo finger at him. “Arson’s what Scout’s fancy fucking lawyers are negotiating for.”
“A lot depends on the severity of her charges,” said the talking head. “The district attorney will have to weigh the fact that no matter how airtight the case is, there’s a chance Scout’s so popular a jury will give her the lightest possible sentence.”
“Two years for arson in California,” I agreed. That’s what her lawyers had told us. At which point Scout had turned to me and said, “See? Not so bad.”
Surely Scout’s popularity would have an influence on the case, continued the CNN legal expert. People loved her. Even before the accusations, she was known by early fans for being kind.
“That was my idea,” I yelled at the laptop. “The whole nice-girl thing was my goddamn invention.” It had been my idea to throw out the mean girl and build Scout’s likability as a form of capital. I’d just never intended for her to cash in on it like this.
I slumped on my chaise. These days, I wanted to yell at a lot of people, but none more than the woman currently on house arrest. Instead, I was stuck in my backyard in Los Feliz, talking back to news anchors while destroying every piece of evidence of Scout’s private thoughts and plans.
I pulled a spiral notebook out of the plastic bin.
It was an artifact from junior year of high school, the book we’d used to pass notes.
I opened it and was hit with grief at the sight of Scout’s teenage handwriting, the big bubble letters.
My parents are being impossible, she’d written.
They won’t let me go to the party. Can I say I’m sleeping at your house?
Georgia might have to come, too. Get your own life, Georgia, am I right?
I looked at the firepit, clutching the notebook to my chest. I didn’t want to erase it. But Scout had told me everything had to go. That night, after our friends voted in a way I would never forgive and it was just us left at her house, Scout had forced me to stop pleading and listen.
“I need you to get rid of it all,” she’d insisted. “Every diary, song book, my sticky notes. Wipe my emails. Don’t leave anything.”
I’d shaken my head. “Why?”
“Because I need to stay in control of the story.” Scout’s face had glowed in the candlelight.
“If I confess, I’ll have a better chance of fighting the charges in court than Juliet.
She has no money, no fame. But Iz, I’m going to have to deny everything about what we’ve built.
I’m going to need to look as innocent as possible.
If people think I’m the leader of some”—she scoffed and shook her head—“Hot Girl Murder Club, I’ll have a hard time defending myself.
We have to erase it. Erase everything anyone could use to get a read on me, just to be safe. ”
I’d gripped her by the arms. “I know you feel like what happened to Georgia was your fault, that you failed her as a big sister. But throwing your life away isn’t atonement. Juliet isn’t Georgia—it’s not your job to save her.”
Scout’s face had flooded with conviction. “It’s like you said at Easton’s: There has to be a line that separates us from them. We’ve answered aggression with aggression for so long, but”—she pressed a hand to her heart, like what she was saying physically hurt—“it hasn’t changed anything.”
“Sacrificing yourself won’t either.”
“Actually, I think it might be the only thing that has real meaning. It costs something. What does revenge cost? Anger is easy.”
“Will you do this even if it means losing me?” It was my final move, the last card I had to play.
Scout didn’t answer me. She didn’t have to. We stood there in the silence of her living room as dawn broke, sunlight filtering through her backyard, and the look on her face was enough. She was willing to lose me over this.
Now I fed her notebook into the fire like an obedient little assistant and watched the flames eat it.
We were erasing everything I’d built. I’d been fine with Scout being a star while I lived in the shadows, but this was my life’s work, the one thing I had to show for myself, the accomplishment I was proudest of.
Scout would live on in history, for better or for worse, but I would fade into invisibility, the ghost of a woman who’d given everything for nothing in the end.
I was tired of doing what Scout told me. For once in my life, I wanted to choose myself.
Something boomed against the tall wooden gate that shielded my backyard, and I gasped, leaping to my feet, envisioning the Green Lions or the FBI, come to harm me or take me in.
But suddenly Brooks’s head appeared above the gate—he was lifting himself up, climbing over the fence.
He dropped heavily to his feet on the other side.
“What the hell?” I yelled. “Are you trying to scare me to death?”
“Scare you?” He straightened in the grass, his handsome face red, sweat at his brow. “You weren’t answering your door.”
I moved to hide Scout’s notebooks from his gaze. “So you decided to break in? What’s wrong with you?”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” He was breathing fast. “I didn’t realize we were acting sane these days.” He wore the remnants of a suit—just pants and a white undershirt, like he’d left the other half on my front step. “Speaking of not acting sane, what the fuck are you and Scout playing at?”
I’d known this confrontation was coming, but I hadn’t expected it so soon, or so late at night in my own backyard.
“Scout didn’t set off that bomb,” Brooks said. “She was at Easton’s house. I was listening on the phone the whole time. Remember how I busted in and saved you? There’s going to be cell phone data to contradict her, my testimony, yours—assuming you aren’t planning to perjure yourself.”
I pulled my robe tighter and scrutinized him. “Are you wearing the same clothes? Have you been home once since the day of the bombing?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. I need to know how off the rails you’ve gone for the police report I’m going to file on this break-in.”
Brooks strode across the yard. With every step, I noticed more details: the thick stubble on his jaw, the dark circles under his eyes, the raw weariness in the lines around his mouth, hiding under his anger.
“Answer me,” he demanded. “Why is Scout confessing to a crime she didn’t commit?
You know that’s a federal crime, right?”
I stood tall and looked him in the eye. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Scout armed the bomb and then drove straight to the Bankses’ house.
It’s only thirty minutes away in light traffic.
You can look it up on Google Maps. She had plenty of time to be in both places.
” Here I was like clockwork, hating Scout’s choice but playing the loyal soldier.
“That’s bullshit.” Brooks stopped stalking across the grass, leaving a foot of distance between us. “And if it were true, then you were with her, Isabel. Should I arrest you as an accomplice?”
I gave him a level look. “What you should do is let us handle this and stop asking questions.”
“This isn’t a joke.” With one step closer, he was looming over me. “If the FBI decides to come after you, I can’t protect you. I’ve racked my brain trying to think of how to do it, but I—”
“I don’t recall asking you to.”
“Jesus, Izzy.” Brooks gripped his face and spun from me, then immediately spun back. “You’re shutting me out again. You came to me for help, remember that? You can’t just toy with me, use the fact that I feel—” He shook his head, cutting himself off.
Suddenly, my armor felt heavy. Seeing Brooks in pain—I was so tired of hurting him, of making him the sacrifice. Our plans always cast him aside in the end.
I melted into my chair. He went very still, watching. “Scout and I can handle ourselves. Okay, Brooks? We’re not damsels in distress. You can stop saving us. Responsibility over.”
I thought I was being kind. But Brooks looked at me with an expression far bitterer than any I’d seen him wear before. “You get everything so backward sometimes that I wonder how you’re so smart and so clueless at the same time.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s not a badge of honor to be above needing people.” He scrubbed a restless hand over his face as he paced. “I’m not stupid, Iz. I know you and Scout were starting something ten years ago that you didn’t want me to know about, and that’s why you pushed me away.”
I wasn’t in the mood for more raw wounds.
“That’s not what happened. I broke up with you because you became overbearing.
You were hurt I’d found something I cared about as much as you, and you were jealous of the time I was spending with Scout.
You acted like you were in a competition for my affection. ”
“Of course I was,” he said. “But not between me and her. Between me and it. Whatever this thing was you were working on, you treated it like a secret lover, lying to me and sneaking around.”
To my shock, Brooks bent down to his knees in front of my chair. “How was I supposed to feel? Tell me, really. You were changing, and you wouldn’t let me follow. You wouldn’t even let me in to understand why.”
He was looking at me so earnestly, waiting for my answer.
Those blue-green eyes of his like the ocean, beautiful even when they were bloodshot and weary.
I couldn’t help it—I reached out and touched the side of his face.
Felt his cheekbones, the rough prickle of his five-o’clock shadow.
When Brooks closed his eyes, I pushed my fingers higher, up through his hair.
It was as silky as I remembered, even cut short.
We sat there, still and quiet: Brooks on his knees in front, my hands in his hair, the firepit crackling.
“I’m tired of fighting with you,” I said quietly. “If you’re here to arrest me, just do it.”
Brooks opened his eyes and studied me. Then he leaned in, took my face in his hands, and kissed me like ten years were nothing.
It was the best of what kissing Brooks used to be, mixed with the best of who he’d become.
He still knew how I liked to be touched, but he was a fiercer kisser than before, hungrier, more desperate, a man ten years in the desert.
He picked me up without missing a beat and took my place on the chaise longue, settling me in his lap. I was so happy it turned me cold.
“What’s wrong?” he asked breathlessly, pressing the words into my neck.
“She’s my sister, Brooks. I’m going to choose her.”
The fire popped. In the distance, sirens sounded. He studied me. “You don’t think I know that by now?”
I leaned away. “Why would you ever be okay with coming second?”
He pulled me closer. Ran a hand through my long dark hair, twisting a lock of it around his finger.
“Because you’re my first choice, and that’s enough for me.
” He looked at me through his lashes. “The stakes are too high now, Isabel. I need you to tell me if you want me or not. I need you to mean it, because whatever you say, I’m going to stake my life on that. ”
I hated that his job and integrity stood on the opposite side of the line we’d drawn. Hated it so much, I almost lied to him to make it easy for him to walk away. I could be like Scout and sacrifice myself for the greater good, his greater good.
“What if,” he said softly, “you didn’t choose me, or her, but yourself? What would happen then?”
The thought was intoxicating. So I told Brooks the truth.
“I’ve always wanted you, since the day we met. There’s never been anyone else. If it was up to me, you would know all my secrets and love me anyway.”
He leaned in. “Easy,” he whispered.
“Just like that? After everything?”
“Just like that.”
A sense of wonder rolled through me. If I could tell Brooks what I really wanted, if it was really that easy, then maybe I could do it with Scout. With the universe.
Even the thought of messing with her plan gave me chills, but the truth was, I didn’t want my work to be forgotten.
Scout’s freedom be damned, I couldn’t let her erase what I’d built.
She’d insisted what was happening was bigger than the two of us, and she was right about that, at least. I had the chance to do something that would echo throughout history.