Chapter 37
“We’re not going back!” Maeve howled as Jem herded her toward the theater’s exit. She spun and put her hands on her hips, and she had what Jem thought of as crazy dance girl eyes when she announced, “We’ll run away again.”
“If you run away again,” Jem said, “I’ll find you, and next time, I’ll cut your hair off.”
Maeve put a hand to her hair and shrieked.
Milo, meanwhile, was trying to drag both his suitcase and Maeve’s without zipping them up. Both bags tipped onto their sides almost immediately, and clothes went everywhere.
“A little help?” Jem said, glancing around for Tean.
The doc was on his phone, his expression distant. After a moment, he said, “Hold on,” and then he pressed the phone to his chest and said in explanation, “River.”
“What now? Maeve, enough.”
Maeve stopped screaming, but she immediately struck another hipshot pose, her face set in a fresh challenge.
“She says she knows why—” Tean hesitated. “—they have been following her, and she wants to show us.”
“Great.” Jem crouched next to Milo and began scooping up clothes. “Tell her we’ll pencil her in. First, I’ve got to deal with these two psychos. And then I’ve got to deal with Brigitte and Stephen.”
“If you make us go back to Brigitte,” Maeve said, “I’ll cut your hair off.”
Tean was sending him a look that said adults took the high road. Adults didn’t respond.
Sometimes, though, Jem thought Tean wasn’t always right about the important stuff. Which was why, as he was yanking the zipper shut, he said, “If you make us go back to Brigitte, I’ll cut your hair off.”
Maeve’s mouth opened into an O. “Hey!”
“Hey!”
Maeve made a sound of disgust.
So did Jem.
“Stop copying me!” Maeve shouted.
“Stop—”
“Jem,” Tean said.
“—copying me!”
“For goodness’ sake,” Tean said not quite under his breath as he grabbed Jem’s arm and pulled him away from the suitcases. “I don’t think taking them back to Brigitte is the right thing to do. Not right now.”
“Like it or not, she’s their mom.” Jem added in a mutter, “For whatever that’s worth.”
“What if Maeve is serious?” Tean didn’t quite glance over at the kids. “What if they run away again?”
“Then we’ll take them with us.”
“We can’t take them to see those people. Not now.”
“I’m going to tell Brigitte you were being rude!” Maeve called.
“You know what?” Jem said. “You’re right. We have to get rid of them. Permanently.”
Tean looked like he was about to smile. “Why don’t we do this? I’ll take them with me, and I’ll go see what River wants to show us. You try to get some answers out of Gerald’s coaching group. We’ll meet up after and figure out what to do with these two.”
“I don’t like the idea of splitting up.”
“Neither do I. But we’re in a bind.”
“Stay in the lodge.”
“Of course.”
“As soon as you’re done talking to her, get somewhere public.”
Tean nodded. Behind the glasses, his dark eyes were serious. “Please be careful.”
“I’m always careful. Other people need to be careful of me.”
Adults probably didn’t roll their eyes, either, but Tean did have a very expressive mouth sometimes.
They parted ways outside the theater. Jem found a flight of service stairs and went up.
When he got to the room he was looking for, he hammered on it with a fist—aggressive and unmistakably intentional.
In the moment after he stopped, he thought he could actually feel the silence crystalize on the other side of the door.
Seconds ticked past, and then a voice on the other side murmured something too low for Jem to make out.
“I can hear you,” he barked. “Open the fucking door or the sheriff can arrest all of you for murder.”
A lock disengaged, and then the door opened. Dean stood there, his round face flushed. “Now’s not a good time—”
Jem hit the door with his good shoulder. Dean stumbled back, and Jem pushed into the room.
It was actually a suite, Jem saw as he made his way inside.
In the living area, Gerald’s coaching group was gathered on chairs and sofas: Mckell blinking her big lash extensions at the interruption, Nora running fingers through her curls, Sawyer flashing that flat not-smile, Aiden already shooting to his feet, arms wrapped around himself as he abandoned the sofa and started to pace.
Quinn and Beckett squeezed together on a loveseat.
Beckett’s cheeks were pink, and he tucked himself more tightly under Quinn’s arm.
“Excuse me,” Mckell said, getting up from the sofa. “We’re in the middle of something—”
“I’m sure you are,” Jem said. “And I’m sure you’re all having a great time in this big spiritual circle-jerk, so I’ll make it quick. How many of you were being blackmailed?”
Aiden stopped pacing.
Sawyer turned his face away.
The pink in Beckett’s cheeks deepened, and Quinn frowned.
Dean started to say, “That’s ridiculous—”
“All of you?” Jem said. “For real?”
“What are you talking about?” Nora said. “Nobody was being blackmailed.”
“I didn’t know—” Aiden started, but he broke off and shut his mouth.
“You didn’t know he was blackmailing anybody else?” Jem asked dryly. “Yeah, that’s usually how it works.”
“How do you know someone’s being blackmailed?” Quinn asked.
“Because it’s the perfect setup. You guys are all here because you’ve got this dirty little secret. And Gerald convinced you that the best way to handle that secret was—what did he call it?”
“Accountability,” Quinn said slowly.
“Right, accountability. That’s why you had those stupid tracker apps on your phones.
That’s why you had a ‘companion.’ That’s why you had to share a hotel room.
That’s why you sat around and told each other all your sweaty little fantasies.
And look, whatever gets your rocks off. But it turned out you guys couldn’t keep your hands off the salami.
That was the problem. All you had to do was slip up once, and you were a target. ”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Nora said. “Gerald was the one they had to report to. Gerald was the one they had their interviews with. It’s not like Gerald was blackmailing them.”
“It was Stephen!” Dean blurted.
“No,” Jem said, “Stephen was running his own racket. But someone else saw an opportunity to squeeze some extra cash out of the rest of you.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Mckell said. “Who would do something like that?”
“Yeah,” Nora said, shaking her head. “I don’t get it.”
Beckett leaned forward, glancing at the other men.
“Seriously? None of you is going to say anything? Fine. Yes. I got an email. He was going to send recordings from the group sessions to my work.” Beckett squeezed Quinn’s knee.
“I said a lot in those sessions. We all did. Stuff you don’t want other people to hear.
I was going to stop coming, but he said I had to keep acting like everything was normal. ”
“Who?” Jem asked.
“I don’t know. It was a junk email address, and I had to make the payments with Bitcoin.”
After a long moment, Quinn said, “He told me he was going to tell my grandparents.”
“He said he had a video.” Aiden began pacing again, his shoulders hunched. “He said I had to pay.”
Dean angled his body away from Mckell, his face reddening.
“He said he had a video of me jerking off,” Sawyer said. His tone was dark, but he burst out in wild laughter. “I was so freaked out, I would have agreed to anything.”
“I can’t believe this,” Mckell said. “This is insane. Why didn’t anyone say anything?”
“Tafton never would have agreed to this,” Nora said. “Tafton didn’t have anything to be ashamed of. He was trying so hard.”
“You’re going to hate this next bit, then,” Jem told her.
He set the briefcase on the coffee table and took out the pages from the Prowler conversation.
He held up the dick pick first and walked it around the room.
Mckell took one glance and turned away, her face flushing an ugly red.
Dean wouldn’t even raise his eyes to the paper.
Sawyer snorted. Aiden paused his pacing and then continued.
The faintest smile tugged at the corner of Quinn’s mouth, and he bumped Beckett with his hip, and Beckett said, “That’s totally Tafton’s dick. ”
Nora covered her eyes.
“How did you recognize it?” Jem asked.
Beckett smirked. “I like to know what a guy is working with.”
“I don’t know where you got that,” Nora said. She sounded like she was about to cry. “But put it away.”
Jem gave the dick a final look and then tucked the paper back inside the briefcase. “That is from a conversation Tafton had on Prowler with a potential hookup.”
Quinn let out an annoyed breath.
Sawyer muttered, “What a dumbass.”
Dean was sweating, trying to wipe away the drops at his hairline.
“I told you he thought he’d figured out how to get around the tracker,” Beckett said. “Let me guess: he was wrong.”
Jem nodded. “Gerald had a copy of the conversation.”
“Who was the guy?” Dean asked, but he sounded like he didn’t want to know.
Aiden stopped again to ask, “Was he hot?”
“Great question,” Jem said. “He was a smoking ten. Have a look.”
He produced the pictures: first, the man’s body; then the face.
“Get real,” Sawyer said with a laugh.
“Uh.” Quinn looked like he was trying not to smile again. “That’s—”
“That’s Boy Hardy,” Aiden said.
“Who?” Dean said.
“Boy Hardy. He’s a model.”
“He’s a porn star,” Beckett said through bubbles of laughter. “Oh my gosh, for real?”
“I don’t have to sit here,” Nora said. “This is inappropriate, and I’m uncomfortable. Excuse me.”
But as she got to her feet, Jem said, “I think you should stay.”
“I’m sorry, but these pictures are pornographic. I’m not going to look at them.”
“Me neither,” said Mckell. She was still bright red, and she had the fingers of one hand wrapped around the collar of her shirt. “Let’s go.”
“Go ahead,” Jem said. To the men, he said, “See, you guys picked up on the thing that should have been obvious to Tafton from the beginning. This isn’t a real dude.”
“He’s real,” Aiden said.