Chapter One
Spencer
“What do you mean, Malik Forestal chained himself to the Lion’s Gate Bridge?” I pressed a hand to my forehead. “Who the hell is Malik Forestal?”
Bonnie stared at me. “You’ve never heard of Malik Forestal? Razor Made?”
I stared right back. “Nope. But you had better enlighten me. We blocked the bridge for twenty minutes. We inconvenienced commuters.”
“Annoyed the shit out of them.”
“Well, that’s the point. If they want to drive gas-guzzling vehicles, they can be inconvenienced.”
My assistant shook her head. “Right, like them all idling while we held them up didn’t contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.”
I wrinkled my nose. “We got our point across—we don’t need another pipeline.”
“You realized Vancouver has a high percentage of drivers who, you know, drive electric vehicles? And our electricity is clean. We want to encourage this. Not make them sit in traffic as well.”
“We didn’t have a way to separate them.” At this hour of the morning, we had two lanes coming from the North Shore into Vancouver and one lane heading the other way. Heavy traffic that wasn’t moving fast—hence our ability to step before them and block the road.
To say we weren’t popular was an understatement—but we’d effectively made our point. “I know you weren’t in favor—”
She cleared her throat.
“Okay, at all supportive—”
She tipped her chin up.
“But we needed to do something. Did you see the press who swarmed?”
“I haven’t watched the footage yet. I only just found out about Malik.”
“What happened?”
“Blossom said the cops broke the chains and hauled him off to jail.”
Again, I pressed my hand to my forehead. I’d been busy dispersing the volunteers who’d helped with the blockade, then making my way back to the office on my bicycle. I’d ignored my phone chirping at me continuously.
Obviously, that’d been a mistake. Perhaps if I’d still been on the bridge, I might’ve resolved the situation without having to involve the police.
“Was this guy on our list?”
Bonnie shook her head. “Nope. Blossom says she invited him this morning, and he leapt at the chance. I just know about the album he released in the spring.”
I blinked. “Album?”
“Yeah, Razor Made’s first mainstream release. They’ve got a few videos up on YouTube. Millions of hits. They parlayed that into a studio album.”
“And how do you know all this?”
“Blossom.”
“Of course.” The woman was our social media guru. Very talented with all things internet. Sometimes, though, she needed to be reined in. I sighed. “Where is Malik now?”
“He’s at the cop shop. Blossom’s certain he’s going to be released without charges.”
I wanted to scoff at that, but a few of our other protests had gotten…
a little out of hand. Which had resulted in a handful of arrests.
A few stern warnings. But as of yet, no actual charges.
Not that some of the members of This Land is Ours weren’t willing.
I did my best to explain repeatedly that running afoul of the law was not the best way to get our message across.
Sure, those arrests might get press coverage.
Sometimes, though, bad news was just that—bad.
“Is there someone we should be calling?”
Bonnie squinted. “His parents died tragically about five years ago. I suppose I could try one of his bandmates. Like…” She rolled her eyes upward to stare at the popcorn ceiling of the room.
We were headquartered in an old house from the 1920s—a donation to our organization from a fervent environmentalist who never had kids but wanted to leave a legacy.
We hung a photo of Maude Ransom in the front foyer.
Of her up an old-growth tree in 1999. When she was 71 years old.
She’d lived another twenty-three years, only giving up the ghost in 2022.
Chastity had been running This Land Is Ours back then and had gladly taken the house.
Lovely woman, clearly over her head. She hadn’t understood the ramifications of that decision or what would be involved in keeping a house like this on the organization’s books.
So when I arrived the next year, the timing was perfect. My legal background fit.
Chastity took off for the rainforests as soon as she dropped this hot potato into my lap—never to be heard from again.
I wished the authorities in Brazil well—grateful she was someone else’s problem.
As I’d dug through the org’s books for the three years she’d been in charge, I’d found hundreds of errors in our accounting entries and with our tax filings.
How we hadn’t triggered an audit by the Canada Revenue Agency was beyond me—but we hadn’t.
It had taken me six solid months of working with an accountant to get everything resolved.
During that time, much of our fundraising had been put on hold, and we hadn’t done many activities.
In an effort to regain momentum, I hired Bonnie, who recruited Blossom, and now we had a guy in jail.
My headache grew in intensity. “You think you can track down someone?”
Bonnie met my gaze. “Well, they’re all on the socials. I can get Blossom—”
“I’d really prefer you do it yourself. You’re here, after all. Blossom’s not.” Whether she would appear was a crapshoot. We weren’t paying her, so she kept her own hours. I was grateful that she mostly—mostly—took the direction I gave her.
“Well, Creed’s got a ton of followers—”
“Creed?”
She glanced up from her screen, her blue eyes wary at my tone. “I don’t think that’s his actual name. He doesn’t have a last name or anything.”
“Of course he doesn’t.” I waited impatiently as she typed out a message with her thumbs flying across her screen. I, on the other hand, pecked out messages with my right index finger. Predictive text was my best friend. Autocorrect was my archenemy.
“Okay, sent. We’ll just—”
Her phone buzzed.
“He’s responded. He wants to call.”
“Give him my number.”
“Okay, but he’s going to expect me.” Even as she said the words, she typed.
About twelve seconds later, my phone rang. “Spencer Wainright.”
“Uh, I thought I was gonna talk to Bonnie. My name’s Creed.”
“I’m Bonnie’s—”
She arched her eyebrow—daring me to announce myself as her boss.
I cleared my throat. “I’m a friend of Bonnie’s. We work at This Land Is Ours. Have you heard of us?”
“Sure. Malik talks about you guys all the time. TLIO this and TLIO that. I thought maybe he met a guy who hooked up with him and dragged him, but he said he just felt compelled to get involved.”
Met a guy who hooked up with him… Did that mean Malik was gay? Now was precisely not the time to think about that, but I tucked that nugget into the back of my mind. “Uh, we understand he was arrested after the, uh, incident on the Lion’s Gate Bridge.”
“No shit. He was filming himself when he chained himself. I hadn’t heard anything about being arrested.”
“Well, I believed it was prudent to inform someone. Apparently, he was the only person taken into custody.”
Bonnie nodded vigorously.
“Yeah, that’s Malik. Kind of amazing it hasn’t happened before now. I suppose I should go down and see if I can bail him out.”
“If he’s charged, he’ll have to go to court first. If he’s charged, you might need to secure a lawyer for him.”
He chuckled. “No worries—my mother will take care of all of that.”
“Excuse me?”
“She’s a lawyer. Legal aid. I don’t know whether she can represent him, but she’ll know what to do. So, like, thanks for letting me know.” He paused. “He didn’t cause any trouble or anything, did he?”
“He got arrested.”
“Wearing one of our T-shirts.” Bonnie added that, clearly doing her best to eavesdrop.
I arched an eyebrow.
She shrugged.
“Oh, man. That sucks for you. Wait. Is that good? Because, like, publicity—”
“There is such a thing as bad publicity.”
“Shit. Like, sorry. Okay, off to call Mum. Later.” He cut the line.
I stared at the phone. Later? When does he think we’re going to talk? Come to that, what would we even talk about?
Malik Fucking Forestal.
I sighed. “Can you do a complete deep dive into Malik Forestal? You seem to know a lot about him.”
“Well, Razor Made is Blossom’s favorite band.”
“Not yours?” Since I hadn’t even heard of them, I certainly didn’t have a bone in this fight.
“I’m still a classic Grindstone fan. Axel is smoking hot.”
Grindstone, I’d heard of. “Aren’t they down in the States somewhere? And was that the guy…who kissed a guy…” I pressed a hand to my forehead. I was going to need some heavy-duty painkillers very soon. Maybe even my migraine pills.
“Yeah. Axel had a video of him kissing his high school teacher, and he leaked it to the internet. Although if it’s a video of you, and you have it, then it’s not really leaking, right? It’s just uploading—”
“Bonnie.”
“Sorry. Yes, Axel uploaded a video of him kissing his teacher—although this was ten years after graduating, and there was nothing going on between them while he was a student—”
“Thank God for that.” I didn’t know any of these people personally, but I didn’t like hearing about shit like that.
“And, yeah, Grindstone is performing at Rocktoberfest again this year. I could tell you all about…” She tapped her phone. “But something tells me you want Malik’s history on your desk in an hour.”
“Twenty minutes would be better.” I offered a weary smile. “But thorough is important.”
“I’ll send it through in chunks. Take your pills.” She plopped into her chair, put on her noise-canceling headphones, cracked her knuckles, and started typing like a madwoman.
Thoroughly exhausted—even though the clock hadn’t hit ten—I headed to my office.
The layout of this house was traditional—each room separated by doors.
Personally, I much preferred the modern approach to having open living spaces, but this setup enabled me to have a private office that I could lock each night after work.