“She might trust me to run her life, but with this kind of stuff?” She shook her head, her lips turning down. “Nah. She doesn’t take advice from me.”
My phone buzzed against the table, and I glanced down to see yet another text from Wyatt on the screen—the fourth one since Friday. He’d tried calling three times as well.
Wyatt
Call me back already, damnit.
I need to talk to you.
I swiped the notification away without opening it.
Two months ago, I would have called him back within the hour. That was how it had always worked between us—Wyatt reached out, and I responded. For seven years, I had never once let him wait.
But Taylor's words kept playing on a loop in my head.
I hated that he’d said those things to me, but what I hated even more was that he wasn’t entirely wrong. I was pissed off at him, and angry at myself, and I just needed to prove to both of us that Wyatt didn’t have me on a leash. That I was my own man, who could make my own damn decisions.
And it felt like every call or text I didn’t respond to was a step toward proving that.
“Walk me through the details for the final debate,” I said, pushing the thought away.
Maya pulled up an email on her iPad. “Everything’s squared away with the auditorium. We’re locked in for a state-wide broadcast, with both local and national affiliates carrying it.”
“That’s our window then. If we can reframe the conversation before then, Merrick walks onto that stage playing defense." I shuffled through the windows on my computer until I found the one I was looking for. "I’ve been digging into his background, and I think I've found a smoking gun.” I pulled up the opposition research file I’d been building since my second week here and mirrored my screen to the TV mounted on the far wall. “He was a member of the Penobscot Pines Club for eleven years. He only resigned his membership last year, right before he started making noise about running for office.”
David leaned forward. “That’s the club that got sued a couple of years back, isn’t it?”
“One and the same.”
“What for?” Maya asked, also leaning forward.
“Two Black men who’d been sponsored by existing members were rejected without explanation. The club settled out of court and sealed the terms, but I tracked down one of the applicants.” I clicked to the next slide. “He said the membership committee told his sponsor that he ‘wasn’t the right fit for the club’s more refined culture.’ Merrick was on that committee.”
“You’re kidding.” Maya's jaw dropped.
You'd think by now these things would stop being shocking, but every day, another example of how horrible he really was came to light.
“I wish I were, but it gets worse.”
I clicked past two other slides and landed on a page I’d titled PATTERN OF CONDUCT that was broken into three columns: club membership, employment complaints, and the public record. Lined up side by side, the picture was damning.
“I pulled employment records from his logging operation. In the last eight years, three employees--two women and one man of color--have filed discrimination complaints with the Maine Human Rights Commission. Two were settled with NDAs, while the third was withdrawn after the employee suddenly left the state, never to be heard from again.”
David’s jaw tightened as he did the math—three complaints, two bought off, one that simply vanished.
“One of the settled cases included an allegation that Merrick referred to a lesbian worker as a ‘bull dyke that just needed to get fucked properly.”
Maya’s pen hit the table with a sharp clack. She sat back and folded her arms across her chest, her jaw set in a way I hadn’t seen from her before now. “That fucker.”
David’s eyes met mine, his thumb rubbing slowly back and forth along the edge of his coffee mug. “Tell me you have receipts.”
“The club lawsuit was sealed, the employment settlements are under NDA, and the third complaint was withdrawn.” I leaned back in my chair. “But sealed doesn’t mean buried.”
David dragged a hand over his mouth. “Walk us through it.”
I spent the next forty-five minutes going over what I’d found. When I was finished, Maya stared at me with an expression that seemed caught somewhere between horror and respect—like she was seeing me clearly for the first time, and hadn’t yet decided what to make of it.
I was just full of surprises today.
