“What?” I screeched, into the sudden stillness. Cars whipped past us.
“Tell me you’re joking,” Scout shouted.
“Everyone’s losing their minds over here,” Cybele said. “How have you not seen the news? The LAPD have her in custody. There’s a smoking gun, something about a backpack and footage.”
“The terrorist the FBI is after isJuliet?” Scout looked as dazed as I felt.
“The same detective who arrested you arrested her. There’s video of it all over social media.”
“Detective Holloway?” I asked. What were the odds?
Scout must’ve been thinking the same thing. Her knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. “Is Juliet being framed? Is Holloway involved?”
“I don’t know.” Cybele’s tone made me wince. It sounded like shedidknow, she just didn’t want to say.
“What aren’t you telling us?” I shouted as a truck roared by.
“You guys haven’t been around,” she said. “And I get it, you don’t have to explain—but you haven’t seen what’s been going on with her. She got in deep with this group called the Green Lions.”
“Thewhat?”
“Green Lions,” Cybele repeated louder. “Have you heard of Luca Clearwater? She’s some progressive political hero. Juliet worships her.”
“I’ve heard of her,” Scout said. “I think I’ve seen her on the news.”
“Juliet wanted us to combine forces.” Cybele sighed. “She was starting to do things that pissed us off, I think to impress Luca. The truth is… I could see her doing this if Luca told her it was a good idea. Juliet had issues, you know? She was young and on her own for too long. She was hungry for validation.”
“Shit,” Scout cursed.
“None of us know what to do,” Cybele said. “This is bigger than anything we’ve ever dealt with.”
The three of us fell into silence, considering the magnitude of it. Not only was Juliet in staggering, life-ending trouble, but the ripple effects would surely spread wide—to Scout, to me, to all of us.
Scout looked at me and waited.
I took a deep breath and made a decision. “Call the full network,” I told Cybele. “Every woman we’ve ever helped who’s in LA. Tell them to meet us at Scout’s house at eleven.”
“And when they ask why?”
“Tell them we’re calling in our favors.”
Chapter 45Isabel, the Assistant
PRESENT DAY
Scout’s living room was barely big enough to hold all the women. The gray clouds that had loomed all day had finally wrenched open, and the force of the storm had knocked out power in Hollywood Hills. We’d opened the French doors connecting Scout’s living room to the backyard, needing air, and now a gusting wind swirled the scent of the hills inside—sea salt, laurel, and sagebrush. With it came the manic tinkling of her wind chimes, battered by the breeze.
Women sat on every available surface, including the floor. Scout hadn’t been a household name until recently, but she’d still managed to buy a small, one-story house in the Hills, and thirty members of our network—nearly all of us—filled it. Scout rarely had people over. Usually, when someone called a meeting, we held it in public, at a restaurant or a bar, and only half as many women came. But it seemed everyone could sense these were extraordinary times, and they’d made good on their promise to come when called.
Scout’s living room was full of Georgia: objects of hers placed like museum artifacts on mahogany bookshelves and side tables, and framed pictures lined the walls. Scout’s house was a shrine; I understood why she kept it private. But she hadn’t protested when I’d told Cybele to gather everyone here, and I wondered if she felt the way I did, that it was finally time to break the seals on our past and drag everything into the open.
With the electricity out, candles were our only source of light, and the small flames cast subtle flickers across the women’s faces. Scout and I stood in the center of the room, listening to them argue, Georgia’s eyes watching the proceedings from the frames on the walls.Being here in the dark, in the candlelight, surrounded by the only people I had faith in, reminded me why I’d shaped the group around the rituals of the church, the place Scout and Georgia and I had first met so many years ago, where my love and devotion to the Sage sisters began.
The debates had started as soon as the women arrived. Some were dressed in miniskirts, arriving from nights out in West Hollywood; others wore pajamas, called out of bed. As their voices filled the room, my eyes roved over them, cataloging some faces I hadn’t seen in years, some women whose fame had skyrocketed since we’d helped them, others whose careers had dwindled.
Once upon a time, that fateful night at Easton’s Christmas party, Scout and I had been so intimidated by the group he’d assembled, all that star power in one house. But ten years later, we’d built our own version. These women were my legacy. My gift to the girls we’d been, the ones who’d walked so naively into that party, and to all the girls who would walk in after us.
“All right,” Scout called. “That’s enough. We need to make a decision.”
