My voice was just as icy when I responded, “Of course they do.”
“I’m really so sorry. I didn’t…expect this outcome. Nor do I support it. We can still appeal.”
“No,” I said at once. “No, that won’t make a difference.”
And I knew in my heart that it wouldn’t.
It would make no difference.
Because once a-fucking-gain, I had to be painfully reminded of this world. That there were no consequences. Not even a slap on the wrist. Not even an order of protection for harassing and stalking and bruising me. Nothing. Lewis Warren was untouchable. He had made himself that way over time. And even the judge could take the bribe to let it pass.
No. If I was going to get what I wanted, I had to do this myself.
And now, I had the tools to do it.
“Thank you, Shonda. You’ve reminded me of a very important lesson.”
“I did?”
“Never underestimate your enemy.”
She sighed. “I’m so sorry. Let me look into the appeal, and I’ll get back to you.”
I let her finish and then hung up. My feet carried me down Fifth Avenue, inside the little café that made me think so much of Paris, and to the table where a frazzled Jane Devney sat.
I plopped into the seat across from her. She gushed with excitement to see me. Then her face fell at the look on my own face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Jane, I need to ask a favor.”
“Anything. Are you okay?”
“I will be.”
“What’s the favor?”
I leaned forward in the booth. “I need your contact for the New York Times. I have something I think she’ll be very interested in.”
Part IV
Best Served Cold
Chapter 25
Penn
“Dr. Kensington?” a voice called, peeping into my office.
I glanced up to see my teaching assistant, Chelle, standing in the doorway. “How can I help you?”
She hopped inside, closing the door behind her. “Amanda has emailed me three times about that paper she ‘forgot’ to turn in.” She mimed quotations around the word forgot. “I told her that, if she sent it in by midnight, we’d accept, minus a letter grade.”
“That’s fine with me.”
“Yes, well, she just turned it in.”
I checked the clock on my iMac. “It’s twenty minutes before lecture.”
“Yep. It looks like she banged it out last night. What should I do?”
I breathed out through my nose in frustration. Amanda was one of the rare female students in the philosophy department. She stalked my office hours to bat her eyelashes at me in hopes that I’d give her a better grade. I was sure it had worked for her in other classes. It didn’t work with me.
“You said midnight. Dock two letter grades for it being late.”
She chewed her lip. “She’s probably going to fail.”
I nodded once. She probably would. And I hated failing students. But I’d grown up in a world where money changed grades. I wasn’t prone to do it myself. No matter who their parents were or how many of them batted their pretty eyelashes at me.
“Okay then. I’ll see you in lecture,” Chelle said and bounced out of my office as quickly as she’d come.
I pushed aside the paper I’d been reading for a peer review I had to do for a journal. I’d been putting it off and putting it off, but it was part of the job. A tedious part.
I dragged out my phone to see if Natalie had messaged me. I knew that she was busy this morning with Harmony, so it was probably wishful thinking. Everything had been…amazing since Charleston. As if a month ago on a boat in the Atlantic, our world had shifted on its axis. And I liked it. I more than liked it.
A month of just us. No interference from my friends. No big fires. Just us living our lives and Natalie falling easily into this world. Maybe easier than I’d like, but we’d been good together. We were good together.
But instead of a message from Natalie, there was a string of them from Lark. And then Rowe. And even…Katherine.
“What the hell?” I murmured, confused as to why I’d be bombarded by the crew.
I clicked on Lark’s messages.
OMG, have you seen the news? I can’t believe what’s happening to Lewis.
Penn? I’m freaking out. Did you know about this?
Gah, you must be in lecture or something. If you haven’t seen it already, here’s the link.
When I saw the headline to the article from the New York Times, I didn’t even bother with Rowe’s or Katherine’s text messages. I just opened the article and began to read.
“Oh fuck,” I gasped.
The article detailed extensive, manipulative, and potentially fraudulent behavior that the Warrens had been dealing with over the last decade. It started with a recent case that Lewis had closed, Anselin-Maguire, and a purchase of land that led to the displacement of hundreds of low-income families, many who were now homeless. Then it traced this behavior back further in time. None of it was expressly illegal. There was no paperwork saying that they weren’t going to kick people off the properties, but they’d contacted a half-dozen people who had sold to the Warrens, who had verbal commitments that the worst would be avoided. And it was a matter of whether or not those verbal contracts would hold up. Either way, it looked like Lewis had seriously fucked up, and an investigation had been opened up into the company.