Page 101 of The Fallen Man

“Dominique,” snapped Evan, annoyed that his cousin was on the phone again.

“Sorry,” she said, putting her phone down on the coffee table. It was the first time that Evan had the entire family over to his condo at one time. Evan was finding it very strange, but they couldn’t use Deveraux House.

“I’m letting Tami Tang know—as a friend—that Marissa Shaw has been putting the moves on her husband.”

“Is that necessary to do now?” demanded Evan. He couldn’t believe the family was being ignored in favor of Tami Tang and Marissa Shaw.

“Well, yes. I’m in the final stages of torching the Junior League,” said Dominique. “There’s a Board Meeting tonight, and if I can make sure there isn’t a quorum, the chapter will be forced to dissolve. And right now, Tami Tang is the Treasurer, and if she doesn’t show up because Marissa Shaw is a predatory skeezbag, then that’s the nail in the coffin.”

“You were serious about that?” asked Ella. “I thought you were being metaphorical about raining destruction on their League of Evil.” She glanced at Aiden, who made anmmmmmnoise and shook his head. “Which apparently I should not have assumed. I just thought that Junior League was something that couldn’t be stopped like athlete’s foot.”

“Yes,” said Evan, “we all hate the Junior League. They are pretentious, socially cruel, and generally unhelpful to whatever charity they attach themselves to for woke street cred. Dominique is doing the Lord’s work, but can we move on?”

“Yes,” agreed Max. “We need to figure out what the hell happened to Jackson. He no showed at the gym this morning and when I found him at the house he looked like he’d been run over. And then Theo gave me a look.”

“Yes, but which look was it?” asked Aiden. “Was it thewhy are you herelook?”

“The royalwe do not approve?” asked Dominique.

“It was theI have three empty vodka bottles in the recycling and I’m really worriedlook,” said Max.

“That one must be new,” said Aiden.

“Well, so is Jackson’s drinking,” said Max.

“Max is right. He doesn’t drink like that,” said Dominique.

“She must have broken up with him,” said Olivia, sounding distressed. “I tried drinking when Evan broke up with me.”

“I also tried drinking when I broke up with you,” said Evan.

“I couldn’t make it through the entire bottle of wine though,” said Olivia.

Evan glanced at his cousins. Aiden was openly grinning, and Dominique was giving a very strained neutral face.

“I baked several cakes instead,” said Olivia. “And a pie.”

“Good effort,” said Aiden, encouragingly. “But back to Jackson. I don’t think it’s just breaking up. After he tried to give Max the brush off at the house, I called him.”

“You called him?” asked Dominique.

“Yes, it’s what you do when your material witness tries to give you the slip and doesn’t think you’re going to follow up. It’s also a thing I do when Max says Jackson looks like he hasn’t slept in twenty-four hours and probably hasn’t been home except to drink and pass out. The surprise full frontal assault worked onhim in DC. I thought I’d give it another try.”

“What did he say?” asked Evan.

“He said they were trying to deal with the Caitlin Granger situation and that everything was fine and we’d talk later, then he hung up on me,” said Aiden. “More or less.”

“That’s about what I got,” said Evan, “when I tried to talk to him last night. After I talked to you this morning, I called Devonte, which is… tricky. I don’t like to put him in a position where he has to choose between us.”

“Did you get anything out of him?” asked Dominique hopefully.

“He said…” Evan hesitated thinking over the conversation. “There was a lot he didn’t say actually. But I think they have found Caitlin Granger and she doesn’t want to talk to them and now they’re looking for alternate ways to deal with it. His crew are also aware of the break up and are trying to help, but reading between the lines…”

“What?” asked Aiden.

“It seemed pretty clear that they thought the break up was understandable? Like they thought Jackson had fucked up and weren’t surprised with the reaction.”

“I can’t really picture that,” said Max. “He’s a stand-up guy. Half of his weird relationship issues are because he wants to be honest. I don’t see what he could have done.”