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“Then demand support.”
That’s not the first time Jessa had heard that advice. Retta gave it often but never filled in the blanks about how to make it happen. “You make it sound easy, but it’s not. I’m not you.”
Retta leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “I can help you, Jessa. I can make a lot of this go away, but you have to want it. Deep down in your bones.”
“I do.”
“Then step up and let the fear go.”
Yes. Do it now. Go.“How?”
Retta shrugged. “There’s a solution, an imperfect one, that levels the field. It makes us proactive instead of reactive.”
Some of the haze started to clear. Jessa no longer wanted to crawl out of her skin. Retta had her full attention now. “The alternative system you talked about the other day?”
“Yes, then I was talking about a hypothetical, but the system is very real.”
“And it’s run by the Sophie Foundation . . . or the group of women behind the Foundation.” Not a question, because Jessa knew she was on the right track.
“Our current traditional justice system doesn’t work, so we created one of our own, complete with strict rules. It deals with people who abuse the community. We review and we decide, using the same unemotional certainty as a surgeon removing a malignancy.”
The harsh words, delivered with such smooth efficiency, stopped Jessa. “Decide what?”
“Punishment.”
That couldn’t be... could it?“Like a judge?”
“I am a judge.”
“What if you, as a group, make a mistake?” Because it would happen. People misread cues, acted on emotion, didn’t wait for all the evidence. Jessa had been a lawyer long enough to experience all of it.
“We move on.”
This sounded like the anti–law school, like the opposite of everything she’d spent years trying to perfect. “It’s that simple? Mess up and forget about it?”
“If I help you, you will need to rethink concepts like the law, justice, and revenge to see them in a new way, as pieces of a system defined only by us.” Retta’s ringing voice didn’t leave room for compromise. “We shift the conversation and take the power back for the victims.”
The unspoken part lured Jessa: she would be in charge. She could have a group of women to guide her, support her. She’d nolonger be out there, flailing and alone. Failing and scrambling not to get kicked out of the legal club.
Jessa didn’t weigh the pros and cons, didn’t think about downsides or the costs. She did what she’d been doing her whole life—ignored the consequences, convinced she could outmaneuver them later. “I’ll do whatever it takes to become a member.”
Retta leaned back in her chair again and smiled. “Yes, Jessa. I think you will.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Gabby
Exhausted. Gabby searched her mind for another word, but that one fit. By the time Liam pulled into the private garage of his duplex in the swanky Kalorama area of DC, filled with ambassadorial residences and private security details, Gabby didn’t want to think about knives or attackers, blood, or Detective Schone. Gabby would barter and beg for a bed and a few hours of quiet, but she had to walk a gauntlet of teenage angst first.
Liam didn’t say anything as Gabby put her bag of medicine and gauze on his kitchen counter and walked up the stairs to the second floor. She stood in the doorway to the bedroom he’d let Kennedy decorate last year and claim as her own. The bright blue walls stood out in the sea of light gray and beige Liam preferred.
Kennedy sat in the middle of the bed, watching something on her tablet. She glanced up, and her hold on the device tightened. “You look terrible.”
Ah, teenagers.“I went a few rounds with an intruder.”
Liam said he’d filled Kennedy in on what happened at the house. He insisted she’d been upset and wanted to come to the hospital, but he made her wait at home until he saw the extent of the injuries. If true, Kennedy hid her concern well. She looked ready for battle despite the rainbow pajamas.
“Did you see the guy who did it?” Kennedy asked.
