Page 73 of Bad Reputation

So . . . he hadn’t asked.

When you messed up, and Coleknewhe had messed up, it wasn’t enough to sayOops. And the only way Cole knew to make this better was to get the facts out there, all the facts. The public could hold Vincent accountable, at the very least, and everyone would finally know what a monster he was.

So Cole had gone on the record with Libby, and he’d tried to alert other people Vincent might have hurt, who deserved to have their stories told as much as Tasha did. There simply wasn’t another choice, even if this conflicted with Drew’s code. When Libby’s story broke, Cole hoped it would be clear to Drew why Cole had inserted himself into this mess. But, well, he knew he was right, so he couldn’t worry about anything else.

Cole’s phone chirped with a message from Libby:Nope! You gave me everything I needed.She included a heart eyes smiley face.

He didn’t feel very smiley.

Are you sure? Because I’m still willing to cover a PI.

He’d made this offer earlier, and Libby had patiently explained this was not a divorce case in an old Hollywood movie, and journalists had ethical limitations that PIs didn’t have. She needed to do the reporting herself, her way. That was the only way she could write about it.

These things came as news to him, but he’d also felt strangely deflated that he couldn’t solve this problem with money. What was the point of having dough if he couldn’t buy justice with it?

I am absolutely certain.

Part of the appeal of Drew’s code, Cole was realizing, was that it had given him action items.Career in the toilet? Just follow these five rules to turn things around!Those rules had given him a sense of being able todosomething at a time when he’d felt as if he had no capacity to move forward. But maybe they had just been a sugar pill for a hypochondriac. He had plenty to do on set, sure, but it felt a little silly when he set it against what Libby was doing right now. The situation made him feel so foolish.

That sinking fog of dread hadn’t gone away when a knock sounded on his trailer door.

He opened it to find Maggie and an anxious-looking assistant from the art department.

“Hey, so I’m glad you’re around,” Maggie said in a singsong voice. “Do you happen to have any athletic tape? Especially of the peach or beige persuasion?”

He quickly scanned Maggie head to toe, but she seemed fine. “Did someone sprain an ankle? Isn’t there a medic around?”

“No injury, no, but the medic only has black therapeutic tape, and, well, the baby’s head fell off.”

“I sincerely hope you mean the plastic baby doll”—which they were using for shots where the kid was in the background—“and not the real baby,” who appeared in the close-ups. Trevor—he was averycute kid.

“Yes, Cole, I’m hoping to tape a real baby’s head back on,” Maggie deadpanned.

The assistant held up the two pieces of the doll, and Cole had to bite his lip to stop from laughing. With its eyes rolling to the side like that and its limbs at unnatural angles, it was like something from a horror movie set.

“Oh no, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,” Cole said.

“I was thinking more guillotine.”

“For Chucky here? Wait, you’re getting me off topic. You thought I’d be able to fix this ... why?”

“Because you knoweverything.”

Even though Cole realized Maggie was saying it to sweet-talk him, damn if he didn’t want to believe it.

In his defense, she had really pretty eyes.

“I saw you had your shoulder taped the other day,” she explained more seriously. “And you and the baby have similar skin tones.”

Maggie was right. Cole had overdone it during one of the sword-fighting scenes, and an old rotator cuff injury of his had flared up. It was yet another reminder that, well, he wasn’t a kid anymore.

“Let me look around.” He returned a minute later with the tape. “Here you go.”

“Thank you,” the prop guy gushed. “It was this or duct tape.”

Hopefully once the doll was swaddled up, it wouldn’t be too obvious. Cole wanted this show to be good—not campy.

Maggie watched the assistant, his murder baby doll, and Cole’s tape leave. “I dunno, they could’ve stuck with the duct tape. It would’ve been very metal. Very teenage goth.”

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