Page 138 of Happily Never After

They steppedout of the car a block from the hotel. Luke locked the vehicle and Claire grapevined her way to the sidewalk.

It was strange to not have her gigantic purse. How did men even get by with just their pockets? What if they needed a bottle of water, or an aspirin, or a breath mint? Going out like this was wildly irresponsible.

The hotel loomed down the block. Her heart pounded, but the panic stayed at bay. Maybe there was something to this whole medication thing.

She set her shoulders back and lifted her chin. She could do this. All she had to do was sneak into the convention, infiltrate one of their obscene presentations, and then maybe if there was time she would casually track down the professor, follow himto his hideout, give the information to the FBI, and make a big batch of popcorn while they brought this organization down.

“Okay. Let’s go over the ground rules,” Mindy said. “Mandatory check-in from you two every five minutes. Green check emoji if all is well.”

Sawyer nodded. “Code word platypus if there’s trouble. And if you find the professor?”

“We follow him,” Brianna said.

“Be careful. I’ll be watching the perimeter,” Sawyer said.

The air shimmered with possibility as she clomped down the sidewalk, Luke at her side. Dr. Taylor was the first domino. Was today the day? Would ESA finally pay for what they had done to her life over the last year? If they caught him, could the FBI crack the professor and bring the whole thing down?

A rhythmic chanting reverberated off the storefronts around her. She turned the corner by the hotel and came to a full stop. In front of the hotel, dozens of women were protesting. Some held signs, others had microphones. One girl was wearing a pink, uterus-shaped hat.

“Equality, not patriarchy” was written on one sign. That was going to piss off the convention-goers. Claire bit her lip, and the adhesive on her mustache tugged at her skin. How was she going to sneak inside without crossing the picket line? Drawing a bunch of attention to herself in the midst of a crowd of angry feminists that she would frankly like to join was not a great idea. Maybe there was a service entrance somewhere.

“Hey,” a gruff, masculine voice said from behind a tree.

Claire jumped. Was someone about to try to sell her drugs? Alice had warned her about this since middle school. She peeked around the tree. A skinny man with cheekbones like the top of a shovel pulled a cigarette out of his mouth and nodded at her.

“You guys here for the convention?”

“Yeah,” Luke said in a deeper voice than usual.

“There’s another entrance around the back. Crazy fuckin’ women,” the man said and spat at Claire’s feet. She fought the urge to kick him and instead muttered a quick thanks.

There it was. A service door propped open by a trash can. A suitable entrance for such a shady gathering. They exchanged a look and walked down a long, beige hallway, passing the kitchens and housekeeping closets. Finally, she emerged in the foyer and spotted a sign for the convention center. She beelined toward it.

Damn it. Dozens of men were pouring out of what looked to be the main conference room. They had missed the opening remarks. She scanned the crowd. Greasy guy, greasy guy, ancient guy, probable Neo-Nazi. Men streamed past her, some cracking jokes, others staring darkly at their phones. How many of these men were in ESA? Was her abductor here right now? She shuddered. She was going to have to make a donation to a women’s shelter after submerging herself in this toxic stew.

Luke nudged her and pointed his chin at a large board. They approached together. A list of speakers and topics littered the board.

There were three lectures scheduled for the same time slot—Involuntary Circumcision: Male Genital Mutilation and You, Reclaiming the Male Space in Your Home and Beyond, and Restoring the Balance: Taking Women Out of Power. She didn’t recognize any of the keynote speakers. Which one would the professor go to? Which one would Luke go to? Taking women out of power seemed to be the organization’s primary goal. But who was to say he wouldn’t want to learn about man caves or foreskin? Time was running out. She needed to choose.

“I’ll take Restoring the Balance,” she whispered to Luke.

“Man caves it is.” He looked at her with an intensity in his eyes, and she hesitated. Would he be recognized? He could only hide so much under a fedora.

“See you later,” he said with a fist bump.

Claire took a deep breath and moved toward the conference room, but something on the wall caught her eye. Posters ran the length of the hallway.

What the hell? Smack in the middle of the posters was a picture of Brianna. “Dangerous Feminist” was branded above her headshot. A description below listed her upcoming movie and how it furthered the “feminine agenda.” A dozen other posters with similar women covered the bulletin board around her. Tingles ran up and down her spine. She studied each name and face. These women were bound to be ESA targets. Would anyone notice if she took pictures?

She took her phone out and surreptitiously snapped a couple of photos. Jack couldn’t be too mad at her for going to the conference if she identified some future targets, right?

The next set of lectures was about to begin. She made her way to Conference Room C and settled into a seat in the back row on the end.

Men slowly filtered in. Some looked perfectly ordinary, in suits and ties. Others wore what looked to be pajama bottoms and T-shirts featuring cartoon character with references she didn’t understand. Still others dressed in regular street clothes and hunched over in their chairs, staring at their phones. One man dressed in baggy jeans and gold chains took a seat in Claire’s row. The scent of his cologne was overpowering—cedar and balsam. She could practically taste it. He slouched down in his chair, dark sunglasses covering his eyes. A couple of the men turned around to look at him. Great, he was probably some idiot celebrity.

She decided to ignore the potential celebrity and shifted her attention to the rows in front of her. Two men in suits began a loud conversation about the opening remarks and the dangers ofputting a woman in charge. Claire stiffened but kept her mouth shut. Her life may depend on her silence.

The speaker took the podium, and her breath hitched. Holy shit. There he was. Professor Taylor. His salt-and-pepper hair had been dyed jet black, and he had grown a handlebar mustache, but there was no denying that menacing sparkle in his slate-colored eyes. She hadn’t seen it since he had handed back her last term paper in business class. The same class she shared with Barney. He nodded at someone in the audience. The poorly dressed man next to her with the chains nodded back.

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