Petal started to cry, and Pixie stepped toward the stroller to get her out, but Cujo stopped her. “I got this. Did it enough with Amaya and Zeph. Go ahead, I’ll catch up.”
The door to the office was open and Trent was at the large table, sketching what looked like an image of the Hindu goddess Kali.
“Hey, Pix,” he said, finishing off the curve of an arm. “I left Dred at the TV studio if you’re looking for him.”
She took the seat next to him. “No. He knows I was coming here. I wanted to talk to you and Cujo.”
Trent put his pen down and rolled up the sketch, before sliding it into a brown tube.
“Hey,” Cujo said in a high-pitched voice as he walked into the room, wiggling Petal’s arm as he spoke. “I want my first tattoo done by Cujo, just sayin’.”
Pixie could have sworn Petal smiled. It appeared that no females, not even baby ones, could resist Cujo when he turned on the charm.
“So, what’s up?” Trent asked her, leaning back in his chair.
“I’m ready to tell you. I want you to know,” she said.
Cujo reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “You know it doesn’t change anything, right? What you say?” He took a seat on the other side of her.
“Yeah. I know. It’s taken me a while to get ready to talk about it. You see, when you met me, I had just run away from my mom’s trailer in Pahokee because I was abused by my stepfather.”
Dred had made her say it. The night he’d forgotten and held her hands above her head again. The look of sheer desperation on his face was heartbreaking. He was furious with himself for forgetting. Pixie had started to apologize, but he wouldn’t hear of it. You were abused by your stepfather, Pixie. You never have to apologize. When she’d argued that she did, he’d made her say it.
Say it, Pixie. Tell me you know he abused you.
“Oh, Pix,” Trent said, reaching for her hand.
Cujo cursed under his breath.
She explained what he did to her, and watched the faces and actions of the two men who mattered most to her in the world, beside Dred. Cujo got up and paced. Sure, it was under the guise of Petal being fractious, but the truth was, she’d barely murmured since he got her out of the stroller.
Trent leaned forward and gripped her hand.
“Arnie rushed back into the trailer and started yelling, asking me what I had done over and over. I wanted to call an ambulance, but Arnie told me not to. He said he’d make it go away. And I assumed that for once, we were on the same side. That he felt some kind of responsibility for setting it up. So once I realized he was going to take care of it, I ran to my room, grabbed my bag, and left.”
“That was a ballsy move, Pix,” Cujo said as he let Petal grip his finger.
“Yeah, but I didn’t realize then that he had taken a photograph of me standing there. I mean, who the fuck can think about taking a picture at a time like that? But the rest you know. I was mugged as soon as I got here. All the money I had been saving from my diner job was gone. I had a twenty in my pocket and can’t even remember why I kept it out of my wallet. I’d come to Miami Beach thinking that if worst came to worst, I could use the public showers to get cleaned up while I tried to find a job. But you saw the state I was in. I had no idea how addicted I’d become.”
Cujo sat back down next to her and propped Petal against his chest, patting her back softly. “So when did Arnie come back around?”
“About a week after the end of Dred’s tour. He saw the photograph taken at the concert in that magazine. Said his girlfriend showed him. At first, I didn’t know what he wanted. Then one time he took fifty dollars from my purse. He asked for more money to go away. I thought it was worth it to buy some time while I figured out what to do. But he got greedy. He kept coming back, telling me how easy it would be to get the money from you,” she said, looking at Trent. “Or Dred.”
“You could have come to us, you know,” Cujo said.
She faced him. “I know, but to what end? We would have been paying him off forever. If I had gone to the police about the blackmail, he would have made sure they saw the photograph.”
“So what did you and Dred do in Pahokee?”
“We found my mom and followed the trail until we found out that Brewster is alive and well and living in Hollywood.”
“Son of a bitch,” Trent exclaimed. “So he was alive all this time?”
“Yeah, well, maybe not so much once Dred beat the living crap out of him.”
“Wish I could have helped,” Cujo said gruffly.
Pixie nodded. “Dred has found me an amazing lawyer. We’re going to see her next week. I’m not even sure what the statute of limitations is on stuff like this. And he didn’t actually rape me, so at best it’s some kind of assault charge or something about me still being a minor. I feel sick at the thought that he is married and might have kids. What if he . . . well, I can’t live with the idea that someone else suffers because I didn’t speak up.”
“Well, we’ll be with you every step of the way. We’ll do whatever you need, right, Cuj?”