Dre agreed to the emergency departure that Regina, and the kids took, though Marshall had also attended, believing that it was a good time to take Hailie home. Besides that all the kids had less than two weeks before school so it was as good a time as any to take them home. Regina agreed to make the stop in Detroit, though she hadn’t spoken much since the day of the newspaper came out. Marshall wanted to be there for her, and he knew that even though she was keeping on a brave and cool front, she was seething with a rage that would explode as soon as the kids were not around. He wanted to be there for her when the walls came crashing down, which was inevitable.

The drop off of the kids at their parents’ house was not as bad as Marshall thought it would be. Catalina and Ricky both understood the seriousness of the situation and each gave Regina hugs and kisses before they left. Regina spoke to her mother quickly while Marshall said his good-byes to the kids and then they departed.

They met with Paul thirty minutes later.

“What are we looking at here Paul?” Regina asked as she looked at Paul over the mess of papers he had scattered on his desk.

“Breaking and entering, trespassing, robbery, larceny, slander, forgery, bribery and another handful of lower charges,” Paul replied.

“And the paper?” Regina asked.

“The editor was not involved whatsoever. Miss Watkins did this all herself believe it or not,” Paul replied.

“Doesn’t surprise me. Well, I’m going to pay her a visit this afternoon, you may join me if you like, probably be a good idea if you did, it’ll keep me from hitting someone,” Regina replied as she stood up.

“I don’t know if that would be a very wise move Reggie,” Paul said as he stood as well.

“Wise or not, I’m going to do it. You coming Marshall?” Regina asked as she grabbed the door handle of the office.

“Yeah, I’m coming,” Marshall replied quickly, following her out the door. It was another tense thirty-minute ride across town in the back of a limo. She stayed quiet and did not say anything. While Marshall had fallen asleep on the plane, the earliest flight that would get them to California had been the red eye, and they ended up spending almost twelve hours on a plane. They’d gone directly from the airport to the Contini house, from there, Paul’s office, and now they were on their way to the offices of the LA Times. As far as he knew Regina hadn’t slept. She was tense enough and angry enough that he knew her lack of conversation and tenderness towards him would be expected. He just wished he could do something to make her feel better. She had mentioned to him about Maria, but she’d never actually sat down and talked about her. He figured she would, in her own time. It wasn’t something that she would want to talk about. Now she had the entire country looking at the one thing that hurt her more than anything else in the world, and it was all because of her supposed best friend. He inched his hand along the seat and placed his over top of hers. She turned to look at him and said,

“You understand, don’t you?” it wasn’t really a question, just a statement.

“Yeah, kind of hard not to. Though it wasn’t my best friend or even my ex-wife doing it.” Regina nodded.

“Did she lie about anything?” he asked.

“No, but I wish she would have,” Regina replied looking down at his hand on top of hers. She turned her hand and laced her fingers through his.

“I’m sorry if you thought you had to cut your visit short with Hailie,” Regina said after a moment of studying their hands together.

“No, it was time. We were getting too busy. Eventually we wouldn’t have been able to keep the kids around any more. Especially now, it’s going to be even worse,” Marshall replied quietly. The car stopped. “We’re at the LA Times building Miss Contini,” the driver said through the speaker. She knocked on the window, signaling that she was ready and grabbed the newspaper she’d been carrying around since she’d seen it and looked over at Marshall.

“You maybe have to keep me from hitting her, and I’m not joking about it either.” Marshall gave her hand a hard squeeze and followed her out of the car.

“Would you please tell the editor in chief that Regina Contini is here and that I’ll be in Ernelle Watkins office?” Regina said stopping by the secretary’s desk.

“She’ll be right with you Miss,” the secretary chirped. Regina nodded and made her way down the hall to the office she’d helped Ernelle move into only a month ago. Marshall followed solemnly and when they got to the office door marked with Ernelle’s name, they looked at one another. Regina took a deep breath and proceeded inside. Marshall closed the door behind them and looked towards the desk with Regina.

“I’ll be with you in a second Andi,” Ernelle was on the phone, her chair facing opposite of Regina and Marshall. Marshall wasn’t sure what Regina would do next but was surprised when she didn’t say anything for a moment. He got to listen to part of Ernelle’s conversation on the phone however, and was not pleased with the woman.

“Yeah, they loved it. Well I’m her best friend, why wouldn’t she give me the exclusive. Ha ha, well I don’t know, but maybe I’ll get her biography, we’ll just have to see how far she goes in the business. Figure out demand. Yeah I know.” That was all Regina could take as she walked towards the desk and ripped the phone cord out of the wall.

“Phone call is finished,” Regina spat as she threw down the cord.

“Huh? Wait a minute, what happened? Oh, Regina!” Ernelle hastily dropped the phone when she turned around.

“Oh hi, uh, wh-what are you doing here?” Ernelle asked, nervously dropping the phone in her attempt to hang it up.

“What, was this, in the paper,” Regina asked leaning forward to sneer at Ernelle.

“I well, it was your story, didn’t you like it? It’s going to make you famous, you’ll see,” Ernelle was trying but Marshall also knew that the woman wasn’t that stupid. She knew what she had done and was now trying to make up for it.

“This! What the fuck is it!” Regina yelled slinging the paper hard into Ernelle’s face. It hit her with a hard smack and fell to the floor. Ernelle just cowered in her chair as Regina released her tirade on her.

“You broke into my storage locker, stole pictures of my daughter, forged release papers for them, then proceeded to make up a phony interview and printed my life story for the world to read! You fucking heartless bitch. I trusted you, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Even though you fucked me over. How dare you?” Regina was almost hissing now.

“Now Regina, you know how this business is, you got to take advantage of what you have, you know that,” Ernelle tried but that was not the right thing to say at the moment.

“You are no longer a member of the Association. I don’t want filth like you clouding up the reputations of honest people. And now, I want my pictures back, now,” Regina tapped the desk with her fingers to accent each word.

“I well, uh, you see,” Ernelle stumbled. “Now!” Regina roared. Ernelle scrambled to a drawer on her desk and pulled out a box of photos, setting it carefully on the desk.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Regina asked glowering at her.

“Regina, you got to know, how great this job is for me, and your story, it’s gonna take me places, god, just getting this job meant so much to me. I just had to make sure I kept their attention,” Ernelle pleaded, but Regina was unmoved. Instead Regina grabbed the front of her shirt and slammed Ernelle into the nearest wall and raised her fist.

“Reggie! Don’t!” Marshall said rushing over. Ernelle was cowering, trying not to see when the punch was coming.

“Why would I waste a good punch on you Ernelle? Huh? Are you even worth it? That’s the thing, you’re not. You took the best friend you ever had, and destroyed her, for a little bit of money, you’re a sick bitch, you know that?” Regina dropped Ernelle’s shirt and stood back. The door to the office opened a minute later and in stepped the editor.

“Oh Miss Contini, I am so sorry about this, I can assure you, that if I had known that she did not have your,” Regina held her hand up to stop her from talking.

“I know this was not your fault. My lawyer must have called you and told you, that you are not libel for anything,” Regina replied. Ernelle had crawled back to her desk and was sitting there, trying not to exist.

“Yes, yes, I was just on the phone with him, but I assure you, we expect the highest standards, and honesty from all our employees. Which at this point we will be one short. Ernelle, you are fired, clean out your desk.” The editor still apologized.

“I would never had agreed to the story if I had known where she got the pictures, I sincerely apologize.”

“Thank you.”

“We’ll be printing a retraction, though unfortunately the damage that has been done, if there is anything at all I can ever do for you, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“There was one thing, but you’ve already taken care of it, I’ll be taking my leave now, Marshall, come on,” Regina said turning to the door. She stopped and turned to look at Ernelle one last time, both the editor and Marshall waiting to go out the door.

“Oh, and just so you know Ernelle, you’ll be served with a warrant in a couple hours. And one more thing, just so there are no misconceptions. You got this job because I sent them your articles, only after they were heavily edited. They knew of my reputation and agreed to do me this favor. I assure you, that if you ever write one more word about me, I won’t be so nice.”