Chapter 197

From beside me, Miles can easily see the paper. Yet, kind as he is, he doesn’t say one single word.

“I stole from the corner store one too many times,” I explain. “I can’t fault the owner for finally trying to teach me a lesson.”

Miles nods. “And the arson…?”

“Attempted,” I clarify. “It was a fool attempt made my two fumbling children who didn’t know what they were doing, or how else to save themselves.”

“You and Daphne?” Miles asks.

“Yes.” We were together in everything back then, even our crimes. Maybe especially our crimes. “We tried to burn down the orphanage with a newspaper and a bottle of alcohol we swiped from Edward. We weren’t smart at it. We tried to light it outside, against the brick face of the building. Then the lighter we swiped was out of fluid.”

“I’m surprised Edward turned you in,” Miles says.

“He didn’t. The policeman came by looking for us after the theft at the corner store. This was just one more charge to add to our wrap sheet. After that, I spent eight months in a juvenile detention center.” Looking at the records again, I shake my head. “These are supposed to be sealed. How did Edward get a hold of these?”

Deep down, I already know the answer: the Whisperers. Their reach feels infinite. They are quite possibly the worst enemy I could have ever imagined having.

“The orphanage did burn down a few years ago,” Miles says.

“I know.” I glance at him. “You don’t think it was me? I worked hard to turn my life around, after the Owens adopted me.”

“Not you,” Miles says. He doesn’t say who he suspects, but he doesn’t have to. I’m thinking of a name myself.

Daphne.

She’d been with me then. She served her time beside me. And she was left behind while I broke free, facing unimaginable horrors alone.

Was it possible she went back to finish the job?

We both look at the record again. Miles’s mouth presses into a hard thin line.

“Let me call the lawyers, Esther. There has to be something illegal here. He’s threatening you.”

I shake my head. He doesn’t understand the full reach that Edward has. Or if he does, he thinks he can still somehow overcome it with goodness. In my experience, goodness doesn’t stand a chance against corruption this deep.

But, we can’t just do nothing. That’s how the bad guys win.

“Edward will say it wasn’t him. He’ll accuse us of trying to make him look back,” I say.

“We’ll keep it quiet, between us and our lawyers. But we need to start piling up evidence against him, and this is the best way to start.”

Miles sounds confident, and that confidence of his has always been inspiring and infectious.

“Okay,” I tell him and hand him the paper. He folds it up and slips it into his inside coat pocket. The moment it’s out of my sight, I’m instantly relieved.

Miles huffs a frustrated breath. “I hate everything about this. Edward is threatening you, and we can’t do anything about it.”

I nod. I haven’t felt this helpless in a very long time. “I’m sorry, Miles.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Esther. In fact, I insist that you don’t. Not to me and not to anyone. This monster is hounding you. I’m the one who should apologize. All the money and power I have, and I can’t do anything to save you.”

Reaching up, I cup Miles’s face with my hands. He closes his eyes at my touch.

He should hate me, for what I’ve done, and for keeping it from him. Instead, he’s just as passionate about my protection as he’s always been.

He’s so quick to defend me, even when I’ve done questionable things.

“If this comes out,” I tell him, “You can’t say a word in my defense.”

His eyes snap open. “Esther, no.”

“I’m serious, Miles. If you defend the things I’ve done to the public, the whole world will turn against you. We won’t be able to save this campaign. Promise me.”

“I won’t,” he says. “I’ll never promise that.”

At once, I’m endeared and annoyed. I love that he prioritizes me, but I hate that he doesn’t see how important his own career is in comparison. I’m just one woman. He’s about to lead the entire nation. He can’t give that up… for me.

But there’s not talking to him when he’s this determined.

He leans in and kisses me. For a few minutes, we are able to forget about the world, and only live for each other.

I pick up my daughters from soccer practice on the way home that night. It’s been a long day, but I’ve managed to compartmentalize things by now – at least, enough to be mostly functional.

For the girls, I’ve put on my brave face.

“How was practice today?” I ask them, after we all pile back in the car, their equipment and soccer balls in the trunk.

The girls look at each other.

“It was fine,” Iris says.

An itch of worry starts to crawl up my skin. Fine in eleven-year-old talk means something happened but I don’t want to talk about it.

The two are on different teams, Iris on the varsity team, while Violet’s still in juniors, but they place in fields side by side. The two girls have gotten in trouble for talking during their practices before, meeting somewhere in between the fields. That’s probably what happened again.

But, given everything that’s been happening lately, I don’t want to assume.

“You can talk to me about anything,” I tell them. “You know that.”

“I do,” Iris says.

“I do,” Violet says, softer. Violet is shy and quiet for her age. She likes to keep to herself mostly, or stay in her sister’s shadow. But she’s definitely the more sensitive of the too. So when I try to meet her eyes in the mirror to give her an encouraging smile, and she openly looks away before I can, I know something is really wrong.

“A stranger talked to us,” Violet says.

“Violet,” Iris says, scolding. “I told you not to say anything. Mom’s going to freak out.”

“I’m not freaking out,” I say calmly, even though, internally, I am, in fact, panicking. For the girls, I bury it down. I need to find out what happened, first. Take action, second. There’s no time to panic until everyone is safe. “Please continue, Violet. What happened with this stranger?”

“He asked our names. When we didn’t tell him, he said he was a friend of yours,” Violet says.

I grip the steering wheel so hard that my knuckles turn white. Not trusting myself to drive safely, I pull over into a grocery store parking lot. Once we’re parked, I shift in my seat to face the girls in the back.

On a loop in my head, I remind myself that the girls are here. They are safe with me. Whatever happened with this stranger is done. But I will be talking to the soccer coaches that let my girls wander off and didn’t protect them from the approach of a stranger.

“Strangers lie like that,” I tell them.

Iris rolls her eyes. “We know, mom. We’re not babies.”

“We didn’t talk to him,” Violet says. “But he did give us something, to give to you. He said that’s all he wanted, to give you this gift.”

My heart racing, I say, “What was it?”

Violet looks at Iris, who frowns unhappily.

“I was going to throw it away,” Iris says. She leans down and unzips her backpack.

When she sits upright again, she holds out a small green cylinder for me.

Grabbing it, I see it’s a lighter in a green case, eerily similar to the one Daphne and I had tried to burn down the orphanage with all those years ago.

This was another message from Edward.

He could get to my daughters. They weren’t safe.