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6
The woman sittingacross the table from me in the backroom of The Slipper furrows her brow. She scans the documents between us, nodding slowly and sucking her teeth.
“Well, I hope you’re ready to fight.”
Maggie O’Halloran isn’t Noel’s super-lawyer, Lewis. But she seems very good. Certainly leagues above that clown who shuffled into the interrogation room when they first brought me in. Her frizzy, silver-tinged ringlets are piled high in a severe bun, and blue tortoise-shell horn-rimmed glasses balance precariously on the bridge of her nose.
She sighs as she drags her gaze up to mine.
“Because this isgoingto be a fight.”
I groan. “How? What could they possibly have that even remotely points to me as a…”
I look away, my throat closing with anger and emotion as I shake my head.
Maggie gives me a wry look.
“I’m sorry, Ella. I know this is tough. It’s cruel what they’re doing. But sometimes when the Crown latches on to a case—especially a high-profile one—they’re extremely pigheaded about letting it go.”
She pulls her reading glasses off and steeples her hands in front of her.
“Look, I’ll level with you. They do not have a strong case. But they do have one. The tricky bit in all of this, unfortunately, is the drug-treatment class they made you take at Hemlock.”
I groan, my jaw tightening.
“With the current political climate, Her Majesty’s government is still obstinately lumping all drug related infractions into the same category—be it pot or something actually dangerous like heroin. Once we’re in court, yes, we’ll be able to show why you were forced to take that class, and what the single drug offense was. And we could certainly subpoena this stepsister of yours—”
“Not my stepsister.”
“Well, whatever she is, she seems like a real piece of work,” Maggie mutters. “I wish someone had had you lawyer up againstherafter that.”
“I wish I’d known you seven years ago.”
She smiles wryly.
“So, the drug class is bad, but we can get to that. The problem is, it sets a general tone with the court.”
She sighs.
“And it gets worse, doesn’t it?” I mumble.
“Yep.”
She sits up in her chair.
“The incident with Mr. Ransom, when you were fourteen.”
My teeth grit.
I’ve been steadfastly avoiding TVs, newspapers, and most of the Internet. But every fear I had about the skeletons from my past being exposed have come true.
It’sallout there, now: the wayward daughter of the beloved Thomas and Cassandra Ashford, sent to reform school for drugs and violence after stabbing her would-be stepfather.
The same wayward Ashford daughter is now being accused of starting the fire that killed her mother.
It’s been a nightmare. I’ve been recognized on the street. I’ve had a camera crew try and chase me down outside of a coffee shop. And someone’s turned the video that was taken of my argument with Naomi weeks ago into a gif meme where I set her on fire in a very cartoony, pixelated way.
My rocks, though, have been steadfast on my side. Harry, for one, who’s actually helping to pay for Maggie’s services. Julianna has been checking in twice a day to make sure I’m okay, and to let me know I’m more than welcomed to come hide out at her and Bastian’s manor home in the countryside north of the city.
