Chapter 12
12
SAMANTHA
S onja calls before we’re halfway home.
“I can’t talk now,” I tell her.
“Are you even trying to avoid reporters?”
The three weeks I’ve spent at the Rittenhouse have been the most quiet since this mess began. The hotel has no qualms about banishing paparazzi and protesters to the public park across the street. It’s not my fault everything changed today.
I want to meet Sonja’s attack with fire, but Aiofe is still curled against my side. I shift my phone to my right ear. “They ambushed me,” I hiss.
“Do you understand how damaging it is even to hear those questions? Much less to realize you don’t have a single good answer?”
“I’ll call you when I get home.”
“This is bad, Samantha. For our case, and for the criminal investigation too.”
“I know it’s bad. And it will be worse if I don’t end this call now.” I tap the red button and drop the phone into my lap.
Braiden is staring straight ahead, as if he can teleport us to the Rittenhouse solely by the fury of his gaze. I know the lion’s share of his rage is for Russo, but I can’t help but think some of it is for me. For my giving Antonio Russo a lever. For everything I did That Night. For everything I didn’t do.
When we get to the hotel, Braiden takes Aiofe to her room. I lock myself in the bathroom of our Presidential Suite and return Sonja’s call. When she answers, she sounds like a different woman. All the fight has drained out of her, as if someone pulled the plug in a bathtub. She doesn’t even swear.
“You know how this works,” she says. “Our job is to tell a story. We make the board understand why you were up on that mountain. How you made a mistake. How you’ve spent every day of your life since then regretting what happened. How you’ve fought to make amends.”
“I know,” I say, wishing I could paint the picture she wants to display. I was there. I was wrong. I’m sorry.
But in my heart of hearts, I know I never truly tried to make amends—not for the two cousins I killed. And not for the stranger who jumped in front of my car, the vagrant who ended up shattered and alone in a ditch.
If I had a time machine… If I could go back to that one night… If I could choose not to drink the watermelon vodka or the peach schnapps… If I could just pass the joint to the next person in the circle…
But that’s all a fantasy. I can never escape my past.
Sonja drones on: “Every time these reporters get hold of you, they erase your story. They destroy the narrative. They change the focus.”
“I know,” I say again, even though I can’t control where the paparazzi find me. I can’t keep from being trapped.
“You have to seem innocent. Pure. People don’t like women who end up with bad boys.”
“Braiden’s not?—”
“Society doesn’t approve of women who have sex.”
“Every woman?—”
“Board members don’t want to know you faked your marriage.”
“I didn’t?—”
“You can’t?—”
But I can’t let that one go. I shout over her: “I didn’t fake my marriage!”
“So we can sue the papers for defamation?”
The question hangs in the air, naked and vulnerable. I want to say yes. I want to say I didn’t know. I want to say that I’m the victim here, that I didn’t fake anything, that it was Braiden who lied.
But I know what Sonja will ask next. She’ll want to know why I haven’t left him, now that I know the truth. She’ll ask why I’m living with him in the Rittenhouse. Why I was just photographed with two of the most notorious criminals in Philadelphia’s long history.
And I won’t have an answer.
Sonja finally says, “Braiden Kelly has a child, right?”
“Aiofe’s not his child. She’s his ward.”
“Even better. She’s an orphan?”
“What’s better ?” I don’t like the freshly kindled excitement in her voice.
“Bring her down to Delaware tomorrow. We can hold a press conference. Explain that you’re taking care of her. That the media are terrifying her. That you’re being abused, and an innocent little girl is being hurt. Do you have matching outfits? No, that might be too much. Can you both wear jewelry, one of those necklaces? She has one half of a heart, you have the other. That’s fucking perfect! I’ll get one delivered overnight.”
“Sonja!” I shout. “Stop!”
Her silence is hostile.
“I’m not bringing Aiofe to Delaware. I’m won’t use her like that.”
“If you don’t write the story, it will be written about you.”
“Aiofe has already been the subject of too many stories.”
“You’re boxing me into a corner.”
“I won’t do it.”
Another long silence. Then, finally, Sonja says, “You have three weeks before the hearing.”
“I know.”
“We can prep twenty-four hours a day, but if the facts are against us and the law is against us, none of it will matter.”
“I know,” I say again.
“If you lose the ethics hearing, Teddy Newland will be hogtied in your criminal case.”
“I understand.”
She sighs. “Let me pull together a file. I’ll draft key points. Everything your testimony needs to convey.”
“Thank you,” I say. I’ve done the same for my clients countless times.
“You’ll have to know it perfectly.”
“I will.”
“You can’t sound rehearsed.”
“I won’t.”
“This would be so much easier, if you’d just give me one hour to talk to the girl.”
“No.”
Sonja sighs. “I hope this doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass.”
“I hope it doesn’t either.”
This time, I’m not angry when I end the call. I’m exhausted. I already know what Sonja hasn’t precisely put into words.
I’m going to lose my ethics case. I’m going to lose my license. I’m never going to practice law again.
But I won’t destroy Aiofe as I circle the drain.