Chapter 52. Frances, the Academic
Frances, the Academic
TWO WEEKS LATER
The crowd waiting outside the Downtown courthouse had the roiling energy of a nuclear plant a second from combustion.
The people here were angry and chanting, turning Scout’s first court appearance into a spectacle, but Frances Vogel wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
Her parents didn’t understand her fascination with the woman who’d tried to bomb her, as they phrased it.
But Franny’s friends who’d been at the protest understood.
The electric anticipation outside the courthouse wasn’t simply because Scout was now the world’s most famous domestic terrorist, or because her court appearance was taking place in the same tall, corporate-looking criminal justice center made infamous by O.
J. Simpson. It wasn’t even because it was happening mere blocks from the site of the bombing itself, the jagged remains of the Knox Aeronautics tower standing like a monument to half the country’s rage.
When Franny, Melissa, and the rest of their cohort had walked past the wreckage, they’d stopped, awed into silence by the sheer physical destruction.
The sight of the building had lifted the hairs on Franny’s arms. For better or worse, she’d always believed ideas were powerful, and here was the proof in rubble and dust.
No, what was truly history-making about this sunny Thursday in August was how much had changed in the two weeks since Scout confessed.
The people gathered with their signs and bullhorns knew it, and, like her, were drawn like heat-seeking missiles to the conflict, to the opposing forces shoved into the same Downtown city block.
All of them like electrons bouncing around an atom, waiting for the single burst of energy it would take to make a quantum leap.
Shockingly, Scout had been cleared of suspicion in the murders of Elizabeth Drake, Simon Markham, and Rosie Wright, the accusations that had started it all.
And Luca Clearwater herself, Franny’s idol, had been arrested.
The news had stunned her—for days, she and her friends had been glued to their screens, waiting for information that would make this twist comprehensible.
The conspiracy theories were vast and wide-ranging, though most claimed Gabriel Knox had used his government influence to get Luca, the eternal thorn in his side, framed for the murders.
Franny didn’t know what to believe. She admired Luca, and she knew corruption in the government was possible—back in the twentieth century, the FBI had famously hunted down protest leaders on all sorts of trumped-up charges because they considered them a threat. There was precedent.
But then came the breaking news about Knox himself: the presidential candidate was under investigation for the murders of two women more than a decade ago.
It was followed by the announcement that he was dropping out of the race.
That came as a shock to everyone except Scout’s army of defenders, who claimed she must’ve known Knox was a killer and bombed his building in an act of revenge for the two dead women who could no longer take it themselves.
Even the bombing they turned into an act of heroism.
Franny’s parents, who were generally even-keeled, both retired academics she lived with in Brentwood, had complained there was “too much news” these days—too many unprecedented events, happening too fast. The world was starting to scare them, and they couldn’t understand why it didn’t scare Franny, too, why she didn’t have PTSD from the protest, unless her PTSD explained her obsession with the bomber.
Maybe kids these days were different, they’d mused, born with a thicker skin and a stronger death drive, evolutionary adaptations to help them survive the coming world.
Whatever it was that made Franny foreign to her parents, her PhD classmates shared the trait.
They stood now in a line, a shoulder-to-shoulder wall of girls, and pushed their way past the crowd of people shouting “Justice for Knox!” and “Down with terrorism!” The other side, where women held signs that read THE LADIES ARE COMING and chanted Scout’s name, was where they belonged.
A sudden alertness passed through the crowd. “It’s her,” Melissa said excitedly. “Scout’s here!”
Behind the barricade of metal gates and uniformed cops, a slick battalion of black-clad lawyers carved a path to the courthouse.
Behind them, a woman Franny had learned was named Isabel Cruz, Scout’s personal assistant, walked beside a tall, beautiful man who scanned the crowd like he was casing it.
And then came Scout herself, flanked by her bleak-faced parents.
A chill traveled up Franny’s spine. Scout didn’t walk—she practically floated.
She wore all black and her face was shielded by a black lace veil.
For privacy, Franny assumed, but the effect was electrifying.
It made her look like a priestess of a dark order.
The crowd rushed forward, pushing against the gates, not only the spectators but reporters with their boxy news cameras. Franny and her friends were caught in the middle, staggering forward to not be crushed. Her heart beat wildly; she seized Melissa’s hand.
“Did you know Knox was a murderer?” a reporter yelled, his camera trained on Scout. “Is that why you bombed him?”
Someone from their side yelled, “Knox makes drones—he’s a bomber himself! Eye for an eye!”
“Scout is a terrorist!” screamed the pro-Knox crowd. “Anti-American!”
“Knox is innocent!” shouted an older woman near Franny, and Franny tried to get some distance.
In the chaos, the crowd nearest the courthouse door knocked down the barricade, and a wave of opportunistic reporters scrambled over it. “Hey!” Franny yelled. “Where are the cops?”
“Scout!” the people behind her screamed. “We believe in you!”
Franny arched her neck, looking for the reassurance of blue uniforms. Finding none, she raised her voice. “Broken barricade—we need police over here!”
The handsome man who’d walked in beside Isabel rushed to meet the encroaching reporters with his arms out, trying to hold them off. “Back up,” he yelled. “Give us space.”
But with Scout so close, they weren’t listening. The yelling around Franny hit a fever pitch. Melissa pressed her hands over her ears. It was officially out of control.
One of the reporters managed to make it past the lawyers and thrust a microphone in Scout’s face. “Did you get revenge on Knox for the Hot Girl Murder Club? Did they order you to do it?”
One of Scout’s lawyers, an older man, swooped in, yelling loud enough for everyone to hear. “Back away, sir. There is no such thing as the Hot Girl Murder Club.”
The crowd started booing. Franny met Melissa’s eyes, her anxiety creeping higher.
Finally, officers rushed past the trampled barricade and seized the errant paparazzi, wrenching them backward.
“Scout!” came an anguished voice. “We need you! We need Our Ladies! Give us hope.”
“I think we should go,” Melissa whispered. “I don’t like this. Something’s off.”
But Franny was frozen with disappointment.
Scout was right there, and she wanted her to do something, give them one tiny sign that she saw them, that she was with them, that even though the world was frightening and chaotic, she had a plan.
The cops were escorting her now to the glass doors of the courthouse, a floating pillar of black, and soon she would disappear.
Franny found herself gripped by inexplicable panic. “Scout!” she yelled. “Please.”
But Scout swept inside the courthouse and disappeared. It was over. She’d given them nothing.
Suddenly, like a miracle, the woman behind Scout—Isabel—stopped.
And in slow motion, she turned. It was fast but unmistakable: her fingers flew like birds in quick, flitting motions, a touch to her forehead, then her heart, then her shoulders.
Franny’s heart soared. It was the sign of the cross, the secret signal for Our Ladies of the Dark.
Isabel was sending a message. Everything they’d hoped for was real, and she was with them.
Franny felt like she could cry. Cheers broke out around the courthouse.
Isabel winked and walked inside.