12. June
JUNE
It’s past two in the morning, and my laptop screen burns white-hot against the dark of my bedroom. My eyes sting, but I can’t look away. I scroll. And scroll. And scroll.
Another blog post dissecting Ashton’s “lavish lifestyle,” complete with stock photos of yachts and champagne flutes.
Nothing that really looks like The Spectre, though that’s not really the point.
The journalist writes like they’ve cracked the Da Vinci Code, when really it’s just speculation strung together with condescension.
I should be sleeping. I should really be sleeping.
Yet the tabs in my browser keep multiplying like bunnies.
PACER filings. Court transcripts. News alerts. Opinion pieces. Even a stupid gossip forum where a user claims to have “seen Ashton at a Soho House party once” and therefore knows “the type.” I read them all, because I can’t not. I need to know. I can’t keep grasping at straws. I need to understand.
The problem is, none of it makes sense.
On the one hand are my memories of the man.
Stubborn, yes. Full of himself, absolutely.
Criminally impulsive, presumptive, ego the size of a house.
Dedicated. Unwavering. Kind. Loving. He was loving.
He was always loving. In every moment, from the moment we met, it was loving.
He was stubborn because he loved me, full of himself because he knew he would get me.
Impulsive because when he did, he never wanted to let me go. That had to be real. It had to be real.
Because love had never felt like that before. Love had never felt like a pair of arms wrapped around me all night long, that didn’t push me away come morning.
But on the other hand… On the other hand are these stories, these profiles on his party-boy image.
His bachelor pad in New York and Nice and Auckland.
And I can tell myself it’s speculative, that it’s all blown out of proportion to get people to click on to it (like I’ve been doing, over and over.) But what if there is some truth to it?
I didn’t even know he had property outside of North America, so how can I be sure?
Then there’s the prosecution’s story. The one that’s been unravelling after every trial.
The one that paints Ashton as a mastermind, a charming fraud who bled collectors dry with fraudulent work.
Emails supposedly linking him to counterfeit transactions.
Financial spreadsheets so complicated I give myself a headache trying to make sense of them.
And now, a new accusation: setting up his own wife to take the fall.
I close one tab. Another five wait behind it.
None of them hold the answers I need.
Did he do it? Did he set me up? Did he lie to me?
Am I just clinging on to his innocence because if he isn’t, I’ll lose myself more than I already have?
I want to believe something. I want to find something that’s truthful and cling to it like a rafter. But what do I really know about him? A marriage certificate signed in a haze, a handful of stolen nights, the sound of his laugh that I can’t scrub out no matter how many bottles of wine I drink.
The cursor blinks at me, patient and cruel.
I click refresh.
And there it is. New headline. “Defendant Ashton Wells Arrives in Court — First Photos Released.”
My breath stumbles in my chest. I click.
The image loads slowly, pixel by pixel. He’s stepping out of a black car, shoulders squared, jaw set, hair slicked back like he’s walking into a boardroom.
He looks… calm. Not guilty calm. Not panicked either. Just… himself.
Tired, maybe, the scruff of his beard has grown out a little, but he doesn’t look haggard. His tailored shoulders don’t seem to hold the weight of the world, but his eyes tell another story.
I lean closer to the screen, as if proximity could explain him.
It’s a mistake. My throat burns.
I’ve missed his face.
The photo’s still up on my screen when my phone buzzes across the nightstand. I don’t even check the caller ID. I just snatch it up and press it to my ear.
“Did you see it?” I blurt.
On the other end, Mark sighs. “Jesus, June. Do you even check the time before you start foaming at the mouth? It’s two-thirty in the morning.”
“Don’t care. Did you see it?”
A pause, then the faint clatter of papers in the background. He’s still at his office. Figures. “If you mean the photo of Ashton arriving at court, yes. I imagine we’ll get it in print by the morning.”
“He looked—” I stop, because I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of hearing me sound desperate. “He looked fine. Too fine. Don’t you think?”
“He looked like a defendant trying not to look guilty. Which, frankly, is a better strategy than half my clients manage.”
I bite down on my lip, annoyed by how calm he sounds. “You don’t know him.”
“And you didn’t either,” Mark shoots back smoothly. “That’s sort of the problem, isn’t it? Jumping into bed with someone who turns out to be, oh, I don’t know. A federal case waiting to happen.”
There it is. That smug little twist of the knife. My exhaustion flares into irritation.
“You want to talk about bad choices? At least I didn’t screw over my wife with my secretary, you walking, talking, shitting cliche.”
“Touché,” he says, voice dry as sandpaper. “Though technically, she was my personal assistant, so it’s slightly classier.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“And yet you keep calling me,” Mark says, and I can hear the smirk.
It’s annoying. It’s more than that, actually; it’s borderline intolerable talking to Mark. But he’s the only one keeping an eye on the case and an ear to the ground, willing to send me whatever scraps of information he can pick up on that aren’t already being pulled apart by the press.
“I didn’t call you. You called me.”
“Semantics,” he says. “You get morbid at ungodly hours, I’m chained to my desk, and we keep each other from completely unraveling. Who knew mutual loathing could be so… symbiotic?”
I don’t answer, mostly because he’s right.
Because there’s no need to be nice and polite and smile for Mark.
Mark has already seen me at my worst, has already picked up on all my bad habits and darkest corners.
He can take all the things I lash out with because he’s capable of shooting it right back at me.
I love Meredith, but I can’t do that to her. She’s already given up so much to get me home and safe.
Mark, on the other hand? I don’t care if I wake him up in the middle of the night or send him seventeen consecutive emails demanding answers to the same question.
It’s freeing, in a way.
The sound of him rifling through more papers suddenly filters down the line, then he clears his throat. “Anyway. The reason I called, since apparently you’re determined to stay awake until your neurons collapse, is that I’ve got a packet here for you. Should hit your doorstep tomorrow.”
My stomach knots. “From the court?”
“Mostly forwarded mail, actually. I’ve been fielding it since August. It piles up.” He says it so casually, like it’s the most normal thing in the world that he’s been intercepting my post.
“You’ve been opening my mail?”
“Not unless it looked threatening. Or boring. I did you the courtesy of removing the pizza coupons and credit card offers. And the death threats, of course. Don’t need you getting any ideas.”
I choke out a laugh before I can stop myself. “You’re unbelievable.”
“And yet indispensable,” he says dryly.
I glance at the photo on my laptop again, Ashton’s face caught mid-stride, controlled but unreadable. “You’ll keep me updated, right?”
Mark exhales through his nose, like he wants to scold me but can’t be bothered. “Yes. But while I have you in such a talkative mood, might I ask after my wife?”
I hesitate. “Your ex-wife is fine.”
“Fine,” he repeats, like he doesn’t believe me for a second.
“She’s busy,” I hedge. “She’s… managing.”
He hums, a noncommittal noise that’s meant to needle me. “Mm. That sounds like Meredith-speak for avoiding me.”
“Maybe because you’re insufferable.”
“Or maybe because she still cares.”
“If you’re delusional, maybe.”
“I’m not the one still hoping my husband is innocent.”
I swallow hard, staring at Ashton’s face on the screen.
Mark doesn’t press further. Instead, he sighs, “Go to sleep, June. You’re no good to anyone like this.”
“I wasn’t good to anyone before this,” I mutter.
“Maybe,” he says, but there’s no malice in it. Just bickering. “But then again, I wouldn’t know.”
And before I can come up with a suitably cutting reply, the call ends.
I drop the phone onto the bedspread and stare at the photo of Ashton one last time before succumbing to my exhaustion.
The packet is thicker than I expected. But then again, it’s December now, so it shouldn’t be so surprising. It’s been duct-taped down the middle as if to prevent someone from opening it in transit.
Inside the flap is a sheet of yellow legal paper with Mark’s scrawl across it:
Congratulations, June. You’ve officially reached the ‘fan mail’ stage of notoriety. Try not to frame anything. – M.
I roll my eyes so hard it hurts, crumple it into a ball, and chuck it straight into the recycling. He never misses an opportunity to be a smug bastard.
The rest is… boring. Flyers, random circulars, three letters offering me legal services I don’t need, and a handful of neatly written notes from people I’ve never met. A couple of them are prayers, and a couple tell me I’m a disgrace. None of it makes my heart rate flicker even a little.
I skim them on autopilot, mind already wandering back to the photo of Ashton from last night. The ‘discard’ pile grows as I wonder if he’s thinking about me, if he ever saw any photos of me. If he ever stayed up late just trying to get a glimpse of my face.
Then, halfway down the stack, two postcards slide out.
At first glance, they look like pretty generic landscapes. Inoffensive muted tones, something you’d grab at an airport gift shop. When I flip the first one over, there aren’t even any words.
Just a pencil sketch. Simple, clean lines, carefully depicting a lighthouse.
Not just any lighthouse.