“It’s not safe for you either,” he says.
I feel a jolt of irritation: Is he trying to make me feel even more terrified?
He probably thinks it’s for my own good, I tell myself. So I don’t do anything stupid.
Too late for that.
“I had to come here,” I say. “Because . . . I made a mistake.”
Shouldn’t Mr. Trumbull be impressed that I’m admitting fault?
I remember suddenly that Mr. Trumbull never asked Daddy if he did his crimes or not. Defense attorneys aren’t that interested in actual guilt or innocence.
Mr. Trumbull just lifts an eyebrow and waits.
“I told someone,” I say quickly, getting it over with. “I told someone who I was.”
Mr. Trumbull grabs a yellow legal pad from his desk and begins taking notes.
“Any possibility that that person was connected to Excellerand?” he asks.
I stare at him and fight back the panic that threatens to overwhelm me.
“Um, no?” I say uncertainly. “I mean, I don’t think so, but . . .”
But I had wondered if the Court scholarship was a hoax. What if it wasn’t concocted as a misguided way for my father to help me, but as an evil snare for Excellerand to trap me?
That’s truly paranoid, I tell myself. And illogical.
I remember that the Court scholarship was set up two years before Mom and I moved to Deskins. I remember that Whitney Court has problems of her own, and that the Courts still want to help other kids. I remember that Mr. Court was worried about me.
“The person I told was innocent,” I say, and I sound sure of myself now. “But I know he told my guidance counselor, and—”
“And so the secret is out,” Mr. Trumbull says, frowning. “You’ve ruined the extreme efforts your mother and I went to, to protect you.”
Doesn’t he think I know that?
“That’s why I’m here,” I say. I swallow hard. “My mother and I need your help to move somewhere safer. We need completely new identities. And documentation that . . . that lets me go to college.”
Mr. Trumbull puts down his pen and stares at me for a moment.
“What you’re asking for is huge,” he finally says. “You’d need new names, new social security numbers, a fake high school transcript, fake SAT scores . . .”
“I could retake the SAT,” I say, though my reluctance comes through in my voice. I clench my teeth and ask the question that terrifies me most. “But it’s possible, isn’t it? To get new identities?”
Mr. Trumbull absentmindedly picks up his pen again. He taps it against his jaw.
“Anything’s possible for the right price,” he says.
“Price?” I squeak. Mom and I didn’t talk about this. She didn’t pay extra for his help when we moved to Deskins. Wasn’t that just part of Mr. Trumbull representing Daddy? Now that Mom has told me everything, I now know that what we paid Mr. Trumbull three years ago pretty much used up all the money she made from selling our furniture and her car. She had to max out credit cards to survive after that, before she got her job. And then she made so little selling the house that every penny went to settling debts.
I edge Mrs. Collins’s phone out of my pocket, below the level of the desk, so Mr. Trumbull can’t see. I can’t stop in the middle of talking to Mr. Trumbull in order to call and ask Mom for advice about what to do or say next. But holding on to the phone is the next best thing.
Mr. Trumbull shakes his head at me.
“What you’re asking for—that would cost thousands of dollars,” he says. “Maybe even hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
“Mom and I don’t have that kind of money,” I say. “We’re barely holding on, as it is.”
Mr. Trumbull shrugs.
“You can’t expect me to work for free,” he says.
“Couldn’t the government help?” I ask tentatively. “I mean, this is their case, and they’re the ones who have taken so long getting their case together. Don’t they want to protect people like me? Innocent bystanders?”
Mr. Trumbull snorts.
“What kind of idealistic pablum are they teaching you at that school in Ohio?” he asks, and it seems as if he’s said “Ohio” deliberately. As if he’s trying to tell me, “You want to be difficult? Then I can be reckless with your safety too.”
I flinch. Mr. Trumbull leans across the desk toward me.
“You’re the daughter of a convicted felon,” he says. “The government doesn’t care about people like you.”
Three years ago the words “daughter of a convicted felon,” spoken in that brusque tone, would have reduced me to a weeping puddle on the floor. I would have been like a swatted fly: broken and fatally wounded and buzzing helplessly through my last moments of life.
But I’ve had three years to adjust to who I am, to being the person my father’s crimes turned me into. Those three years didn’t kill me. They just made me see things differently.
I see Mr. Trumbull differently now too.
The way he acted in court, cross-examining a witness whose testimony he wanted to destroy . . . that’s how he’s treating me, I think. Why?
I don’t know the answer to that question so I mentally set it aside, like a calculus problem I might be able to figure out later on. I decide it wouldn’t hurt to act a little more injured than I actually am. I look down as if I’m struggling to recompose myself. Mrs. Collins’s iPhone is lying there in my lap, its screen offering me a dozen choices, and links to dozens more.
A lot of good that does me, I think. When there’s no one I could call for help, no one I could text, nothing I could look up . . . all I can do is record things I don’t want to remember. . . .
But hasn’t remembering Daddy’s crimes helped in some ways? It’s the reason I convinced Stuart not to cheat; it’s the reason I was brave enough to help Jala stand up for herself.
Isn’t there something in those bad memories that can help me now?
Suddenly I have an idea. And I’m so proud of it—so convinced it will work—that I surreptitiously press the iPhone screen to start recording. I’m going to want Mom to hear how brilliantly I handle this. Retelling won’t do it justice.
I tuck the phone back into my pocket and then I look up at Mr. Trumbull. I pretend to blink back tears as I scoot forward in my seat, as if I’m ready to stand up.
“Well,” I say. “Maybe I’ll just have to make the government care about me. I’ll go talk to the prosecution team myself.”
A bland, bored look settles over Mr. Trumbull’s face. I don’t know if he’s refusing to take my bait, or if he just wants me to believe that he is.
“Surely your mother explained why that isn’t possible,” Mr. Trumbull says. Three years of watching the DHS mean-girls clique from afar makes me think I can tell: He’s working hard to get that careless tone into his voice.
I slide a little farther out, to the edge of my seat.
“Ah, but you’re thinking I’m as timid and easily frightened as my mother,” I say. Oops—maybe I won’t want Mom to hear the recording of this conversation. But there’s not time to glance down and turn it off. I keep my gaze drilled on Mr. Trumbull’s eyes. “Remember, half my DNA comes from my father. The ‘loose cannon’—isn’t that what you called him in Atlanta magazine?”
Maybe it was useful, after all, to read the articles on Mr. Trumbull’s reception-area wall.
Mr. Trumbull shifts slightly in his own chair.
“What exactly are you proposing to do?” he asks. “What could you do, that wouldn’t endanger you and your parents more than ever?”
I fight to keep from letting him see me wince.
“I could tell the government that if they won’t protect me, I’ll make the whole story public,” I say. “I could ruin their case completely. I’d give an exclusive interview to . . . I don’t know, Nancy Grace.”
I’ve picked the most obnoxious TV personality I can think of. Three years ago she devoted hours of her show
to ranting about how despicable my father was.
Maybe some of my disgust shows, because Mr. Trumbull just waves this away.
“You wouldn’t do that,” he says quietly.
“I want to go to college,” I say. “I want to have a life. A real life, not one where I’m hiding and terrified all the time. I wouldn’t have to actually talk to the media. Just threaten to. The prosecutors wouldn’t know I was bluffing.”
Mr. Trumbull watches me, one eyebrow cocked.
“I suppose that is one route you could take to achieve your dreams,” he says, and the sarcasm in his voice surprises me.
“It is?” I say, momentarily thrown off.
“Well, possibly,” he amends himself. “With all the budget-cutting lately, I’m not sure how many prisons still offer college classes to their inmates.”
“Prisons?” I repeat numbly. “Inmates?”
Mr. Trumbull stands and strolls toward his office window. He looks out for a moment toward the Atlanta skyline, then turns to face me.
“Prison is where you’re headed if you start trying to blackmail the government,” he says. “You do understand that what you’re proposing would be considered blackmail, under the circumstances? Believe me, the government would have no inclination to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
Could what I’m talking about be called blackmail?
“American citizens have rights,” I say, and I’m proud I can stand up to him. I’m not proud of the waver in my voice. “We have the right to go to the news media when we’re not happy with the government. There . . . there’s a free press. First amendment rights.”
Now I’m rambling. Mr. Trumbull shoots me a look that makes me feel about three years old.
“Ordinary American citizens have rights,” Mr. Trumbull concedes. “An underage teenager whose father is a notorious criminal all the prosecutors hate . . . someone like that has to be careful. Especially if she and her mother have been breaking the law for the past three years.”
“My mother and I haven’t broken any laws!” I protest.
Mr. Trumbull leans back against the windowsill. The look he’s giving me now doesn’t just make me feel young and foolish. It makes me feel subhuman. Maybe I’m an amoeba. Maybe a paramecium. To him, I’m just some insignificant creature flailing about in a waterdrop.
“Falsifying documents,” Mr. Trumbull says, ticking off my mother’s supposed crimes on his fingers. “Faking a work history. Using fictional social security numbers. And those are just the infractions I know about. Who can say how many other frauds you’ve perpetrated?”
“Those were all things you helped Mom with!” I shout. “Things you told her to do!”
Mr. Trumbull strokes his chin.
“Surprisingly, there would be no paper trail leading back to me,” he says. “It would just be the word of a felon’s wife against mine. Who do you think the rest of the world’s going to believe?”
Something slams against my spine—the stiff wooden back of my chair. I wasn’t conscious of slumping or sliding backward. It feels more as though I was thrown backward by the force of Mr. Trumbull’s words.
“You . . . you’re blackmailing me,” I manage to say. “You’re just threatening me and Mom with prison to get me to do what you want. To stay silent.”
Mr. Trumbull lets a half smile play over his lips. I saw him look exactly this way in court, when he knew he’d beaten a witness down to a pulp. I never knew how terrible it’d feel to be on the receiving end of that smile.
“You are a perceptive child,” he says. “I can see why your grades are so high.”
“So shouldn’t I get to go to college?” I almost wail. “Why are you treating me like the enemy? Why do you want to ruin my life?”
Mr. Trumbull takes two steps. Now he’s standing over me.
“I’m not the one who ruined your life,” he says. “It’s your father’s fault. And your mother’s. They’re the reason you’re stuck in that rathole in the middle of nowhere—”
“I’m not in a rathole!” I protest, and it strikes me as funny that, after hating so much of my time in Deskins, I still feel obligated to defend it. Laughter starts burbling out of me.
Except, maybe it isn’t laughter. Maybe Mr. Trumbull has goaded me into crying for real.
“The next place you’ll have to go would be a rathole,” he says grimly. “You’ll have to hide in worse and worse places every time you or your mom slip up.”
He paces back toward the window.
“Your parents have caused me no end of aggravation,” he says. “Your father—forcing the speedy trial even when I told him we needed more time to prepare, refusing any plea agreement, not revealing the evidence he had against Excellerand until after the trial—”
“That’s not my fault,” I say. “Or my mom’s.”
Mr. Trumbull ignores me.
“And your mother . . . do you know how much money she could have made on book deals, movie deals, interview deals three years ago?” he asks. “My firm was ready and willing to negotiate all that. She could have set all of us up for life. I could have retired on that money.”
I stare at Mr. Trumbull.
“But . . . Excellerand,” I say. “Wouldn’t that have ruined the case the government’s trying to build? Wouldn’t it have meant that everyone saw us, that we could never hide . . .”
Mr. Trumbull shrugs.
“She could have done the interviews with her face hidden,” he said. “She wouldn’t have had to say anything about Excellerand. Just . . . what it was like all those years living with your father, the serial liar? Did she suspect him of marital infidelities, too? Was anything about him true?”
I wince at “marital infidelities” and am practically slaughtered by “Was anything about him true?” How did Mr. Trumbull know to ask the exact question that has plagued me for the past three years?
I channel my fury into my answer.
“So you and your firm wanted my mom to open a vein and bleed on national television?” I ask. “For money? You wanted her to sell her shame?”
I remember how I felt three years ago. Mom telling our story on TV—that would have destroyed me.
“It’s what everyone does nowadays,” Mr. Trumbull says, with another careless shrug. “She could have supported you that way. In the lifestyle you were accustomed to.”
“My mom has supported me just fine,” I snarl. I spring to my feet. I’m done. I can’t stand another second with this evil man.
I’m whirling around, headed for the door, when I feel Mr. Trumbull’s hand on my shoulder.
“You came here with a request,” he says softly. “I just had to see how serious you were. How badly you want it.”
I freeze.
“You already told me there’s nothing you can do,” I say.
“I never actually said that,” Mr. Trumbull tells me, and I can hear the change in his voice. He really should not use his lawyer techniques on someone who sat and watched him disembowel witness after witness during the longest three weeks of my life. I recognize this shift: This is his buddy-buddy voice, with the undercurrent of What? You thought I was being mean? How could you misunderstand so badly?
“Oh, so now you’re going to help, after all?” I ask. I don’t sit back down.
“I’m going to tell you your choices,” Mr. Trumbull says. “You can appeal to your mother—the asking price has gone down immensely, but she could still get a book deal or an interview deal. Maybe leading up to the five-year anniversary of the trial—something like that.”
“You want me to ask my mother to sell her soul?” I ask incredulously. “And mine?”
Mr. Trumbull holds up a cautionary finger.
“Or you can write a letter to your father,” he says. “Ask for his help.”
“Have you of all people forgotten he’s in prison?” I ask. I’m still poised to flee. “How can he help me from there? By dropping all his accusations against Excellerand? Signing something that guara
ntees he’ll never testify against them? Ensuring he’ll be in prison seven more years?”
I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice.
Do you think my father loves me enough to spend even an extra second in prison? I want to ask. When he didn’t even love me enough to avoid doing the crimes that sent him to prison in the first place?
“No, no,” Mr. Trumbull says impatiently. “He’d give you money. Or access to it, anyway. I’m sure you heard the rumors about your father’s funds in the Cayman Islands? Surely, if you just ask . . .”
I stare at Mr. Trumbull in amazement.
“Is it even legal for you to tell me to use that money?” I begin. I have to stop and try again. “If that money really exists . . . if my father really loved me . . . don’t you think he would have found a way to give it to me already?”
Now—
Despair
I jerk away from Mr. Trumbull’s hand and stalk toward the door.
He lets me go.
Revelatory bombs are going off in my brain.
This is why I stopped believing in the Cayman Islands money, I think. Because Daddy would want to share it with Mom and me. He does love me. And us. He does!
Maybe these aren’t revelations. Maybe it’s just desperation, hope against hope because there’s nothing else for me to believe in.
I can’t think like this without crying, and I can’t let myself cry until I get out of Mr. Trumbull’s office, past the receptionist, out of the building. I concentrate especially hard on turning the door handle, propelling myself into the hallway outside.
Step one—done, I think.
I keep my head down passing the receptionist. She seems to be totally focused on her computer screen, anyhow.
Step two, I think.
I’m at the elevator bank now, and I stab at the down button with a shaking hand. It takes me three tries to actually hit it.
Never mind, I tell myself. No one’s watching.
“Oh, wait—Ms. Jones?” the receptionist calls from her desk.
What—does she think it’s part of her job to critique clients’ elevator-button-pushing abilities? I wonder.
I turn back, ready to mumble some excuse or apology—anything to get away. I can hear the elevator dinging closer, floor by floor. Why does Mr. Trumbull’s office have to be so high up? I don’t think the elevator’s going to be here in time for me to slip away.
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