Rapid typing filled the line. “All right. I have a line on the ADA taking over the case,” Stella said.
May straightened in her chair. So Stella was somewhere with decent Wi-Fi and not hiding in a remote cabin in the mountains.
“Ooh,” Stella breathed.
“Ooh what?” May asked.
“The new ADA is pretty.”
May closed her eyes briefly. “Kyle can be very charming.” She put her feet up on the edge of her desk. “I’m sure his first approach is something along the lines of, ‘Hey, I’m really worried about my ex, da da da,’ that whole concerned-statesman routine. Then he’ll dangle a carrot. ‘You’d make a great federal prosecutor. Maybe even a judge’.”
“Judges do get nominated and approved at an impressive pace these days,” Stella said lightly. “Are you asking me to take him out?”
What in the world? “I’m not asking you to do anything like that, Stella. Is that something you do?”
Stella’s chuckle came through stronger this time. “No. I was joking.”
“Oh.” May exhaled. “Sorry. It’s three in the morning and I’m not as quick as usual.” But was Stella actually joking? She really didn’t know.
“Yeah. Speaking of which, why aren’t you in bed?”
“I’m worried about Ace.”
There was a small shift in Stella’s breathing. “How worried?”
May stared at the rain tracing down the windowpane. “I love him.” The words hung in the air. She should have said them to Ace first. Instead, here she was whispering them into a phone in the middle of the night. “I need to help him,” she continued. “He’s in this mess because of me, at least partly. I have to do something.”
“Okay,” Stella said calmly. “Calling me is always a good idea. Do you want me to dig up dirt on the senator? Because I could do that. I’m a little surprised the Osprey men haven’t already. Plus, those troopers are good at their job.” Steam hissed faintly on Stella’s end of the line. A low hum followed, maybe a machine frothing milk.
Goodness. Where in the world was Stella right now?
“So maybe you’re looking for advice?” Stella said.
May gulped. “Yes. You seem to have decent political instincts.”
“I have survival instincts,” Stella corrected her. “Go on.”
May took a breath. “You played that social influencer role this last spring and had millions of followers. What if I took this to social media? Told the whole story?”
“Do you have proof?”
“Proof of what?”
Something clanged softly, then the sound of liquid pouring came over the line. “Proof of anything you’d say about the senator,” Stella replied. “He presents well as being both charming and calm. Could you handle a slander case?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s not slander if it’s true. But if he sued you, you’d have to prove it’s true.”
Rain intensified for a moment, drumming harder against the roof.
“Did he ever hit you?” Stella asked bluntly. “And is there proof?”
“He never hit me. There’s no proof he grabbed me or pushed me. But he did.” May thought she’d left that time behind her for good. “So you’re saying that if I went public with that, I could get sued for everything I have?”
Stella sipped on a drink. “Yes. Now, don’t get me wrong. Plenty of people would believe you no matter what you said. There’d be an uproar. It could go one of two ways. Either he wins or you win. And I can’t tell you which way that would fall.”
May couldn’t just sit here. “I know.”
