The Wife They Wanted Dead

 I was scraping burnt rice out of a pot when the phone rang. 11:42 p.m. My father calls at 11:15 every Tuesday, right when his shift ends, so I already knew something was wrong before I looked at the screen.

 "Is this Seraphine Ardenne?"

 "Yeah, who's this?" I turned off the faucet too fast and got water down my sleeve.

 "Officer Reyes, Metro PD. Your father's been taken into custody."

 The pot slipped out of my hand. I remember the sound more than dropping it.

 "Custody for what? Is he hurt—"

 "I can't get into it over the phone. You'll need to come down."

 She hung up before I got another word out. I grabbed my coat and didn't notice I still had slippers on until I was three blocks away.

 ---

 The station smelled like burnt coffee. The guy at the desk had a coffee stain on his shirt shaped almost like Ohio — I don't know why I noticed, except it was easier than thinking about anything else.

 "It's a homicide case," he said, once he finally looked up.

 It took a second to land. My dad. The man who once carried a spider outside on a piece of junk mail because I cried when he tried to squash it.

 "That's not — no. Can I see him?"

 A detective came out — Marlow — voice flat, like this part had stopped costing him anything a long time ago.

 "Your father's been charged with the murder of Vivian Cole. His prints were at the scene. Traffic cameras place his car near her house that night. There was a personal item of hers in his storage unit."

 None of it made sense. My mom's old sewing machine's in that unit, and a bike with a flat tire. That's it. I helped him load it.

 "There's nothing else in there. He wouldn't—" My voice cracked and I hated that a stranger with a badge got to hear it.

 "The evidence is what it is."

 "Then it's wrong."

 He didn't even argue. Just let it sit there, like my certainty weighed nothing at all.

 "You can see him for a few minutes. Then go home."

 ---

 He looked smaller than I remembered. Not the cuffs, not the jumpsuit — he's always taken up more room than his actual body.

 "Seraphine." His voice cracked on my name. "You shouldn't be here."

 "They're saying you hurt a woman. Vivian Cole." I sat, hands pressed flat against my knees to stop them shaking. "I told them that's not you."

 He flinched. Half a second, maybe less. I've spent twenty-four years learning that face. I know the one he wears when he's lying to protect me.

 "You know her."

 "I don't know her." Too fast. Too smooth.

 "Dad. Don't do the thing. Not right now."

 He looked at his hands like they belonged to someone else. "There's nothing," he said, quiet, the way he sounds before bad news. "I'm just scared. My daughter's in a police station at midnight."

 "Time's up," the guard said.

 "I love you." Already being pulled up, turned toward the door. "Whatever happens — remember that."

 The door shut. I sat there with the buzz of the lights and something hollow opening under my ribs.

 ---

 I didn't sleep. Called every defense attorney within fifty miles from my kitchen floor. Eleven no's by nine a.m.

 The seventh one laughed — one short breath — before catching herself. "It's just — Vivian Cole. She was close with the Ravaryns. Valen Ravaryn, specifically. Nobody in this city touches a case against that family."

 She hung up. Ravaryn. I knew the name the way you know a name on a hospital wing — everywhere, meaning nothing to me. My dad sells hinges and paint. We don't exist anywhere near people like that.

 So why were his fingerprints in a dead woman's house connected to them?

 ---

 I went back that afternoon and found a man in the lobby who didn't belong there. Silver hair, a suit worth more than my rent.

 "Seraphine Ardenne."

 "Valen Ravaryn," he said, before I could ask. "Vivian was a close friend of my family. Which is why I'm here." He lowered his voice. "Your father's case is nearly impossible to win without proper counsel. Men like him don't get trials. They get sentencing dates."

 "Is that a threat?"

 "A fact. I came with an alternative. My son is getting married within the month, circumstances require it." Flat, like a grocery list. "I'd like to offer his hand to you."

 "I'm sorry — what?"

 "Marry my son and I'll put the best legal team in the state on your father's case. Something he doesn't currently have."

 "You're insane."

 "I'm completely serious." His face didn't move — then, barely, it did. Something tight around his mouth, gone before I caught it, like he hadn't expected to say this twice. "Refuse, and he's convicted within the year. You'll visit a cell for the rest of his life, if they let you."

 "Why me? You don't know either of us."

 "I know you worked two jobs after your mother died. I know you turned down a scholarship so you wouldn't leave him alone."

 That he knew any of it scared me more than what he'd said before it.

 "I've never heard your son's name."

 "I'm offering something most people never get." He held out a card. I had to reach for it myself. "Take it, and he lives free. Don't, and no one else is coming for him."

 I took it. I don't remember my hand moving.

 "You have until tomorrow evening." Already walking off, unbothered, like none of this cost him a thing.

 Marry a stranger. Or lose my father completely.

 I turned back toward the visitation room, his card crushed in my fist, walking before I'd decided to.

 I had no idea if I'd be able to say any of it out loud once I was sitting across from him again.