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Chapter 2
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Thirty Years of Ash Chapter 10
Camille saw it and tore free of the officer holding her back.She fought with everything she had, crying, scrambling."You can't take my parents. Nothing's going to happen to my family. You can't do this."I stood on the steps and watched.My tone was flat, and there was a cold in it that left no room to argue."Don't be impatient. You'll be joining them soon enough."A violent shudder went through her, and her face locked."What... what are you going to do to me?"I'm a student. I haven't done anything."I looked down at her panic."Are you sure you're clean?"You've thrown your family's weight around since you were a child. How short do you think that list is?"Camille froze, disbelief all over her face, and it came out before she could stop it."How could you know about that?"I laughed softly."Don't worry. If I could dig up what your parents did, your messes were nothing."You're an adult now. It's time you answered for the things you've done."She went white as p
Thirty Years of Ash Chapter 9
There were men and women in that group, young and old.Most of them middle-aged now, every one of them carrying something furious and unfinished behind the eyes.The first to speak was a plainly dressed woman with a faint scar at the corner of one eye, Marguerite Vane.Her fists were closed, and she held the shake out of her voice by force."Lenora and I were in the same class. Somebody offhand said I was better looking than she was, and that was all it took. She carried it, got a group together, and bullied me for two solid years."Cornering me between classes, pouring ink over my books, and at the end of it she opened my cheek with a utility knife. I've had this scar for half my life."After graduation I went into a severe depression and shut myself away for five years before I could function. I took witnesses and physical evidence to the police. The Aldrich name reached further than any complaint of mine, and the whole thing sank without a trace."Before she'd finished, a sli
Thirty Years of Ash Chapter 8
Unsteady footsteps came from outside the room.I turned to look, and something in my chest twisted.My parents came in slowly, holding each other up.The years had bent my father's back, and gray had taken over my mother's temples.Between them they carried a sealed paper file, laminated tight, yellowed at the corners.The forensic report. Thirty years in the dark.Every eye in the room went to the two of them.The reporters opened a path without being asked, and the flashes came in a rolling wave.My mother reached the front with her fingertips dug into the edge of the file.Thirty years of held tears finally came down.Her hatred and her grief carried to every corner of the room."When they brought Lydia up out of that river, the medical examiner wrote it down plain. Scratches and contusions on her neck and her arms, and the skin cells they recovered came back to Lenora Aldrich. All of it."We took this report everywhere. Police, prosecutors, inspectors, the people we ele
Thirty Years of Ash Chapter 7
The instant the words landed, the room went dead as a grave.The flashes caught Sebastian and Lenora full in the face.They caught the exact moment both expressions seized up.Sebastian's pupils contracted, and with his mind gone blank he forgot to keep the mask on.It came out of him before he could stop it, disbelief all through it."Lydia? That college girl didn't have a sister."The sentence went through every lie they'd spent the hour weaving, like a blade.I laughed, low.Then I raised my eyes and held him cold."So at this late hour you'll finally admit it?"A minute ago it was all kindness and rescue, and you never once said her name. You knew exactly who she was."I switched the display.A full page of yellowed text-message records came up.Messages my sister sent me back then, from her old phone."Daph, there's a rich kid at school who has a girlfriend and he keeps hanging around me."I can't stand him and I can't shake him off."..."He asked today where our
Thirty Years of Ash Chapter 6
I worked the remote, and the display changed.Three old photographs, three different moments, filled the screen one after another.The first was the sale of the evening's headline lot that year, the Star of Kasira diamond.The buyer had brought the guests he knew up onto the floor for a photograph.Lenora stood dead center in the pink dress, her features bold and unbothered.Her whole face was lit with the pleasure of watching a good show.The house insignia was plain on the wall behind them, and the date stamp hadn't been touched.The second came right behind it, a shot taken after the hammer fell on an emerald bangle.The woman who bought it was a close friend of Lenora's, and she'd pulled her over to try it on.The two of them stood shoulder to shoulder beside the display pedestal.The pieces laid out around them matched the room in the first photograph exactly.The reporters came apart at once, shutters going like rain on a roof.A lot of them were pulling in on the det
Thirty Years of Ash Chapter 5
The picture was grainy, but it showed the auction from thirty years ago clearly enough.A teenage Lenora in an expensive pink dress.A malicious little smile on her mouth, her paddle up in a gesture you couldn't look away from.The people below her had heard something, and they were roaring with laughter.The image froze there.Reporters lifted their cameras and started talking over one another."Mrs. Aldrich went to auctions like that when she was young?""You'd never know it to look at her now."I turned my head toward Lenora."A few minutes ago you stood up there and told us how much you loathe women tearing each other down, how you've lived your whole life with a clear conscience."My voice stayed level, one word at a time."So let me ask. Thirty years ago you sat in that room, looking at an ordinary college student who happened to look a little like you, and you put her private photographs up under an unlimited bid, in front of everyone."Whatever anyone offered, you'd
