Girl, Forgotten (Andrea Oliver 2)

Andrea chewed the inside of her cheek.

“After Emily was attacked, Reagan suggested I withdraw my name. I was furious. I couldn’t give up everything I had worked for. I felt that, should I back out, Reagan would think twice before nominating another woman. Any president would. I wanted to create a judicial legacy.” Esther’s gaze settled on her husband. “All of the anger and drive, all to find ourselves both nothing but fragile, mortal beings.”

YOU’RE DYING OF CANCER AND YOUR HUSBAND IS A VEGETABLE, BUT ALL YOU CARE ABOUT IS YOUR SO-CALLED LEGACY!

“I have told myself for far too long that my life has been built on pillars of strength, honesty and integrity, but that’s never been the case.” Esther’s tone was never so sharp as when she turned it on herself. “In those last few months before the attack, Emily had been entirely stripped of artifice. She understood the world better than I did. She saw me more accurately than anyone else ever has. The closer I get to my own death, the better I understand her clarity. I was blinded by my own arrogance. I was a hypocrite. A fraud.”

YOU ARE GOING TO DIE, YOU ARROGANT, NEEDY, AND WORTHLESS BITCH! EVERYONE WILL KNOW WHAT A FRAUD YOU ARE. I WILL MAKE SURE YOU SUFFER!

“I have never spoken those words aloud before. Not even to Judith,” Esther said. “I’m not sure why I’m telling you now.”

Andrea could barely hear the woman’s voice. She had shrunk into herself, hands clasped in her lap, back bent as she stared down at the floor. A sense of longing had filled the room. The judge’s husband was going to die in a few hours. Esther only had a few months left of her own life. She had confessed more to a stranger than she had ever confessed to herself.

Andrea should have felt pity for the old woman, but she found herself thinking back to Ricky Blakely’s 1982 witness statement. The cartoonish cursive. The large circles dotting her ‘i’s. Ricky was a teenager when she wrote the long, meandering sentences, but if Andrea had learned anything in her life, it was that people did not change that much after they left high school.

There were so many things that had bothered Andrea about the death threats. The lack of swear words. The absence of sexual threats. The exacting punctuation. The use of an Oxford, or serial, comma before the and at the end of a list. Understandably, someone writing a death threat would try to conceal their identity, but it was hard to hide the fact that you were imposing, imperious, intelligent, and, most importantly, indomitable.

“Ma’am?” Andrea asked. “Why did you send those death threats to yourself?”

Esther’s lips parted, though not in surprise. Andrea recognized the coping mechanism. Take a breath, calm your fluttering heart, focus on anything but the trauma at hand.

When Esther finally looked up at Andrea, it was not to answer the question, but to ask one of her own. “Why aren’t you afraid of me?”

“I don’t know,” Andrea admitted. “When I think about you, I’m afraid, but then I see you in person, I realize that you’re just a lost old woman whose daughter was murdered and whose husband used to beat her.”

Esther’s chin dropped, but only slightly. “Does Leonard know?”

“He still thinks Ricky wrote the letters.”

Esther looked down. Her gaze had found the briefcase at her feet. The judge’s house had been consumed by fire, yet the only thing she had rescued was the briefcase.

Esther said, “I should not have manipulated the system. I can see now how selfishly I behaved. I apologize.”

Andrea wasn’t looking for an apology. She wanted an explanation. The judge had been around almost as long as the Marshals. She knew how Judicial Security worked. The first priority when a credible death threat was received was to ensure the judge’s safety. Esther had obviously felt threatened enough to want protection, but she had also been afraid to explain why. Andrea felt like a piece of the puzzle was finally about to click into place.

She asked the woman, “Who did you need protection from?”

Esther’s frail shoulders rose as she took a deep breath. Then she exhaled a name like it was a disease. “Dean Wexler.”

Andrea had to steady herself on the back of the upholstered chair. Every awful thing that happened to a woman in this town seemed to always lead back to Wexler.

“‘Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.’” Esther’s voice had started to tremble on the last few words. “1 Peter 5:8.”

Andrea kept her grip on the chair. She could think of only one reason that Dean Wexler would be able to incite fear in Esther Vaughn, but she could not bring herself to say it.

Instead, she asked, “Tell me.”

Again, Esther had to fortify herself with another deep breath. “In the first year of Judith’s life, I would have her playpen set up in the garden so we could spend time together. I was in the potting shed when I realized she had gone silent. I ran outside to find Wexler holding her.”

Andrea watched tears flood into the woman’s eyes. She was still clearly haunted by the memory.

“Judith had no idea that she was in a stranger’s arms. She was always such a trusting, happy child. But I could see the look on Wexler’s face—as if he wanted to harm her. He’d gone out of his way to grip her arm as if he wanted to wrench it away. The malevolence in his eyes, the sheer evil—”

Esther stopped as her emotions threatened to take over.

“I had never screamed like that before. Not when we learned about Emily’s attack. Not even when Franklin …” She let the words trail off, but Andrea knew that she was talking about the beatings. “For the entirety of my life, I saw myself as strong, impenetrable. You get harder in the broken places, and you carry on. But seeing that vile demon holding my Judith broke me completely in two. I was on my knees in front of him, begging him to give me Judith, when Franklin came outside.”

Andrea watched the judge try to collect herself. Her hands had started to shake. Tears wept from her eyes.