And why isn’t my freaking lawyer calling me back?! Three days ago, Oliver had left me a message letting me know the date and time of the arraignment and urging me to be there. Then he had left a message telling me that Bill was being detained because he was a flight risk since he had the means to flee and plenty of ties to offshore companies… and because of that stupid, nothing prior conviction for check fraud that I kept trying to ignore in case it made me think that Bill could have done this.

And, no, I had not called Oliver back then. So maybe he was giving me a taste of my own medicine. But the idea that he had abandoned Bill too panicked me. Was it because we couldn’t pay him with our assets frozen? But Oliver had been with us for almost three years. Not a lifetime, but long enough for us to deserve some loyalty. Surely he wouldn’t desert us now. Part of me thought about calling someone else. But who? It wasn’t like lawyers were filed under “wire fraud” in the Yellow Pages. Plus, I couldn’t pay one anyway. I felt sick.

“I have another ride, but if you need me to drop you somewhere else…” the driver interrupted my thoughts again.

“No, I’m sorry,” I said, collecting my purse and my phone and sliding out of the hot black leather seat. “Thanks so much. I’ll be sure to give you five stars.” And a good tip that I could ill afford for a half-hour ride I didn’t want to take. I knew I was going to have to figure out a bus route or something if I came here often.

“I get it,” he said. “No one’s really dying to walk into jail.”

I grabbed the bag I had brought and inhaled as I stepped out, somewhat relieved not to be bathing in the scent of pine air freshener anymore even if I was walking toward a fate that felt out of a fairy tale, one of the dark Grimms ones where people died and children were eaten by witches. But we never think about the bad parts of the fairy tale, do we? We remember Cinderella’s glass slipper, not the evil stepsisters trying to keep her from the ball—or, in the original, cutting off their toes to fit the shoe. This was toe-cutting level.