“Ms. Jeffries?” Even though he spoke perfect English, every consonant was harder, every vowel deeper, resulting in this clipped, precise accent that perfectly matched his appearance. He held out his hand. “Malachi Sokol. So nice to meet you.”

I drew up alongside Diane in time to see her eyebrows nearly hit her hairline. She’d spent her entire career working as a corrections officer at the medium-security prison, so she had a pretty keen sense of danger. Malachi had obviously triggered her alarm. She shook his hand and stepped back to allow him into the entryway. “Nice to meet you, too. Lela said you just arrived here in the States?”

“Yes, it’s a brief exchange program. An opportunity to experience American culture before I graduate,” he replied, but his focus had already shifted from Diane.

To me.

His smile was a devastating curl of his lips as his eyes met mine. From behind his back, he produced a small bouquet of flowers, a few yellow-and-white blooms and several pale-green buds, wrapped in cellophane. “These are for you.”

It took me a few seconds, but I managed to get my hands and fingers to work together to take the flowers from his hand. “Thanks,” I said, but it came out as a choked whisper.

Malachi’s brows lowered and concern flashed in his eyes before he turned back to Diane. “I’d like to introduce my host father.” He gestured toward the front steps.

Raphael, dressed in khakis and a sweater, stepped into the entryway and held out his hand. “Ms. Jeffries. I’m John Raphael. Thank you so much for inviting us to dinner. I was so pleased to hear Malachi had already made a friend.”

As he smiled, his face transformed from forgettable to indelible, from ordinary to … well, angelic. Whenever Raphael smiled, I wished I had my camera to capture it.

The tension melted from Diane’s body as she shook Raphael’s hand. Her face relaxed into a warm smile. “I was happy, too, for Lela,” she said, which nearly made me laugh, because we’d had a raging argument this afternoon about whether I could go out with Malachi tonight. It was the first time I’d ever asked to go out with a boy, the first time I’d ever mentioned one, actually, and judging by the way she’d clutched at her chest when I did, it really caught her by surprise. Especially because things had been so miserable since Nadia killed herself. Diane couldn’t understand how I’d “snapped out” of my grief in the past week.

She didn’t know I’d followed Nadia into death. That I’d seen my best friend again. That I not only suspected Nadia was in a better place—I knew it at a bone-deep level. I’d made sure of it, in fact.

I’d sold my own freedom to make it happen.