Anyway, there were bigger concerns. And Ari—who wasn’t so terrible, actually—had helped me. I could live with her in his future. “Forgiven,” I said. “Best friends forever?”

“Besties,” replied Atlas in that very drawn-out, highfalutin voice that always made me laugh.

Twenty-Seven

I was Miles’s first meeting of the day. I’d come in, shoulders squared, ready to take back my office, my title, and the one part of my life in which I was usually successful.

“A bribe?” he asked once we sat down, scanning the emails from Ari on my phone. Every so often he’d pause, squint, pinch his fingers on the screen to zoom, take a bite of his organic apple. “Because her son got stuck in a doggy door? This can’t be true.”

I had wondered the same, but the facts were the facts, and I was ready to wield them. “The emails look to be authentic. The addresses check out, time line matches up. Have you gotten to the one where she says, I don’t want to do anything illegal, but...?”

When he shook his head, I grabbed the phone and scrolled forward.

“Is this illegal, though?” Bo asked, getting up to stand over Miles’s shoulder. “If we bring it up in the hearings, she’ll spin it as a simple charitable contribution to the school. She’ll claim she was planning on making the donation anyway.”

Miles, incredulous, tossed my phone so it spun on its belly across his shiny wood desk. Outside the tall office windows behind him, rain. A soggy beginning to May, overall, and despite the nice weather when Wallis, Cricket, and I’d had our almost-evening out yesterday, this one suggested that summer would be delayed.

“You’re disappointed?” I deflated back into my chair.

“You’re not? Daisy, Jesus, this woman has championed voter ID laws, bathroom bills, creationism in textbooks. And the best we can do is strongly imply that she got her son out of a college disciplinary hearing?”

“It’s something.” This was falling apart, fast.

“Not once did she hook up with some younger guy in her office?” Bo said, only partially ashamed to ask. “There’ve been no shady dealings with au pairs?”

“This would be easier if she were a straight man,” I admitted.

Miles leaned back in his chair, cradled the back of his head with his free hand, and chewed thoughtfully. Bo crossed back over and sat next to me again. They didn’t say anything, just stared at each other, deliberating.

“Confirmation hearings,” prompted Bo, “start next week.”

“I can’t use this,” Miles said. He tilted forward in his chair. “No way would it derail her confirmation.”

“If the situations were reversed,” Bo advised, “she’d use anything she had against you. She’d bring up your father’s service record, your mother’s pay stubs, your bad ex-boyfriends. She’d get your dental records and hold your cavities against you.”