Perhaps Atlas’s article could help with the containment. But, even if I were interested in excavating the past, I’d just been placed on leave because of one photo. Miles’s strident reaction hadn’t come as a complete surprise. After all, he’d been generous to keep me on after my father’s scandal; less confident, less loyal politicians would have made a different call. But his political pragmatism also ran deep, and I could now predict with some certainty how he would react if I sat down with a journalist to discuss in-depth my father’s legitimate crimes. There would be no leave of absence next time, and my window to redeem myself in the wake of Gregory’s scandal would slam shut.

Atlas’s article was scheduled to run in a couple weeks. I hadn’t seen him since the graveyard, and I knew he was still waiting for my answer. It was time to deliver it.

It took only one ring for him to pick up. “One second,” he said quietly, and I heard the sound of a door shutting. “Sorry, just had to step out of a meeting.”

“I interrupted you.” My voice was timid, already regretful of letting him down.

“Blessedly.” He chuckled. “What’s up?”

Though I knew what I needed to say, the words were all of a sudden gone. I shifted the phone from one ear to the other. “Well,” I began. Then I groaned. “This is hard.”

“I think I know what you’re going to say,” he said, patient. “It’s about going on record, isn’t it?”

“I can’t,” I said. Now that he’d given me the opening, I found it easier to explain. Briefly, I summarized. Miles, the picture, the fire and the fury. “You understand?” I asked when I was done.

“God, Daisy. Miles is a fool for casting you out because of one fluke run-in with the enemy.”

“He’s not.” Quickly, so as not to think too hard about what I was doing, I stuffed the majority of Gregory’s old things back into the smallest box. “If I were Miles, I would’ve done the same thing.”

“Really?” Atlas wasn’t convinced.