“Voilà! We’re here.”

“Oh, already?”

She looked out the window but made no move to get out of the taxi. Her muscles suddenly felt paralyzed, every cell in her body resisting. She didn’t want to go in there. She wanted to turn around. She didn’t want to see him. She never wanted to see him again. She had said that. She had sworn it!

You’re dead to me. You’ll never see me again, never again …

The old, toothless cab driver looked from Heloise to the gate outside the car.

“This is the right place, non? La Prison de Fresnes?”

“Yes,” Heloise said, and reluctantly put her hand on the door handle. “This is the right place.”

She got out of the taxi and looked at the building in front of her as the taxi drove past her, heading back into Paris to pick up its next customer. It was an older building—not the kind of modern maximum-security prisons you always saw in American movies. It looked more like something out of a World War II documentary, with razor-wire fencing along the top of the wall, like a long, stretched-out Slinky with sharp blades on it. And there were guards standing in the white tower with automatic weapons, vigilant, ready to shoot down any escaping prisoners.

Heloise shuddered.

She had never visited the prison before. It had been almost four years since he had been arrested, four years since she had seen her father. Their last conversation had been over the phone. She hadn’t believed the charges when she heard them. It must be some sort of terrible misunderstanding, she had said. Someone must have been using his computer, someone who had taken advantage of his kindness, his trusting personality. Her father was not a monster. He could never harm a child. He was a good man, a caring man. Someone who filled the world with words and poetry and beautiful literature. He was the embodiment of art and love, safety and warmth.

He was not a monster.

The whole thing was just a misunderstanding.

Her father had cried over the phone, and at first Heloise had thought that was because he was afraid, afraid that he would be wrongfully convicted, afraid of losing his freedom, his reputation, his life.

“I’m sorry,” he had said. “I’m sorry, Heloise. Please don’t leave me, sweetheart. I can’t live without you.”

“I’ll never leave you, Dad. I promise I’ll get you out. We’ll clear your name!”

“I never touched those children.”

“I know that, Dad. I’m going to—”

“But I’m not well.”

“… not well? What are you talking about?”

“I can’t help it. I never asked for this.”

He had sobbed so violently and begged for her forgiveness, and Heloise had hardly been able to understand what he was saying.

“What are you talking about, Dad?”