“So she’ll get money?” Mina’s thin, sallow face lit with interest, and she sat forward a little. My stomach clenched, but Erin just smiled at her benignly.
“Yes. She will.” The lawyer turned her attention back to me. “I also think there’s a good chance we can get you emancipated, especially if we can prove you’re financially independent.”
I blinked at her as my stomach did a weird sort of dip and sway. The individual words she was saying made sense, but taken together, they were incompressible, impossible to grasp.
“You mean I would… get out of foster care? I’d be able to live on my own?”
“Yes.”
“And I’d have… money?”
“Yes.” She smiled again, the kind of curt business smile that’s meant to keep the conversation moving along. Then she reached into a small leather briefcase that was leaned up against the base of the couch and pulled out a large stack of documents. “Now, if we—”
“I can’t.” The words were scratchy.
She hesitated, her brows drawing together. “What do you mean?”
I licked my lips. “I can’t pay you. I mean, I have a little money saved up from my jobs, but I’m sure it’s not enough. Unless—” A spark of hope lit in my chest. “Do you work on contingency? Do you just take money from my trust fund if we win?”
Her features smoothed out again, and she resumed spreading the forms and documents out on the coffee table. “Oh, no. No need to worry about that. My compensation has already been handled.”
“By who?”
Erin’s hand paused for just a brief second before she laid down the last piece of paper. Then she glanced up at me. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say. My client has asked to remain anonymous. But don’t worry. Any and all fees incurred from my services will go to that party, not to you.”
The knot that had been slowly growing in my stomach cinched tight. “Someone paid you to help me get my money? To emancipate me?”
“That’s right.” She pulled a pen out of her bag and placed it between my numb fingers. “Now, we’ll start the emancipation process right away and file for an expedited decision. In the meantime, we’ll work on freeing up all or part of your inheritance. Unfortunately, that means a bit of paperwork. But don’t worry, I’ll talk you through it.”
Mina pursed her lips, looking like she wished she could throw Erin out on her ass, and heaved herself out of the chair she’d been sitting in. She disappeared into the kitchen, and I could hear her on the phone with CPS a moment later, demanding to speak to someone.
Of course. If I left, she’d lose part of her paycheck.
I glanced through the open kitchen door with concern, but Erin put a hand on my knee, drawing my attention back to her.
“Don’t worry. She can’t stop you from going. That’s what this is all about. If our petitions go through, no one can stop you from leaving.”
Whoever had retained Erin Bennett on my behalf had spared no expense.
She was good. Smart and skilled, almost robotically efficient.
I called in sick to Big Daddy’s and the gas station, and Erin took me to a nice coffee shop near downtown, where she treated me to a latte and a freshly baked cinnamon roll. We spent the next several hours going over various forms and discussing what would happen next, and she answered all of my questions—except one.
She refused to tell me who had hired her.
I pushed hard too, even threatening to walk away, to refuse her services unless she told me. But she just sat back placidly in her seat with her hands folded on the table in front of her until I eventually caved. I could see why she was such a good lawyer. And she was—one of the best probate attorneys in the country, working out of a firm in New York. Her mysterious client had paid for her to come to Sand Valley and represent me.
Every time I thought about that, I felt a little sick.
Maybe I should’ve just felt grateful, should’ve taken this change of fortune and accepted it at face value. But just like when I’d been invited to live at my grandparents’ house, I could practically feel the strings attached to this favor.
Nothing in life came free, and if I wasn’t paying for Erin’s services myself, I was sure I’d pay for them some other way, some other time.
But the petite lawyer had been right when she’d called my bluff. As terrified as I might be of what dark corners those strings disappeared into, I couldn’t walk away from this opportunity.
I supposed I could just play the waiting game. Wait until I turned eighteen and was officially old enough to live on my own and leave foster care. Wait until I turned twenty-one and could gain access to my trust. But I couldn’t stand the thought of that, especially not when there was even a fraction of a chance that what Erin proposed could work.
The Princes had thrown me back in the gutter where they thought I belonged, and now a hand had been extended, offering to help me climb back out.
If that hand belonged to the devil himself, I’d still take it.
“I don’t want to tell you to quit your jobs until the ink is dry and you’ve got your money,” Erin said as she tapped a stack of papers into a perfect rectangle before slipping them back into her briefcase. “But I will need you to be available, sometimes at short notice.”
“I’ll ask for some time off,” I murmured. We both stood from the table, and I gulped down the last of my latte.
“Good.” She smiled. “With any luck, that time off can become permanent.”
She drove me back to Mina’s house, and I ignored my foster mom’s heavy glare as I walked upstairs to my room and shut the door.
For the next two weeks, my life became a blur of meetings and phone calls with Erin, court dates, and paperwork. I had to go speak in front of a judge twice—once in regard to the emancipation, and once about the trust. Both times, Erin provided me with a wardrobe that made me look like I was auditioning for the role of Jackie Kennedy.
The judge who heard my case for early release of the trust fund was a large man with a round face and little tufts of hair around a gleaming bald spot at the crown of his head. He nodded almost continuously as I gave the speech Erin had helped me prepare. Then I stepped back, letting her take over the argument.
When she finished laying out my case, he pursed his lips, reaching up to scratch his chin.
“I don’t think there’s justification for a full release of the fund. But money can certainly be allocated for education.” He glanced down at the papers in front of him. “You were a student at Oak Park Preparatory Academy in Roseland, California, is that right?”
My heart stuttered in my chest at the sound of that name, but I kept my face impassive, smoothing down my skirt. “Yes, sir.”
“Very well.” He nodded decisively. “As long as you agree to finish your schooling there, I can approve the release of a portion of your trust early. You can continue your education and graduate from Oak Park.”
Chapter 3
The world outside the tiny airplane window was a canvas of blue and white.
Maybe it should’ve been soothing, but when I reached down to tug my backpack out from under the seat in front of mine, my hands shook. My chest felt compressed, my ribs too small to contain my lungs and heart between them. Mina hadn’t been happy to see me go, and right up until the moment I’d stepped on the plane, I’d been tempted to change my mind. To tell Erin and the judge to fuck off, that there was no way in hell I’d ever go back to Oak Park.