Love in the Ashes

e crumpled receipt bu

ro

er worst fears and a tiny,

und what he wa

tried to ki

stared at the receipt, the flimsy pape

been investigating, they were

ting presence in the room, a shadow that

ions with Michael, his voice filled wit

, tracing a network of corruption that

told her just a week ago, his eyes

ven some of the cops. But I'm close. I

o be careful, her he

silent, her warnings felt l

; they had attacked their family, their name,

eipt carefully and tuc

aw, open wound, but now it was

let them get a

Michael's sacrif

eral, who had been watching her si

at happened," she said, h

d the proof he wa

a question

statement

e through the sleeping city, the st

lder and emptier

, which was messy in the way o

desk, notes were tacked to a corkboard, and a map

ull of his pass

vidence of his courage, Eleanor

t a sister trying to

extension o

l was still unconscious,

ospital, reading to him, talkin

er own investigation, poring over his notes, tryin

al for herself one night, som

servation, a way to gather her

ark contrast to the cold reality of her

approach Genera

h an old contact of her father's a

swered, pol

al was a

t was out of

de said coolly, "but this is a civili

ismissal, a door c

ed in him, a man her father admired,

system that Thorne and his sy

Eleanor was at the hospital when a nurse came

ed for you," the nurse s

was no

nstantly who t

rom Thorne, a sile

"I'm watching you. I c

l, but to Eleanor, they l

e detective finally cam

his questions lac

n for stirring up trouble, Miss Vance,

't just pick a fight

me, repeating the story

she was the problem, he

te's influence had reach

ved in, had fought and died for