The Helford Trials (Helford #3)

Chapter Sixteen

In the whirlwind weeks since Woodburn's downfall, I found the time to attend the trial for Marci Letchworth.

I was so used to the chaos of the high-profile trials, even ones like Valerie's, that I had never considered what it would look like for the smaller trials, for the lower foot soldiers. It took place in Washington D.C. in the wake of Woodburn's sensationalist sentencing, amounting to only a handful of local journalists in attendance. The amount of curious civilians in the audience was less, too, and as I watched alone from my spot in the front, the back row of seats remained largely unfilled.

This trial was different. Marlisse and Lys weren't there, and neither was Calvin Milton—their associates were, the ones brought in to fill in the gaps, the ones that were basically seat-fillers. The Senators were less-known, less stone-faced. They were here to get it over with.

I remember hearing, in the days after Caitie rebelled, that she has become the ghost of Helford. Sitting there in that trial, I couldn't help but to disagree—Marci Letchworth might have been the ghost all along.

She played the youngest daughter to Woodburn's Senator and Ambassador persona, the younger sister to Lys Asbury's character. She had loved Rian Blackwell, and she had ultimately been broken by Shawn the same way he had been broken by Woodburn. But, in the end, she sided with Caitie, and killed them all to free the world.

But no one knew who she was. She stood in the shadows of the main players and the survivors, ignored because she wasn't the star, because her part was small and psychological and because not a lot of people cared about the broken girl who had to sacrifice it all only to die in a rush of flame.

Her participation in the event was considered miniscule, but she very well might have been the most important of them all.

The trial was different, less grandiose. The associates said their piece, the Senators said theirs—and then it was over. It might have taken half an hour for Marci to be forgiven.

But, for the first time, this was less about the trial and more about the person.

This was the first trial where I witnessed the grief of the agent's parents.

I knew from the case of my own mother that the children that Helford selected weren't all orphans, that they weren't all lost. Some were just normal, smart kids who caught the attention of the wrong people and got an invite to a supremely gifted school and dropped off the radar a little while later. But never before had I witnessed direct family to an agent attend a trial, much less parents who have just recently lost their daughter, not to mention found out that she had been trained to be a murderer.

At first, I hadn't noticed them—they had blended into the background—but when Marlisse's lawyer began to discuss the body trail, the torture, I heard the muffled sobs. Marci's parents had been sitting six rows back on the aisle, as if in case they decided to run. Her mother had her face buried in her hands, her body shaking with the effort to keep in her sobs. A stone-faced man with salt and pepper hair sat at her side, his hand rubbing her back and his eyes unfaltering on the scene in the courtroom. I recognized Marci in his dark eyes, and in the woman's dark chestnut hair.

I had known Marci in passing more than anything. We had met before during events where Woodburn and my father had both attended, but nothing extraordinarily lasting. I had learned more of her after Caitie rebelled and disappeared, when I had begun to look into her life at Helford. She had been her roommate, and her friend, and otherwise a riddle. There was little to nothing to find in a file about her, just imprints and mentions. She kept out of the spotlight every time, knowing how to keep a low profile. And then what ended up being her end was nothing more than the burden of being Caitie's friend.