Grayson had skated through by the skin of his teeth, appealing to people’s humanity and spinning a story about his family being like everyone else’s. Anyone who tried to present a picture of perfection was obviously lying, and he, Lawrence Grayson, was no liar. He was doing his best, just like his constituents.
It had worked. Barely.
Grayson turned back to the room. “Keep me updated, Murphy. Every hour. Let me know what’s going on.”
Murphy nodded and left the room.
Grayson turned back to his publicist. “Let’s go through worst-case scenarios. I want to be prepared.”
Anastasia was on the move. “I’m calling Apex. They should be aware we might have a shitstorm ahead of us.”
“Is that really nec—”
“Yes.” She already had the phone to her ear. “You never win by keeping secrets from Apex.”
When she left the room, Grayson loosened his tie and pulled out the bottle of whiskey he had stashed in the back of his desk drawer. It was for celebrations and emergencies only, and there was no denying which one this was.
Whatever Connor had done, Senator Lawrence Grayson knew deep in his bones it was about to change everything.
2
Cassie’s eyes opened as soon as she felt the car shift into park. It took a few seconds to remind herself where she was and what she was doing. Her neck ached and drool slid down the side of her cheek. She wiped it clean and brought the passenger seat back to an upright position.
Laura giggled to her left.
“What?” Cassie asked.
“You’re a mess. Fix your hair. We’re just around the corner.”
Cassie’s heart shuddered to a stop and then restarted. She pulled down the visor and checked herself in the mirror. Her sister wasn’t lying. She had some dried drool stuck to the corners of her mouth, her eyes were red and her hair looked like she’d stuck her finger in an electrical socket.
Cassie attempted to tame her appearance. The last thing she remembered was pulling away from her house a couple hours ago. And then she had that awful dream where Laura had told her Sarah Lennox’s murder was all her fault.
Cassie shook the memory from her mind. “Why’d you stop?”
“To make sure you were ready.” Laura hesitated. “Are you ready?”
“You want the truth?”
“Always.”
“No.”
“Anything I can do to change that?”
Cassie flipped the visor up and sighed. She admired her sister’s perfect curls and bright eyes. “Not unless you want to turn the car around.”
“Not really.” Laura laid a gentle hand on her leg. “What’s going through your mind?”
Cassie leaned her head back and stared at the roof of her car. Sometimes she hated that Laura was a psychologist, always trying to get her to talk about her feelings. And sometimes she was grateful someone pushed her out of her comfort zone.
“I’m nervous. Obviously, the plan was to surprise Mom and Dad, but I’m not sure how smart that is. What if they’re upset we dropped in like this?”
“They’re our parents. They won’t get upset. We have lifetime couch-crashing credentials.”
“You might. I’m not sure if I do.”
“Look at me.” Laura waited until Cassie met her eyes. “I talk to Mom and Dad all the time. They ask about you constantly. And it’s not like you haven’t spoken in the last ten years. It’s just been infrequent. They don’t hate you, Cassie. You know that, right?”
Cassie’s eyes watered. She had to fight to keep her voice steady. “I just hate that I might’ve disappointed them. And I’m not looking forward to having that conversation with them.”
“You did just fine with me, didn’t you?”
“You’re my sister. It’s different.”
Laura’s laugh was light and clear. “It’ll be fine. They’ll be happy to see you, I promise.”
Cassie nodded, but the pit in her stomach didn’t loosen. She felt guilty for pushing her family away for the last decade, but part of her still felt vindicated in doing it. She hadn’t known how to explain to her parents what she’d been going through—both after Novak’s attack and while she was learning more about her abilities—and she didn’t want to burden them with that knowledge.
And what if they didn’t believe her? It hadn’t taken Laura long to come around, but she’d also been involved in one of Cassie’s investigations. She’d had a front-row seat to Cassie’s abilities.
Beyond all of that, Cassie still harbored a kind of defiant independence. She loved her parents, but they could be suffocating. After the attack, all they had wanted to do was take care of her. It was nice in the beginning, but then it made her feel awful. She didn’t want them to coddle her, and she didn’t want to feel weak. It’d taken her a long time to come to terms with the idea that pain and fear weren’t synonymous with weakness, but that realization had happened long after her relationship with her parents had fallen apart.
“Have you figured out what you want to say yet?”
Cassie scoffed. “About what? Why I’m showing up unexpectedly? Why I cut myself off from everybody? How I can see dead people?”
“All of the above?”
Cassie sank lower in her seat. “No.”
Laura patted her leg and then put the car into drive. But she didn’t pull forward. “You’ll be fine. It’ll be uncomfortable for a while, but I’ll be there. They’ll come around. We all want the same thing.”
“I know.”
“So, maybe ‘are you ready’ wasn’t the right question. What about, ‘Are you willing to do this even though it scares you?’”
Cassie wanted to say yes with resounding authority, but right now, she could only nod her head. Laura smiled and pulled away from the curb. She turned the corner and drove a quarter mile down Birch Street. Their parents’ house was on the left.
The sisters had grown up in Savannah, but when Laura went to college in California, their parents wanted a change of scenery. The family
