Chapter 1 #2
I’m standing in the center of a courtroom. My father is on the bench, towering twenty feet above. The jury box is filled with dead, rotting flowers—black roses, withered lilies, brown hydrangeas. They are screaming at me, but they have no mouths.
My father raises a gavel made of bone.
Guilty, he booms.
He brings the gavel down. CRACK.
I spring upright in bed, gasping for air. My sheets are tangled around my legs, damp with cold sweat.
I glance at the digital clock on the nightstand.
2:03 a.m.
It’s just a nightmare. The nightmare. A familiar foe.
It’s not real. None of it is real.
I fall back onto the pillows, staring at the ceiling shadows. My thoughts spin out, the adrenaline from the dream bleeding into reality. The day’s checklist cycles through my mind with feverish intensity.
Tablecloths pressed? Yes. Lighting cues set? Yes. Vegetarian options confirmed? Yes. VIP Study Centerpiece? Yes.
I frown into the darkness.
I wanted the VIP Study to be masculine but striking.
Senator Caldwell and my father are having a private scotch tasting there before the speeches.
It’s a small, intimate room with dark mahogany walls and no open windows, the air controlled to protect the books.
I needed something that would pop against the wood.
So I chose lilies.
Asiatic Lilies. Deep orange, bordering on rust.
A cold sweat breaks across the back of my neck. I reach for my phone on the nightstand, the blue light blinding me for a second. I unlock it and open my email, searching for the updated guest dossier sent by the Senator’s team just this afternoon.
Caldwell. Senator. Dietary Restrictions.
I scroll past “Gluten Sensitivity” and “No Shellfish.”
My fingers halt on the screen.
Nausea twists my stomach.
MEDICAL ALERT: Severe anaphylaxis. TRIGGER: Lilium (true lilies). Airborne sensitivity. Immediate intubation required.
I drop the phone. It hits the duvet with a muffled thump.
Lilies.
I put a vase of twenty Asiatic Lilies in a twelve-by-twelve room with no fresh air.
Asiatic Lilies are notorious. When they open, the anthers burst, releasing a sticky, rust-colored pollen. It stains everything. It travels in the air.
If the Senator walks into that room...
I picture it vividly. His throat closing. The gasping for air. The EpiPen failing. The ambulance sirens wailing over the string quartet while my father watches his Supreme Court nomination die on a stretcher.
Senator Dead at Hale Gala.
“No,” I whisper, scrambling out of bed. “No, no, no.”
The flowers were tight buds at four o’clock. But in the trapped heat of the study, they will have opened by now. If Marcus skipped the anthers to go on break, the air in that room is already toxic.
I dial Marcus.
Ring... Ring... Ring...
“You have reached the voicemail of—”
I hang up and dial again. My hands are shaking so badly that I almost drop the phone.
Pick up. Please, pick up.
Voicemail again.
I pace the bedroom floor. Can I wait? The morning cleaning crew arrives at 6:00 a.m.
No. By 6:00 a.m, the pollen will have settled on the mahogany table, on the velvet armchairs. It’s oily. If the cleaners try to wipe it, it smears into an indelible yellow stain. And the air—the air will be toxic to him.
If I wait, I risk everything. I risk the nomination. I risk my father’s wrath.
Do not let a wilted petal embarrass this family.
I cannot be the reason he fails. I cannot be the disappointment.
I strip off my silk pajamas and scramble into black leggings and a thick cashmere sweater.
Without bothering to wear a bra, I shove my feet into sneakers and snatch my keys, sliding my driver’s license into my waistband pocket just in case security asks for ID.
On my way to the door, I sweep up the vase of white Hydrangeas from the dining table—a safe, pollen-free replacement.
And then I run.
The city is surreal at 2:30 a.m.
It’s raining—a light, miserable drizzle that smears the streetlights across my windshield. The roads are empty. I drive too fast, running a yellow light on 5th Avenue, my hands clamped onto the steering wheel with a bruising grip.
The radio is off. The only sound is the scrape of the wipers pushing rain off the glass.
You’re stupid, a voice in my head whispers. You should have checked the list again. How could you be so careless?
As I pull up to the rear of the Waldorf Museum, the building looms out of the mist like a fortress. High above, the stone gargoyles sit judging me.
Skirting the building toward the service lane, I park beside the dumpsters and kill the ignition. The engine dies, leaving only the sound of the rain hitting the metal roof.
I grab the vase of hydrangeas from the passenger seat, clutching it to my chest as I step out into the rain, the cold drops stinging my face.
I run to the steel service door. There is a keypad mounted on the brick. A small red light blinks rhythmically in the darkness.
LOCKED.
I don’t have the night vendor code. I’m not supposed to be here.
But I have his code.
My father is the Chairman of the Museum Board. He gave me his overriding security code years ago for “Life or Death Emergencies Only.” It pings the overnight desk as a Chairman entry, the kind they don’t challenge unless an alarm follows.
Is this life or death?
I think of the Senator choking. I think of my father’s face if I ruin this.
Yes.
My finger hovers over the keypad, still shaking. If I do this, I’m breaking the rules. But if I don’t, I’m destroying the legacy. Hell, correcting the mistake could kill a man. A senator.
I punch in the numbers.
6 - 7 - 2 - 9 - 0 - #
The keypad beeps loudly in the alleyway.
Buzz.
The red light turns green. A clunk echoes from inside the door as the magnetic locks disengage.
I exhale sharply.
“Okay,” I whisper to the rain. “Just fix it. Swap the vase. Wipe the table. Leave. Ten minutes.”
I pull the steel handle. The door groans as it opens, revealing the dark service corridor.
I step inside the building to fix my mistake.