My vision blurs, and I wipe away the tears. I walk overto her as she kneels down on the floor like she’s no longer capable of standing. I crouch down in my heels, my hand resting on her shoulder.
She slaps it away.
Then retreats back into herself and cries.
“It was a single shot,ma’am. The coroner will have a report ready by the end of the week.” Wilson, the head of Dad’s security, glances down at Mom. His dark skin crinkles ever so slightly around his lips towards a frown, but that’s all the expression he shows.
She’s slumped but sitting on the couch, tears silently rolling down her makeup-smeared cheeks. Beige and black and pink all smudge in splotchy patches, and for the first time, I’m seeing Mom without a mask. This is the real Grace Fox.
“Did you catch them?” I ask from a stiff plastic chair in the corner—as far away as I can be to give her space. The Secret Service wouldn’t let us leave the room. I know Mom doesn’t want to look at me.
Is it because of my existence, or because I’ve always resembled him? When I was a kid, I loved having the same shade of blue eyes as Dad. Paige’s were a murky brown like Mom’s, and she tried to tease me over the color of my eyes—but even as a kid, I knew she was jealous.
“The suspect’s still at large,” Wilson says. “We have several leads, and the Vice President has authorized a search. We’re working with local police as well.”
“Where are our phones?” I ask. Part of me wants to see the news headlines, though I’m terrified of the images thatmight be posted online.What if someone has a picture of Dad getting shot?Not after his speech, not him collapsing, but the actual bullet ripping through his skull.
But I need to talk to Tristan. Does he know? Has he heard the news?
And my stomach rolls, asking the question I don’t think I want the answer to.
Did he kill Dad?
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
TRISTAN
“The presidentof the United States has been shot.” The reporter’s voice wobbles as his eyes deadpan at the camera. His red-rimmed eyes steal the breath from my lungs as his words permeate the edges of my brain like fire creeping up paper.
Grover Fox is dead.
“Daphne.” Her name releases from my throat like a choke. Time crawls as I dig into the pocket of my jeans, almost ripping the seams in haste.
No calls. No texts. I try calling her, but it rings. And rings. And goes to voicemail.
I text her to call me, but after two minutes of silence, I can’t handle the unknown closing in on me like a nightmare.
I skim through news articles, but this story is so new that it’s a loop of the same video broadcast on repeat—Grover standing at the podium before his head is pixelated with bits of red across his forehead. He stumbles behind the podium before swarms of Secret Service in black suits surround President Fox and the First Lady.
But where the fuck is Daphne? All of those cameras, and not a single person caught an angle with her?
A sob racks through my chest and restarts my heart from a picture posted on Instagram with Daphne and her mom being swamped by security before being escorted quickly behind a curtain.
She’s alright. At least, from what I can see, she’s alive.
I should have gone. Fuck, I should have been there for her. Some psycho’s been after her, and I trusted her safety to the useless Secret Service. I could have lost her.
While I spent the day trying to locate Ghost, he was planning a murder.
Was Grover his target all along? Or is Daphne still in danger?
Another Instagram image pops up, and Daphne’s standing beside her mother, a few feet away from the President.
She was close. Close enough that, if the assassin had worse aim, he could have hit her.
Or he could have targeted her and…
My gut lurches, and I barely make it to the bathroom in time before the contents of my stomach paint the inside of my toilet bowl. Sweat chills my forehead and the back of my neck. I slump beside the toilet like some hungover drunk.
