But my eyes stay fixed on the road. On the way the landscape changes, growing more manicured with every mile.
More controlled.
The Ashfords have owned this land for generations.
Old Virginia money, the kind that builds libraries and hospital wings and expects the town to be grateful.
Gracie's father was a congressman before he died. Heart attack, five years after their mother's accident.
Left everything to his son.
Tohim.
The gates appear around a bend.
Wrought iron. Stone pillars. They swing open as Gracie approaches, some invisible system recognizing her car, and my stomach clenches so hard I taste bile.
"Fancy," I manage.
"Elias upgraded security a few years back." She shrugs like it's nothing. "He's very into privacy."
I'll bet he is.
The driveway winds through grounds so perfect they look artificial.
Rolling lawns trimmed to identical height.
Old oaks draped with Spanish moss like something from a gothic novel. Flower beds arranged in patterns that probably cost more than my parents' house.
Beautiful.
And wrong.
I can feel it in my bones, the same wrongness I felt before every ambush, every IED, every moment the world was about to split apart. This place looks like a garden.
It feels like a trap.
Then the house comes into view.
My hands go numb on the door handle.
It's bigger than I remember.
Sprawling white colonial, columns and porches and windows glittering in the late afternoon sun.
The kind of house that ends up in magazines.
The kind that whispersold money, old power, old secrets buried so deep no one will ever find them.
"Home sweet home." Gracie pulls around the circular drive. "Well, not home. Guest house is around back. But you remember the place, right?"
I remember.
I remember sneaking through these halls at sixteen, giggling with Gracie about nothing, pretending I didn't feel watched.
I remember sitting on the porch drinking lemonade, pretending I didn't notice him in the window. Pretending my skin didn't prickle every time he walked into a room.
I remember the garden.
