A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)(12)

At least, that’s what I want to think. Because if my own father isn’t experiencing any kind of doubt or concern on the inside right now, on my first full day since coming home for the first time in four years since the attack on me, then I need to re-evaluate everything I know about love.

“I’ll be fine.” I pretend to yawn. “I plan to spend the day going on a nice run, seeing Mom, organizing my room, and getting ready for whatever comes next.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Daddy loves plans. He worships his to-do lists. He hates winging it. Of course, when you have Anya organizing your every move, and you’re a two-term United States Senator, you can think your success comes from being overly scripted.

But that’s not important. What is important is this: I think he’s no longer worried. The more I deflect and make him think I’m fine, the sooner he’ll give me more freedom.

And I need all the freedom I can get, because after a few days, it will be time to enact my plan.

Daddy doesn’t know I have plans, too.

Plans that have nothing to do with him.

“It is a plan, Daddy,” I say, smiling while I talk. I learned that on the Internet, in some article I read. You sound happy if you smile while you talk. Confidence radiates out from the tone that comes with a smile. I hope it works.

A sudden flash of memory, like a picture in my mind, makes me gasp. The vulture. The vulture, shoving the grey dress down my throat. Tiny beads of sweat break out on my chest and I feel my breath quickening.

No. Not now.

“Lindsay? Are you all right?” he asks. “Your voice sounds strange, suddenly.”

“Just stretching,” I huff, trying to tell the flopping twelve pound bass that is burrowing in under my collar bone to stop moving. “Getting ready to run. Gotta go. Love you.”

“Love you—”

I push end call and slowly slide to the floor, the warm carpet against my back more soothing than any meditation chant. One skill they taught me at the island: how to brace myself during a panic attack.

Maybe I did learn more than deceit during my four years there. Huh. Who knew?

My phone rings again. It’s set to that old fashioned ring tone, like the kind in those 1970s movies Mom makes me watch sometimes, with the rotary phones. I need to change that to something more hip, but right now I have double vision and it feels like my scalp is on fire. First things first.

Stop the panic attack.

then

Change the ring tone.

“Yes?” I muster as much strength as I can for the call, because chances are good it’s my father again.

“Honey, I almost forgot,” he says, as if we hadn’t hung up at all. “We need to have a meeting tomorrow morning. You and I. Breakfast, at nine am, in my office.”

“In Washington?” I choke out.

He laughs. “Good lord, no. I’ll be home late tonight. You know I hate to spend any more time here in D.C. than I have to.”

Click.

The room spins, and not because I’m actually dizzy. Meeting. Breakfast. Tomorrow at 9am. I stand and search the desk for a piece of paper to write that on, then stop. I stare at the phone in my hand.

I have so much to relearn, I think, as I open the Calendar app and teach myself how to enter the appointment in the app.

I’m also very, very aware that while this is my phone, it’s not my private phone. Everything I say, everything I do, every tap and swipe is being monitored by someone. Maybe Daddy. Perhaps Drew. More likely, it’s someone I’ve never met, who is being paid to make sure I stay within the lines Daddy wants to keep me in.

And that’s life, right? As long as I paint within the lines I’ll earn my gold star. Four years ago, someone dragged my bloody body across those lines and made a big, huge mess on the canvas called life. None of that was my fault, but I’ve been held responsible for it for four years.

I’m still being held accountable for it.

But that’s all about to change.





Chapter 10





One of the best tips I picked up on the island is this morning drink called Bulletproof Coffee. You mix hot coffee, unsalted butter, and this weird brain-building oil and drink it on an empty stomach. The island staff claimed it helped to boost endorphins and elevate neurotransmitters and a whole bunch of biochemical neurochemistry blah blah blah that never made sense to me, but I did know one thing:

I felt great on the mornings when I drank it after waking up, and then went for a run.

Connie, the woman who runs the kitchen, is new to me. She’s short and plump, with greying, chin-length hair, and she wears square, fashionable glasses with red frames. Her apron is red and has nothing on it. Not a single stain. I only know who she is because as I walk into the kitchen, she looks up and walks toward me like a drill sergeant who finds an errant recruit wandering around an Army base.

“Connie,” she says, shaking my hand like it’s an old-fashioned water pump. “So nice to meet you, Lindsay.”

“Thanks. You too.” I don’t ask what happened to Michelle, the former kitchen manager. I’m sure my mother fired her. Household staff rotate through the compound like balls on a roulette wheel.

“What can I get you?” she asks.

“I can get my own, thanks. I just need a blender.” I smile, trying to put her at ease. She’s tense and aware, but not in an anxious way. She’s like a general.