I say this because it’s true, and because I want her to know someone is expecting me to come back this time.

* * *

“Ma’am, would you mind spreading your legs?”

“I very well would mind,” I snap.

I’m not sure what I’m more annoyed about—the fact that I’ve been called ma’am two dozen times in ten minutes or that this female agent has the audacity to ask to frisk me.

I turn to Madeline. “You already made me leave my phone in the car. Is the pat down necessary?”

We both fling our heads to the double doors when they open.

“Oh, for god’s sake. Just let her in.”

Miss. Congeniality backs off at my mother’s order. It doesn’t even matter that she’s First Lady. Candice Montgomery could get a pit bull to drop a lamb chop with a simple, well-to-do scolding.

“Come in, darling.”

I wince.

Madeline enters the suite before me and sits on a couch. She motions for me to join her, but I don’t want to, which is wild considering there used to be a time when I was so in love with Madeline that I’d call for her in the middle of the night if I were scared of a sweeping shadow.

“Maddy!”

The shriek I hear in my head—the way my own voice pierces my ears—is different though. When I screamed her name like that, I wasn’t seven and afraid of a ghost. I was seventeen and afraid for my life.

Inside my boots, I curl my toes, trying to anchor myself into the plush carpet, as my eyes flit around the suite. The decor here reminds me of my mother, of the two grand sitting rooms in Captain’s Cottage I was only allowed in when invited. More often than not, it was for an interview.

Parker, what’s something you want America to know about your father?

My answer as a kid is far different than my answer now.

He’s a monster.

And if they asked me now about my mother?

She’s even worse.

I eye the fresh flowers on the coffee table. There’s another vase on the sideboard by the dining table. And another in the corner. Lilies have always been my mother’s favorite. It doesn’t surprise me to find them wherever she is.

“Who died?”

It’s a question Honey would never miss the opportunity to ask. Anytime she walked into a room at Captain’s Cottage and found a vase of lilies, she’d ask why my mother was so keen on turning the house into a funeral parlor. Honey never hid her distaste for anyone, not these kinds of flowers or her daughter-in-law.