f you’d been abducted by aliens, you’d tell me, right?”

My mom’s greeting almost made me smile—almost, because I had deep and abiding suspicions that unlike the smattering of communication I’d had with her since she’d taken off, this conversation was going to involve the kind of questions I couldn’t dodge.

“It would probably depend on the circumstances surrounding my abduction,” I replied, pulling my car—a beater I’d refuse to let ­Lillian replace—into a parking spot in front of a large white building. “How likely I thought I was to be believed,” I elaborated. “Whether or not the aliens in question had a taste for human flesh…”

I’d clearly spent way too much time around John David in the past month.

“Sawyer.” My mom’s voice was uncharacteristically serious. “Where are you?”

I turned the question back around on her. “Where are you?”

“I’m at home,” my mom replied. “Our home—and all of your stuff is gone.”

“If I’d been abducted by aliens, it’s highly unlikely that they would have allowed me to pack first.”

I could practically see my mom rolling her eyes. “I would like to remind you that I have a Mom Voice, missy. I don’t use it often, but I can and I will.”

I’d missed her. Why was it that I never let myself register that fact until she came back?

“I went by the garage,” my mom continued. “Big Jim said you don’t work there anymore.”

“I haven’t worked there for two months.” If she hadn’t just spent two months who-knows-where with a guy she’d met at a bar, she would have known that. “I got a better offer.”

The term better was a stretch. It had been a little over six weeks since I’d come to live with my grandmother. Six weeks of playing debutante. A full month since Campbell had stopped lying low and started lording her power over us at every turn.

“What kind of offer?” my mom asked suspiciously.

I’d known from the moment I’d signed Lillian’s contract that I’d have to come clean eventually. As absentminded as my mom could be—as absent as she’d sometimes been since I turned eighteen—there was no way I could hide my location for nine months.

I eased into the truth as best I could. “I found a way to pay for college.” That, at least, would make my mom happy. “A nine-month contract. After this, I’m set.”

“Please tell me what you’re doing is legal.”

I let out a long breath. “Lillian’s lawyers assure me it is.”

One second of silence. Two seconds. Three…

“Sawyer, please tell me that your pimp’s name is Lillian.”

“Mom!”

“You’re working for my mother?” Ellie Taft was known for going with the flow. She’d never sounded as much like Lillian as she did right now.

“Not working, exactly,” I said. “More like… debutante-ing.”

“You’re a Deb.” My mom paused. “Your grandmother is paying you to…”

She trailed off in horror.

“Pretty much,” I said.

The rest of the conversation went about like I’d imagined. My mother could not fathom why I would have taken Lillian up on her deal, and also, did I not realize that my mother’s mother was manipulation personified and wrapped in a St. John suit?

“It really hasn’t been that bad,” I said. Aside from the blackmail, obligatory brunches, and lack of progress on identifying my father.

“You’re not doing this for the money, Sawyer. Don’t try to tell me that you are.”

The door to the large white building opened, and a familiar figure stepped out.

“I have to go,” I told my mother. “And you have to make your way back to The Holler and beg for your job back. The apartment’s paid through next month. Nonperishable groceries are in the cabinet.”

“As your mom, it’s my sworn duty to tell you that this is a bad idea.”

On the bright side, I replied silently, it’s not the worst idea I’ve had lately.

After I hung up, I slipped out of the car and approached the man who was waiting for me.

“Senator.” I offered my hand.

He took it. “Miss Taft,” he said. “Welcome to the campaign.”

Given that Senator Ames was only halfway through his term, it wasn’t much of a campaign yet, but six weeks without answers—and four weeks under Campbell’s thumb—was my limit. I wasn’t wired to sit around and do nothing. When I’d floated the idea of getting a job by Lillian, she’d offered me two options: Uncle J.D.’s investment firm and volunteering.

It wasn’t my fault that when my grandmother uttered the word volunteering, she thought Junior League, and when I heard it, I thought… access.

The day after the party at Katharine Riley’s house, I’d surrendered the key we’d stolen from Campbell’s locker to her possession. I’d also made a copy. The fact that she’d wanted it back was proof enough that there was leverage to be had, and the sooner we found it, the better.

Meanwhile, Boone had proven to be a pretty sorry detective. All he’d been able to tell me about his uncle, the senator, was that nineteen years ago, Sterling Ames had been a law student and already married to Walker and Campbell’s mother. In fact, based on the intel I’d gathered in the past few weeks, all four of the men on my list had been married at the time of my conception.

In other words: No matter how this shook out, my sire was a cheating cheater who cheated.

“Walker will show you the ropes.” The senator, who’d been giving me a tour of his office space, got my attention the moment he said his son’s name. My master plan in coming here wasn’t what one would call defined. I wanted to get a bead on Sterling Ames. I wanted to figure out what kind of man he was, and if I found something that let me counteract Campbell’s increasingly ridiculous demands—that we hand-wash her car twice a week, that Lily decline a nomination for student council president, that Sadie-Grace stop using conditioner of any kind in her hair—all the better.

Campbell’s brother was an unexpected complication.

“Welcome to the trenches, Sawyer Taft.” There was an edge of humor—or something like it—in Walker’s tone. “I had no idea you were politically inclined.”

Allow me to translate, I thought. You weren’t expecting to see me here, and you don’t particularly want to be here yourself. I was willing to bet big money that when Walker had dropped out of college, the senator hadn’t given him much choice about “volunteering.”

“How are you at fetching coffee?” Walker asked me. “Personally, I consider it my calling in life.”

“Walker,” his father scolded fondly. I thought back to what Campbell had said about everyone loving her brother, but didn’t get the chance to ruminate on the relationship between father and son, because Walker was standing directly in front of his dad’s office, and inside that office, nearly obscured from my line of sight, was a safe.

The kind you opened with a key.