Symphony of Bones by L.T. Ryan (little bear else holmelund minarik .txt) 📕

The problem was, Senator Lawrence Grayson didn’t just look guilty.

He was guilty.

Grayson turned to his computer and pressed the button to light up the monitor. Viotto had pushed him about his relationship with his son. About the arguments they’d had in the weeks leading up to his death.

But Grayson was careful. He’d always been careful. He knew how to cover his tracks. Knew how the government worked. Knew which senators would look the other way and which senators needed a little green in the palms of their hands.

When Grayson’s desktop appeared on the monitor, he took a moment to account for all the files he had stored there. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Nothing was incriminating. He wasn’t so stupid as to store sensitive information on his office computer.

His email dinged, and he clicked on the message out of habit. He didn’t give a shit what it said, and even less so when he saw it was yet another condolence letter from one of his colleagues. They didn’t care about him or his son. So many of them had gone out of their way to tell him he needed to learn to control his son, that his son’s actions reflected poorly on the senate, that his son would be the reason Grayson would never be president.

Grayson scrolled through his emails. Dozens of them from people whose names he couldn’t even put to faces. He wondered how many genuinely pitied him, as disgusting as that was, and how many of them wanted to be able to say I reached out to you when you were in a dark place. Shouldn’t that mean something? Can I count on your vote for such-and-such?

Politics was a dirty business. And there was enough handshaking going around that ensured no one was clean.

Grayson was about to close out the window when he caught sight of a name that made his heart shudder to a stop.

Sender: Connor Grayson

Subject: Surprise

The time stamp on the message was mere hours before his death. Given the chaos surrounding his disappearance and abandoned vehicle, Grayson hadn’t seen the email come in. It was likely no one else had either. Nobody had access to this inbox, not even his secretary. Detective Davenport hadn’t asked for permission or gotten a warrant. Even that pain-in-the-ass FBI agent, Viotto, hadn’t let slip that he knew his son had reached out to him on the day of his death.

Before Grayson knew what he was doing, he dragged his cursor over to the message and clicked on it. Was he incriminating himself by looking? Would they be able to tell when he opened it? It didn’t matter. He had to know.

With his heart in his throat, Grayson scrolled down. The email was short, but far from sweet.

Got a surprise for you. Might be a day or two before you know what it is, but I wanted to make sure you knew it was coming. There’s nothing better than watching someone try to duck a bullet they can’t dodge.

You sit up there in your ivory tower like you’re better than everyone else, but you’re not. I always knew that, but now I have proof. At first, I thought about taking your money and running. You seem to have a pretty lucrative way of getting more. But I couldn’t do that to Mom. Couldn’t leave her behind.

Instead, I think I’ll watch you burn. Show her who you really are.

This could’ve been so much easier for you. You could’ve just left me alone. It would’ve been that easy to avoid this. But no—you needed me to pretend everything was perfect. That you were perfect. You should’ve known I would never lie for you.

I was never going to be the son you wanted. You should’ve accepted that years ago. Maybe then you could’ve avoided this.

Better get your shit in order. Time’s running out.

See you in a few days.

Grayson read the email from start to finish, then read it a second time.

Then a third.

By the time he finished, his palms were sweating, and his heartbeat was playing out a staccato rhythm in his chest. He understood every word of what he had just read, and yet he didn’t want to believe any of it. His first instinct was to delete the email and pretend like it had never existed.

But the internet was forever, and if Agent Viotto and his partner did a little extra investigating, it was only a matter of time before they discovered this.

Grayson’s second instinct was to call Anastasia. Apex would find out, and it was always best to bring it to their attention before they had to drag it out of you. They rewarded loyalty and proactivity. Most of their clients weren’t exactly saints.

But even Apex cut their losses at some point, and after everything he’d been through—everything he’d put them through—Grayson wasn’t willing to take that risk.

But if there was a third option, Grayson wasn’t sure what it could be. What were the chances Connor had made a threat like this and wound up dead the next day? The police had said it was a drug deal gone wrong, but the senator had a pretty good idea what Connor was threatening him with, and it was a lot worse than drugs.

With his son dead and gone, he wasn’t sure who else had that information and what they would do with it. And before he told Anastasia about their brand-new problem, he had better find a solution of his own.

The first place he looked was at the bottom of a bottle.

25

As soon as Cassie slammed the door behind her, she regretted the way she’d acted in front of her family. Laura had come to her defense, and while she’d appreciated it, Cassie’s cheeks warmed. She knew her parents had meant well, but sometimes intention didn’t matter. The pain was real.

The drive to the police station in downtown Charlotte was a blur. Cassie was on autopilot, and her mind was busy playing the scene