Chapter 1
Someone Good
Melissa
Friday, June 5th
Melissa Brandt had shaken forty-three hands in the past two hours, and her smile was starting to feel like a mask that had been glued on crooked.
The Redwood Hollow Community Center was packed for the Friday breakfast event. Local business owners and retirees and young families crammed around folding tables, paper plates piled with scrambled eggs and fruit cups, the low hum of conversation bouncing off the linoleum floors. Morning sunlight streamed through the tall windows, warm for early June, promising a day that would have families heading to Ridgeline Lake by noon.
Melissa had dressed carefully this morning: charcoal blazer over a dove-grey silk blouse, her dark hair swept back in its usual low twist, not a strand out of place despite the humidity already building outside. At forty-two, she’d learned that appearance was armor, and she wore hers like a second skin: the subtle pearlearrings, the neutral lipstick, the posture that made her five-foot-nine frame seem even taller. Cool, composed, untouchable—exactly as intended.
She moved through the crowd, asking after grandchildren and business ventures and the potholes on Adams Street that apparently hadn't been filled since the last ice age.
Smile. Nod. Pivot. Repeat.
“Senator Brandt, wonderful to see you—”
“The zoning committee still hasn’t gotten back to us about—”
“My daughter just graduated from Oregon State. I was hoping you might—”
Melissa fielded each approach with the same measured warmth, the same attentive tilt of her head, the same promise to “absolutely look into that” or “have my office follow up.” It wasn’t a lie, though she knew some things would have priority over others. Such were politics.
In the far corner of the room, near the folding tables laden with fruit cups and mini muffins, Lila sat with a coloring book and a juice box.
Melissa’s gaze kept drifting there between conversations. Her daughter was bent over her page with fierce concentration, her dark hair currently in the messy braid she’d attempted herself that morning. She looked small against the institutional beige of the walls, her bright yellow sundress a spot of color in the sea of business casual. Her grey-blue eyes, so like Melissa’s, were focused on her drawing. Every few minutes, she’d glance up, scanning the room until she found Melissa, confirming she was still there, before returning to her markers.
She shouldn’t have to check that I’m here. As if I’d forget her…
“Senator Brandt?”
Melissa snapped back to the woman in front of her, a retired teacher whose name was either Margaret or Marjorie. “I’m so sorry, you were saying?”
“Just that we’re all so proud of what you’re doing with that infrastructure bill. My grandson lives out in Pinecrest, and they still don’t have reliable internet. Can you imagine? In this day and age?”
“It’s exactly why we’re pushing so hard for broadband expansion,” Melissa said. “Rural communities deserve the same access as everyone else.”
“Indeed.” The woman nodded toward Lila. “Such a well-behaved daughter you have, by the way. So quiet. You must be very proud.”
The compliment landed wrong, the way it always did. Melissa kept her smile intact. “She’s wonderful, yes.”
She’s quiet because she’s learned not to ask for much.
Margaret drifted away, and Melissa used the opening to check her phone. Three texts from her aide about the afternoon’s schedule. One from Rachel that just said:
You owe me brunch.
She shouldn’t have cancelled on Rachel last minute yesterday, but things had come up.
They always did.
“Senator Brandt.” A male voice, smooth and unpleasant. “That is quite the ambitious proposal you’ve put forward.”
Melissa looked up into the face of Warren Holt, Thornfield Development’s pet lobbyist. He was smiling with too many teeth, his suit too expensive for a community breakfast in Redwood Hollow.
“Mr. Holt.” She didn’t offer her hand. “I didn’t realize you were coming.”
