I wait, because Brooke has the rest of the plan ready.
“While she’s on the campaign trail, she’s going to have to get her makeup done in a trailer or something. We take her from there. We take her out to a lake. We dump her body.”
I watch her as she says it. Her voice stays calm and calculated.
Travis swallows. “You want a location with water and no people.”
Brooke turns to him. “Can you pull up where exactly the event is going to be?”
Travis moves his thumb fast again. The map loads. He zooms, scrolls, and tilts the screen like he is reading the terrain with his eyes.
“There’s a lake a couple of miles out from there,” Travis says. “It looks secluded on the map. There’s a narrow access road and not much around it.”
Brooke’s mouth twitches. “Perfect.”
We put the plan into motion.
The lot the next morning is full of people who look busy and tired. Lighting crews adjust panels. Sound guys argue about levels. Staff walk fast with clipboards and radios. Everyone has a lanyard and a purpose.
We get lucky.
Kristie wants to look accessible, relatable. Boots-on-the-ground leadership. So instead of booking a suite at some five-star hotel, she opts to stay on the campaign bus overnight between stops.
Optics over safety.
It makes her easier to kill.
By the time we return to the crowd, Kristie is already at the microphone, and her voice is climbing.
The crowd is small but loud. Local press, bored college students, a few diehard supporters sweating through their red-white-and-blue polos. The kind of crowd that makes campaign managers nervous. Too small for someone running a national redemption tour. Too few bodies to drown out the wrong question.
Kristie Talbert stands on a makeshift stage under a banner with her name printed in bold serif and bullshit. Stars and Stripes with slogans that mean nothing. Her handlers have polished everything. Flags on both sides, lighting soft, podium centered like it gives her authority.
She looks exactly like the kind of woman who has spent decades in country clubs and closed-door fundraisers. Auburn hair styled into a smooth, shoulder-length blowout that barely shifts in the wind. Pearls at her throat. Navy sheath dress cut modest and expensive. Mid-fifties, polished, the kind of matriarch voters find reassuring. Her makeup is flawless. Her smile is not.
It stretches too tight across her teeth. Her jaw works slightly before each answer. She looks composed, but it's effort. I can see the strain even from here.
I stand next to Brooke under the shadow of a tree, baseball cap low, sunglasses on. Beau leans against the trunk beside us, arms crossed, chewing gum.
“I’ve seen school assemblies with better turnout,” Beau mutters.
Brooke doesn’t look away from the stage. “Don’t jinx it.”
Kristie takes the mic again, voice syrupy with practiced charm. “Thank you all for coming out,” she says. “Despite the media’s appetite for distortion, I’m grateful for the voters who still value facts over fiction.”
“Here we fucking go,” I say under my breath.
The press asks a few planted questions. Softballs. “What inspired your national safety initiative?”
“How do you respond to recent criticisms?”
She swats them away with rehearsed empathy and vague language about unity, reform, and restoring trust.
Then a younger reporter steps forward. He looks nervous. He clutches his mic too tight.
“Mayor Talbert,” he says, voice unsteady, “do you still stand by your statements that your son was innocent, given the allegations from Brooke Sinclair and the evidence recovered in Stratford?”
Kristie’s smile freezes for half a second before settling back into place.
