Page 57 of Plain Sight

“You guys seem very…awake.” I don’t have a leg to stand on. If it weren’t for Robin, I’d be all jitters. As it stands, I’m jittery on the inside, but I’m not letting it reach my limbs. I’m not going to let this bother a sweet little baby, who is always surrounded by so much love. “Do you always stay up all night?”

“Me?” Nate points to his chest. “I was sleeping like an angel. Then I heard Gabriel went to be a superhero again. I didn’t want to miss that.”

Lydia looks like she’s trying not to smile. “Yeah. I was asleep too.”

“Sure you were,” Elise says. She gives me a hug, mindful of the baby, then goes to give Charlotte a hug, too. “We’re here for you, Lily. We’re here to wait with you until the guys get back. I know they’ll be back before we know it. Well, not, like, before we know it, but sooner than we think. I hope.”

My stomach does a swoop and a roll. Holding Robin is having the most calming influence, but my heart rate does go up. I have to concentrate harder to keep the jitters on the inside. It doesn’t help that I can picture our Cobble Hill street so vividly. I know exactly what Jameson would look like approaching my grandfather’s house to⁠—

To—

“Um.” My voice wobbles. “Oh, that’s—I’m okay, I should say, first—I’m—I’m pretty worried that Jameson went to kill my grandfather.”

Charlotte turns around from the kettle. “Mason and Gabriel won’t let him do that.”

“What if they’re too late?”

“They won’t be.” Charlotte’s firm, as if she can make this true by saying it definitively. “Life is going to be hard for your grandfather anyway, but Mason will not let Jameson become a murderer.”

“Why?” I breathe as deep as I can with my throat all pinched and panicky. “Because of the wedding? Or the charges? Or—or all of it?”

Charlotte squares her shoulders.

“Jameson’s been spending a lot of time at Phoenix doing research. And collecting documents.” She still sounds so sunshiny, even as she tells me this news in the middle of the night, in pajama pants and a T-shirt, with her husband rushing to Cobble Hill to stop his brother from killing my grandfather. “Jameson’s assistant noticed the work he was doing and happened to see some printed emails—something like that—and brought them to Mason in case it was something he needed to know about. So Mason started looking into things.

“Wow,” I whisper. “I didn’t see that coming.”

A smile flashes onto Charlotte’s face, then dims. “He kept it to himself. Mason didn’t want to upset Jameson, or make him think he was snooping. He was snooping, technically, but

“He asked his friends to help him with sorting through all the documents. Tracking everything down.” Charlotte runs a hand over her hair. “Mason hadn’t wanted to comb through all those records back when my parents were⁠—”

She looks away and takes a deep breath.

“I understand.” I don’t understand all of how she feels, but when Jameson was recovering from the rogue cops incident, there was a lot of downtime that we spent talking. The consortium started crumbling when Charlotte’s dad died, and afterward, Mason wanted to move on. I don’t blame either of them for that. I wish it had been possible to leave it behind for real. Charlotte faces me again. She’s not quite smiling, but she doesn’t look upset. “For…all the reasons, now’s the time.”

“Yes. Between them, they’ve found quite a bit of evidence that…” Charlotte hesitates. This part isn’t sunshiny.

“That my grandfather is the worst? We already knew that.”

Charlotte grimaces. “That he’s…very, very corrupt. He used his position on the bench wildly inappropriately. From what I understand, he violated the code of ethics on, like, a lot of occasions and broke several laws.”

“Damn,” says Nate.

“I’m sorry about the timing, truly.” Charlotte’s blue eyes are wide and sincere, and I’m glad it’s her telling me this while I still have a chance to collect myself. “Mason wanted us all to sit down and talk about it, but we ran out of time.”

“That’s my fault.” My voice is wobbly again. “I should have known it wasn’t a dream.”

“It’s not your fault,” Elise says from her spot at the table. “And what’s done is done. We’re going to figure out the rest together, as a team.”

“Go team!” Nate shouts, thrusting his fist in the air. “I love this team!”

Lydia bites her lip and pulls Nate’s hand down. Robin sleeps through it. Maybe he’s already used to random outbursts from family members.

Elise pats his forearm. “This might not be the best time for jokes, Nate.”

“I wasn’t joking. I do love this team. I’m being so fucking serious. Lily should know that.”

“Nate! There are delicate ears in this room!” says Elise.