Page 17 of The Princess and the Fraud

The last cover I’d ever uploaded was one week before Mom passed, but I refused to watch it. I knew what it was, though. The same piece I’d told Aaron was my favorite to play. Elgar’s Concerto.

It was the last time I’d performed, too. After I’d packed the instrument away that day, I never picked it up again.

The last time I’d felt whole.

“Méditation’s” five-and-a-half-minute piece began its descent, the final notes deepening, swelling—filling every corner of my apartment, every inch of my lungs. I held my breath, the music itself taking over for me. Each note lingered like an echo until the bow whispered across the ending string. The YouTube video ended, leaving behind only the hush of my own heartbeat and the weight of the renewed silence.

The breath I drew in was gasping.What do I do?I thought, hoping that if Mom was out there, she’d hear me.Tell me what to do.

But no answer found me where I sat on the floor, amongst dreams I couldn’t seem to reach, neither hers nor mine.

I didn’t move for a long, long time.

CHAPTERFOUR

“The Staff Princess didn’t get her beauty sleep last night, hmm?”

I straightened from the water station in the Alderton-Du Ponte lobby, my bottle half filled. Caroline, wearing one of her favorite tennis outfits, strode up with her own uncapped bottle. She’d pulled her light hair into a high pony with a few loose pieces framing her face, looking more like she was going to a magazine shoot than tennis practice.

At her side came Annalise, wearing a zip-up over her tennis dress, her blonde hair in a braid down her back. “Don’t be mean,” she scolded Caroline, eyes settling on me. “I think you look nice, Lovey.”

“Could’ve brushed her ponytail a little,” Caroline murmured, but with a smile.

“You two really have a good-cop-bad-cop routine down,” I threw back with an affectionate eye roll. I propped my bottle back under the water sensor. “Playing tennis together this morning?”

“Bright and early.” Annalise gave me a look, and I noticed how pale she looked. “Reallyearly for someone who’s still running on California time.”

“Hey, I’m trying to get you adapted as fast as possible.” Caroline leaned against the wall beside the fountain. “What day is this?”

It took me a long second to recall. “Sunday.”

“I mean, what day of shifts is this? Six?”

I pressed my lips together and focused on my slow-filling water bottle. “Eight.”

“Eight days in a row, Lovey?” She let out a loud sigh. “With the rate you’re developing wrinkles, you’ll probably look like you’re in your seventies at forty.”

“Caroline, don’t say?—”

I cut Annalise off. “I can relax when I’m dead.”

Annalise gasped. “Don’t say that.”

I pulled my now-full bottle from the water fountain, and Caroline set hers underneath the sensor. “You’re not… mad at me. Right?”

I blinked, really struggling to keep up. I couldn’t tell if it was the lack of sleep or if she really was bouncing all over the place. “Mad at you? About what?”

“For not telling you Annalise was coming home.”

I glanced between the two of them, immediately on edge. Last night, amid my mini spiral about 1442 Everview Road, that thought about Caroline and Annalise had come up. Briefly. Not that I was mad at Caroline specifically, but it was the same thing I’d felt back in June. Left out. Forgotten.

I’d hated myself for feeling that way.Left out.Ridiculous.

“I wanted to surprise you,” Annalise insisted, expression earnest. “I wanted to see the look on your face?—”

“Well,I’mmad at Annalise for not mentioning she was bringing along Aaron Astor.” Caroline shot her a look.

“It’s more like we tagged along with him. He was already coming out here for the charity.”

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