Page 59 of The Shield
Damn.
I walked to the door, pausing for one last look, knowing a search of the apartment or body would yield nothing. The confidence on his face, even in death, lingered in my mind, but it was his final words—Maybe you should ask your father—that I’d have to carry back to my brothers, a mystery deepening with every step into the storm.
27
NATALIE
For three days, I’d stayed quiet.
Pearl’s voice had still hummed in my head like a metronome: rest, hydrate, heal. So I had, at least as much as someone with a city flooding outside her window could have.
I had worked remotely—phone pressed to my ear, laptop balanced across my lap on the sofa—guiding volunteers and field crews. Maybelle had stationed herself at my feet like a tiny, judgmental nurse, tail flicking. She’d slept through conference calls, meowed through strategy sessions, and reminded me that she still expected dinner on time.
The storm had lingered, bloated with rain, a gray curtain draped over Charleston that refused to lift. The tides had kept flexing, punishing low blocks, seeping into houses that had already rolled dice against FEMA too many times. Market Street had still been a bowl. Huger had still hiccupped. Public Works crews had still run on sandwiches and stubbornness. I felt the city’s fatigue in my bones like phantom pain.
The media fatigue had been different—cameras and trucks camped at the end of my block, lenses trained on my frontdoor like it had been a stage waiting for a curtain to rise. They had called out questions whenever Pearl had slipped by with groceries or Owen had jogged up the steps with his laptop and a fresh map:
“Ms. Kennedy, are you running for mayor?”
“Will you talk about the kiss?”
“Is it true the Danes are bankrolling you?”
“Are you in love?”
I had ignored them. My silence had become a story in itself, panelists chewing on it like cud, speculating on whether I had been strategizing or overwhelmed or plotting my next move. The hashtags had kept skittering: #CharlestonLoveStory, #MayorMaterial.
I’d let them wait.
A woman should be able to choose her timing.
Inside, the house had turned into a quiet war room. Kimmy had set up shop at my dining table. Owen had commandeered my living room rug with cones and printouts, mapping sewer lines with a Sharpie. We had FaceTimed Huck at Public Works twice a day—he had looked older on the screen and more dangerous, the good kind—comparing pump status, reroutes, and where to drop the next mountain of sand.
Pearl had texted me at sunrise and sundown: “pee clear, brain clear,” and I had texted back proof like a teenager trying to keep her curfew. She’d started as the nurse who bossed me, but somewhere between the penlight checks and the soup she’d become a friend—the kind who didn’t need soft words to be kind, the kind who told you the truth and tucked your blanket tighter afterward.
But when the doorbell had rung late the second night and I lurched for it, my head had spiked like a bad chord. I had sat down, shaken, breathed, obeyed. I had felt the concussion likea bruise on a fruit—pretty from the right angle, tender if you poked the wrong spot. I stopped poking.
Ethan had still been gone. Every time my phone had lit, my stomach dipped like I’d missed a step. I had typed to him once each night, a breadcrumb trail made of words:I’m home. I’m good. I love you. Bubbles had never appeared.
On the fourth morning, the rain lightened—still steady, but less hammer, more hiss. The forecast said it would clear tomorrow.
I woke with a clarity I hadn’t felt since before the Jeep, the concussion fog burned away by sleep and soup and stubborn will. I showered, dressed not for comfort but for cameras: navy sheath dress, clean lines, blazer cut sharp enough to matter. My hair cooperated for once, blown dry and braided back so it wouldn’t stick to my lip gloss if the wind decided to flirt. The bear claw hung low against the fabric, weighty and sure.
Granddaddy arrived in linen, smelling faintly of bay rum and impatience. He looked me over once, grunted, and said, “You’ll do.”
“High praise,” I said, checking my phone for the fiftieth time without admitting it.
“You don’t want high praise right now,” he muttered. “You want credibility. That dress looks credible.” He eyed my shoes. “Those will regret the rotunda.”
“Noted.” I swapped for block heels with a grief I told myself was civic duty and not vanity.
Pearl fussed at me one last time on the porch. “Hydrate. Rest after. Don’t faint on the courthouse steps. It undermines the message.” Then she pressed a water bottle into my hand and shooed me forward.
When the door opened, the street erupted. Cameras rose. Microphones thrust forward. Shouts tangled. I held still a moment, letting them get their frenzy, then lifted my chin andstarted down the steps with Granddaddy at my side, his hand light on my elbow, not guiding but steadying.
“Ms. Kennedy! Are you?—”
“Natalie! Over here!”
