CATHERINE
The office was way too quiet, the kind of silence that made the hum of the fluorescent lights sound like a swarm of angry bees. I tried to lose myself in the stack of reports on my desk, but my eyes blurred, and all I could see was the cookout. Stacey’s angry face before everything went to s**t, the sharp sting of whispers turning into gasps, the accusing stares that clung to me like smoke.
The incident had replayed itself in my mind every night since, looping endlessly. It was clear someone set me up and whoever that was had done so with a purpose, and I couldn’t stop asking myself why.
To discredit me? To scare me? To shove me out of the campaign?
I hadn’t gotten any message since that day.
But if that was the goal, then they’d picked the wrong woman. I wasn’t the type to
