Free Mansions Of The Dead by Sarah Stewart Taylor

still remembered the cardiologist’s raised eyebrows as he’d written out a prescription for the heart meds.
    “Six, five, four, three, two, one, calm,” he whispered quietly, then took a deep breath. His heart was still going like a rabbit’s.
    Pam had put his mail in a white plastic postal service box on the floor beneath his desk, the way he liked it. He flipped quickly through the pile, but the only thing that interested him was the white cardboard tube. He pried off the plastic cap and extracted the tightly rolled design drawings for the Back Bay project. He had been waiting for them for weeks and he felt the little charge that he always did when looking at building plans for the first time. Everything looked in order. He’d show them to his contractor and then they’d get started on the inspections as soon as possible.
    There was another knock on the door and without waiting for him to say anything, his sister came in.
    “Jesus,” she said, picking up his mug of coffee and taking a swig. “That’s about the ugliest floral display I’ve seen since Grandfather’s funeral.” She was dressed in what seemed to be her uniform these days, a dark skirt and jacket combination with a plain silk blouse underneath. He wondered if she had gone out and bought twelve of them in different colors when she’d decided to run for office. Not enough to askher, though. He only had the energy to say words that absolutely had to be said.
    “Cam,” he said, looking right at her. “We need to talk.”
    She glanced at him quickly and he saw she was afraid. “I know,” she said. She looked toward the door. “Is it . . . ”
    “It’s fine. I had it soundproofed when they did it over.”
    They were both silent for a moment, listening to the hollow, soundproofed air.
    “Has the press been all over you?”
    “Not really,” she said. “We got a couple of calls about how it would affect my schedule. If there’s been anything else, they haven’t told me.”
    “Good.” He hesitated, then said, “I went by your place last night. Where were you?”
    Again, she looked afraid. “Oh, talking strategy with Lawrence.”
    “It was midnight.” He raised his eyebrows and gave her a little grin, giving her a chance to make a joke out of it, admit she’d been out with someone. But instead she blushed.
    “I must have been asleep and didn’t hear the door,” she said. “I was wiped.”
    But your car was gone, he wanted to say. Your car wasn’t in front of the house. Instead he shrugged.
    She paced to the other side of the room and he saw how unsettled she was. “Drew, what are we going to—?”
    She was interrupted by another knock on the door and then Jack’s dark head peeking around it. He came in, carrying a huge bottle of noxious-looking green iced tea. He was wearing jeans and tan suede Birkenstocks and he had on a ripped T-shirt covered with red paint. He looked effortlessly handsome, the dark circles under his eyes adding to his bedroom-eyed appeal. Drew felt a pang of the jealousy he’d felt as a younger man when he’d bring women home and know that they’d rather be with Jack, know they were goners the second they saw him and picked up on his tortured artist vulnerability. To Jack’s credit, he had rarely taken the women up on what Drew was sure were explicitcome-ons. But it hadn’t mattered. Once they’d met Jack, Drew could predict with unerring accuracy the end of his own chances.
    Melissa had been the first one who had seemed unimpressed with Jack’s good looks. But then by the time he met Melissa, Drew was starting to realize that looks really weren’t everything, that there was a certain aura that money and power conveyed as well.
    “Hey,” Jack said, kissing Cammie on the cheek and nodding at Drew before going to sit down on the couch and taking a long drink from his iced tea. He’d been drinking the night before. Drew recognized the signs, his bloodshot eyes, the way he leaned carefully back on