Chapter 89

DRAKE Amber has a way of looking at people so intensely that they usually do whatever she wants without noticing they’ve been manipulated. It’s a combination of charm, insistence, and sheer force of personality. I’ve seen grown men come away from encounters with my sister-in-law shaking their heads, wondering why they just agreed to do something they had no intention of doing. I’ve completed a study of the Amber Effect during the years I’ve known her, and recently, I realized what it is. She doesn’t blink. Well, obviously she does—she’s a human being, not a lizard—but she blinks less frequently than most of us, and when she does, it’s a slow and sweeping gesture that makes you gaze at her long eyelashes in wonder. Personally, I think it’s a type of hypnosis. Right now, for example, she’s telling me how much I should be wanting to help the retired clowns and carnies of the USA. I mean, it sounds ridiculous, right? Elijah and I sat in that gritty Irish pub and laughed about this exact th