Page 48 of Shattered Hearts

I wait in the office that used to be my father’s, but the space is hazy in my memories. Not because of the drugs, but because I didn’t spend much time here. Zane’s changed a few things, putting up pictures of Stella everywhere. A framed photo of our parents, the same one Gage admired in our living room, sits next to one of him and Stella. The two women couldn’t be more different...or more alike. Stella’s a little more aware. Mom came from money and Stella didn’t. She notices things about the world, like the price of gasoline and sales we don’t need at the grocery store. Mom didn’t do that. She didn’t care how much it cost to fill up the car or if her favorite perfume was twenty-five percent off if she used a coupon.

Lark Maddox cared about people and she cared about making the world a better place. She believed in paying it forward. I wonder how Mom would have handled me. What she would have done if she were alive, right now. How she would’ve taken care of me.

I miss her. Her grace and beauty. She always knew what to do.

Like Stella.

My mom believed in Clayton Black, too. She gave him a chance and paid for that with her life. I wonder why she didn’t go to the police or to the FBI. I wonder why she didn’t tell Dad. He may have had the same blind faith in Clayton that Zane had in Ash, but unlike my brother, Dad would have believed Mom. They’d been married close to thirty years by then. He would have believed her.

“Yes, he would have.”

Zane steps into his office, his black wool coat flapping around his legs.

“He would have what?”

“Believed her.”

“Did I say that out loud?”

“You must have because I heard it come out of your mouth. Coffee?”

“Sure. I won’t stay long, though. I don’t want to be in your way.”

“You hardly ever visit me. You’re no bother.” He kisses the top of my head. “What were you thinking about?”

“Mom and Dad. Why Mom didn’t tell Dad what Clayton was doing.”

“We’re not sure. They were away for a wedding, and it’s possible she didn’t know what had happened. Or she thought she didn’t need to involve Dad. Either way, Clayton killed her before she could cause trouble.”

“Because she was sent an email she shouldn’t have been sent, right?”

Details like this are murky at best. The investigation started right when Zane pulled me out of Quiet Meadows, and back then, the only things I cared about were seeing Stella and Lucille and hoping to God Ash didn’t find me and drag me into hell again.

Zane settles behind his desk, picks up his phone, and asks Peggy to bring in a coffee service and reschedule his eight-thirty to nine o’clock. I open my mouth to tell him he doesn’t need to do that, but before I can, he hangs up the phone.

“Clayton accidentally CC’d her on a piece of correspondence that detailed a weapons drop off. You know he was selling guns on the black market.”

“Yes.”

“He called her and invited her to join him. She said she wouldn’t, and the pilot crashed the plane. Clayton had to kill her or Mom was going to turn him in. That part’s in the black box transcript. You can read it, if you want.”

“She didn’t tell Dad.”

“Clayton sent her that email the night before the crash. We’ll never know if she checked her email and put it aside to deal with it when they were home or if she didn’t check and she didn’t know until he called her. Maybe she thought Clayton would listen to her. Maybe she didn’t want Dad to know because it would ruin their friendship. I don’t know, Z. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Then Max showed up and helped Stella and Denton.”

“Yeah. Why are you asking?”

Peggy knocks and wheels in the coffee service. She leaves silently, closing the door behind her.

I pour a cup and add cream, and I walk around his office, the sun glittering through the windows. King’s Crossing is awakenow, the streets teeming with people on their way to work. Far into the distance, the Renegade sparkles. I wonder if Stella can look at the river and not think about being trapped on a ship, held prisoner in a cargo container. I like looking at the water. It reminds me of the weeks we were all at the Crowne. Besides being with Gage, the safest I’d ever felt since leaving Quiet Meadows was when everyone was working in Max’s suite at the hotel.

“I don’t know.”

Stella and I tried to puzzle out Max’s part in it, but Ash and Clayton are in prison, Max is dead, and Willow’s on house arrest in a bugged apartment. There could be things we won’t ever find out. Maybe I need to leave well enough alone and focus on getting better.

The only thing is, I think my recovery is linked to the past, but I don’t have the right questions to ask or the right words to explain what I mean.

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