Page 57 of Shattered Hearts

“Gage—”

“Please. I don’t ask for much. Give me this.”

“Okay, okay. I need my phone.”

I watch her until she finishes the call.

She disconnects and I carry her back to bed, my worry never easing until I’m inside her, our fingers tangling, our mouths fused together.

Because of her history, I’ll need to find other ways of showing her how much I love her, but as the wind whips against the building and there are monsters lurking in the night, right now this is my way and I don’t hear any complaints.

Snuggling on the couch, we eat steaks and loaded baked potatoes and watch the news. We go to bed soon after the end of the ten o’clock segment, and I lie next to her until she falls asleep. I’m too restless to doze, much less fall asleep, and I get up again, leaving Baby to watch over Zarah.

I want her to be able to find me easily if she wakes up, and I sit at the kitchen table, my laptop in front of me. I check our office’s email, and the cop who took our statements emailed me and said the CSU team looked over the skeleton of my truck. They weren’t able to lift any prints, and the bomb was small, set to detonate with a remote. They speculate harm wasn’t their intent.

Rubbing my fingers over my lips, I disagree. Maybe they hadn’t intended on hurting anyone, but several people were injured by flying glass. A handful of others suffered first degree burns. Nothing major, but no one should have gotten hurt and Zarah and I still would have been killed had we been sitting in it.

The bomb was set off using a remote control. Maybe that does mean they didn’t want to kill us, but if we don’t listen to the threat that was obviously implied, their actions will escalate.

I should add more locks to my door and install my own security cameras.

I send a reply, thanking him for the information, a little guilty I didn’t email him the list he asked me for. I try to think of where I’d been, but too much time has gone by and I can’t put together anything decent. I’m all over the place doing interviews and checking into things. Too easily he could have slipped it under my truck and just waited for the right time to set it off.

Someone’s tracking my movements, and the fact Zarah’s with me a lot validates Pop’s suggestion that I step back all the more. I hate it. It’s only my ego, but I don’t think anyone can watch over her as well as I can. Which is silly because I’m just as exposed asshe is whenever we’re together and the day my truck exploded, only luck kept her safe.

I read a little more about Troy’s and Meredith’s suicides. I wish we could have done more, offered some kind of hope. Meredith trusted me, and I didn’t come through.

Cardiac arrest killed JodiAnne Connelly. Too many drugs over too long a time period weakened her heart.

Marci Grayson tripped and fell down a flight of stairs.

Savannah Mesa slit her wrists—her fingerprints the only ones on a kitchen knife missing from the block downstairs.

The young women were all previous patients at Quiet Meadows. They all indicated in some way they were being followed, or thought they were, that whoever was stalking them wanted to shut them up permanently. What did they know? Allegedly. Allegedly, what did they know? About Quiet Meadows? About their shrinks who treated them there?

Patient records are confidential. Only Zarah’s records were unsealed to send her doctor to prison. The list of medications she took every day was placed into evidence and a psychiatrist appointed by the court explained each medication and why Zarah Maddox, a healthy twenty-year old girl at the time of her admittance, didn’t need to be on them. Her family doctor concurred—the doctor she’d seen all her life. Not one person could testify Zarah being prescribed all those drugs was the correct treatment for the breakdown she had at the Lyndhurst the night of Zane’s party. Paired those testimonies with the fact that large lump sums of money were paid into her psychiatrist’s account regularly from an offshore bank account put the son of a bitch away for the rest of his life with no chance of parole.

Only one doctor took the fall. Dr. Pedersen, the head psychiatrist of the facility, is still free, still treats patients. Like Zane, he got a slap on the wrist and a fine for not controlling hisown staff. He should have known what Zarah’s doctor was doing to her, but no one could prove he did.

Sometimes you have to be happy with small victories.

I don’t like that he’s free.

I also don’t like what Zarah told me about Ingrid.

It’s early enough I take a chance and call Zane.

“Maddox.”

He doesn’t sound grumpy, or tired, or like I caught him and Stella having sex, and I relax. I try not to let his money intimidate me, but for fuck’s sake, he’s gotta be smart. He’s running a multi-billion dollar company alone. I’m not dumb, but I know I’m not that level of smart, either.

“It’s Gage.”

“Is Zarah okay?”

“Yeah. She’s sleeping, but I couldn’t. I was up thinking about Ingrid. Is there any news about her?”

“None. I asked Zarah to give me the description of the car, but she couldn’t remember much. Said the sun was in her eyes, but...”

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