Page 53 of Shattered Hearts

“Good.” Pop heaves a sigh. “Gage, the truck—”

“I’ll be careful.” And as much as it pains me to say it, I say, “I’ll cut back on seeing Zarah.”

“It won’t be forever.”

No, it will only feel like it.

Troy and Meredith meet us at a seedy little bar located in north King’s Crossing. It’s my type of place—shitty country music, peanut shells on the floor, the waitresses inked up more than I am—and the bartender tips his head at me. Like recognizing like.

It’s Troy’s type of place, too, but Meredith sticks out like a sore thumb. Not because she’s beautiful—she’s plain in a young-woman-who-hasn’t-blossomed-yet kind of way—but because she’s polished. Her hair shines, her skin is clear. There’s a quality about her that everyone in this bar, including me and Pop, lacks.

No one looks kindly at her, either.

Troy sips a beer, sullen. His jacket’s dirty, and tattoos peek out of his shirt’s collar.

“Hey, thanks for coming,” Meredith says, turning her eyes to us as we slide onto the bench across from them.

Troy isn’t what I expected. A rich kid, graduated from an Ivy League school, yes, but he looks like a hood, a dealer who hangs out at the high school selling pot.

“It’s not a problem. I’m Gage Davenport, and this is my dad,” I say to Troy and he shakes my hand, reluctant, it seems, to talkto us. Waving off the bartender, I cut to the chase. “Meredith doesn’t think Savannah would have committed suicide because you two were engaged.”

To my surprise and maybe shame for stereotyping him, his eyes fill with tears. “We were gonna run away and get married, you know? She loved me. We had a fight here and there, but we hadplans, man. We talked about what we were gonna doall the time. No way she would’ve killed herself. And not without a note. I don’t believe that fuckin’ shit.”

“When were you going to get married?”

Troy shrugs and stares at the scarred and sticky tabletop. “You can probably see I’d win a game of ‘which one isn’t like the others.’ My parents are rich, self-righteous pricks. Vannah, we had the same ideals. Fuck the money. Do our own thing, live life on our terms. Her parents, they didn’t like that, ya know?”

“Then why didn’t you run away before? She was what? Thirty-one, I think the news said. You’re not any younger. Why wait?”

“She had some problems. Depressed. She got treated for it at QM for a long time, and she wanted to wait until she felt better. I think if she could have gotten away from her parents it would have done her a lot of good. They made her life a living hell.”

Meredith nods. “They were always telling her what to do, who to see. What school they wanted her to go to. They pull the same shit with me, but I do it. I don’t have the ‘fuck you’ attitude my sister had. I go along and it shuts them up.”

“Your parents had Savannah’s memorial service, didn’t they?”

“Yeah. They’re hardcore Catholics. Everyone said she was going to hell.”

“Did you go?” Pop asks Troy.

He shakes his head and lets tears run down his cheeks where they disappear in the stubble along his jaw. “No. I was in SiouxFalls with my parents. My grandmother on my dad’s side died in hospice. Cancer. We were close and I wanted to say goodbye. It was a fucking horrible choice, but Vannah’s parents didn’t want me there.”

“I’m sorry. Did Savannah know your grandmother was sick? Do you think she waited until you left town?”

Troy opens his mouth, then closes it again. His eyes turn hard. “I think whoever killed her waited until I was gone because we spent all the time we could together.”

“How did she act before she died? Was she happy? Paranoid? Depressed?”

His eyes narrow. “Now that you mention it, shewasacting a little funny. Weird, even for her. She was always goofy, you know? But this was different. She was talking about people coming after her. Shutting her up. She said at one point someone wanted to kill her, but she liked to make shit up and I thought she was playing. Acting scared, looking over her shoulder all the time. No one would be there, and she’d laugh.”

“Did she say why they would want to shut her up? Over what? What did she know?” Pop asks.

Troy slouches deeper into the booth. “I don’t know. Something about QM. Shenevertalked about her time there, not even with me. They were doing some fucked up shit.”

“How long was Savannah treated there?” I ask.

“Off and on for years,” Meredith says. “She hated it. She said her doctors touched her. Liked seeing how she would react.”

I cringe. “Was she prescribed any medication?”

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