Shattered Hearts (King’s Crossing #5)

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Gage

T he holidays slowed everything down. Pop and I haven’t been able to do much legwork to make any progress on most of the cases that are waiting in our active pile, and there’s only so much you can do online. I still went to the office, kept Pop company. More like he was keeping me company because I couldn’t be home alone.

I haven’t seen Zarah in two weeks.

Zane won’t let me near her.

Christmas came and went, Pop and I doing our usual. The holiday felt emptier this year, though this Christmas was the same as last year and the year before that.

I sent Zarah a Christmas card and a picture of us at Max’s award dinner. Someone had taken it and emailed it to me. I blew it up, framed it, and stood it next to the award on my bookshelf. It’s all I have left of her, except for the gaping hole in my heart, which sounds really melodramatic but you try being separated from the person you’re desperately in love with. Wondering if she’s okay. Wondering if she hates you. Wondering if you’ll ever see her again and knowing the answer is no.

I guess we’re over . . . I didn’t get a response.

After Mom saw Zarah and me together, she stopped badgering me about the holidays, and it’s a relief. I can’t look Rourke in the eye anymore. Reading about his true feelings in Max’s journal, I don’t want anything to do with him.

“What are we working on?” Pop asks, bumping into the office, a bag of grease and two large to-go coffees clutched in his hands. He’s been doing his best to keep me out of a funk, but it’s a tough job. The only things that have kept me sane are regular workouts and bringing Baby on long runs.

“Meredith Mesa’s ‘evidence,’” I say, playing the video over again on the desktop.

The ME, the same doctor we spoke to about JodiAnne’s cardiac arrest, said Savannah Mesa died from self-inflicted wounds to her wrists. She bled out in the tub. Ross snuck me photos of the scene, and it’s as grisly as you’d imagine.

“Find anything?”

The only thing I’ve found watching the shaky video clip she took with her phone is a headache.

“No. No matter how many times I watch it, the figure looks the same. Face hidden by a baseball cap, generic uniform, generic toolbox. No logos or a company name anywhere. The knife Savannah used to slit her wrists had only her fingerprints on the handle.”

“Toxicology report?”

I scowl. “Came back clean. Or so Dr. Krout says. But what would he look for doing a suicide’s tox screen? She’d been drinking. You almost have to be drunk to take your own life.” I know I wouldn’t have the guts sober.

Put my Glock in my mouth and pull the trigger.

Yep. I’d have to be blitzed.

“But there was a stranger in their house.” He sets the bag and coffees on the desk.

I shrug. “Yeah. A workman, a maintenance man, an IT guy. I spoke to their neighbors for all the good it did me. A woman driving home from the grocery store said she remembered a power company’s utility van parked on their street. She said she only remembers because she was afraid there was an electricity outage and she was hosting a holiday party that night. The Mesas won’t talk to me, and the staff refuses to answer any questions. They’re afraid of getting fired.”

“So, what do we got?” Pop settles into the chair I usually sit in. I’ve been glued behind the desk for the past hour replaying the shadowy figure in the hallway, searching for any kind of clue. I pry the top off one of the coffees and gulp, letting the warmth soothe me. I get the blues this time of year. The holidays are over, it’s cold outside, and there’s no end in sight. Valentine’s Day usually bites. Will be worse this year. I won’t see Zarah, and I’m not interested in dating anyone else.

“Nothing.”

“What are we going to tell Meredith?”

“I said we’d talk to Troy, the fiancé, first, then we’ll have to let her down easy. The holidays screwed us up, and he and his parents have been out of the country for the past two weeks. He’s supposedly coming back in the next couple of days.”

“Was Savannah seeing Jerricka Solis?”

“Nope. According to Meredith, Savannah hadn’t been in therapy since her mom and dad sprung her from Quiet Meadows.”

“That’s too bad. The ice queen was a coincidence after all.”

“Yeah.”

Pop sips his coffee. “First of the year is coming.”

“Yeah. So what?” Not gonna be celebrating anything.

“Clean out Max’s apartment, Gage. Stop throwing good money at that rent.”

I rub my eyes. “You’re right. It’ll suck doing it in the cold, but you’re right. I’ve said my goodbyes. Made my peace.”

I haven’t exactly made my peace. I’ll always feel guilty Max and I weren’t closer while he was alive, and now I’ll never get rid of the idea I stole Zarah from him and our breakup is Karma in spades.

Pop knows well enough not to ask if I’ve heard from her. I haven’t since the night she flipped out at my apartment.

Zane blamed me, said we went too fast, and I couldn’t argue because I don’t know what the hell happened that night. One minute I fell asleep holding her in my arms, the next Baby was whining and growling and Zarah’s side of the bed was empty.

I’d like to at least tell her a proper goodbye, that I understand, but I don’t understand and more than likely I never will.

“Do you want help?” he asks.

“Nah, thanks. It’s my fault I waited this long. I’ll stop by a moving company and buy some boxes. It will give me something to do until our traffic picks up.”

“If you want to talk, tell me. I’m sorry about Zarah. She’s a good girl. Doesn’t deserve this.”

I try to shake it off. “I wasn’t good for her. The sting will fade, one of these days, but I still plan on talking to Black. Zarah said something the night she broke down, that she wanted to know why. At the time, I said psychopaths, sociopaths, don’t need a why, but in his journal, Max wrote that he thought Black was in love with her. I’d just like to know. For myself. Look him in the eye when I ask.”

“A man like that doesn’t love anyone but himself. Max was a romantic. He was seeing something that wasn’t there.”

“You’re probably right. I’d still like to talk to him. Put it all behind me.”

“Is that what you want?”

His question irritates me. “Pop, I got sucked into a world I don’t belong in. I didn’t resist because unlike Ashton Black, I did fall in love. Didn’t help me fit in.”

Pop scoffs. “You don’t feel like you’re abandoning her?”

It’s a tricky question. Of course I do. Of course I feel like I’m abandoning her. How else should I feel? But what the fuck am I supposed to do? “Maddox won’t let me see her.”

He raises his eyebrows. When he does that, I always feel like I’m disappointing him, letting something important slide. Like Max’s last wishes. I hate it.

“Since when have you ever taken no for an answer? You’re a good PI because you don’t give up. You’re tenacious to the point of pigheadedness. It doesn’t always work in your favor, but in a circumstance like this, maybe you’re all Zarah’s got.”

Angrily, I push away from the desk and the chair rattles the basket of coffee pods on the table behind me. “What do you think I should do? Drive out there, bang on their door, and demand to see her?” It’s exactly what I want to do.

I miss her like fuck.

Pop shrugs and helps himself to some of the grease he brought, Baby nosing optimistically at his side. I catch a whiff of a spicy sausage biscuit and my stomach grumbles, but I’m too sick to eat. Heartsick, that is. Though I’ve heard the flu is going around.

“I haven’t exactly been helpful with her mental health issues,” I say, and that hurts me, too. I wanted to help her, not fuck her up more. “Maddox has a good point not letting me see her.”

“Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is. She spent the night, got turned around in an unfamiliar place. You’ve never woken up in a woman’s bed and needed a minute to remember where you were? Maybe Zarah got mixed up, but why does it have to mean more than it does?”

“You didn’t see her. She was babbling gibberish, something about her social security number, and she didn’t know my name.” That scared the shit out of me. “Our...intimacy caused some kind of setback or something. If seeing me is going to do that to her, I’d rather keep my distance and my hands off her.” Now I understand exactly how Zane felt and why he was handling Zarah with kid gloves.

“Yeah, but you don’t know that for sure.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then before you write off that poor girl, even if you say it’s for her own good, you should find out.”

Pop’s words rub me raw the rest of the day. I’ve never been a coward. Can tackle a druggie while he points a wobbly gun in my direction. Can chase an asshole down at midnight, and I can look my stepfather in the eye and tell him to fuck off. But those are things that don’t affect me. Maybe my physical wellbeing, but not my heart. What I did to Max, I chose to bury because it’s easier than facing up to the truth—that I was a piss-poor brother.

And Zarah.

I am deathly afraid Zane’s right, that I caused Zarah to snap. That our intimacy turned into something ugly in her mind and my touch pushed her over an edge I couldn’t see. Couldn’t protect her from.

I don’t want to make it worse. Especially if during these two weeks she’s been able to find some stability.

After a few more hours at the office, I drive to a U-Haul and buy a bunch of sturdy boxes. They also manage self-storage units and I rent the largest one they offer. I can clean out Max’s apartment and avoid looking through his things. Never said I couldn’t be a coward if I wanted to be. The storage unit can’t fit everything he owned, but it’s a better plan than paying rent.

On the drive to his apartment, Baby lays on the bench whining and missing Zarah. I scratch her head and catalogue the things to give away and the things I want to keep. His clothes can go. We’re not the same size, and even if we were, our styles are very different. His kitchen items. Unless there’s a pan or something I might find useful, I won’t need anything out of that room. I can donate his furniture. What’s left are his personal things and books. His books alone can fill a storage unit.

I should ask Zane for the information (or Stella might be preferable to talk to at this point) and check on Max’s cat. See if that Denton guy still wants to keep him, and if he doesn’t, I’ll have to.

There isn’t decent street parking in the part of the city where Max lived, and my brother paid a mint for a pass to park in a ramp a couple of blocks away. I don’t have the luxury of a pass, and I park on the street. The best I can do is a tight spot in front of his building and pray I don’t get towed. An inch of bumper juts out in front of a fire hydrant, but I should be okay. I’m not going to spend too much time here, and I doubt I’ll get much done. I just wanted to start since I decided to. Besides, it keeps my mind off Zarah and how fucking terrified I was finding her at the bottom of the stairs.

Shivering in the hallway, curled into a ball. The blank stare when she looked at me.

I’ve never wanted answers so badly in my life.

Or been so scared of them.

The last time I was here, I turned the heat down to save on electricity (yep, I’ve been paying that too). It’s cold in his apartment, but I don’t turn it up. I won’t be staying that long.

Baby sniffs around and then settles on the couch to watch me, her eyes sad. I’ll start with his bookshelf and pack up the things I want first and maybe hire movers to box up the rest for donation and storage.

Max loved reading mysteries, one of the few things we had in common that I conveniently forgot about to avoid keeping in touch. Anything from Sue Grafton to John Grisham. He has a few signed copies from various authors including two by Dan Brown, and I set them aside to add to my own collection. The boxes will be heavy, and I think twice about keeping all of them. Mom might want some. She hasn’t had a particularly difficult time getting over his death. Maybe on some level, she knew it would happen.

Because of his line of work.

I wonder if she has similar thoughts about me, or if she trusts Pop to keep me out of trouble. The shooting aside—which was totally my fault—he’s done a good job. Another thing Max and I have in common now.

There are several photo albums on the shelves, family photos taken at Mom and Rourke’s. I’m not in many, but how could I be? I seldom visited.

He looks happy, and he resembles Rourke. They have the same hair style, the same smile, and their eyes squint in the exact same way when they laugh.

What kind of plans did Rourke have for Max since he disliked Zarah so much? It wasn’t what Rourke thought of her, well, that’s a huge part of it, but there was something else, too. Maybe he’d wanted Max to marry someone of his choosing, another senator’s daughter, perhaps. He wouldn’t want rumors floating around that his son had dated dirty Zarah Maddox. It would taint Max’s stellar reputation.

Paging through the pictures is bittersweet. I could have done so much more, been a bigger part of the family. I thought Pop was all I needed, now he’s all I have.

Max stacked his books three deep, and I fill two large and impossible-to-carry boxes before I clean off one shelf. I drop to the floor and pull out another album.

This one isn’t full of photos, but a scrapbook of sorts, and here Max kept several of his bylines. Cut out with precise scissor strokes, they’re glued neatly onto the creamy pages. I flip a page and a stack of articles slides into my lap. These don’t have his byline, but they’re about the same person.

Republican senator Rourke Cook met with leading officials today regarding the trade bill President Williams presented to Congress over the weekend. If passed, this law will tightly control trade to and from China. In an interview last week, President Williams is quoted saying that jobs should be created at home. Whether or not President Williams will find support remains to be seen.

The article is dated four months before Max passed away. I skim through the other articles, and they’re all about the same thing—the United States and our trade with the Chinese. If I remember correctly, under extreme pressure, the president withdrew the bill. I wonder whose side Rourke was on. Why was Max so interested?

I set the scrapbook aside. I’ll look at it more at home.

In the end, I box up five cartons of books I decide to keep. I didn’t make much progress, not if you consider I have an entire two-bedroom apartment to go through. I’ll ask Mom to help me. We could talk while we pack, and maybe she’ll spill some secrets. She’s not a bad person, my mom. At least, I never thought so. Is she a bad person for turning a blind eye to her husband’s cheating? Or simply too trusting? Na?ve? No, after all this time, she would know he’s cheating. Maybe money hungry, though she never seemed that way. She enjoys the lifestyle, but there are few who wouldn’t.

The fact that she didn’t defend Zarah bothers me, and that brings me back full circle to my own actions. I should tell Zane to fuck off, demand he let me see her. Let me show her I haven’t gone anywhere, though in these two weeks, I’ve had one foot out the door.

Her life doesn’t need to be any harder than it already is, and I don’t want to cause her any more trouble. She’s got enough without me adding to it, but fuck. I miss her. The scent of her hair, the glow of her skin. Her wide brown eyes. The way she would wrap her hot little body around mine.

I should have let her make love to me. She was so close, so wet. All I would have needed to say was yes, and I could have guided her body over mine, pushed my way inside her. We would have fit together, perfectly. I already know that. I would have sucked on her nipples and made her come on my cock. I could have spurted inside her. Claimed her. Erase what those nasty fucks did to her.

Maybe then she wouldn’t have done what she did.

My truck didn’t get towed, and I let it warm up while I make several trips and shove the boxes in the back. When I’m finished, my hands are numb, and shivering, I hold them to the heating vents.

At home, I do the same thing, only in reverse, and dump the boxes in front of my shelves. I’ll unpack them later. I’m not in the mood to do it now.

I get myself off in the shower, remembering how Zarah tasted under my mouth, how she tugged on my hair, pressing her pussy harder and harder against my lips, begging me to make her come. I loved the feel of her muscles clenching at my fingers, cum gushing out of her. The sound of her moaning as she orgasmed, her clit quivering under my tongue.

Two minutes of heaven turned into two weeks of hell.

The glass baking pan Zarah brought over that had Lucille’s lasagna in it sits on my counter waiting to go home. I keep forgetting about it, but it’s a nice enough dish Lucille wouldn’t mind having it back. I grab it and the insulated bag Zarah used. It’s a good excuse to make a trip out there, and then I can rip Zane’s throat out for not letting me see her sooner.

I am tenacious, and I am pigheaded.

Turning Zane Maddox into an enemy could be my stupidest move yet, but I’ll do it willingly.

For love.