Stolen Hearts (Hearts 1)

“Fine. I’m—” I stepped towards him, and he eased deeper into the shadows, his eyes flicking over my shoulder. I turned and saw Theo standing there. Nondescript but steady Theo with all the worry in his eyes.

What was wrong with me that my internal compass led me constantly to the cruel man in the shadows instead of the steadfast man right there in front of me?

“Poppy,” Theo said. “The fire chief has some questions for you.”

“Yeah. I’m coming.” I turned but Ronan was gone.

But his words from earlier remained.

Don’t trust anyone.

And why was he here? So conveniently at 4 am?

The sun was coming up over the hill behind me when the fire was finally out. It had spread to the kitchen, and the investigators were combing through the wreckage.

“Do you have some place to go?” The fire chief asked me. “We won’t have answers until later today, and you’ve been standing out here for hours.”

“We can go to my apartment,” Zilla said.

“That’s so far away.” And frankly that it was exactly what Zilla wanted me to do earlier in the night did nothing to ease my fear that she’d had something to do with this fire as a means to the end she craved. As long as her scales of justice were balanced, damn the consequences.

“You can stay at the cottage,” Theo said. “I’ll leave.”

“I’m not kicking you out of your house.”

“Then where will you go?” Zilla asked.

“A hotel in town,” I said. “I need to be close in case the fire chief has more questions.”

“That’s why god created cell phones,” Zilla said.

“Please, Zilla,” I said in a low murmur.

“I’ll go with you—”

I shook my head, and she didn’t fight me. Which actually only made me more worried she had a guilty conscience.

Why would she keep the fire going and then go to sleep? She’s homicidal. Not suicidal. And, I really didn’t think she wanted me hurt in any way. She just wanted me free of the senator and his world.

But when Zilla was in justice mode she didn’t always connect the dots. She acted on instinct and maybe . . . maybe her instincts just led her to this outrageous and dangerous action.

“Just go,” I told her. “Go home. I’ll be in touch.”

“Pops?” she breathed, and I heard all her regret. All her sorrow. But I could not manage it on top of my own.

Her car was in the long driveway, and I stood in the road until she drove by, her hand lifted and pressed to the glass.

“Poppy?” It was Theo.

“You’ve been so good to me tonight, Theo. Head on home, would you?”

“Where are you going to go?”

“I’m going to stay at a hotel.”

“I’ll drive you.”

I shook my head. “I think I need the walk.”

And after giving my cell phone information to absolutely everyone who needed it, I turned and walked to the end of my cul de sac, onto the small trail through the woods, up over the hill. On the other side, I broke through the treeline into the tall grass, and to my shock, I saw someone coming down the hill from the Constantine Compound. A woman. And when she saw me, she started running.

The sob I’d been holding in burst out of my chest, and I went running to meet her.

Caroline threw her arms around me and absorbed my impact.

“Ronan just told me,” she said. She was in silk pajamas with an overcoat thrown over her shoulders. Her feet were stuffed into Hunter boots. I saw in my mind what must have happened. She came downstairs for coffee and the newspaper only to find Ronan there, unreadable with news of the fire.

And she came running.

This was the part of Caroline that Zilla never understood. Never got to see.

“Are you all right?” she asked, cupping my face.

“Fine. We got out before the fire spread to the house.”

“We?”

“Zilla was there.”

“Where is she now?”

“I sent her back to the city. She . . .” I wasn’t going to put my suspicion into words. And with one look at Caroline’s face I saw that she understood.

“Do you know that for sure?”

“No,” I said quickly. And even managing to laugh, like – oh my god, how silly we are to even be talking about this.

“But it does feel like . . . something she might do?”

To that I had no answer, and the weight of the evening rested on my neck and on my heart. I hung my head.

“Okay. You’re here.” She turned us towards the compound, and together we started walking across the grass. “You’re safe. For as long as you need.”

There was coffee and scrambled eggs. Granola and fresh fruit, but I couldn’t sit down.

“I smell like smoke,” I said, sniffing my hair.

“Of course. Denise will show you to your room,” Caroline said, squeezing me one last time. She’d had her arm around my shoulder the whole walk up the hill to the house, and she’d kept it there through the house. The support was wonderful.