Stolen Hearts (Hearts 1)

The night he died . . . killed himself? Was murdered? The gunshot woke me up, and I lay in bed for a long time, freaking out and scared. Expecting, any minute, for the senator to come upstairs and tell me he’d shot an intruder. But the more time that passed I thought maybe I’d been wrong and there wasn’t a gunshot. If something was wrong the senator would be sure to let me know. And I fell back to sleep.

I slept until 7 am, went downstairs. Made my coffee. And it wasn’t until 8 am when I heard his secretary scream that I knew something awful had happened.

That picture of him in the folder had been taken on a gurney. If there were pictures of him in the library after the shooting, I’d never seen them. I’d never actually seen him. His secretary had had the foresight to throw a blanket over him. All before I even made my way down the hallway.

I’d been grateful all along that I didn’t need to look at my dead husband. But now it threw another layer of suspicion over everything. Had I seen him, would I have been able to tell if he’d been murdered?

Not likely. But still.

I stood at the door to Jim’s office, the desk in front of it where his poor secretary sat, judging everyone who came to visit. Including me. Especially me. Ugh. I hated her. There was something about that door. The big gold doorknob. The hinges were so big they looked like something out of a medieval prison.

This had been the senator’s space, and I’d cared not at all about it.

I didn’t want to be in this room then, and I didn’t want to be in this room now. I didn’t want to believe a word of what Caroline had said. But I had lived with my head in the sand for a long, long time. And it was time to be done.

I had to find some answers for myself.

I pushed open the door to reveal his wood-panelled study. The desk a wide raft that could have held four computers or at least another Jack from Titanic. The walls were floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Full of . . . I didn’t even know. I never even cared. There was a fireplace and two chairs pulled up in front of it. A drink cart beside it. I wondered who ever sat with him in front of that fire. Because it certainly had never been me.

Had the Morellis sat there? It actually wasn’t hard to imagine. Jim had been evil, and evil men usually liked other evil men.

But where did that leave Caroline? Who’d thrust me into Jim’s world.

The box from the lawyer was there behind the desk. He’d said there was paperwork regarding the foundation. And Ronan that night in my bedroom had asked if I’d gone to the Morellis to get answers about the foundation.

I grabbed the box and put it on the desk.

“Poppy?” I jumped at the sound of another voice, and the door was pushed open to reveal Theo.

“Hi!” I said. I grabbed the box and put it back behind the desk, kicking it into the shadows.

“I saw the light on in the house and wasn’t sure—”

“It’s me.”

“You’re . . . all right?” he asked with a careful smile.

“Never better,” I joked. “You want some coffee?”

“It’s nine o’clock at night,” he said.

“How about a drink?” I asked, pointing to the senator’s drink cart.

“Sure.”

“Bourbon?”

I set my coffee mug down on the corner of the desk and walked over to the cart to pour half the bottle into one of the tumblers.

He was leaning against the desk, and I handed him the drink and grabbed my coffee cup by his hip. “Have you talked to the fire marshal?”

“Not yet,” I said. “My phone is charging.”

I sat down in one of the chairs in front of the cold fireplace and took a sip of my coffee. The heat and caffeine waking me up bit by bit.

“You can’t stay here tonight,” he said. “It’s not safe. The whole back wall is gone, and I don’t feel good about the roof.”

“I know. You know, considering the fire was mostly outside there is so much damage inside.”

“It’s the water from the hoses. You’re going to go back to Mrs. Constantine’s?”

I shook my head, had another sip of coffee. “No.”

“You want me to drive you into the city?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. I needed to call my sister, make some kind of amends. But I’d stay in a hotel in the city. I just needed some space. Some room to try and understand what had happened to me. A chance to go through the box in quiet. “I’ll pack a bag, call the fire marshal, and if there aren’t any problems I should be ready to go soon.”