Page 54 of Heartless

“Sorry, man.” The medic who’d tried to revive her stood next to Hawke. “By the time I got to her, she was gone.”

“What did she take?”

“Hard to say without an autopsy. No convulsions, no obvious trauma. It’s like she just went to sleep and didn’t wake up.”

“Let me see the footage.” Hawke touched Olivia’s arm. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. Go ahead.”

He gave her one last worried look and then walked out the door.

Olivia knew she should feel something. Grief, sadness, maybe even anger. She felt numb, as if she watched everything from afar. But that was wrong, wasn’t it? This was the woman who had carried her in her womb for nine months. She tried to conjure up any memories that were remotely fond. Iris and Glen had been gone for weeks at a time. Olivia had endured a string of nannies and tutors who’d gone out of their way to make sure they developed no real relationship with her. They’d rarely stayed more than three or four months, and Olivia had always assumed the shuffling of her caretakers was to ensure no affection ever existed.

The only anomaly had been when Iris had allowed Olivia’s grandmother to live with them. It was so out of character for her mother to do anything like that, and Olivia was suddenly infuriated that she didn’t know the reason. Why had she never asked Iris? Had it been to bring some kind of stability to her, or perhaps even a kindness? Or had it, in fact, been just another test? Another way to try to break her? Now she would never know.

The longer she stood over her mother, the less numb she felt. From out of the blue, a rush of nausea hit her. Covering her mouth, Olivia quickly turned and ran down the hallway. She had no clue where she was going. She knew only that she couldn’t stay inside this place any longer. She spotted the door she and Hawke had used earlier. She vaguely noted that the security pad was on and would likely create an ear-piercing sound, but she could do nothing about it. She was within seconds of losing the small amount of breakfast she’d managed to swallow.

Shoving the door open, she ran, ignoring the blare of the alarm. She was halfway to the big oak tree when she could no longer control the surging bile. Holding her stomach, she vomited and then, her stomach completely empty, battled dry heaves. In the middle of her misery, she felt a hard, warm embrace and a big hand holding her hair away from her face.

When she finally had her stomach under control, she straightened. Hawke held a handkerchief for her. Gratefully, she took it and wiped her mouth.

“Better?” he asked.

“A little. Thank you.”

“Come on. Let’s go sit down.”

He led her back to the bench they’d used before. Feeling ancient, she sat and whispered, “I have no idea why I’m upset.”

“Yes, you do. No matter the strife and animosity between you, she meant something to you.”

“I wish I knew why she was the way she was. I knew nothing about her, not really.”

“That was the way she wanted it, Livvy.”

“I guess.” She looked up at the clear, blue sky and wondered at its perfection. How could everything be so messed up down here and look so perfect up there? Drawing in a breath, she straightened her spine. “So what’s next? Did she give us anything useful?”

“Yeah, but we need to review it, analyze it. In the meantime, we focus on the Gonzalez cartel. They’re the ones responsible for targeting our team. They won’t stop until we stop them. Once we have them, we’ll use them to find this shadow group.”

“Then let’s get back to OZ and find a way to make that happen.”

Hawke grabbed her wrist. “You’ve had several shocks the last few days. We can take a day or two off. We don’t have to go back yet.”

She shook her head and headed back to the house. “I’m fine. I don’t need to rest. We need to find the people responsible for killing our friends.”

Setting her sights on the door ahead of her, Olivia focused on her next steps. She knew Hawke watched her, felt his concern. Yes, she’d had a few shocks, but this was what she’d been trained to do—hunt down killers and end them.

She was, after all, Iris Gates’s daughter.

* * *

The flight back to Montana was the complete opposite of the one to Arizona the day before. He and Olivia sat across from each other. She sipped a cup of tea. He drank a beer. To an onlooker, they might appear peaceful and calm, but nothing could be further from the truth. While Olivia read over the transcript of the interview with her mother, Hawke listened to the audio. He’d watch the interview later, with and without audio, but for right now, he wanted to listen to the words, hear the nuances. In the midst of that ridiculous interview, there was something there, and he would damn well find it.

When her teacup rattled, Hawke looked up at Olivia. Outwardly, she seemed serene, but the feverish look in her eyes worried him. She had received blow after blow the last few days, and at some point, everything would come to a head.

Not for the first time, he questioned his decision to not contact her after the explosion. The first few weeks, he’d barely known his own name. Then there had been surgeries and rehab, followed by more surgeries. He’d had a lot of time to think. Lying in a hospital bed for weeks on end gave a man time to build up all sorts of ideas. He’d gone from disbelief to hurt to hatred, and that had all gone on repeat for a long time. He’d ended up numb and bitter.

Over the last two years, he’d developed a hardness he hadn’t been sure he would recover from. He had blamed Olivia. She’d been in control of the blast—in charge of the detonator and the timer. He thought about the anger between them, the hurt he’d caused. And yes, a small part of him had wondered if her anger and hurt had made her do something she would never have considered under normal circumstances. He had allowed his bitterness to color what he’d known to be an absolute truth. There was no way Olivia had tried to kill him. He knew her inside and out. The fact that he’d even allowed himself to get mired up in his anger only showed how messed up his mind had been.

---