Page 55 of Cruel Hearts

“Okay.” Thinking she has no opinion, I turn to leave.

She stops me. “But I’ll tell you this. He found a spider in the foyer. Don’t know how the little thing found its way up here. A daddy long leg. I watched that boy pull the legs off one by one.”

My sandwich sits like a stone in my stomach.

“I never said anything.” Her eyes are damp.

I understand what she’s trying to say because now I know what she knew then. “There would have been no one to tell.”

She attempts a smile but it doesn’t quite grace her lips.

I pause, then touch her shoulder. “I’m going to fix this.”

Patting my hand, she says, “I know you will.”

The living room is empty, but for the first time in a long time, it doesn’tfeelempty. The only person missing now is Stella.

I beat Mel to my office, even though I took an extra fifteen minutes to sit and talk to Lucille, and I do busy work while I wait. My email inbox has over three hundred messages in it. My voicemail, almost as many, and missed calls and texts clog my cell phone. My employees are not used to me being absent. Since Stella disappeared, I’ve buried myself in work, rarely leaving the office to eat or sleep. My couch most nights turned into my bed—I didn’t want to be alone in the penthouse. I never replaced Richard Denton and Larry Cramer after I forced them out. Stella had destroyed my trust and I didn’t want anyone working beside me.

Doing the work of three people has taken its toll.

I sit at my desk and ignore it all. Nothing is more important than finding Stella.

Peggy announces Melina Sanchez’s arrival and a long-legged Latina wearing a black pants suit and pink blouse marches into my office. She possesses a no-bullshit attitude I appreciate immediately. Once again, Nigel has come through.

“Miss Sanchez,” I greet her, standing and offering my hand.

She briskly shakes it and wastes no time with formalities. “Mr. Maddox. I’ve looked into Stella Mayfair. I’m not sure why you need my help locating her.”

“What do you mean? I hired a good PI and he didn’t find her. Or so he says.”

Mel raises her eyebrows. “You’re right to doubt him. May I?” she asks, but she doesn’t wait for permission. She grabs the remote that turns on the large flat screen TV fastened to the wall near my desk. I try to keep up with the news, and I play CNN nonstop. Except for lately when my problems have been a little closer to home. She changes the channel from national news to local.

A fuzzy video of the Renegade fills the screen. Two figures I come to recognize as Stella and Denton stand on the riverbank talking to a police officer. One of King’s Crossing’s industrial parks sits dirty in the background.

Mel keeps the sound muted, and she updates me herself. “Stella Mayfair and Richard Denton were pushed into the river late yesterday afternoon by a nondescript black pickup truck. The vehicle didn’t have plates, and the windows were darkly tinted—no one caught a glimpse of the driver. It was a close callfor both of them, but particularly for the woman. She came up a whole minute and a half after the old man and looked as if she narrowly avoided CPR.”

My heart slams painfully against my ribs. Stella’s clothes, the same ones she wore to visit Zarah, are plastered to her body, and her long blonde hair is a mess of knots and tangles. She hunches into Denton’s side, scared and tired.

“They were in a vehicle?” I ask, not understanding until a different clip starts to play.

A beige, mid-sized car is moving along the frontage road when the black truck Mel described slams into its side. The angle seems far away, like what we’re watching is security footage filmed by a camera mounted on a tall building somewhere.

This clip shows the vehicle sink, and even though I know Stella survives, my body tenses and I hold my breath as the car submerges. Denton breaks the surface, and he treads water, fighting the current, desperately searching, his head whipping back and forth, waiting for Stella to come up. If she’s trapped, there’s nothing he can do. The river’s too deep.

He’s screaming her name. It’s easy to read the movement of his lips and the look of horror on his face, raw and exposed. I wonder, if while they’ve been on the run, he’s fallen in love with her.

I wouldn’t be surprised.

Sunlight glints off the water on his face...but I would bet there are tears mingling with the river water on his cheeks.

Sputtering, she surfaces, and quickly, he swims to her and hooks his arm around her ribcage.

A young, burly man jumps into the river, and two more help them onto the bank covered in weeds and rocks. The camera switches to a news anchor sitting behind a desk, and Mel turns on the sound in time for us to hear her say, “Local law enforcement have no leads at this time.”

Mel turns the TV off. “She seems easy enough to find,” she says wryly, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her foot. “Do you know who would want her dead?”

I tell her about Cardello, about the possibility he’d want revenge.

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