Page 75 of Cruel Dreams

Who’s to blame isn’t what concerns me.

“What’s next?” she asks softly, reaching across the table and holding my hand.

I push my plate away. I’m not hungry after all. “I don’t know. I’m scared, Quinn.”

“Me, too.”

My eyes lock onto hers. “You are? Why?”

“Of course I am. You’re so selfish, Stella.”

That hurts. “How am I being selfish?”

“Zane gave you everything you’ve ever wanted. I looked through that file. You have a mom and a dad and a sister. Where does that leave me? Where does that leave Zane? Or Zarah? Richard? Your family lives inFlorida,Jenna,” she says, and my stomach heaves. I hate that name. “You’ll go down there, meet your mom and dad, see the sun and the ocean, live your happy little life and forget all about us. Do you have any idea how terrified Zane was when he told you?”

I didn’t. My own fear eclipsed his. “Is that what he said yesterday before we left?”

“No. I didn’t need him to tell me. I could see it on his face, and you could have too, if you would have looked. But you didn’t bother, did you? He loves you, and he knew the second he told you he’d lose you. All you did was prove him right. Selfish.” Quinn pushes away from the table, her chair shrieking against the worn linoleum, and picks up her mug, her hand trembling.

“Come with me,” I beg. I can’t bear the thought of losing her too.

“No. This is your journey, and you have to go on your own. They aren’t my parents, they’re yours.”

“Then I won’t go.” I hadn’t decided if I wanted to meet them. My heart says of course I do, but my head...I’ve been missing for twenty-six years. My birthday’s next month.

Quinn’s eyes widen. “Are you fucking crazy? They’re yourparents. You have an older sister, maybe nieces and nephews. Grandparents. Aunts and uncles. You’ve been missing all your life, and you want them to suffer for the rest of theirs? Why?”

I lay my heart on the table, trusting Quinn understands me well enough to at least be sympathetic to my plight. “What if they don’t like me? What if we don’t get along?”

Quinn slips off her chair and kneels at my feet. “Stella—”

“That’s not my name,” I whisper.

“Yes, it is. Your name is Stella Mayfair. You’re a kind, compassionate, strong-as-hell woman, and you should be proud of yourself for who you are and all you’ve accomplished. You helped bring down two of the most dangerous criminals in the United States. Or so says the news channels.” Her lips quirk.

“I don’t know what to do. You’re my family too, and Zane and Zarah, and Denton, and Douglas, and Mel and Lucille. My life is here.”

“Don’t worry about me. Don’t worry about Zane or anybody else. What doyouwant?”

I think back to Zane and the exact question his asked yesterday.What do you want?I want a family. When Zane handed me that file, he gave them to me. I pick up the photo, twenty-six years old. My family. They’ve lived with the uncertainty, the fear, for as long as I have.

“I need a few days to think. What did Zane say to you before we left the hotel?”

Quinn crawls on her hands and knees into the living room, drags her purse off the floor near the couch, and hands me a small envelope. “He said he was going to give this to you at the pumpkin patch, but you didn’t take the news very well.”

The cream colored envelope holds a greeting card, two entwined gold hearts embossed on the front, and inside are a bank debit card, a credit card, and all my IDs under Stella Mayfair I lost in Denton’s car when it sank to the bottom of the Renegade.

“The days he was gone, he was learning about your parents and getting things together for you like he said he would.”

Zane wrote inside the card:

Stella,

I promised I’d do right by you. The credit card has unlimited credit—don’t worry about making payments. If you check the bank account, you’ll find the available balance adequate. I know my love isn’t worth anything, not after all this, just like I know you won’t care about the money. All I want is your happiness.

My love always,

Zane

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