Page 70 of Shattered Hearts

Richard Denton and Stella were smart—pretending they wanted a tour—and the bomb threat was the only way Stella would have been able to get past security to see me. The protection wasn’t just for me. There were several celebrity clients who stayed here, too, and the loss of profit must infuriate Rourke.

“Where did you stay? Can you find your room from here?” Gage asks, his voice cutting through the silence.

“Yeah. I was down the rich wing.” I lead him left, past the reception desk, and the farther we go down the hallway, the less it feels like a facility and the more it resembles a posh apartment building or condominium. The floor is laid with pretty tile, the walls painted a soothing cream, and each of the doors has a number on it. When I stayed here, someone had hung a wreath on my door, fake flowers that would never die. A keypad is fastened to the wall, but I try the handle and the door opens without resistance.

I don’t feel anything stepping into this room. I thought maybe I would. Fear. Resignation. Hopelessness. But I’m numb, like this isn’t happening to me. Like I’m watching a horror film, but I already know what’s coming next and I’m not scared.

The suite is large, and I don’t know how much Zane paid to keep me here. A million dollars a year? Maybe more, maybe less. I never asked, and he never said. We stop in the conversation area, and the loveseats are still here but they’re covered in dust. They’re a joke, an illusion. I never had company except when Ash came to threaten me, or when Zane would visit. He never stayed long. He hated seeing me here and I hated him for putting me here. “I never sat in them. I was in a wheelchair most of the time. Too drugged up to walk.”

“Jesus,” Gage mutters.

I drag my hand over the back of one of the sofas, and dust motes dance in the sunlight struggling to light up the room. In the bedroom, the bed is still here, but it’s been stripped, the mattress bare. The blinds are open, and the window offers a view of a field. How often would I sit on my bed and wish I were on the other side of the glass. Free.

Art hangs on the walls, generic watercolors that were supposed to turn my room into more than a room, turn it into my home.

It didn’t work.

The bathroom connects the bedroom and conversation area, and the toilet, sink, and large tub have been scrubbed clean.

“Did you take baths here?” Gage asks, his eyes sweeping over the giant hot tub.

“No. Nurses would push me into the shower and wash my hair. Shave my legs sometimes, if the nicer nurses were on duty. One liked to brush my hair, and she would do my makeup. Mascara, lipstick. I don’t know why. I never cared what anyone did to me.”

Never cared that in five years not one person put a kind hand on me.

“Did Zane visit you?”

“Yeah, but I never talked to him. When he discharged me, I was scared of him. Terrified. I thought he and Ash were still friends and he would let Ash see me, but he brought Stella to the penthouse and I knew he was finally listening to her. The minute she stepped into the living room and she saw I was out of Quiet Meadows, I knew things would change.”

“She forgave him.”

“For a lot of things. Let’s go look at the therapy rooms.”

“You didn’t have therapy here?”

“No. This is where they parked me when they were done with me.” I point to the cameras mounted on the walls. “They watched me that way. If I needed anything.”

“What could you possibly need?”

“Stitches.”

Gage sputters. “What the fuck?”

Flicking a glance at him, I say, “What? We were all depressed lunatics. There aren’t cameras in the bathrooms, and the woman next door to me tied her bathrobe sash to a hook on the back of the door and hung herself.”

“But you said you never felt like that.”

“I never did. I gave up instead.”

I walk down the corridor the way we came, and Gage follows me into another section of the building. This wing has huge rooms and comfortable couches and chairs are arranged near large potted plants and decorative rugs. The windows are floor-to-ceiling, letting in the light and it sparkles against the cheerful colors that were supposed to encourage us to participate.

“What would you talk about?” Gage asks, wandering around the room. The bookshelves are still filled with books, all types of fiction that some patients read, but I never did. A coffee table is covered in old issues ofGood Housekeepingand animal magazines likeCats.

Baby’s nails scratch on the floor as she sniffs around, her ears cocked in curiosity. There must be a lot of different scents in this room.

“What wouldItalk about?”

“Yeah.”

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