Fated (35 page)

Chief Inspector Francesca Lesley squeezed his wrist briefly. He glanced at her and gave her a small smile.

“All right?” she mouthed.

He nodded at Freddie and let his eyes travel the rest of the pews. President Wu sat beside her, then Captain Johnson, and Chief Brian Miller, looking older than he ever had. Hart recognized a few other faces from Brightly’s police station.

Alex Carlton, his father’s former secretary, sat in the fifth row to the right, very clearly fighting tears and losing. Was he working for someone else yet? Had he been the surrogate son Jonathan Hart had had to make do with over the past decade? The guy seemed small and fragile, and for some reason terrified, as if death might walk the aisle with a collection plate, ready to claim its next coin.

But then Hart could be wrong; he wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. At least his bloodshot eyes might be attributed to grief. Had he grieved? Was he grieving? Or would it be worse than this someday? Would he wake up one morning with pain so debilitating it would prevent him from getting out of bed? God, he needed to stop thinking about this. Or preferably stop thinking entirely.

Was Toby here? Probably, and impossible to find out without craning his neck, not that he particularly wanted to know. Doctor Tobias Darwin was a fucked-up situation Hart didn’t want to think about either, today of all days. A fuck-up entirely of his own doing.

Other people rose to talk about Jonathan’s greatness, the kindness he dealt to everyone, his wonderful wit and extensive knowledge, all the things that should be mentioned at a funeral—polite, anonymous. This service could be for anyone. It didn’t exactly matter. Hart had said good-bye to his father, the one he knew and remembered, when he buried him two days ago. This show was for everyone else who had been a piece in the puzzle of Jonathan’s life. The man they talked about was a stranger to Hart. The chance to ever know him while he was an adult was now forever lost.

When silence descended at last, the priest’s eyes came to rest on Hart—his cue to rise to his feet and speak if he wished.

And while he hadn’t meant to say anything today, he found himself rising to his feet. Freddie lifted her head in surprise, but he ignored her. A rustle went through the church, people shifting on their hard wooden benches with a light murmur of recognition. The lost son.

Hart climbed the steps to the dais and stared around the church, but the sunlight falling through the stained glass windows cast the audience before him in a sharp yellow halo, so he could hardly make out their faces. A reprieve perhaps, since it would at least make this easier.

“As many of you may know, Dad and I hadn’t been part of each other’s lives for a long time,” he began. “Up until a week ago, I thought I knew why this was. I thought he resented the choices I made, the lack of ambition I had to follow in his academic footsteps, and this colored my decisions.” No one shifted now; the silence was absolute. “His house—if you’ve been there, you’ll know—was a book collector’s dream. I grew up believing everyone had to step over piles of books to make it to their bedrooms.” A light ripple of laughter wove through the church, and Hart smiled vaguely. “Jonathan Hart needed his books like oxygen. And maybe you’re thinking that’s why our bond dissolved when it did. It’s what I thought for a long time. But as I packed away book after book I’ve come to realize—too late, as these realizations usually are—that it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t mine either. When my mother died, she took the link that made us a family with her. I don’t think we realized it at the time, but by never dealing with our loss, by never acknowledging that losing this invaluable person changed us, I lost more than a mother, and he lost more than a wife. I think—” Hart swallowed and blinked the haze away from his eyes. “I think he tried to give me freedom, and I thought it meant he didn’t care.”

And it was too late now. Too late to make up and get to know his father again. He’d let him slip away—one of the only people who loved him completely. He didn’t notice the silence that had fallen, despite being the source of it. An elegant hand curled around his arms, red nails a beautiful contrast to dark skin, and Hart followed Freddie back to his seat. No one was laughing now.

The priest led the congregation into another hymn, and then just like that, the service was over.

“D
O
YOU
want me to follow you home? Or I don’t mind giving you another ride. We could pick up Isaac’s car tomorrow.” The sun was so bright Freddie had to squint at him, and Hart fumbled inside his suit jacket for his sunglasses. He vaguely nodded at people, shaking hands as they offered condolences, even as he wondered if they shouldn’t be the ones to be condoled.

“I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

He managed to dig up a smile. Somewhere along the line, they’d gone from reluctant colleagues to friends.

“I will be okay,” he told her, and she nodded. More people exited the church, and she remained by his side until the priest came over to talk to him. The church looked empty and dark behind the maw of open doors. Hart’s hangover had begun to reach the stage where he had to sleep or pass out, so he kept their meeting short. When he headed toward Isaac’s car in the unforgiving heat, tarmac shimmering under the white blaze that made his entire skull hurt, Freddie was there, waiting for him.

“I’m
fine
, Freddie,” he said again, squinting behind his sunglasses. “Go home. Enjoy your Sunday with William. I’ll see you tomorrow, and we’ll solve this fucking case so I can go home and make up with Isaac.”

She widened her eyes comically. “What did you do?” she demanded as she walked away backward. He climbed into the car. “Hart?” she called out, humor in her voice. “What on earth did you do? That boy
loves
you.”

I know
, he thought.
I know, and I will make it right.

The sun had been beating down on Isaac’s car for days where it had been parked behind the church, intensifying the scent of him, so it nearly overwhelmed Hart when he sank down into the driver’s seat. They’d known each other for seven years, but the scent-memory of Isaac stirred an intimacy he hadn’t experienced before. He wanted Isaac there with him so badly. He wanted to take him home and to bed and just be with him for an hour or two. And then the rest of his life after that.

Their breakup, which had seemed like the right thing to do in the aftermath of the shooting, felt like a colossal mistake today. His father had given him freedom, and Hart had believed it meant Jonathan didn’t care about his son. And now Hart had done the exact same thing to Isaac.

Starting the engine he glanced at the time. It was noon, and Isaac would most likely be on his way home with his mother and little brother, arm securely strapped in so the patched-up bullet wound in his shoulder wouldn’t come unstitched.

He wound down the windows, but the air moving in the car did nothing to cool it. The heat was still strangling him, along with the hangover, the headache, the first stirrings of grief, and an overwhelming wash of guilt, though for his father or Isaac he couldn’t say. At first he aimed for home—his father’s home anyway, now mostly emptied of anything that had mattered—but he changed his mind and drove across the street instead. First he’d take a look at the closed grave, take just a few minutes to see his parents side by side.

Row upon row of stone graves rolled over the last hill of Brightly, and Hart walked between them, looking left and right. His parents’ graves lay close to the large weeping willow. He could see the fresh mound of dirt from where he was approaching when a grave caught his eye. It was the same one he’d noticed before, only this time his heart very nearly stopped midbeat.

Carly Albright.

The house where they’d found Angela’s flower delivery van belonged to a Caroline Albright. Coincidence?

Remember the house where the van was found?
he texted Freddie.
There’s a Carly Albright in the cemetery.

As in walking around?
Freddie replied almost immediately.

As in lying in a grave. Do we know who owns the house yet?

Haven’t had time to check
. A little pause, and then,
Go home, Hart. It’s too hot to be wandering around.
Hart grinned and pocketed his phone as it beeped a low battery warning. Freddie was right, it was too hot to walk around in the sun.

A low rumble made the ground almost vibrate, and the Mountain looked darker than usual. Maybe a good rainstorm would drive away this heat at last and make room for the first beginnings of fall. When the leaves turned, the Mountain was at its most beautiful—a gently rolling wave of reds and golds, until everything turned brown.

He cut through a couple of graves, sweat making his shirt stick to his back, head pounding to the rhythm of his stride, and walked in the direction of the tree. Despite the blue skies, the deep drone of distant thunder that heralded the storm was coming closer. Stuck behind the Mountain for now, it wouldn’t stay there for long if the almost unnatural calm was anything to go by.

His attention was fixed on his father’s fresh grave and his mother’s beside it. It had been granted, his father’s final wish; here lay Jonathan and Sabine until the Mountain claimed them all. Lost in his melancholy thoughts, Hart didn’t notice the footsteps behind him until it was too late.

T
HE
BLOW
to Hart’s head knocked his lights out right away, but his hearing lingered long enough to register two low voices murmuring above him. Then there was nothing for a while until a brief minute of consciousness brought the smell of damp clothes and the sound of an engine droning loudly all around him. The back of his head throbbed along with the healing burn on his wrist. One of his attackers had gripped him there, probably tearing the papyrus-fragile skin all over again. In the pitch-black, Hart did his best to search for an anti-kidnap release, but if it ever existed, it had been cut. By the time he managed to maneuver himself into a position to elbow out one of the taillights, cold sweat had glued his shirt to his skin. He was still wearing the damn funeral suit he’d put on so reluctantly that morning. Hart vaguely hoped he wouldn’t end up buried in the damn thing.

Wherever they were, the thunderstorm and lashing rain made it black as night, too dark to see anything useful; not even a single headlight glimmered in the gloomy road behind them. The car swerved enough for him to recognize a steady climb through the Mountain, and the first cold tendrils of fear hooked their claws into his belly. There was no doubt in Hart’s mind that he was going to find himself in their murderer’s hands: this person who had killed multiple times and had no qualms about making his victims suffer. Hart tried to calm his mind, to go into cop-mode and draw on his training to deal with a situation like this, but he didn’t have much chance to think about it. With a skid the car came to a halt, and by the time Hart had gathered his wits, the trunk popped open, rain assailing his face. Two men grabbed him, and he kicked out, trying to aim for anything soft and vulnerable. Everything was dark and wet, the rain soaking them through within seconds. Here the Mountain air held a distinct chill that came with altitude, and that was all Hart could register before something hard knocked him back into oblivion.

A
SPLASH
of ice-cold water brought clarity like a slap to the face. Hart blinked the water away, testing the pain in his skull and neck before he carefully lifted his head. The view before him, though blurry, appeared oddly pleasant: block-wood walls in an uneven pattern around a well-loved cabin. Fire crackled merrily in a hearth, spreading warming bursts of comfort where the rainwater cooled on Hart’s bare skin. A sofa, two armchairs, a rocking chair, a thick rug, and in the corner by the fire, an empty dog bed—when Hart blinked again, he recognized the place.

Fuck, this was Mauro and Julian’s cabin. Had Hart really been that wrong about them?

The tranquility of the cabin shattered. A sharp ache in his shoulders woke him up fully, and his predicament truly came into focus. He hung tied to the ladder leading up to the sleeping loft, and a numb fear overtook him. Where was everyone? Where were Julian and Mauro? Had Freddie or even Toby made sure Isaac and his family had left safely? Hart would have no way of knowing, not for sure, and he took a deep breath, forcing himself to stop straining against his bonds as he tried to calm his whirlwind mind.

A man stepped into Hart’s peripheral vision—it jarred him that he hadn’t realized he wasn’t alone—and he tried to concentrate on the here and now. No use in giving these lunatics more ammunition.

And a lunatic this man was. Insanity burned as brightly in his eyes as the fire on the other side of the room. By instinct Hart felt himself flinch away, trying to get his feet up on one of the rungs so he could climb higher. No use. His feet were firmly tied with rope. When he yanked at his hands, he found those ropes gave not an inch either.

“It seems I owe you an apology, Lieutenant Hart,” the man began, and in a flash of recognition he knew this was the guy who’d stopped by the side of the road a few days ago, when he was having his panic attack. The madman ran a blunt weapon between his palms. “I was convinced you were one of them, but it turns out I was wrong.” The guy’s long hair was tied back in a ponytail again. He looked calm and collected, apart from his eyes, which danced from side to side.

Hart squeezed his mouth tightly shut, but he couldn’t wrench his gaze away from the weapon. It looked a lot like the batons used for riots, but it was longer, and one end was covered in thick, silver metal.

A voice came from the other end of the room, and someone else appeared from the kitchen. Hart’s breath stuttered to a halt. In the doorway, looking wide-eyed and frightened, stood his father’s secretary.

“Don’t hurt him, Conrad, please.” Alex had Hart’s wallet and badge in his hands, and he held them clutched to his chest. He gingerly put Hart’s Glock on the dining table. His eyes were pleading, but for what Hart didn’t know. “He’s a cop.”