Confessions of the Heart

by Amanda Stevens

  She hadn’t been able to forgive him, hadn’t wanted any part of their happiness, because by then, she’d found something far more reliable and far less complicated than love. Success. Her professional life was something she had complete control over—or so she’d thought.

  Deep in her reverie, Anna stared out the window as they pulled out of the parking garage and merged with traffic on the street. It was raining, and the rhythmic sound of the windshield wipers made her a little drowsy. It was a good thing Laurel was behind the wheel, she decided, resting her head against the back of the seat. Michael had given her the green light to resume driving six weeks after she left the hospital, but on biopsy days, she still had to rely on her stepmother.

  Laurel had a few errands to run while they were out, including a stop at the pharmacy to replenish some of Anna’s meds, and by the time they finally left the medical center, it was after three and traffic was already congested. As they headed north on Main Street through downtown, Anna impulsively gestured to a parking garage on the left. “Pull in there.”

  Laurel did as she was told, then flashed Anna a quick frown. “You’re not going into the office, I hope.”

  Matthews, Conley and Hart occupied several floors of the J. P. Morgan Chase Tower, the tallest building in downtown Houston. Anna’s office was on the eighty-fifth floor, and on a clear day, she could glimpse the Gulf of Mexico. But Houston was a city at the mercy of a subtropical climate and the belching smokestacks from its dozens of oil refineries. A clear day in the downtown area was something of a rare occurrence.

  “Anna,” Laurel admonished. “You really should go home and rest.”

  “This won’t take long. Just drop me near the lobby, and then you go on home without me. You’ve waited enough for one day.”

  “How will you get home?” Laurel worried.

  “I’ll walk. I’m up to four miles a day,” she said when her stepmother tried to protest. “I think I can handle a few city blocks.”

  “But it’s still raining.”

  Anna held up her umbrella. “I’ve got my rain gear, and if it starts coming down harder, I’ll take a cab.”

  Laurel found a place to park, then turned to Anna. “I’m worried about you, Anna. I’ve noticed how restless and preoccupied you’ve been lately, and I’m afraid you’re going to do something to jeopardize your health.”

  Anna opened the door. “I have something I need to take care of, but it’s nothing for you to worry about. I promise.”

  She got out of the car before Laurel could argue further and waved her on. Her stepmother hesitated for a moment, her brows drawn together in a deep frown, and then she reluctantly drove off.

  From the lobby in the parking garage, Anna took the escalator down into the tunnels, a six-mile subterranean network that connected most of the major buildings in downtown Houston. The tunnels were air-conditioned and well lighted and contained everything from chiropractic clinics to offbeat boutiques, but somehow Anna could never quite conquer the oppressive feeling of being underground.

  Hurrying underneath Travis Street, she rode another escalator up to the sleek glass-and-granite lobby of the Chase Tower, and then waited for an elevator to take her to the sixty-seventh floor where the offices of BMI Global Investigations were located.

  The bell pinged and the doors slid open. As Anna stood back for the half dozen or so well-dressed professionals to disembark, she noticed a man at the rear of the elevator. He was taller than the other passengers, which might explain why her gaze was drawn to him. But Anna suspected it had more to do with the long, thin scar that ran from the top of his cheekbone to the curve of his chin. She’d finally gotten used to her own scar so the sight didn’t put her off, but she couldn’t help wondering what had happened to him.

  He wasn’t dressed in a business suit as all the others were, but wore instead a dark-colored shirt and pants that seemed out of place in Houston on a muggy, rainy afternoon in July. The humidity outside was killer, but the man seemed oblivious to the weather, his fellow passengers and especially to Anna. He barely glanced at her even when they accidentally brushed shoulders as he got off the elevator.

  “Excuse me,” he murmured.

  A chill shot up Anna’s backbone. She could feel gooseflesh prickling along her bare arms as she was shuffled to the back of the car. Through the crowd, she caught a glimpse of the man moving quickly away.

  But just before the doors slid closed, he stopped suddenly and glanced back, his gaze searching the elevator as he lifted a hand to the back of his neck.

  BMI WAS A LARGE private investigation firm founded by two former H.P.D. homicide detectives and an ex-FBI special agent who’d worked out of the field office in Houston for over a decade. They now employed over a dozen certified investigators and a specialized support staff that included computer experts and forensic accountants who were masters at ferreting out hidden assets and undisclosed bank accounts, a service Anna had found invaluable over the years.

  Matthews, Conley and Hart used the P.I. firm exclusively, and Anna had worked with all three of the principle investigators at one time or another. They each had their talents and areas of expertise, but she felt a little more comfortable with Tom Bellows. He was the oldest of the three, and he’d always secretly reminded her of her father.

  The receptionist did a double take when she first saw Anna step through the doorway, and then she gave her a wary greeting. “Hello, Ms. Sebastian. We haven’t seen you in quite a while. Do you have an appointment?”

  No inquiry as to her health, Anna noticed, but she could hardly blame the girl. Before Anna got sick, she would breeze into the office for a quick consultation with one of the investigators, barely giving whoever was behind the desk the time of day. She was ashamed now to admit that she’d never taken the time to learn the receptionist’s name. Nor had she ever noticed how pretty the girl was, with her long, silky hair and crystalline green eyes.

  Anna glanced at the brass plate on the corner of the desk and committed the name to memory. “Hello, Juliette. I don’t have an appointment, but I really need to see Tom Bellows. Is he in?”

  “Hold on and I’ll check.”

  “Thanks.” Anna smiled her appreciation, and the receptionist was clearly stunned by her new, cordial demeanor.

  When Juliette hung up the phone, she said in a careful voice, “You can go on back. Mr. Bellows has a few minutes before his next appointment.” She glanced at Anna, and then quickly looked away, as if she wasn’t quite sure how to respond to her.

  Anna thanked her again, and then started down the hall to Tom Bellows’s office. He was standing in the doorway waiting for her. At fifty-five, he was still a fit and handsome man with silver hair, piercing blue eyes and a tanned, weathered complexion that attested to his passion for deep-sea fishing.

  “I thought Juliette had to be mistaken,” he said in a serious tone. “But it really is you. Welcome back to the land of the living.”

  “Thanks.” A very apt way of putting it, Anna thought as she followed him into his office. He motioned her to a chair across from his desk and she sat down, draping her raincoat across the arm and placing her red umbrella on the floor beside her.

  Tom sat down behind his desk and gave her a long, frank appraisal. “Last time I saw you, I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.”

  She gave him a wry smile. “A lot’s happened since then.”

  He nodded. “I heard you got the transplant.”

  “Yes, thanks for the card you sent.” Tom’s had been one of the few cards that had been waiting for her when she’d gone home from the hospital. It had meant a lot.

  He was still studying her with undisguised curiosity. “I may be crazy, but I swear you look different. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.”

  “I lost quite a bit of weight,” she said with a shrug.

  “You were always thin. That’s not it.” He tilted his head. “It’s the eyes.” He stared at her for a moment longer, and then glanced
away suddenly, as if disturbed by something he’d seen. “You’ve been through a lot. I can see that.”

  She nodded, suddenly very uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken. She cleared her throat. “You’re probably wondering why I’m here.”

  “I assumed you were back at work.”

  “No. And to be quite honest, I’m not even sure I’m going back.”

  He lifted a brow in surprise. “They know that upstairs?”

  “I haven’t handed in my formal resignation, but I suspect they have a pretty good idea. It’s been almost a year, after all.”

  He rubbed his chin. “They’d probably give you another year if you wanted it. An attorney with your abilities and instincts doesn’t come along every day.”

  Abilities as in ambition. Instincts as in sheer, cutthroat ruthlessness. She drew a deep breath. “That was the old Anna.”

  He smiled. “I’ll admit you do seem different, but I’ve never seen a leopard yet who can change its spots overnight.”

  “Maybe you haven’t seen one whose life depended on it,” she countered.

  Tom seemed to consider the possibility for a moment. He shuffled some papers on his desk. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”

  “I have a job for you.”

  “But I thought you said—”

  “It’s personal.”

  “All right, I’m listening.” But a frown already played between his brows as if he were anticipating something unpleasant.

  “I want to find out the identity of my donor.”

  He glanced up, his frown deepening. “Then why not go through the proper channels? I read somewhere that transplant recipients write an anonymous letter to their donor’s family, and it’s delivered through the hospital. The family has the choice to either respond or ignore the letter. Eventually, if both sides agree, they can meet face-to-face.”

  Anna impatiently drummed her fingers on the chair arms. “What if the family decides they don’t want to meet me?”

  “Then that might be for the best.” Tom sat forward, gazing at her intently. He was clearly disturbed by her suggestion. “Look, Anna, I think you’re only looking at this thing from one side, but the safeguards are in place for your protection as well as the donor’s family. Let me give you an example. What if a bereaved mother finds out you have her son’s heart? What if she’s had a hard time accepting her son’s death? What if she starts calling you in the middle of the night or showing up on your doorstep unexpectedly? I’m not saying anything like that would happen, but it could.”

  Apprehension tingled along Anna’s nerve endings as she thought about the phone calls. “I see your point, and I appreciate your concern, Tom. But I think it’s possible someone in the donor’s family may already know who I am.”

  She told him then about the phone calls, and when she finished, he drew the same conclusion as Michael. “I agree that’s pretty strange, but it doesn’t mean the calls are coming from someone in the donor’s family. A lot of people…know about your transplant.”

  She had a feeling what he’d meant to say was that a lot of people had it in for her.

  “Your transplant was even mentioned in the paper,” Tom pointed out. “So it’s hardly a secret.”

  Anna nodded. “My stepmother showed me the article.” Her name and medical condition had been included in a follow-up piece to a highly publicized trial she’d litigated for the firm. She supposed it was possible that someone she’d crossed swords with in the courtroom, or even in the office, had seen that article as well and had, as Michael said, decided to get under her skin a little. “I know what you’re getting at,” she told Tom. “And, yes, I’ve made a few enemies. But I honestly don’t think that’s it. The phone calls are more—”

  “Mind sick?” he supplied.

  A shiver crawled up Anna’s backbone, not unlike the one she’d experienced earlier in the elevator. She thought about the man with the scar, wondering again who had sliced open his face. And why.

  She glanced at Tom. “I was going to say personal. It might even be that someone is trying to reach out to me.”

  “Which is exactly my earlier point,” he reminded her grimly.

  “Look, even if I knew who was responsible for the calls, it wouldn’t change my mind.” Anna leaned toward him. “I don’t expect you to understand, but this is something I have to do. I know my donor was a thirty-nine-year-old woman, but I need to know what kind of person she was, the kind of life she led. Don’t ask me to explain it, but I feel as if I owe her that much.”

  “Don’t you think your gratitude would be better served by honoring her family’s privacy?” Tom asked bluntly.

  Anna drew a breath. “Are you saying you won’t help me?”

  He looked away, unable to hold her gaze. “I’m saying I have deep reservations about this. About your motives.”

  Anger darted through her. She sat back in her chair, eyeing him coldly. “You know, Tom, I’m the one who brought Matthews, Conley and Hart to your firm. One call and I could just as easily take that business away from you.”

  His jaw hardened as he returned her stare. “I’m aware of that.”

  Anna was at once struck by remorse. She put a hand to her mouth. “Tom, that was completely out of line. I apologize.”

  Tom shrugged, but something had changed between them. Anna could see it in his eyes. “Don’t apologize. In some ways, it’s a relief to know the real Anna Sebastian is still around.”

  He studied her for a moment, as if he couldn’t quite decide whether her remorse was genuine or not. “You know, Anna, I’ve always admired and respected you. I’ve even at times felt a certain fondness for you. But you’ve never made it easy for people to care about you.”

  “I know that.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m going to do this for you because you’re right. I do owe you. But after that…” he trailed off on a shrug, and guilt and humiliation welled inside Anna where once she would have allowed herself to feel nothing but anger. Tom was about the closest thing to a friend she had, and now she’d pushed him away. Maybe he was right. Maybe a leopard couldn’t change its spots overnight. Maybe she couldn’t change them at all.

  “If you’d rather I take this to another agency, I’ll understand. And there won’t be any hard feelings. No…repercussions.”

  He shook his head. “I said I’d look into it, and I will. I just hope you know what you could be letting yourself in for.”

  “I do. And I want you to know that I’m not going to hurt anyone with this information. Whatever you find out will stay between us.” She paused again. “I know it’s hard for you to understand, but this is something I have to do. I have to make sure…”

  “You deserve your new heart?”

  His insight stunned her. “Yes, exactly,” Anna murmured. “And I can tell by your expression what your opinion is on the subject.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think.” He stood, drawing the meeting to an end. “I’ll be in touch.”

  He didn’t bother seeing her out.

  Chapter Two

  Anna felt deeply unsettled as she headed up Travis Street toward her apartment in the old Cullen Bank Building on Main. The weather didn’t help. It was after four and the late-afternoon traffic was starting to stack up on the streets, but she was only one of a handful of pedestrians on the sidewalks. The rain had driven everyone else down into the tunnels. Even the terrace at Cabo’s, a trendy Mexican restaurant and bar, looked damply forlorn in the drizzle.

  Crossing the intersection at Preston, Anna began to experience a strange sensation of being watched. She glanced over her shoulder, saw no one behind her, and continued on toward Congress. She waited for the light, and then crossed the street. As she hurried toward her building, her gaze was inexplicably drawn to the covered bus stop at the corner.

  A man stood inside, staring at the slow-moving traffic on Congress. He had his back to Anna, but something about him looked familiar
. He was tall, with closely cropped dark hair and broad shoulders beneath a black shirt.

  Her stomach fluttered as she stood watching him. For a moment, she thought he was the man from the elevator, and something told her to run—not walk—away from him. To hurry inside her building, rush up to her ninth-floor apartment and lock the door behind her.

  But she couldn’t seem to move. And then, as if sensing her scrutiny, he turned slowly to stare at her. Anna caught her breath, realizing at once why he’d seemed familiar to her.

  Her ex-husband smiled as he left the shelter of the bus stop and started toward her.

  “Hello, Anna.”

  “Hays,” she said in surprise. Her hand had gone automatically to her heart, and now she self-consciously dropped her arm to her side. “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you.” Moisture glinted in his dark hair. “I saw you getting on the elevator in the Chase Tower, and I tried to catch you, but you didn’t go up to your office.” He shrugged. “I figured you had to come this way sooner or later.”

  His excuse sounded a bit convenient to Anna although plausible, she supposed. Hays worked for an oil and gas exploration company headquartered in the Chase Tower, which was how they’d first met.

  She decided to play the meeting by ear. “So why did you want to see me?”

  “I’ve been working out of the Dallas office for the past several months, and I just got back in town a few days ago. I heard what happened.” His gaze dropped very briefly to her chest. “I guess I needed to see for myself that you were okay.”

  Anna wanted to accept his concern at face value, but there was something in his eyes that made her say warily, “You didn’t have to go to so much trouble. You could have just called.”

  “Like I said, I needed to see for myself.” He stared down at her. “Can I ask you something?”

  Anna shrugged. “Sure.”

  “How does it feel to have someone else’s heart beating inside your chest?”

  How was she supposed to answer that? Should she tell him she felt an appreciation bordering on reverence for her new heart? That she was deeply humbled by a second chance she’d done nothing to deserve? That she felt an almost spiritual connection with the woman who’d given her the ultimate gift?