Hidden Hearts

by Eva Chase

  Concerned. Right. He’d asked if I was okay. Damn, I must have zoned out for longer than I’d meant to if I was drawing attention like this.

  “I’m all right,” I said, waving my hand dismissively.

  “You looked a little dazed there,” the guy said.

  “I was just trying to remember something. I can get pretty lost in thought sometimes.” I offered a little laugh I hoped was convincing.

  I’d been mingling with normal people for the past five years on a semi-regular basis, but I never felt totally comfortable about unstructured interactions. Buying something from a shop, ordering in a restaurant—hell, even picking up a one-night stand at a bar if I got that itch—those were all simple processes, an easy-to-follow back-and-forth.

  I didn’t know what to expect from this guy. I didn’t know what he expected.

  What was he doing out here at this hour anyway?

  My suspicious nature kicked in. I studied him again. He looked taller than I thought the guy I was looking for had been. Nothing about him stood out as the same. He had a sweater on, no jacket, and he was wearing slacks rather than jeans. Even his shoes were different, leather instead of sporty sneakers. And he was speaking with a light but definite British accent, while the people I was tracking were supposed to be American.

  Nothing about his face looked especially like the photos I’d seen of the older Keanes, Jason and Lisa, or the one son of theirs we’d gotten a little footage of—Jeremy.

  None of that meant anything, though. I was dealing with people with powers like my own. Whatever the main guy I was looking for could do, it helped him connect items with their owners, which I couldn’t see leading to me. But his parents had been able to start fires and read minds. His brother could throw things around just by willing it. And for all we knew they had other siblings too.

  I could play this careful and cautious. But whether he was involved in the crimes I was investigating or not, he might be useful.

  “Do you live around here?” I asked. “I mean, if you’re out here this late?”

  The guy waved his hand to the east. “Not far from here. This neighborhood makes for a nicer walk than mine does, when I feel the need to stretch my legs and clear my head. Plus there’s one of my favorite pubs just a few blocks over.”

  He grinned. It was a fine grin. If we’d been in a pub right now, if I hadn’t needed to worry about whether he was just an ordinary friendly guy or an enemy, maybe I’d have tried to pick him up. But I was on the job, and a little too wound up to really think about anything else.

  If he was telling the truth and he walked through here a lot, maybe he’d seen something after all. And if he was lying, I’d need to find out why.

  I opened my mouth to ask, and the guy reached out abruptly. With one quick but gentle gesture, he flicked his thumb across my cheek, leaving a tingle of warm in its wake. My pulse skipped a beat.

  Okay, maybe I wasn’t completely incapable of thinking about what I might want to do with this dude outside of the job.

  “Sorry,” he said, taking a step back as if he was worried he’d intruded too far on my personal space. “You had a crumb of something on your face.”

  He’d given me more distance, but his gaze was intent. As if he were finding me rather interesting too. It took me a second to remember the question I’d been about to ask.

  “I don’t suppose you took a walk through here last night?” I said. “I’m actually trying to find someone.”

  He cocked his head. “Someone who was hanging out here last night?”

  “They passed through, anyway.” I gave another laugh. “It’s a long story—hard to explain. So, were you around?”

  “In the late evening, yeah, I passed through too. I saw at least a few people. Didn’t pay special attention to any of them, but maybe I can help if you tell me a little more.” He paused and held out his hand. “I’m Nick, by the way.”

  I took his hand automatically. He had a firm shake, and he let go before it felt awkward. I didn’t have a talent for reading emotions, but basic human instinct wasn’t giving me any reason to be wary of him. “Carina,” I said.

  “Well, Carina,” Nick said with a smile. “I was about to head over to that favorite pub of mine to get a late-night snack and a drink. If you’ve got a long story to tell, why don’t you join me? You explain what you’re looking for, and I’ll go over what I saw last night, and hopefully I’ve got something useful to you. If not, at least you’ll have gotten some good food in you.”

  His words brought a pinch into my stomach. I’d eaten dinner, but that’d been hours ago, and not a very big one. This guy was the closest thing to a new lead that I’d found. If he had some tie to the Keane family, he couldn’t do anything to me in a public bar that he couldn’t have already done here on this quiet street if he’d wanted to. It couldn’t hurt to spend a little more time with him, and chow down on some tasty pub food, just in case he remembered something helpful.

  “Sure,” I said. “Why not? Lead the way.”

  3

  Nick

  When the waitress brought over our food, I couldn’t help laughing. “That’s quite an assortment you ordered, there.”

  Carina adjusted her weight on the bench across the booth from me, looking pleased with herself. She’d gotten herself a plate of fried pickles and one of pierogi, a bowl of oyster stew, and a small heap of honey sriracha wings. I couldn’t imagine how those flavors were going to mix, but she dug right in.

  “If you’re paying, I’m going to make the most of it,” she said with a wink. When she leaned her elbows onto the table, biting into a chicken wing and raising an eyebrow at me as if daring me to complain about her manners, I couldn’t stop my gaze from dipping over the rest of her body.

  She had enough curves that it was clear she didn’t worry too much about what she ate, but her figure was shaped by lean muscle that gave her an appealingly athletic look. She must have done a fair bit of physical training before Alpha Project had sent her on this mission.

  That thought drew any attraction I was feeling up short. I knew for sure she was with the Alpha Project people. The brief bits of contact I’d managed—brushing her cheek, shaking her hand—had given me enough of an impression to tell me that. I’d caught a glimmer of her in a small room nodding to a man who stood with an air of authority, bobbing her head and promising, I’ll use my talent however I can to catch them.

  I’d also caught a glimpse of her sighing over an elaborate spread of food in a restaurant, which was what had given me the idea to appeal to her stomach. I didn’t know what her talent was yet, but clearly it hadn’t allowed her to figure out who I was. So, we could keep playing this game of getting-to-know-you until I had a better idea what she and her people were up to.

  I took a bite of the steak I’d ordered. My stomach was a little tight, but the savory juices brought out a pang of hunger anyway. I hadn’t actually ever been to this pub before, but I’d picked well.

  “I’m just saying it seems like an unusual combination,” I said, gesturing to her plates.

  Carina shrugged, chomping on a fried pickle. “Where I grew up, we didn’t do a whole lot of variety at mealtimes. Getting to branch out is one of the best parts of getting out into the world.”

  She paused, snapping her mouth shut, and gave me a careful look as she spooned up a little oyster stew. Not outright suspicious, but she was definitely still wary. Worried about saying too much. Well, I could relate to that.

  Where she grew up. In the same underground lab that had held my parents? Surely she wouldn’t be helping those assholes if she’d gone through the imprisonment and torture they had?

  That was the biggest mystery here: why she was helping Alpha Project. Did she really want to see other people like her shut away in some lab? Did they have some leverage on her, something they were using to force her to comply?

  The brief impression I’d gleaned hadn’t given me the sense she was being compelled, though. I’d gotten
a feeling of determination and even eagerness, not fear.

  Yes, the woman in front of me contained a whole lot of mystery to unravel.

  “Strict parents?” I suggested. The more I could keep her talking, the faster I might uncover that mystery.

  “Not really,” she said. “They just liked to keep things simple.”

  “I’m assuming you didn’t grow up around here,” I said. “That’s an American accent, isn’t it?”

  She wrinkled her nose at me. “Are you going to hold that against me?”

  “Oh, no. The Americans are a fine people.” I grinned. She didn’t need to know that technically I was American too, if we went by my parents’ official citizenship. By birth location, I was French. I’d been living in London five years, long enough that it was easy to slip into the local accent unless I made an effort not to.

  “You don’t seem to be the culinarily adventurous type,” Carina said, waving her fork at my steak. “Meat and potatoes man?”

  I arched my eyebrow back at her. “Maybe I was just playing it cautious this time so I didn’t embarrass myself in front of you. Next time we’ll have to go for Indian.”

  “Next time, huh?” Carina said. “Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I figure if you like me enough to agree to a next time, I’ll have to worry less about making a mess with my food.”

  She laughed for just a moment before she cut herself off. Reminding herself of the real reason she was here, I had to guess. Because I’d dangled a hook with a worm to keep her with me.

  “Yesterday night, when you were on your walk,” she said in a more business-like tone. “Did you see any guys—probably around our age, somewhere in his twenties—with a jacket and a scarf on.”

  A chill tingled over my skin. How did she know what I’d been wearing? I thought of the daze she’d gone into outside of the house—like Liam going into one of his visions, I’d thought. Except she hadn’t seen what was happening some other place the way he did. Had she witnessed a sliver of the past?

  Suddenly I was awfully glad I took all the precautions I did against getting recognized while I did my drop-offs.

  I kept my stance casual and tapped my lips as if in thought. One thing decades of being on the run does for you—you develop nerves of steel when it comes to keeping your cards close. If you give away that you’re nervous in a situation like this, you might as well kiss freedom goodbye.

  “It’s a bit warm for a scarf still, isn’t it?” I said. “I think I’d have noticed that. Are you worried about what this guy was doing in the neighborhood?”

  “Not exactly,” Carina said. “There’s— I’m trying to locate him, basically. And I’ve already talked to someone else who saw him but could only describe his clothing. I’m hoping there’s someone else out there who saw more.”

  I might as well give her a nudge in the wrong direction while I had her attention. “I suppose a scarf is a thing he could have taken off. I did see a guy around my age that night—dark hair, a little on the long side. Bit of a beard. Maybe that was him?”

  “Maybe,” Carina said, but I could already see her interest in this conversation fading.

  “Why are you trying to find the guy anyway?” I asked. “What’s the long story? We’ve got time for it now.”

  She shook her head, frowning for a moment at her half-eaten plates of food. “It’d probably just sound strange to you. In a boring way.”

  “Did he cause some kind of trouble for you?”

  “No,” she said, but her jaw tightened a little. Interesting. “I… I think I might have something that belongs to him. That’s all. But it’s hard to find someone when you don’t know their name or even what they look like, right?”

  “True, true.” I paused to take another bite of my steak as if I wasn’t all that invested in this conversation neither. “But you knew he was in the neighborhood last night.”

  She shrugged. “Like I said, long story, kind of boring.”

  She was disengaging. I still hadn’t found out anything I could use. I had plenty of practice hiding my own intentions, but I wasn’t used to trying to draw information out of someone else. Not through conversation. If I could have just sat and held her hand for half an hour…

  Not much chance of that. The table was wide enough that it’d be awkward to even contrive another excuse to touch her skin-to-skin now. Maybe I should go at the family angle again? She’d revealed a little bit to me that way.

  As she scooped up another spoonful of stew, her other hand settled briefly on the necklace she was wearing: a moonstone pendant shaped like a teardrop, hanging from a short silver chain. I nodded to it.

  “That’s a pretty necklace. Any significance?”

  Her fingers closed around it for a second before she let it go. “Present from my parents,” she said, in a tone short enough that I could tell she didn’t want any more questions about that. She looked around at the plates in front of her and groaned. “You know, I think I did order too much. I’m sorry. I’ll pay for my order.”

  She fished her wallet out of her pocket. Shit. She thought I’d given her all the information I could, so she was bailing.

  I scrambled for a way to keep her on the line. “It’s fine, really,” I said, waving for her to put her wallet away. “I can afford to splurge in the interests of culinary enjoyment every now and then.”

  “If you’re sure,” she said, but she was standing up anyway.

  I hesitated, and then I threw out the only thing I could think of, risky though it might be.

  “You know, that guy you’re looking for… I have a friend who I swear is almost supernaturally good at finding things. Maybe he could help you figure out where the guy is.”

  Carina had been looking toward the exit. At that comment, her head jerked around. “What do you mean, ‘supernaturally good’?” she said. Her voice was skeptical, but her gaze was fixed hard on me now.

  “I don’t know,” I said, as nonchalantly as I could manage. “He just always seems to find things people are looking for. I swear he could make a living off the rewards people give him for returned wallets and dogs and God knows what else.”

  She sat back down. Her body had tensed. “That does sound useful,” she says. “Maybe just what I’d need. You want to introduce me to this friend of yours?”

  “Sure,” I said breezily. “He’s a pretty easy-going guy. Alex—that’s his name. He just left this morning on a business trip, but he’ll be back in about a week. Let me know how to get in touch with you, and I’ll set something up. If that isn’t too long a wait.”

  “No, that’s fine. Why don’t you give me your number and I’ll text you?”

  I rattled off the digits for my regular cell phone, the one I used for everyone not in the family. But I didn’t want to wait a week and then have to make excuses. I needed to figure out more about her before then.

  The seed of an idea sprouted in my mind. “In the meantime,” I said, “I don’t suppose you’d like to get together again? If you like dancing even half as much as you like food, there’s a great club downtown I can get us into. And the food they have is pretty damn good too. Alex and I go there all the time.”

  Carina studied me, and I smiled mildly back at her. Friendly but not overbearing. She thought I was friends with the guy she was looking for. She thought this place was somewhere he frequented. Would that make me a worthwhile enough mark?

  She wet her lips, drawing my attention to her mouth more than was really good for keeping a clear head. Then she said, “Sure. I do like dancing. If I still like you after that, then we can try the Indian food.”

  I had to laugh. “Let me have your number too, then,” I said, pulling out my regular phone. “I’ll give you a shout when I have a better idea of my schedule for the week and text you the address.” There, now I shouldn’t sound crazily eager.

  Carina took the phone from me to type in her number herself, and her fingers brushed mine in that insta
nt. I caught only a glimmer of feeling—exhilaration as she spun on some other dance floor, strobe lights flashing over her. Then it was gone. She handed back the phone.

  I had a date with the enemy.

  I used every trick I knew to make sure no one tailed me home. I’d already stuck my neck out far enough with Carina. It wasn’t until I’d flopped onto the old couch in my flat in Finsbury Park that I pulled out my other phone and texted my parents’ number.

  Made contact with AP agent. Will try to find out more. Details tomorrow.

  It was two in the morning now. My parents were in Croatia, so even later there—or earlier, depending on how you looked at it. I doubted I’d get an answer until I got up tomorrow.

  I was a little too wound up to try to get to sleep just yet, though. Instead, I dialed up Ethan, the only one of my brothers currently on the other side of the world where it was still a reasonable time to call. Ethan had been hanging out in Atlanta for the last three years.

  “Good timing,” he said when he picked up. “I’m just getting the first track finished. You want to hear it?”

  “Sure.” I earned my keep through copyediting and occasional writing jobs, and Ethan was as heavy into music as Liam was into computers. Every now and then I had a client who was putting together something that needed some tunes—a commercial or a video presentation—and I passed them on to my brother.

  I didn’t really need to check in on his work, but I made a point of reaching out every week or two, even if we only shot the breeze for a few minutes. Out of the five of us Keane brothers, Ethan was the quietest, the one most inclined to fade into the background. It’d been a long time since he’d gotten into any trouble either. I knew how conflicted he felt about his talent and how carefully he kept it in check.

  It was good for him to know that he was still on someone’s mind. That he hadn’t been forgotten as we all carried on with our lives.