Hidden Hearts

by Eva Chase

  My shoulders sagged with relief. I hadn’t wanted to think my parents really could have stolen Carina’s from her, but I’d needed to be sure.

  “Okay,” I said. “You understand why I had to ask?”

  “I wish you hadn’t needed to, but I do,” Dad said. “So where does that leave us?”

  “You and I are as good as we’ve always been,” I said. “Carina… They must have lied to her. That’s the only explanation. They wanted to use her talent in tracking us down, so they made up a story to make you responsible for her parents’ deaths. Hell, they might have been the ones who killed her parents.”

  “Or her parents might not be dead at all,” Dad said. “They might not know she’s still alive. Or they could be trapped in the Facility like your mother and I were. If she’s been under Alpha Project’s thumb since she was a little kid… I don’t know anyone who had a talent manifest that early. None of your brothers’ or yours did. It could be she was born inside.”

  Inside. And then ripped from her parents and told they’d been murdered. Or kept from them, from the truth, in some other way, in any case. My free hand clenched against my leg.

  “She needs to know,” I said. “I have to find a way to show her the truth. She could be on our side if she knew.”

  “Maybe,” Dad said. “It might not be that easy. We have no idea how deeply they’ve indoctrinated her.”

  “I know.” I glanced over at Carina’s face on my laptop again, and the knot in my stomach gave way to a surge of resolve. “But I can’t leave her with them like that. I have to try.”

  10

  Carina

  The text from Nick came in around eight in the evening. Hey, lovely! I think I’m heading out to the club tonight. I know it’s last minute, but did you want to join me?

  I studied the message for several minutes as if it were going to give me some idea of his intentions. My ribs felt as if they’d closed tight around my heart with a painful pinch.

  What did he want with me? Why had he approached me in the first place?

  I’d thought I was the one doing the hunting, but it turned out it’d been the other way around. Knowing that made my skin crawl. But at the same time, I couldn’t shake the sense that Nick’s kindness, his warmth, had been genuine. Had I just picked up some kind of romantic stalker who had nothing to do with my missions here?

  It seemed unlikely, but I guessed stranger things had happened. Either way, I wanted to know.

  Sorry, other plans already. Give me more of a heads up next time, I wrote back. Then I added, Have you been able to talk to Alex yet?

  My loss, Nick replied. And no, he got held up overseas, had to delay his return flight. Crazy business he’s in. But he’s hoping to get back later this week. I mentioned you to him already, and he said he’s happy to help.

  Had he really? Was this some kind of elaborate sting? I didn’t know what to think.

  Thanks, I appreciate that, I wrote. When are you heading to the club? Just in case I have a chance to pop over there.

  Probably around ten, he said. It isn’t really happening until then. Text me if you’re on your way!

  That was one thing I absolutely wasn’t going to do.

  I wolfed down the rest of the Greek takeout I’d grabbed on the way home, not even enjoying the tang of the tzatziki or the salty richness of the gyro now. It wasn’t as if I needed to hurry with two hours to go, but I wanted to make sure I was in place well ahead of Nick. This time I’d be the one waiting in the shadows to mark his arrival.

  Alpha Project had given me a car I could use if I needed it, although driving in a city this chaotic made me nervous enough that I’d mostly stuck to cabs. Today, though, I needed a stakeout spot I could control.

  I wove carefully through the evening traffic, my hands tight on the steering wheel. Whoever had used this car before me had put on way too much minty aftershave. It still lingered in the upholstery.

  On the street outside the club, I parked near the corner: close enough that I could see everyone who came in and out, but far enough that no one should be able to see through the car’s windows with the street lamps reflecting off the glass. I started the radio going, a classical station since that kind of music kept my mind sharp, and leaned back in the seat to wait.

  Nick came only a tiny bit early, around quarter to ten. I spotted his tall, subtly muscular form and his even stride from the corner of my eye and knew it was him before I turned to confirm. Seeing him moving along the dark street made me think of the figure I’d watched returning the teddy bear. That man had moved with soft, crisp steps, different from Nick’s smooth lope. I guessed that didn’t guarantee anything.

  He’d come alone. He stopped just inside the doorway and exchanged what looked like friendly greetings with the bouncer on duty—the bulky black guy I’d seen in his Facebook friends. They ducked inside. I twiddled my fingers in time with the concerto that was playing on the radio, debating my options. Nick might stay and dance for hours. All I’d figured out was that he’d told the truth about where he was planning to be tonight. Was it worth risking him seeing me if I went in? Maybe I should come back another night and ask Dushane a few questions.

  Before I could decide my best course of action, Nick stepped back onto the sidewalk. He stood for a moment in the golden light spilling through the doorway, his tawny hair gleaming bright, his expression thoughtful. Then he turned and started walking in the opposite direction from me. A taxi came around the corner, and he waved to it.

  Huh. What was he up to now? Why would he have come by the club just to chat with his friend for a few minutes?

  Nick got into the cab. I started the engine and eased away from the curb as the taxi drove off. I’d never really tailed someone in a car like in the movies before. I wasn’t sure how close I could get without being obvious, but it’d be easy to lose him if I let them get too far ahead.

  I ended up cruising along about half a block behind. The cab took a fairly straight route across the fringes of inner London and stopped by a large park. Okay. I parked a short distance away as Nick got out. Some sort of secret meeting, maybe?

  He set off down one of the paths through the manicured bushes. I waited a minute and then went after him.

  I treaded carefully along the lawn rather than the path, slipping from tree to tree. Nick had paused by a distant bench. He bent to pick up some object lying beside it that I was too far away to make out and then set whatever it was back down. He walked on, still smoothly but with a sense of purpose.

  He wandered over to a hedge to examine something at its base, and an eerie prickling ran over me. Suddenly I was sure this wasn’t just a random walk. His movements were too methodical. This was something he’d done before, maybe a lot. And probably here.

  Which meant I could look back and maybe learn more.

  I stepped farther away from the path and let myself fall into the past. I needed another night. Another night when Nick had been ambling along these paths. My heart thumped heavy in my chest.

  There. I stopped my reaching and focused on a vision that swam up of the darkened park—even darker, because the sky had been clouded that night. Nick ambled by me, unable to see me as I watched this past version of him.

  I didn’t usually move around during my viewings of the past. Too hard to hold onto that vision; too likely I’d bump into something in the present that I wasn’t currently seeing. But I let myself creep gingerly forward to track the past-Nick’s passage deeper into the park.

  Like the Nick in the present, he stopped once to check something in the grass. Then he paused, peering toward one of the flower beds. With a few quick strides, he walked over—and plucked a plump blue teddy bear from amid the flowers.

  My pulse lurched. My awareness flinched away from that vision of the past, back into the night I’d left behind.

  I rested my hand against the tree I’d ended up standing next to, bracing myself as I sucked in the cool night air. My other hand rose to my moonstone
necklace and clutched it tight. Nick had moved even farther away, just a silhouette in the moonlight. But my mind was still stuck on the image of him I’d seen however many nights ago.

  No, I knew exactly how many nights ago. Nine, the night when that teddy bear had been returned to the house on Everett Street, the night before we’d first met. Or had he already known who I was before that?

  All this time, everything I’d told him, he’d been the one I’d been looking for. Not Nick Fox but Nick Keane. Son of the couple who’d destroyed my own family. Brother to the guy named Jeremy who’d bashed up those people in San Jose.

  He must have figured it out. He’d been waiting there by the house for someone to come by, whether he’d known it would be me or not. He’d known who I was after that, but he’d kept pretending…

  Pretending he wanted to see me. Pretending he was shocked when I’d told him about my parents. Shocked and concerned.

  Had that been pretending? I dragged in another breath, thinking of everything I knew about the man, every aspect of himself he’d shown me. Even the times he couldn’t have known I was watching him, all those past moments I’d glimpsed, he’d appeared to be his usual warm, friendly self.

  He was the kind of guy who returned a lost teddy bear to a kid who’d desperately missed it, with no angling for any reward or even taking credit.

  Even now, he’d picked something up where he stood in the park that he must have thought worth holding on to. All I could make out of it through the dark and distance was what looked like a folded piece of paper. He held it gently for a few moments—getting his read on it, I guessed—and then tucked it into his pocket with a soft little smile.

  One more thing he could return to its rightful, frantic owner?

  He headed back toward me, and I pulled behind a hedge so he wouldn’t see me. My thoughts were spinning.

  I’d known from the start that the man I was tracking was too young to have been involved directly in my parents’ murders. Was it possible Nick really hadn’t known until I’d told him about it a couple days ago in the restaurant?

  I couldn’t let myself hope that. I couldn’t let myself think along those lines at all. What mattered was what had always mattered—he was a link to his parents, to the people I and Alpha Project wanted more than anyone.

  He didn’t know that I’d figured out his deception. I could use that against him. Cozy up a little closer and maybe he’d lead me right to our ultimate target. We’d see how much Frederick looked down his nose at me then.

  11

  Nick

  “What can I say? It’s just such good food I had to try more from the menu,” Carina said, smiling at me.

  We were tucked away in my usual nook at the Indian place again, waiting for the food to arrive. I hadn’t expected to hear from her so soon after she’d turned down my invitation last night, but when she’d suggested we grab dinner, what could I do except jump at the chance?

  There was a whole lot of history I was going to have to overcome to break through the lies she’d been told. I had to take every opportunity I could to win her over—not just for my family’s sake but for hers, too.

  “I’m glad,” I said. “I might have mentioned once or twice that I have really been enjoying your company.”

  “I gathered that,” she said with a wink, but something about her movement as she shifted her weight on the cushions looked a little stiff. A little more tense than usual. Had something happened to her since I’d last seen her?

  I’d sent Liam her photo from her Facebook profile last night. If I could get a DNA sample from her, too, then he’d have the best possible chance of tracking down her real parents and figuring out what had become of them. In the meantime, I could show her what my family was really like. And how malicious the one she’d been dragged into was. I just had to find the right angle.

  “I brought something to fit the atmosphere,” I said, motioning her closer. I produced the wooden puzzle box I’d brought from home—which really had come from my travels through India. But right now it was an excuse to let my fingers brush hers as I handed it over.

  “It’s so intricate,” Carina said, turning it over. An impression had shot from her into me: a jab of discomfort at something a gray-haired man was saying, a sense of being penned in.

  Hmm. Alpha Project must be keeping pretty close tabs on her. I doubted she’d ever been given much freedom. From the way she’d talked, the traveling she’d done had only been with their permission, on their orders. While they had her try to track us down, presumably.

  “You press here, and then turn here,” I said, pointing out the right pieces.

  “Okay, okay, I can take it from there.” She smiled again to offset the brush-off and worked the box with her slender brown fingers. With several more twists and pushes, it sprang open. She gave a little cry of victory.

  “You’re a natural,” I said.

  “You must have quite a collection back at your place with all your traveling,” Carina said. “I’d love to see it sometime.”

  The thought of her back in my apartment, right in my personal space, sent a twinge through me that was both eager and nervous. I didn’t leave anything too incriminating just lying around—I’d learned better than that—but I’d had plenty of conversations there I wasn’t sure I wanted her peering back into the past to observe, if she could direct her talent that accurately.

  “I’d like that,” I said. “Maybe once I’d have enough warning to clean up.”

  She laughed. “Somehow I have trouble imagining you as anything but neat.”

  I shrugged. “I work from home most of the time too. Sometimes I might get a little lazy.”

  “Mmhm?” She raised an eyebrow and turned back to the puzzle box. “So did you inherit this travel bug from your family? Are they off on all sorts of around-the-world adventures too?”

  That was getting into dangerous territory. She couldn’t know how dangerous, could she?

  But talking about my family wasn’t a bad thing. She’d given me an opening to make some of my pitch.

  “I guess you could say that,” I said. “We moved around a lot more because they were trying to do the best they could for me. I think it was stressful for them sometimes. But they always put family ahead of their own needs.”

  Carina cocked her head. “Why did they think moving around was better for you than staying put?”

  “To let me see as much of the world as possible, I guess,” I improvised. It wasn’t entirely untrue. “They really believe in getting as broad a perspective as possible. Getting to know people from all different walks of life, so you can understand your own better. A lot of the philosophies I live by, I picked up from them.”

  There was that stiffness in her body again as she handed the puzzle box back to me. Something I said, or just part of her general mood today?

  “Was it just you, then?” she said. “No siblings?”

  “I have brothers,” I said. “Older and younger.” True without giving away the exact number. “I know it’s cheesy to say, but my parents really are my role models. Even with all the moving around, with us kids to deal with, they always kept their cool. Even helped out other people if they had the chance to.”

  Carina nodded, her gaze fixed on my face. I wondered what she was looking for there.

  The food arrived, steaming bowls the waiter laid out on the low table. We spooned some of each dish onto our plates, drinking in the rich smells. Carina licked her lips, and my gaze shot straight to her mouth. I reined that part of me in. I couldn’t let my lower brain do the thinking right now. As much as I might have been curious what those lips would taste like.

  “From what you said about your home, you didn’t get out a whole lot,” I said as we started eating. “No chances to try all different kinds of food until now?”

  She made a dismissive wave of her hand. “It wasn’t bad. Just, circumstances weren’t great for moving around. My foster parents wanted to give me as stable a life as t
hey could. I can appreciate that.”

  “They don’t stress too much with you on your own out here like this?” I said.

  “No, they know I’m fine. I’ve never gone anywhere they couldn’t contact me, anyway.”

  I watched her fork move from her plate to her mouth. If Alpha Project could get Jeremy’s DNA from a glass he’d drunk from, a fork should work too, right? I’d just have to contrive a moment to steal it. The restaurant owner would have to accept my apologies. I’d return it if I could.

  “Where are your parents now anyway?” she asked. “Still traveling around?”

  Why was she so interested in my family now? I hesitated, a sliver of ice seeping through my chest. She’d barely asked about them before.

  Had she figured out that my parents where the people she believed murdered hers—that I was the guy she’d been looking for? Or at least she was starting to suspect it?

  But if she was thinking that, I couldn’t believe she’d told her handlers at Alpha Project yet. They’d have already grabbed me if they’d known.

  Maybe she was giving me a chance, just like I was giving her one.

  “Still traveling around,” I said. “Last time I talked to them they were on a train. I’ll find out where they ended up the next time they call.”

  “Interesting way to live,” she said with a crooked smile.

  Something about those words sent a twinge through me. If she knew, if she was giving me this chance… How could I show her what that meant to me?

  “Maybe that’s why you and I think the same way about visiting new places,” I said, holding her gaze. “Even though we grew up pretty differently. It’s hard when you’ve always been a little on the outside, isn’t it? When you’re not sure you could really belong anywhere else, with people who are ‘normal.’”

  That last bit might have been a step too far, but it was worth it for the way her expression softened, just for a second. She jerked her eyes away.