Chapter 113

Sarah POV

“I don’t want him to come back here,” I said to Zane the next morning in his study. “I know that sounds harsh, but Jordan is a nasty little shit-stirrer first class, and he’s got no business being around Grace and Chloe.”

“Growl, growl,” Zane remarked. It was teasing, but I could tell from his eyes he was taking me seriously.

“I know Ella is an important member of your household,” I said. “But I don’t know if—”

“If she’s a good influence on the girls?” he asked, leaving me just sitting there for a moment. I’d thought I’d have to argue that point for hours, if not days.

“While you were with Jordan and the girls getting cupcakes,” Zane said, “Ella accused me of sleeping with you and threatening the pack, and she wasn’t particularly nice about it.”

I looked around instinctively. “She knows?”

“I suspect so, but then, I imagine a lot of people do.

I had to think about that for a minute.

“Have you ever considered what an incredible coincidence it’s been that I was Ella’s maid?” I finally asked.

“Yes, and today I’ve started considering it more.”

“I was assigned to her by my agency. Do you think Travis—”

“I’ve already got him looking into it. Interestingly enough, the agency had a computer crash a few months ago that wiped out their records.”

“That is interesting,” I said faintly.

“It was part of a bigger ring of those cyber-ransom cases we’ve been experiencing, but it was very inconveniently, or conveniently, timed.”

I nodded at the desk.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Look at me.”

“I don’t want to.”

“No?”

“Looking at you makes it difficult to think straight. I love the girls, both of them, so much. The idea of Ella coming at either of them, I can’t deal with it.”

“The girls? Not you and me?”

I nodded and managed to look up at him with a rueful half-smile. “Have you ever noticed the way Grace just seems to deflate when Ella comes into the room?”

“I didn’t, but then, I can’t believe how much Grace has come out of her shell since you and Chloe came along.”

“I knew it,” I said to myself as much as to him. “I knew he was putting on an act yesterday, but I couldn’t figure out why.”

“And now?”

“It was like he was determined they would make friends, like he needed them to like him. Now I know why.”

“Because he’s a nasty little shit-stirrer?”

“Yes.” I closed my eyes. “Can’t we go a day without some new thing coming along?”

Zane was silent. I opened my eyes to see him frown at me in surprise.

“What?”

“I thought the same thing yesterday,” he said. “I mean, let’s count them up here. First, Chloe gets kidnapped.”

“Zane,” I said as gently as I could.

“What?”

“First, Olivia died in childbirth, and Grace almost died.”

He stared at me, obviously rocked to his core. Without another word, he stood and walked to his side cabinet, pulled out two glasses and a bottle of wolf-grade whiskey. He poured a splash me for and added soda, and then a full two fingers for himself. He brought them back and handed one to me before he sat back down, this time in front of his desk instead of behind it.

We clicked glasses and both sipped. I hadn’t had whiskey with soda before. I liked it, and then I instantly felt guilty for liking it.

“OK,” he said finally. “Olivia, who was healthy has an ox and glowing throughout her pregnancy, goes into unexpected complications after Chloe is born. She barely manages to birth Grace, who is then sickly, and then she dies.”

“Zane.” He looked at me. “I’m so very sorry.”

“I know,” he said. “But we’re just trying to make a list here, and you’re right.”

“Then Chloe is kidnapped,” I said.

“Right. I looked everywhere for her, and meanwhile Marshal Kim, who’s just been one of my gardeners on Mavis’s staff, takes Chloe and puts her in a basket on your doorstep.”

“I try to get her placed, but I have no luck, and I finally take her in myself.”

“What do you mean, you had no luck?”

I thought about it. “She was ill, oddly ill. The doctor at the orphanage said she wasn’t likely to make it.”

“Travis said Chloe didn’t have respiratory problems, not like Grace.”

“No, in fact, there wasn’t really a diagnosis. She just looked, well, like a pale, red-faced little potato.”

He stared at me. I shrugged.

“It’s what they kept calling her, a little red potato. And when I wasn’t holding her, she was so fussy, crying and shrieking. So I would hold her for hours. In the end, there wasn’t really anything else to do but bring her home.”

“Grace had breathing problems until she was three, all the time at first, then little by little less and less. Then there was the, well, peace for a while. She was better, and Ella was very helpful. She even posed with Grace for an ad once, some perfume.”

“I’ve seen it. Grace keeps it framed but in a drawer.”

“Then we meet, and we’ve got the rogue werewolf, who kills himself rather than be captured. The shooting, which was supposedly some anti-human nut job who also conveniently kills himself. Then you’re almost killed by a sadistic alpha I last saw being sent to a home.”

“I don’t think we can count the mine,” I said.

“Yes, that’s something, I suppose.”

We sat in silence again.

“But nothing connects anything,” he said finally.

“We forgot Marshal Kim,” I said. “He killed himself too, but not really.”

“No, he was definitely murdered.”

“That just makes it worse!”

“I agree, but it still doesn’t change the fact that there’s nothing connecting these things except us, and then only in terms of being a target.”

“A target,” I repeated slowly.

Zane waited for me to continue.

“Is this just part of being famous?” I asked. “You’re rich and powerful, and now I’m in your sphere of influence. It is paranoia to want some big theory to explain everything?”

“OK,” Zane said, leaning forward. “Let’s take out some things that could be explained away because we’re public figures. A crazy took a potshot at you, a rogue attacked Grace, and the masquerade was just Rob being insane in his own way. Olivia died in childbirth, and her twin daughters were ill as infants, and these things do happen.

“That still leaves Chloe’s kidnapping, Kim’s murder, and the too-incredible coincidence of your ending up as Chloe’s mother and Ella’s maid.”

“And Travis hasn’t been able to dig up anything on Kim or the kidnapping, which means someone hid their tracks,” I said. “And the records that would tell us how I ended up with Ella have been destroyed.”

“So, we’re definitely not being paranoid.”

I nodded then reached across the desk to take his hand. It instantly made me feel better, and Zane sent me a fond smile.

It was late now, but we just sat there together, feeling united against whatever was working against us, and I knew we were both wondering how long this moment of peace could possibly last.