Fractured Things - Samantha Lovelock Page 0,42
on Catherine—she’d gotten her hopes up too many times in the past. So, she sent her PI to New York to look into the information about you, and she sent me to Georgia.”
“She sent YOU? Why the hell would she do that?” The incredible orgasms earlier, followed by our afternoon nap, have left me feeling dazed. My brain is struggling to keep up, and I’m getting irritated for some reason.
“Because she needed a favor from somebody she could fully trust to be discreet, and I’m the Halliday Heir. Technically, any requests made of the Heirs would come to me.” He glances at me before returning his focus to anything but my face. “You’re wondering why she didn’t ask my dad.”
“I have no fucking idea what I’m wondering right now, but sure, let’s go with that.” I snap, feeling my nerves starting to stretch tighter and tighter.
“My father would naturally have been her first choice, but she lived through his heartbreak when Catherine first disappeared, and then the year he spent searching for her. She couldn’t put him through that again, so she went to the next best option.”
“You.”
“Me,” he nods sadly, “and you have no idea how badly I wish she hadn’t.”
“Why? What did you find?” The lump in my throat makes it difficult to speak, and my voice comes out weak and stilted.
He scrubs his palms across his face before leaning forward on his forearms and turning his face to mine.
“I found her.”
His words have roughly the same effect on me as a cattle prod or a bolt of lightning. The hope that juices my veins is the highest high multiplied by a thousand. Scrambling to my knees, I hastily yank the sheet free from the other side of the bed and fashion an awkward cover-up out of the section Poe isn’t sitting on.
“You found her? You found my mom?” I ask excitedly.
Hearing the electricity in my voice, he turns to look back at me kneeling in the middle of the bed and wearing his bed sheet like a crazy dress, but his face doesn’t look excited. It looks devastated.
“She was living in Columbus, Georgia, in a state-run facility.” There’s something in his voice, something dark…
“Wait. What did you say? She WAS living in Georgia? In a facility? Where is she now?” My hand reaches out and latches unconsciously onto Poe’s muscular bicep. “Where is she now, Poe?” Desperation colors my voice in shades of wine red and grainy charcoal.
“She was sick, Star. The first time she saw me, she thought I was my dad, and it scared her. Badly. She kept begging me to leave, crying that it wasn’t safe there—that ‘they’ would find out and come for her and her baby. Eventually, the orderlies had to sedate her, but before I left, I gave the charge nurse my name and number as an emergency contact since there wasn’t one listed.” He stops, expecting me to say or do something, I guess, but I’m frozen. Caught in a silent internal battle between hope and despair, unable to speak until his story is told.
“Back at the hotel, I called Cecily. She was shocked. She said she needed to get a few things in order but that she would meet me in Columbus in two days to bring Catherine home. The next morning, I decided to go visit your mom again. She was lucid enough to recognize I wasn’t my dad that time. We spent the afternoon trading stories. Me telling her about my life and answering questions about her sister. Her gushing proudly about her beautiful daughter, who was about my age, and how much she missed her.”
The tears are coursing freely down my cheeks, and I don’t even bother to wipe them away anymore. The ache in my chest is nearly breaking me, and Poe’s next words are like being hit by a train.
“I think I fell a little in love with the idea of you that day.” He pauses, and a small, sad smile creases his lips before he continues. “Before I left, I told her all about how Cecily would be there the next day to take her home to Folkestone. Then I hugged her goodbye. Knowing what we do now about Callum, I never should have said anything about Folkestone. What happened is my fault.”
The pause is so long this time, I wonder if he’s going to say anything else. But when he does, I’d give anything to stuff the words back into his mouth.
“The