Secrets of the Harts

23 December 2009
We had arrived in Catania Airport, along east coast of Sicily, Italy, at 6 a.m.

Needless to say, I was beyond exhausted. Between getting a late night flight to Sicily, grabbing whatever clothes I could for myself, trying not to be surprised when Dylan produced fake passports (which was the reason why we even by St. Jude’s), failing to behave normally when we went past security at the airport and vomiting copiously on the flight, I was dead on tired.

And now, we had to go through this.

I couldn’t understand what the receptionist at the hotel was saying but Dylan could and they were arguing furiously. Eventually, I sat down on one of the soft looking sofas of the lobby, listened to the tinkling sounds of cutlery hitting porcelain as guests from the nearby restaurant ate an early breakfast and drifted off to sleep.



When I woke up, I was lying on a bed.

Disorientated, I sat up, wondering where I was. Then I realized that there was someone else on my bed. Seeing as how this wasn’t the first time I had woke up asleep next to him-and somehow, that sounded very wrong-I crept out of bed as quietly as I could.

This time, he didn’t stir.

Relieved, I went to the bathroom, took care of the essentials and then checked to make sure that my earring was still on. Satisfied that I hadn’t lost it, I took out the small phone I had hidden, strapped to my inner thigh with Velcro.

Owen had given it to me.

“I know you don’t want me looking after you, but at least take this. Talk to me when you can. I want to make sure that you’re safe.”

I knew that Dylan wouldn’t have liked it but there was still no reason to feel as nervous as I did, calling Owen. Taking a deep breath, I dialed his number.

“Kristen? Are you okay?”

I smiled slightly at his worry, even though I knew I shouldn’t have been as amused as I was. “Yes, I’m fine. How…how did she react when she found out we were gone?”

He chuckled. “She was mad as hell. Couldn’t figure out how you did it, because I got the tapes on loop so it seemed like everything was okay. Then one of the guards told her. I’m on probation now.”

“Probation?”

“Yeah, but that’s better than I thought it’d be.” Owen sighed. “So where are you two? I take it you’re alone now.”

Now, I knew that Dylan definitely wouldn’t like it if I divulged this information. To be honest, I wasn’t very sure that I wanted to either. In spite of what I wanted to believe this Owen- my Owen- was and wasn’t capable of, I also recalled the hurt he had caused. And so, I took the easy way out. “I need to go, I think he’s up.”

He laughed again, softly and more intimately. “Alright. Call me when you get the chance to.”

With that, I hung up on him and hid the phone again, wondering if there was anywhere else I could hide this. It could get pretty uncomfortable. But I hid it not a moment too soon because the minute I stepped out, Dylan cracked open an eyelid. “Good morning.”

The shock was enough to give me a heart attack but I played it off with a tiny smile. “Yes. And how did I get here?”

“I carried you, of course. You fell asleep at the lobby.”

I measured his expression and found that it seemed like he was telling the truth. “You could have just woken me.”

“I tried. You didn’t wake. Besides, I think you kind of needed some rest after all that puking.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I somehow don’t believe your Good Samaritan act. Is there something you need to tell me about? Like, for instance, why are we sharing a room?”

“About that…” He sat up and I noticed that he wasn’t wearing a shirt again. “Eyes up here, princess.”

Rolling my eyes, although it was pretty embarrassing to be caught staring at a boy’s chest, I pointedly waited for him to get to whatever he had been saying before.

“After I managed to convince that receptionist guy that yes, we were legally able to book a room and that no, we weren’t booking the room to have sex-” I was quite sure I’d turned red at this point. “-he told me that there was only one room left, at least only one room within our budget.”

He placed more emphasis on the last three words, because he knew he had me.

We had fought, a few hours before booking the flight, about money.

The facts were:

1. I had none, because my accounts were all managed by Calloway. If I were to take a single cent from them, she would be able to trace it down easily.

2. Dylan had a lot. Most of it was illegal, hence frozen by Agency, but I knew that there was some that they hadn’t traced yet. For instance, he’d came out with a huge bundle of cash from St. Jude’s, another thing he had collected but neglected to tell me about until he did the deed, which I guessed was either counterfeit or illegal earned.

3. He had no morals whereas I had.

Frowning, I didn’t say anything else about that. Instead, I asked, “So what do you know about my mother?”

“Why do you want to find her, princess?”

I sat down on the chair opposite the bed and shrugged. “Does it matter? All you have to do is to find her.”

Dylan studied me intently and I found it unnerving, watching his green eyes catch the light of the room and sparkling in a million different colours. Suddenly aware of the turn my thoughts were taking, and not liking it one bit, I went, a little bit too harshly, “What happened to your mother?”

“You mean how she died.” Dylan stretched his arms lazily but I could see the tension in his neck. Feeling awful, I opened my mouth to tell that I didn’t really need to know, but he’d already started speaking in a monotone. “She had brain cancer, last stage. There’s wasn’t much we could do. She died last year.”

I tried to keep my expression neutral, knowing that it wasn’t sympathy that he wanted from me. In any case, his face was blank, his eyes focusing somewhere on my forehead instead of my eyes.

There was silence for a while until he pulled me next to him on the bed and laid his head on my lap. Strangely enough, I didn’t mind.



“Okay, so this is what we do know about Alessandra Zeta. She’s approximately 45 years old this year, is of Italian descent and is a blonde.”
“Do I want to know how you know all this?”
“…No, I don’t think so.”

Dylan was currently setting up his computer, I wasn’t sure why, and was starting his search for Alessandra Zeta. We were both behaving normally but was no way we could both pretend that whatever it was (a thing, a mistake, an accident, a connection) had happened and it was making me frustrated. “Is there anything else you know about her?”

“She lives in Sicily.”

That explained why we were here. He hadn’t wanted to tell me why but now I knew and still, it wasn’t enough. “So you’re saying that you only know her hair colour and the state she’s living in?”

“That’s a lot more than you know, isn’t it?”

That stung mostly because it was true. I didn’t know anything about my own mother.

“Look, princess,” he said, looking up at me, “I’m going to try my best to find her. I’ll use all the contacts I have here but you really have got to trust that I can do this.”

You’ve got to trust me, he seemed to be saying.

“Well, I’m hungry.”

Dylan sighed, with more than a touch of irritation and slammed his computer shut. “And what do you want me to do about it?”

“I don’t know, how about get me some? After all, I don’t know Italian.”

He stared at me incredulously and I returned his glare with equal force. Finally, he got up and left the room, all the while mumbling about impatient, frustrating girls.