Her Private Avenger

by Elle Kennedy

Without hesitation, Morgan ducked under the yellow tape and knelt beside the grave. She stared at the dirt, unable to fathom how anyone could have done this to Layla. Killed her, buried her here. Wild foxes and coyotes were frequently spotted in the area, and Morgan felt nauseous at the thought that a wild animal could have chewed on Layla’s bones as if she were nothing but a late-night snack.

  She swallowed the bile creeping up her throat and stood up abruptly. “There’s nothing here,” she said, desperation lining her tone.

  Quinn, who’d been examining the surrounding area, glanced over. “It’s been ten years. Any blood, or trace evidence, would have been washed away long ago. If that dog hadn’t decided to explore this stretch of woods, her body would have probably stayed buried for who knows how long.”

  Morgan brushed dirt off her knees and joined him, shaking her head in anger. “I want to find out who did this, Quinn. I owe it to Layla and her family.”

  “You’ll find the truth,” he said.

  “I hope so.” She tore her gaze away from Layla’s grave and straightened her shoulders. “Come on, let’s head over to Davidson’s office.”

  They didn’t speak as they followed the trail back to the high school. Morgan thought of Layla, conjuring up the memory of her mischievous eyes and hundred-watt smile. Layla was the only true friend she’d had. The other girls at school, snooty girls like Beth Greenwood, loathed Morgan, probably because Edward Kerr practically owned the town. They never ran out of nasty things to say about her. If she showed up to school in a new outfit, they called her a rich bitch. If she went out on a date, she was a slut. If she was too distracted to say hello to someone in the hall, she was a sno

  But not Layla. Layla didn’t care how wealthy Morgan’s family was, and unlike the others, she hadn’t been jealous of the wealth either. That’s what Morgan loved most about her, the down-to-earth nature, the complete lack of interest in trivial matters like popularity, or envy, or jealousy. Layla had been a first-class friend.

  “Should we drive to the M.E.’s office, or walk?” Quinn asked when they reached the parking lot where they’d left the car.

  “Drive,” Morgan replied. “The medical complex has a back alley where we can stash the car.”

  The trip to Frank Davidson’s building took all of five minutes. Autumn was a small town; almost everything was within walking distance, save for the Kerr estate, which was a fifteen-minute drive from Main Street. Morgan always suspected her father’s family had built the mansion so far from town on purpose, so the lowly townsfolk wouldn’t find it so accessible. Ironic, since every Kerr politician, including her father, based his campaign on being a people-person, accessible to everyone around him.

  Davidson’s office sat adjacent to Autumn’s medical clinic, a fact that had always creeped her out as a kid. She’d be seeing her doctor for her annual checkup, and thinking about the dead bodies next door the entire time.

  Quinn parked the car in the alley and killed the lights and engine. For the first time all night, he cracked a smile. “Bring your lock-picking kit?” he teased.

  She reached into the inner pocket of her black coat and retrieved the small, leather case. “Sure did.”

  “All right, let’s see if you remember what I taught you.”

  His words brought a smile to her own lips. She still remembered that night as if it were yesterday—Quinn patiently teaching her the basics, then handing her the tools and letting her have a go at every lock in her apartment. Once she’d even picked the lock in her father’s office, just to see if she could.

  “That was, what? Our third date?” she teased back. “I doubt that’s proper dating etiquette, buddy, teaching your date how to behave like a criminal.”

  “Picking locks is a skill everyone should know,” he answered with a shrug. “What if you ever got locked out of your apartment?”

  “That’s what landlords are for.”

  “And if the landlord isn’t there that day?”

  She sighed. “Unlike you, I don’t think that far ahead.”

  He grinned again. “No kidding. Your impulsiveness is your fatal flaw.” He paused thoughtfully. “And on the other hand, it’s one of your best traits. Figure that one out.”

  Warmth spread over her body like a loving caress, and she averted her eyes before he could see the longing she knew must be flickering there. She wasn’t one for redundancy, but damn it, she missed him. Every five seconds, the thought came to her mind. She missed him. Missed him. Missed him. And she couldn’t help it. She’d thought about Quinn every day for the past two years, and now that he was finally here, she couldn’t stop the floes from opening. Everything about him brought back familiar feelings of love and heat—and damn it, she missed that.

  Forcing aside her thoughts, she got out of the car and the two of them crept toward the steel door in the alley. Her pulse sped up a little as she removed two small tools from her kit and bent over the lock. Quinn stood behind her, shielding her from view as she inserted a hook pick into the lock and started fiddling around. The telltale click of the lock’s inner cylinder came so fast she couldn’t help but twist her head to shoot Quinn a huge grin.

  “Still got it,” she whispered.

  His mouth twitched. “Nice job, Kerr.”

  She slid up to her feet and pushed the door handle. The moment they stepped into the shadowy corridor, the alarm mounted on the wall began to beep, warning them they had ten seconds to enter in the code before the alarm started shrieking like a banshee.

  “My turn to shine,” Quinn murmured. He swiftly stepped up to the panel, retrieved a wire cutter from his pocket and made a series of snips to the wires hooked into the control panel. The beeping instantly stopped.

  “How do you know which ones to cut?” she asked curiously.

  “This is the cheapest, most common model on the market,” he said, gesturing to the panel. “It’s the first model I ever learned to bypass.”

  “What’d you do, do an internet search for Bypassing Alarms 101?”

  “Nah, bought a copy of Alarms for Dummies,” he said glibly.

  She rolled her eyes, then shifted back to business mode. She pointed to the open doorway at the end of the hall and said, “That’s the morgue. Davidson’s office is upstairs.”

  They headed for the morgue first, where Quinn approached the wall of refrigerated metal compartments. He studied the identification stickers on each section, pausing in front of one at the far end. “She’s here,” he said quietly.

  Morgan’s throat tightened as Quinn tugged on the handle and pulled out the stretcher containing Layla’s remains. She’d visited morgues before, on other assignments, but the sight of her best friend’s bones brought her perilously close to vomiting.

  “You okay?” Quinn asked, catching her eye.

  She sucked in a gulpful of oxygen, willing the nausea away. “I’m fine.”

  Reluctant, she stepped forward and studied the skeleton lying on the cold metal. She tried to pretend she was looking at something in science class, a random set of bones that didn’t belong to anyone she knew. Just an anatomy lesson.

  The bones hadn’t been bagged and labeled yet. Morgan wished they had. It was highly disturbing looking at her friend’s skeleton laid out on the table, faded gray bones assembled to form a crude version of a former human being. The bones were surprisingly preserved, though. Other than a scary set of tooth marks on the fibula bone, most likely from a hungry animal, the skeleton presented very little damage. Little natural damage, that is.

  Quinn let out a soft le. “I think we know cause of death.”

  She rounded the table and went to his side, gasping when he pointed out the deep depression in Layla’s skull. Without touching anything, he moved his finger over the skull to highlight the evident trauma. “Two fractures here,” he pointed out. “And see how this part of the skull is nearly caved in? I think she died from a blow, or multiple blows, to the head. We should peek into Davidson’s files for confirmation, but there
doesn’t seem to be damage anywhere else.”

  Morgan stared at her friend’s fractured skull for a long moment, into the pair of gaping eye sockets that seemed to be glaring at her.

  She turned away as a wave of pain crashed into her body with the force of a tsunami. “She was beaten then,” she choked out. “Something Jake is quite capable of doing.”

  “Let’s check if we’re right.” Quinn slid the remains back into the compartment, then took her arm.

  She stood frozen in place, her gaze glued to the metal cubicle. “We can’t just leave her here,” she said, looking at Quinn in anguish.

  He slowly led her toward the door. “Yes, we can. Layla isn’t here, Morgan. It’s just her bones. She’s been gone for a very long time.”

  She knew he was right, but she couldn’t bear the thought of Layla lying in that ice-cold hole in the wall. Blinking back tears, she followed Quinn up the narrow set of stairs leading to Davidson’s office. This time he picked the lock, and a few minutes later, they grabbed Layla’s file from the filing cabinet near the desk.

  “Subdural hematoma,” Quinn confirmed as he scanned the medical examiner’s report. “Says here he suspects she was hit numerous times in the head with a blunt object. A rock, he speculates.”

  A lump of fury clogged her throat, making it difficult to speak. “Someone bashed her head in,” she choked out. “God, how could anyone to do that?”

  Quinn sighed and placed the report back in the cabinet. “There are some pretty messed-up people in this world, sweetheart. You know that better than anyone.”

  Yes, as a journalist she’d come across some sick people over the years, but that didn’t lessen the pain pulsing through her body. “We need to go to Jake’s office,” she said decisively.

  Quinn didn’t seem enthused. “I still think it’s a bad idea. What do you expect to find, a signed confession in his desk drawer? I doubt the sheriff would keep any incriminating evidence in his office.”

  “He might,” she countered. “Jake isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Maybe we’ll find something.”

  Although Quinn didn’t look hopeful, he humored her, and ten minutes later, they sneaked into the small police station through the back doors. The cells in the holding area were empty, not surprising considering Autumn didn’t boast many criminals, save for a few drunken locals hauled in to sober up. Oh, and a seventeen-year-old girl’s killer, who still roamed the streets.

  Jake’s office was on the second floor. Despite the late hour, the building was like a Christmas tree, and Morgan could hear the faint voices of the deputies stationed at the front desk on the main floor. She and Quinn crept toward the stairwell. She winced when the door handle clicked as Quinn opened it. Fortunately, the chatter of the deputies continued on without pause.

  Outside Jake’s office, Morgan went for her lock-picking kit again, but realized she didn’t need it. The sheriff’s door was unlocked.

  “If he had something hidden in here it would be locked,” Quinn said so softly she barely heard him.

  Ignoring his words, she crept into the office, waited a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, then made a beeline for the desk while Quinn stood watch at the door. None of the desk drawers were locked, and to her disappointment, none of them contained anything important. She went to the filing cabinet next, which Jake had actually bothered to lock. Shocking. It took a few seconds to pick the lock, and then she was flipping through the alphabetical files until she found Layla’s name.

  “Unbelievable,” she huffed as she scanned the meager report. “This is exactly what I have at home, the files Deputy Kincaid gave me ten years ago. Nobody’s even touched the case since then!” She frowned. “All Jake did was add the M.E.’s autopsy report.”

  Quinn chuckled. “Are you surprised? Sheriff Wilkinson didn’t strike me as the go-getter type. His entire investigation probably consisted of opening that cabinet and sticking the M.E.’s notes into it.”

  “Yeah, because he’s probably the killer,” she grumbled as she closed the filing cabinet. “Why bother investigating a murder you committed?”

  Quinn let out a breath. “You know, I think it might be more fruitful if we focused on finding out who came after you on the bridge. This case is too cold, the evidence too sparse. If we look for the person who tried to kill you, we’d have a better chance of—” He stopped abruptly, cocking his head.

  Morgan heard the footsteps at the same moment as Quinn.

  “Crap,” she muttered. “We need to hide.”

  Before the word hide even left her mouth, Quinn was pulling her toward the tiny bathroom in the corner of the room. He shoved her inside, closed the door and pressed her against the wall. “Not a sound,” he whispered into her ear.

  Yeah, like she was even capable of making a sound when he had her pinned to the tiled wall with his big, firm body. His proximity made her pulse take off like a racehorse, fast, sharp beats drumming in her ears and stealing the breath from her lungs. His spicy scent wafted into her nose, making her dizzy, aroused.

  When a shivery breath escaped her lips, Quinn shot her a warning look. “Quiet,” he murmured.

  Okay, she could be quiet. Just ignore his intoxicating nearness, and the delicious hardness of his chest against her aching breasts, and the—

  “I’m just picking up a file I forgot,” came Jake’s voice.

  Morgan could hear the sheriff moving around the office, his heavy footsteps, the sound of papers rustling. He was obviously on his cell phone, and his muffled voice held a note of irritation as he said, “I told you I would call you when I got home. You didn’t need to leave seven messages on my voice mail, damn it.”

  A pause, more papers being shuffled, then a low curse. “I already told you, you don’t need to worry about Morgan.”

  Morgan’s body stiffened at the sound of her name. She stared at Quinn wordlessly. They both frowned.

  “She’s not going to find out, okay?” Jake sounded even more aggravated now. “She’s only in town for a few days, and the senator promised he’d find a way to make her leave if she stays too long. We’ve managed to keep this secret for years now. We can handle a few more days.”

  Jake paused again. “No, that’s not a good idea. It’s late. You’ll raise suspicion.” Another beat. “Fine, tomorrow night then. Ten o’clock at Grady’s cabin. We’ll figure it out then, okay?”

  The person on the other end of the line must have found this satisfactory because the argument ceased. But not before Jake yet again reiterated the words that sent a chill up Morgan’s spine. “She won’t find out. I’ll make sure of it.”

  Chapter 9

  “We have to be at that meeting,” Morgan announced when she strode into the living room the next afternoon.

  Quinn glanced up from the book he was reading with a stern look. “Haven’t we been through this already? Following the sheriff tonight is a bad idea.”

  He’d given her this lecture three times already, once on the drive back to the mansion last night, and twice earlier today. They’d gotten home at three in the morning yesterday, and Morgan had slept in until past noon. She’d woken up alert and determined, knowing she had to follow Jake to his meeting with the mysterious caller, only Quinn was less enthused.

  “I don’t trust the guy,” he said yet again.

  “Neither do I, but that’s exactly why we need to follow him tonight. You heard him on the phone last night. The secret he was talking about? It’s obviously that he’s hiding the fact that he killed Layla.”

  Quinn looked dubious. “And what, he’s got an accomplice? The evidence suggests it was a heat-of-passion kind of murder. Someone got pissed off and beat her to death. I can’t see two people gathering together to smash her skull in.”

  Morgan winced at his callous words. “Maybe there are two killers. Or maybe not. Maybe Jake got drunk one night and confessed to the person on the phone. We won’t know unless we follow him.”

  “This could be a trap.”
<
br />   “Jake isn’t bright enough to orchestrate traps,” Morgan replied with a roll of her eyes. She flopped down on the leather sofa next to him, causing the pages of his book to rustle. Curious, she glanced at the title. “The History of Panama? Jeez, can you get any more du

  He ignored the insult and said, “The guys and I might be heading down there in a few months, so I figured I’d do a little research. And don’t give me that look, I found the book in your library, so someone in this house is evidently as dull as I am.”

  His remark sparked her curiosity. “Why are you going to Panama?”

  Quinn’s green eyes became shuttered. “I’ve been hearing some talk of trouble in one of the villages. A contact of mine mentioned we might need to extract some of the relief workers there if all hell breaks loose.”

  She tried not to let the revelation concern her, but Quinn’s assignments always brought a pang of worry to her stomach. Although he kept an apartment in D.C., where they’d once lived together, he’d gone out on missions several times in the two years they were a couple. And from the moment he said goodbye, until the moment he called to say he was coming home, all she did was fret. Pray he would stay safe. That he would come back to her.

  And yet…yeah, there might have been some envy along with the anxiety. The magazine usually assigned the more dangerous stories to seasoned journalists, but on a few rare occasions she’d been allowed to go overseas. The assignment in the Congo, where she’d met Quinn, had been the last time she’d traveled to a hot zone, and sometimes she longed for a little more excitement, some danger.

  She suddenly burst out laughing, a sharp unexpected sound that had Quinn glance over at her like she was nuts. “Did I miss the punch line?” he asked, raising his dark brows.

  Morgan giggled again. “No, it’s just…I was thinking about how I wish I could go on more overseas assignments, you know, have some danger and excitement in my life. And then I remembered someone tried to kill me last week. You’d think that would be enough danger to satisfy me.”