Dangerous Deceptions: A Christian Romantic Suspense Boxed Set Collection

by Lisa Harris

  He groaned. “Look, I’m tired. I’ve been in this nowhere town for six weeks, watching you, waiting for something to happen. I’m ready to be out of here. And I can promise you’re gonna hate this a lot less if you just spill it, starting with what happened at your house last night that made you head to Columbus—yeah, we were watching you. Nice touch, by the way, leaving your phone and truck behind—”

  “So that’s how you knew Atkins was there that night,” Ian blurted, drawing the gazes of both men. “And I’ll bet you had the place bugged for weeks. That’s how you intercepted him before he could talk to Quinn.”

  “Aren’t you brilliant, Detective,” Older Guy quipped.

  “Pretty lucky getting that body out of her house before the cops got there, though,” Ian said. “Otherwise—”

  “Luck had nothin’ to do with it,” barked Younger Guy, scowling as he stepped toward Ian.

  Older Guy put a hand out, holding Younger Guy back.

  “You got lucky,” Ian taunted.

  What is he doing? Quinn thought, fighting the urge to throw Ian a look warning him to stop antagonizing them. It wasn’t helping.

  “No, what we had was weeks of intel on Atkins, and the upper hand when the little rat pulled a knife on my partner here,” Younger Guy said, throwing back his shoulders.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Older Guy chimed in. “What does matter is that when you left on foot last night, we followed, and as expected you went straight to your knight-in-shining-armor,” he said, inclining his head toward Ian, “where we popped a tracker on his truck. Columbus was a surprise, but the minute you two went in that mailbox office, we bugged the Jeep then sat back and waited. You got in the truck, read Atkins’s letter out loud and told us almost everything we needed to know. So now, what I need you to tell me—what we don’t know—is, what sent you running to Columbus?” He narrowed his gaze. “It’s important we have that information. You know, loose ends, and all that.”

  When she didn’t immediately respond, he jerked his chair forward, putting his face only a foot from hers. She could see the malevolence simmering in his eyes. He would hurt her if he had to.

  Still, she clamped her lips together. She wasn’t going to make it easy for them. And if she dragged it on, maybe they could figure a way out of this. Get help. Stalling was her only weapon at this point.

  But Older Guy wasn’t having it. He sighed, then lowered his gun so that the barrel rested on Quinn’s knee. “What made you take off last night?”

  Quinn’s insides turned to ice as the weight of the gun pressed against her. As she uttered a silent prayer for help, for wisdom, Ian spoke.

  “Quinn, tell them,” he said, nodding encouragingly. “You don’t want him to hurt you.”

  “He’s right. You don’t want that,” Older Guy said.

  She exhaled a staggered breath, then explained about the flowers and card from Atkins, as well as the letter and key he left her.

  Older Guy snickered appreciatively. “The flowers. Not that we didn’t check with the florist,” he added, as if defending himself and his skill set, “but it checked out as being ordered by your ex.” He squinted at her. “And that’s everything?”

  She nodded. “That’s everything. Really.”

  He sucked in a breath. “You know,” he said, waving the barrel of the gun back and forth between them, you’d have been fine if Atkins hadn’t dragged you into this. It’s too bad he got a conscience about the whole thing.”

  “How can you not have one?” Quinn spat, unable to hold her tongue despite her fear. “You’ve killed people to keep the dangers of this drug quiet, to keep it out there even though no one knows how many more will suffer.”

  “That drug is money, and money makes the world go ‘round,” Older Guy said, then lifted his empty hand into the space above his head. Younger Guy laid Atkins’s manila envelope into it. “This is the last piece of the puzzle we needed. The timed email Atkins mentions in here isn’t an issue. He did a decent job, but we found that account a few days ago. Now all that’s left is you.”

  Panic revved like an engine inside her, sending Quinn’s mind scrambling for something to delay the inevitable, but it was Ian who spoke. “If you get rid of us, the authorities will know something’s up. They’ll finally have a reason to believe Quinn about the body and everything else and they’ll start digging.”

  “No, they won’t. We’ve set her up to look like a woman on the edge, paranoid again, losing control—the vandalism, all the planted evidence, nasty emails to the people who owned the house we burned down—they think she’s losing it.” He turned his frigid stare on Quinn, sending a shiver through her. “Honestly when you walked in on Atkins’s body before we had a chance to drag him out of there, I thought it was over. But in the end your story just made you seem more nuts.” He sighed. “So here’s what’s going to happen,” he said, shaking the gun at Quinn. “You’re gonna write a note explaining that you were falling for him,” he waved the gun at Ian, “but suspected he was into someone else. Cheating on you.”

  “That’s ridiculous. No one will buy that,” Quinn said, her voice breathy. She felt weak, and her heart skipped one beat, then another.

  “They will. Because you’re paranoid. Drinking again. Fighting with neighbors and vandalizing their cars. You’re one step away from being arrested for arson. This’ll just be the nail in the coffin. Literally.”

  “Well, not literally,” Ian said. “There’s no coffin, no nail—”

  Shocked by his nervy retort, Quinn’s head snapped to Ian at the same time Younger Guy stepped over and popped him on the side of the head. Desperate to distract them from hurting Ian further, she blurted, “I’m not writing a suicide note.” And she meant it. The thought of being complicit in furthering more lies about herself, about leaving that as her last act, was too sickening to comprehend.

  Older Guy leaned in. “This is happening one way or another.”

  “You do anything to me, they’ll know it wasn’t a suicide,” she said, straightening up and trying to appear braver than she felt.

  “True,” Older Man admitted, then nodded at Younger Guy, who put his gun against Ian’s temple. “If you don’t cooperate, we’ll just make it look like you were really, really, angry when you confronted your boyfriend, here. They’ll need dental records to identify him.”

  The hopelessness of their situation drove a wave of lightheadedness through Quinn so severe that little lights began popping in her vision. She looked over at Ian, and felt a tear tracking down her cheek as he smiled sadly at her, squeezing her leg.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said.

  But it won’t be.

  Older Guy went into the kitchen and after a minute of digging around, came back with a pen and an unopened piece of junk mail. He handed them to Quinn. “Start writing exactly what I tell you.”

  It took less than five minutes for Older Guy to dictate the murder-suicide note to Quinn. Every stroke of the pen carved a deeper wound in her heart. Not only because of her regret for bringing Ian into this, but also because this final, irrevocable lie would be the thing she was most remembered for. As she signed her name with the zip-tie around her wrists boring into her skin, tears dotted the paper, smearing the ink.

  “Give me that,” Older Guy said, grabbing the envelope from Quinn and reading it. “Looks good,” he muttered, then placed it on the kitchen counter where it would be seen by anyone who might come in later.

  And find us here. Dead, she thought.

  Older Guy eyed them both, no pity in his gaze. “Let’s finish this.”

  While Older Guy kept a gun trained on the two of them, Younger Guy ransacked the room—shoving papers to the floor, knocking plants over, turning a table on its side—clearly staging the aftermath of a struggle. Quinn shuddered, her brain buzzing with the knowledge of what was coming. “I’m so sorry, Ian,” she whispered, leaning against him, pressing her weight into his side in an effort to both comfort and be comforted.


  His eyes were deep pools of grey, holding hers, willing her to stay strong. “It’s okay, Quinn. It’ll be okay. I promise.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she repeated, feeling as if her soul were being rent in two. “You shouldn’t even be here—”

  The front door of the house burst open, slamming against the wall, as multiple sheriff’s deputies swarmed inside.

  “Freeze!”

  “Weapons down, weapons down!”

  “Drop it! Get on the floor!”

  Both men dropped their guns, the sound of the weapons clattering onto the hardwoods lost in the noise of the chaos, as they dropped face-down on the floor and were surrounded by deputies. Simultaneously, Ian and Quinn raised their bound hands into the air above their heads, as a deputy approached them and ordered them to remain where they were. Relief rushed up in Quinn, escaping in a choked cry as Ian expelled a loud whoosh of breath. She turned to see him red-faced, a line of moisture gathering along his lower eyelids.

  “I wasn’t sure that was going to work,” he said, now counter-leaning his weight against Quinn, apparently finally giving in to his own emotional fatigue.

  “That what was going to work?” she asked over the multiple shouts of “clear” coming from all corners of the house.

  Before Ian could answer, Shane Cody raced up to them, holstering his weapon as he knelt in front of Quinn. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice grave.

  Quinn nodded, her limbs beginning to tremble in the aftershock. “We’re fine. But I don’t understand...how did you know?”

  “We’ll get to that,” Shane said, “but first I need you to bring me up to speed.”

  It took the better part of an hour to walk Shane and Investigator Fisk through the events of the last eighteen hours, including Brad Atkins’s note from the devotional book and the contents of the manila envelope. Most of the documentation he had provided would require industry experts to make sense of it. But the truth was obvious. Quinn had been set up to hide secrets that, if exposed, would cost Rhinehardt Pharmaceuticals hundreds of millions.

  “I am so, so sorry, Quinn,” Shane said as he sat with Quinn, Ian, and Fisk in Ian’s living room. He rubbed a hand over his head, the lines in his face deep as he spoke. “I should have believed you.”

  Yeah, you should have, was what Quinn wanted to say. But she didn’t. Right now, she was feeling pretty generous with her forgiveness.

  “It’s okay. I get it, Shane. You weren’t the only one.” At this, Fisk shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I’m just glad the truth’s finally out,” she said. As she looked at him, her unanswered question from earlier flashed in her mind. “You never said how you knew to come here, though.” Her head snapped to Ian, as she also remembered the unanswered question she had posed to him. “And what did you mean, that you ‘didn’t think it would work’?”

  A satisfied expression washed over Ian’s face. “You remember me telling you the other night that the Riki device can do some pretty cool things?”

  “You said it told jokes,” Quinn replied.

  “Well, that’s one of the things it can do. A while back I downloaded an app onto Riki designed to call 9-1-1 when it hears a preset trigger phrase. It makes the call silently, provides the address to the operator, then records whatever it hears for the next thirty minutes, sending it straight to the operator as if it’s the other end of a phone call. It’s like a personal bat signal.”

  Quinn’s mind flashed through Ian’s antagonizing exchanges with their kidnappers. One phrase stuck out, and when she thought of it, her mouth dropped open. “It was that weird thing you said, wasn’t it? ‘Don’t do this, capi—’” Ian’s hand shot out, covering Quinn’s mouth before she could finish.

  “Stop,” he said, a soft chuckle escaping, “or it’ll call 9-1-1 again. That’s not exactly the phrase, but it’s pretty close. Let’s not test Riki’s accuracy, okay?”

  “What would make you think to set that up?” she asked.

  “Retired cop, remember?”

  “But that phrase—”

  “It had to be something no one would ever say accidentally, but something I could work in if someone ever broke into the place and got the drop on me.”

  Finally she understood why he had been so belligerent with the kidnappers. “All those times you were egging them on—you were stalling?”

  Ian nodded, his gaze falling on Shane. “It only took you guys fifteen minutes after I triggered it. I’m impressed.”

  Investigator Fisk nodded, as if accepting the compliment, but Shane leaned forward, bracing his forearms against his thighs, his hands folded as he directed himself to Quinn.

  “And so the drug…that’s responsible for what happened to you in Tampa?” he asked, his voice soft, almost timid. “So, in the courtroom—that wasn’t you?”

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t me.”

  Shane inhaled a deep breath, then sat up. “Quinn, I really hope that when all this comes out it’ll be enough to set the record straight. And enough for you to get your life back.”

  Quinn looked at Ian, who reached over and firmly took her hand. He interlaced his fingers with hers and the depth of feeling that welled up in her was something she knew she never wanted to be without. “Well, it should be enough to get my law license back. But,” she continued, the corners of her mouth pulling up into a grin, “as for my life…that’s in Seaglass Cove now.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Six Months Later

  A November more mild than most was blessing Seaglass Cove, keeping temperatures around seventy degrees with almost no humidity and so far, no hurricanes. After stopping by to say a quick goodbye to Lena in the office down the hall, at nearly two p.m. Quinn walked out of the new offices of the Hope Community Legal Assistance Center with her briefcase full and her heart excited for the Saturday paddling adventure awaiting her.

  As she drove her pickup down the road, she held one arm out the window, her hand gliding along in the wind, her fingers dancing in it. It had taken three months for the Florida Bar Association to reinstate her license and she had spent the first half of that trying to decide what she wanted to do once she got her license back. The second half she spent establishing the Hope Community Legal Assistance Center as part of the Hope Community Center. Lena had been on board from day one. Quinn did the work completely on a volunteer basis. It paid nothing, there was no opportunity for advancement, and absolutely, positively no perks. At least not the material kind.

  She still held the position of manager of Bello Realty—she enjoyed that too, and after all, she had to pay the bills. And she was good at it, something her parents witnessed firsthand when they had come to visit. Quinn smiled at the thought of how happy it had made them to see her settled into a rhythm and fulfilled in her job and life in general. It had been a long time since they witnessed that.

  But as often as her realty manager job would allow, she was at the legal office, helping those in need who couldn’t afford legal representation. Single mothers needing enforcement of child support orders. Unlawfully evicted tenants. Well-intentioned debtors harassed by bill collectors. Even a few wrongful conviction cases. There might be no material rewards, but the knowledge that she was making a difference was better than any paycheck she had ever earned.

  Maybe her love for the work stemmed in part from knowing what it felt like to be on the wrong side of things with no one in your corner. More than ever, she believed it was imperative that everyone receive a fair shake with a good lawyer behind them.

  Thinking about being on the wrong side of things sent her mind whirring over all the things Rhinehardt set her up to take the fall for. It was a path she often went down, as the injustice of it was difficult to let go. Gratefully, Brad Atkins’s sacrifice had paid off, his efforts exposing Rhinehardt’s criminal suppression of the truth about Anavexiam and the dangers it presented. She had been called in to the U.S. Attorney’s office in North Carolina more than once to give and discuss her statement, in
cluding her personal experiences with the drug in particular.

  During these visits they also filled in the gaps for her, fleshing out the parts of the story she didn’t know. Apparently Younger Guy was happily spilling the beans as part of a plea deal. According to him, they had bugged her place, which allowed them to intercept Atkins when he broke in and waited for her to return home, intending to finally confront Quinn with the truth. When Atkins tried to defend himself with a knife from Quinn’s own butcher block, Younger Guy subdued him while Older Guy strangled him. Hence, no blood. They hid when Quinn came in from getting dinner at the taco truck, then—as she suggested to Shane initially—when she ran out, they carted the body down the darkened beach. Hence, no body.

  According to the last update she received, the prosecutors were preparing a case with multiple charges—including kidnapping and conspiracy to murder counts for what they did to her and Ian—building a solid foundation to either force guilty pleas, or win at trial. And then there were the civil suits filed by the families of the four dead patients…

  Stop.

  Quinn inhaled a deep breath through her nose and blew out, letting thoughts of the Rhinehardt conspiracy drift away. She didn’t need to waste one more second dwelling on it than she had to. It was in the past now. Like the events in Tampa. Like the boat when she was twelve. Like all the gossipers and whisperers and people who seemed to have a need to label her. She refused to accept those labels any longer. God defined who she was—His child, precious in His sight. And that was the only label she needed or would accept.

  The parking lot for the river’s launch point came up on her left. She turned in, spotted Ian’s Jeep in the first row, and pulled up beside him.

  “Hey, you,” Ian said, coming around his unloaded kayak and gathering Quinn up in his arms, kissing her solidly before she pulled back.

  “Hey, you,” she said, grinning and giving him one more peck before they worked together to unload her kayak. In minutes they were on the water, cruising quietly down the first stretch.