by Jaycee Clark
Quinlan walked to her, his gaze narrowed. “No one, not even one of my brothers, has the right to treat you that way. Ever.”
She thought about that, and smiled, a small smile, but a smile. “You are a really good man, Quinlan Kinncaid. But sometimes you miss the point.”
“What the hell was his point then? Because from where I stood, it wasn’t good, whatever it was.”
She started to stand, and instead he sat in the chair beside her, their chairs facing each other. She looked at Ian. “I’d like some tea, please.”
“And some breakfast.” He crossed his arms over his chest and held her stare.
She narrowed her gaze. “You are a pain in the ass.”
“So everyone tells me.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
“Waffle and eggs?”
“Fruit. Maybe some bacon.”
The edge of his mouth definitely kicked up.
She looked back at Quinlan, who took her hand and was looking at her wrists. “I am fine. Did I like what he did? No, but . . .”
“But what?” he snapped, looking at her wrists.
She took a deep breath. “You remember when you told me about your time in the hospital and all the visitors and everyone being so careful with what they said and what they did?”
He nodded, and brushed a hair behind her ear. He was always touching her. Holding her hand. Even if she started or jerked away, he simply waited her out and then he reached again. Perseverance. Always proving he could because . . . just because.
“Yes, so?”
“So, out of all the visits and all the words, who was the one that made you see the clearest? That brought you back to where you were and what was really important?” She laced her fingers through his.
“You,” he answered without hesitation.
She felt a grin pull her mouth. “Not me. Then. When you were in the hospital after the shooting.”
His mouth twisted. “Ian, damn him.”
She smiled again. “Yeah. Well, that’s what he did.”
“I don’t care.” His eyes narrowed on hers. “He can do whatever the hell he wants with me, with anyone else, but he will not treat you that way. Ever.”
She brought their hands to her mouth, kissing his knuckles.
“You, Quinlan, were what I wanted most, what I needed, ya know? So much so, I couldn’t breathe or sleep for way too long, and when I woke up in the hospital and saw you standing in the doorway, I thought I was dreaming. But at the same time, being safe with you . . . all the fears came crashing in, swirling around, just waiting.”
“You don’t have to be strong all the time,” he told her quietly. “I’m here. I’ve always been here.”
She nodded. “I know, I’ve just been alone for so long, that . . . With you there, I trust you, I could fall apart.” She cupped his jaw. “With you, sugar, I could be scared because I had someone to say it would be okay, even if I didn’t know if I believed it. But the fears, once let out . . . I couldn’t get ahead of them, or out of them, or just enough away to breathe. It was like being frozen or something. Ian . . .” She cut her eyes to the side toward the kitchen, where she knew Ian had gone for her tea. “Ian just sort of microwaved me in less than a minute.”
He shook his head.
“I’m pissed,” she said, no longer smiling, no longer making her voice light. “I was so busy wallowing I wasn’t thinking. So scared of what-ifs, I wasn’t even helping in any way I could to find my own daughter and—”
“Our.”
She stopped.
“You always say my daughter. She’s ours.” He leaned in so their noses touched and she saw the anger in his own gaze. And the hurt. “She. Is. Our. Daughter.”
She nodded. “Yes. I know. Our.” Something in her warmed. She had no idea where they’d go from here, but right now, she really didn’t care. He was Quinlan. Always there. Always steady. Just . . . always.
She swallowed, cleared her throat and said another silent prayer.
“So, I went from the fear chewing me up to being pissed off. I’d rather be pissed. I can think when I’m pissed, you know? I can see things a bit more clearly. I have to do everything to find her, to help others find her, to stop them. We have to stop them. And if Ian’s tactic this morning, though a little surprising and maybe a bit brutal, knocked me back into my head, then I’ll thank him.”
“Not necessary,” Ian said as he set a mug on the table in front of her. “I’m just glad you’re more with it. We can use all the help we can get, you know. Don’t be so hard on yourself though. You’ve been through hell and they almost killed you.”
She nodded.
“Well, he can question all he wants to, but after breakfast you are not missing your doctor’s appointment. Rather, we are not going to miss it.”
Quinlan didn’t miss the way her hands tightened in his, didn’t miss the way she seemed to pull into herself. “I don’t want to go.”
He had to change the subject from Ian and the morning incident to something else or he would hit his brother.
“Well, you’re going. They’re just going to check you out and make sure everything is okay.” He pulled himself back and looked at his brother. “Breakfast?”
“Should be here in about twenty minutes, they said.”
“You know, we ought to look into purchasing a hotel here in Albuquerque,” Aiden muttered. “They are in need of better—”
“Don’t even think of it,” Quinlan snapped. “I do not want a single piece of Kinncaid property anywhere near here.”
No one said a word.
He shifted. “Look, I just meant—”
“Understood. I wasn’t thinking,” Aiden said.
“Well, you can all do what you want, but once we have her back, I don’t ever want to step foot here again,” she muttered.
“That’s the spirit,” Ian said. He hurried into his own room down a short hallway in the suite and returned with an iPad and paper and pens.
“Do you mind working while eating?”
Someone knocked on the door.
“Great. Probably the feds already. Don’t they ever sleep?” Ian muttered.
But it wasn’t the agents. It was Mr. Brasher. She didn’t understand what they were all doing here, not really. She hadn’t really paid all that much attention.
Just as the door was about to shut, the federal agents showed up. Sabino and Landry paused in the doorway, looking in. She’d talked to them before, several times, but so much was a blur.
Breakfast arrived and everyone ate. More than enough food had been ordered that the additions did not go hungry. She wondered for a moment how normal this was with kidnappings. Was this the way it always went? She pushed her food around her plate. It had no taste and landed like paste in her stomach.
Had she asked that question at any point? She couldn’t remember.
She wiped her mouth and looked at the agent who she had to trust. “Agent, what exactly is being done?”
“We’re working on finding your daughter,” Sabino said.
“And a few other people,” Landry interjected, taking a bite of some sort of omelet or something. “Don’t worry about things being fuzzy, it isn’t uncommon to forget things in such situations. It’s why we have you go over and over things.”
“Where’s Jareaux?” she asked.
“He won’t be joining us,” Sabino said. “He’s not working this case, Mrs. Kinncaid.”
“Yes, well, after contacting him for any of this it just seems weird, even if lately he wasn’t interested in what I had to say. At least you guys are listening to me.” She nodded again and licked her lips. “Of course you all are. Now. Now that you have a case. I was an idiot to have trusted you guys.”
Sabino held her hands up. “I get you’re pissed, and I would be too if someone had used me the way you’ve been used.”
“Yeah, well, nice to know someone in your office has time for me now. Maybe I should have mentioned exactly who my in-laws were
earlier. Granted, I never should have trusted Jareaux to begin with.”
She’d been played. Played and used and . . . “I’m starting to think Jareaux is no better than they are.”
Sabino shifted. “Look, I get it.”
“No, you look.”
Sabino stayed quiet, but Landry spoke up, “I know you’re upset and you’ve every right to be.”
She didn’t remember standing, didn’t remember leaning over the narrow table, but someone had their hand on her shoulder. “I have the right to be upset? My daughter is missing! Taken from me! And what the hell did you do? I tried to get in touch with Jareaux, several times.”
“Yes, well, that was the problem,” Sabino said. “I’m not condoning Jareaux’s methods of your involvement, but he was seriously busy with another case last week when you were trying to contact him.”
“For?” she asked. “Another baby?”
“A coyote.”
“He was looking for a dog?” Brody asked. “You might want to just be quiet now.”
The agents both shot Brody a look filled with disbelief. “Not a dog,” Sabino said, running a hand through her short dark hair. “A person who brings illegals over. In this instance it was a shipping container of kids, left in the sun without adequate air or water or . . .” She stopped. “That’s not important. I and the office apologize that you were not helped when you should have been. That you were not safe, when I’m sure Jareaux promised you you would be.”
“He promised I’d be safe, that the baby would be safe.”
“I know,” Sabino said and nodded. “But he messed up.”
She swallowed.
“I talked to Jareaux, he claims he only told you to keep your eyes and ears open, Ella. That he never told you to do more than that.”
“Excuse me?” Quin asked very quietly beside her.
“I never should have listened to him.” Ella shook her head. “He lied to you too, because yes, he told me that, but he also pressed for evidence. Told me to bring him something concrete. He even gave me a little point-and-shoot digital camera in case I could use it.” She shook her head. “I should have just called Quinlan and gone home. But I thought I could help. I believed Jareaux. I listened to him when he gave all the reasons why I couldn’t tell Quinlan. Now? Now I think he, your office, whoever was just bullshitting me to get me to do what you—he wanted . . . and I did it. Stupid, naïve me! I played right where you wanted me to. Still, girls went missing. What did you actually do? I tried to help and I could only hope it was enough.”
“Did Jareaux ask you to stay in contact with him?”
She nodded. “Yes, but lately, the last few weeks he started blowing me off, said at one point that if I couldn’t get him any useable evidence, I was wasting his time.”
Sabino took a deep breath. “I’ll tell you now, at some point Special Agent in Charge Inez, who runs our regional office, will want to talk to you herself. Just a heads-up.”
“About what?”
“Jareaux,” Ian answered her. “He crossed several lines.”
“So?”
“Lines that weren’t meant to be crossed,” Ian told her.
Sabino nodded. “He’s been suspended.”
She shook her head and took a deep breath. “Good, can we just get this over with?”
“Yes, let’s go through it again. Dr. Merchant was your doctor the whole time? You said you saw Radcliffe as well? Did another one show an interest in you?” Sabino asked.
“Merchant. Dr. Merchant mainly, which I’ve already told you. But they all see the patients. It’s more a rotation thing. However, since I worked there, I realized who I preferred and scheduled my visits to hit his rotation.”
“Why him? Why did you prefer Dr. Merchant? Did you ever at any point feel threatened by the other doctors?” Landry asked.
“We’ve gone over this.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. He was just . . . comfortable. His nurses were comfortable. Lisa was one of his nurses sometimes, though she mainly nursed and midwifed for Radcliffe. He was older. I don’t know, I felt more comfortable with Merchant.” She looked at all of them here. Sabino across the table from her, Quinlan at the head of the table. Aiden and Mr. Brasher were at the other end of the table. The lawyer, Brody, was against the wall, and Ian, Ian paced.
“I can’t answer all the questions at once. But I’ll go through it all again. Maybe I’ll remember something else.”
Sabino nodded.
She looked at Ian, then at Quinlan. “At first, I thought Jareaux was wrong, and I told him so. Nothing seemed wrong at first, no one was threatening. It seemed a wonderful setup. All these pregnant women staying in this one place. Some were older and couldn’t have more kids, they were going to give them up and they stayed to have the best medical care. Same for the teens that were there to keep things quiet.” She shook her head.
“At first it just seemed . . . I don’t know, weird but nice. A retreat. One of the new-agey naturalist, tree-hugger things, ya know? It wasn’t until they started pressing me to consider adoption that I saw more. If they’d left me alone, I probably never would have questioned, never would have wondered. Never would have . . . seen . . .”
Seen . . .
The blood. The scent of it in the room where no blood should be.
“She didn’t go for it, was very adamant that she was not interested in giving the baby up for adoption, or at least that’s what Jareaux complained about in his notes,” Sabino said.
She felt more than saw Quin relax beside her.
“I never, for one moment, thought of giving up my da—” At Quin’s shifting, she amended, “Our daughter. I just thought they’d leave me alone.” She turned to Quin. “They started asking me questions about you.”
“About Mr. Kinncaid?” Agent Sabino asked, pulling her gaze from her husband. “When did they start questioning you about the father?”
She shrugged and rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know, near the end. Memories are sort of jumbled and confusing then.”
“What sort of questions?”
She licked her lips. “What he did. Where he was from. If he’d want to be a part of the baby’s life. I didn’t tell them. I was vague on his details, but I did say that he’d be a very big part of our daughter’s life regardless if we worked out our problems or not. Different doctors, my friend, the midwife. Or who I thought was my friend—her I told more, and now I realize I never should have trusted her. They asked questions. All of them, and if you put it all together . . .”
“They’d have realized they’d have a child from a creative, intelligent woman and an intelligent, highly affluent father,” Ian muttered.
She shrugged.
“Lisa, my friend. She told me not to worry about it, I was being paranoid. But the counselor was always pushing too. Asking me how I planned to raise a child by myself. Even said that if I let the father know, he might take it away.”
“You did not believe such bullshit, did you?” Quinlan asked her.
She shook her head. “Not really, no. Not at first, no. I mean, was it a fear? Yes. She was mine, I’d share her with you, but near the end, I was terrified of anyone taking her away, even you. I was scared of my own shadow.”
She thought back, searched and tried to find the time, the exact moment she’d become so scared. “I don’t know when it happened, exactly, or how . . . why I became so afraid. Or maybe I do.”
“When? What happened?” Sabino asked.
That night. “I had this one girl in class. Fran. Bright, bubbly, always sharing joy, and she had no one. Not a single soul to care if she lived or died. No family she’d claim. No friends. So she made friends there at the Retreat. Bright red corkscrew curls. She had signed papers to give the baby up, but as it got closer and closer to the due date, she confided in me that she didn’t want to. She knew it would be hard. She’d recently graduated. She was smart. She already had almost all her general requirements out of the way and she wanted to get into the
radiology and sonography program. Had it all planned out. She figured with work she’d be twenty-one when she graduated and could get a job. She wasn’t just talking, she had really thought about it all. Had student loans and a payment plan all drawn out. I told her I’d help her.” She remembered more. The way the girl had simply looked at her, disbelief on her face.
“Always saving anyone you can,” Quin muttered, reaching over and sliding his hand along the back of her neck.
“But I didn’t save her.” Jerkily at first, then more quickly, she told them of the storm, of the night they weren’t able to get home. Of the dizziness, the heavy sleep, the disorientation.
“You stayed there?”
She didn’t look to see who asked, barely heard them. “I sometimes stayed at the Retreat if the weather was bad. It was that night. I’d also passed out in class, so the nurses, docs, the girl were all concerned. My blood pressure was up a bit, okay, quite a bit. With the weather and that, the doctor talked me into staying.” She walked them through the blurred memories she’d held on to. Told them what her doctors had told her.
“I know what they said, but I know what I saw.” She sighed. “They made me stay there, to monitor my blood pressure. But I knew they lied. I knew it. I remember . . .”
“What?” Ian asked quietly.
She blinked. “The masks. I remember the masked people around her bed, all the blood. It was dripping onto . . . onto the floor.
“Another night, the next or the next . . . I don’t know for sure. I stood at the window. It looked out back, just to the side of the walled courtyard. I saw . . . I saw . . .”
The moon had been bright. The first snowfall and it had started to melt that day, she’d heard it dripping off the eaves. The ground was still white mostly, the moon washing the world in almost daylight. And there she’d seen him. The figure pulling something long and black. Long and black to the pit that waited. She watched as he dumped the bundle into the ground and then laid the dirt over whatever it was . . .
“They buried her. They buried her. The body . . . The roses . . .” she muttered.
“Mrs. Kinncaid.”