“How does she know this?”
Nora pushed aside the memories. “Quin told her I was overprotective and controlling. And I’m sure it sounded worse. Maggie is a good judge of people. That’s how she was able to manipulate her boyfriend and Anya for so long. How she was able to fool people into thinking she had a conscience. She knows how to behave. But it’s an act. She’s full of rage and can easily snap. We have to find Quin.”
“Let’s go.”
She glanced at her watch. Seven-thirty. “I doubt she’s still at work. I’ll have police check her house and if she’s not there, her office.”
After she talked to Sacramento PD dispatch, Nora called Quin on her house phone on the chance she’d left her cell phone in the car, while Duke sped out of the parking lot. It rang four times; then voice mail picked up.
“Hiya Sexy, it’s Quin, leave a message and I promise to call ya back.”
“Quin, it’s Nora. If you’re there, pick up the phone. Please. I need to talk to you.”
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
“Dammit, Quin, now’s not the time to be stubborn. I’m worried. Call me back.”
Weather permitting, Quin walked to work because she lived only fourteen short blocks from her office building. Today, she wished she had driven. She didn’t want to go home. She wanted to drive away. Anywhere. Away from Sacramento. From Nora. From her mother. She’d tried to reach Devon, hoping he’d take her to Lake Tahoe. If not, screw him. She’d go herself and find a hot guy on a roll and fill the emptiness inside with good sex. Nora disapproved of her lifestyle, which had spurred Quin on. Who was Nora to judge, anyway?
But Quin didn’t want to find just any guy. She wanted Devon. She really liked him. He was smarter than most of the guys she dated, funnier, cuter. And a doctor. He cared about his work the way she cared about hers. Which is why she’d buried herself in work after walking out on Nora this afternoon.
She turned up the short walk to her town house. She liked the three-hundred-unit complex that took up two square blocks near the river, Old Sac, the movie theater, the K Street Mall. It was convenient, clean, and attractive. Her two-bedroom town house even had a small, private garden area.
She stopped briefly to water her plants before unlocking her front door. She heard the shower running, and her heart skipped a beat until she saw Devon’s keys and black bag on her entry table.
He could even sense when she needed him. She might just be falling in love with the man. Hot shower sex was just what she needed to get her mind off Nora and Maggie. Because she felt like shit for what she’d said to Nora. Maybe it was true, well, a lot of it was true—Nora had been micromanaging her life since she took over the role of mother when Quin was nine. But Nora wasn’t a liar, and all day Quin feared she’d believed her mother because she was desperate for something indefinable.
She took the stairs two at a time. The upstairs was moist and humid. How long did that man shower? She pulled off her T-shirt with the State Arson Investigator logo on the pocket.
“Devon, it’s me!”
Before she opened the shower door, she knew something was wrong. No one was in the shower. There was no steam, the air thick with cool water vapor. The pebbled glass door distorted her view, but she could swear Devon was sitting on the shower floor. Unable to stop herself, her hand already on the handle, she pulled it open.
Devon was slumped on the shower floor, his skin so pale it was translucent, long bloodless gashes down his chest, back, and arms. His eyes were open, and they were no longer bright, vibrant blue. They were glazed, faded, and lifeless.
She screamed, then covered her mouth with both hands. He was dead. No, no, no!
“You weren’t supposed to find him.”
Quin spun around and Maggie stood there in the doorway between her bedroom and bath. In that split second, Quin realized everything Nora had told her was true. Fear crept up her spine until she could barely think.
“All I did was go to the garage because I thought I heard something, and I wanted to be there when you drove up. But your car was already there.”
“I—I walk to work.” Quin looked around for a weapon, but the only one she saw was the knife in Maggie’s hand.
“I wanted to talk to you.” Maggie sounded like a child. “You like her more than me, don’t you?”
“Wh-who?”
From her pocket, Maggie pulled out a picture of Nora. It had been mutilated, but Quin knew exactly what it was. Nora at Quin’s college graduation.
Nora had always shown up at her soccer games. Or when Quin took first place in the state spelling bee. Every play she was in, whether she had a small role or a leading spot, Nora had been there. At her high school graduation, her college graduation, her promotion party.
Quin had taken Nora for granted. Resented her because she wasn’t her mother. She was her sister, and Quin alternately loved and despised her.
Quin had broken up with one of her boyfriends, one she’d thought she’d loved, when he’d suggested she talk to someone about her problems with Nora. “She’s been nothing but cool to you,” he’d said. “I don’t see why you are so hot and cold with her.”
No way in hell was she seeing a shrink, she’d said, and she’d booted him out of her house and out of her life. Quin wasn’t crazy, and she could deal with her own emotions just fine, thank you very much. After that, she rarely introduced her boyfriends to her sister, and if she did it was a brief event.
But it niggled at her like a sneeze that wouldn’t come, and now—for the first time she recognized that she’d been grossly unfair.
Quin was paralyzed. She wasn’t a cop, she was an arson investigator. A nerd. She was smart, not street-savvy.
The television shows always had the good guys trying to keep the bad guys talking until the cavalry showed. “What do you want, Maggie?”
“I wanted my father. I thought that’s what you wanted, too.”
When she first got to know Maggie, Quin’s little sister had been just nine, the same age Quin was when their mother was sent to prison. But it wasn’t until a few years later that they really had meaningful conversations. And one of them had been about their fathers.
It was then that Quin told Maggie that Nora had lied about her father. She’d believed what her mother said—she’d been so lucid, so detailed. And Quin had found him. Randall Teagan was a real person.
Nora hadn’t denied that, only that he wasn’t her father.
Quin had believed her mother because she’d wanted to. Needed to. And that was really the point when she’d bonded with Maggie. Because Nora had taken away her father, too.
You’ve been such an immature brat.
She prayed Nora would forgive her.
“Why did you kill him?” Quin couldn’t look at Devon again. Guilt fought with fear.
“I thought he was an intruder.”
“An intruder in my shower?” Her voice broke into a sob.
Maggie shrugged, then glared at her. “I needed you. But I can see you’re just like all the others. A selfish bitch. Now I won’t feel guilty.”
Quin watched as the picture of Nora floated to the floor. She should have kept her eyes on Maggie, she thought in the split second before two metal darts hit her stomach and she collapsed in terrible pain, her limbs jerking.
I’m sorry, Nora.
Maggie dropped the Taser and her knife in the deep pockets of her peasant skirt. Quin’s body danced with the electrical charge flowing through her nerves. Maggie grabbed her under the shoulders and pulled her from the bathroom.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
“Where are the police?” Nora asked, jumping from the car as soon as Duke parked it. “I called it in more than ten minutes ago.”
Duke said, “It was a well-being check.”
“I’m a federal agent, you’d think they’d hop on it.”
She walked briskly down the path toward Quin’s town house.
“Hold it, Nora.”
&nb
sp; “We don’t have time—” But she slowed down. “I know. I just need to know she’s okay.”
“I understand. Do you have a key?”
She held out her key ring by Quin’s key.
“How many entrances?”
“Two. Garage, which is downstairs under the town house. It has stairs going up to the first floor. And the front door. There’s a sliding glass door, but it’s not keyed.”
“I’ll go around to the garage and get in that way.”
“You need a remote to open that door.”
He gave her a half smile. “Garage remotes are not a problem. Give me a count of sixty to get in place, then enter. I’ll come up the back stairs. Just in case. Stay alert.”
Nora nodded. “Hers is the third garage from the end.”
Duke waved and jogged back down the path and around to the garage. Nora began counting.
One. Two. Three.
She bounced on her feet as she mentally counted while standing outside the privacy fencing around Quin’s small courtyard. She heard nothing inside and peered through a crack in the fencing. The kitchen light was on in the back, and the upstairs master bedroom light was on. Energy-conscious, Quin never left her lights on. She had to be home.
Fifty-eight. Fifty-nine. Sixty.
She already had the key in the outer lock. She turned and pushed, took four long steps to the front door, inserted the key, and turned. Her hand was on the butt of her gun as she listened for any sound. The shower was running upstairs. Relief flooded through her.
The door from the stairs leading to the garage slowly opened. Nora stood out of the potential line of fire, saw that it was Duke, and motioned him inside.
“She’s upstairs,” Nora whispered. “The shower’s running.”
“Her car isn’t in the garage.” Duke locked the garage door behind him and did a security check on the first floor. Hall closet, half bath, kitchen pantry, cabinets. There were not many hiding places on the first floor.
Nora frowned. The air had a strange, cool, moist feeling. She drew her gun and cautiously walked up the stairs, Duke two steps behind her, instincts on full alert. Up here the air was almost wet, leaving an odd, chilling coat on her skin.
As soon as she stepped through the open master bedroom door, with the moisture so thick water dripped down the walls, she feared Quin was dead. Duke motioned toward the open bathroom door. Water had pooled on the floor.
Duke mouthed, Let me, and motioned toward the bathroom.
He obviously thought Quin was dead, too. He wanted to protect Nora from it, and this time she let him.
He peered around the corner, still anticipating an attack.
“Shit,” he said.
A tight moan escaped her lungs as she said, “Quin.”
“No.”
She looked inside. The shower door was wide open, and a naked man lay dead on the tile floor.
Duke said, “I’m checking the rest of the second floor. Wait.”
She looked around the bathroom. The man’s clothes had been loosely folded on the bathroom counter. She walked over and saw there was a nametag on the shirt pocket. Dr. Devon Blair. Quin’s boyfriend. On the floor, wet from the water splashing out of the shower, was the red T-shirt Quin had been wearing earlier that day.
Nora stared at it. What had happened here? Also on the floor was a photograph. Nora didn’t dare touch anything; preserving the evidence was crucial and they’d already walked the entire house and probably contaminated the crime scene. But she bent over to see what it was.
It was a picture of her, defaced with her throat scratched as if it had been slit and her eyes carved out. Quin had snapped it while Nora had been unaware, looking up at the stage after Quin’s college graduation ceremony. Quin had asked her what she’d been thinking that had her looking so pensive, and she’d replied that she was so proud of Quin that it had overwhelmed her for a minute. That wasn’t the complete truth. She had been proud, but more than that, she felt that she’d done what she’d promised Quin and herself—making sure Quin had a solid foundation on which to build her future. With that personal goal completed, Nora had been both elated and sad.
Duke returned. “No one’s here. But you need to see something.”
“She has Quin.” She gestured to the T-shirt.
“I know.” Duke glanced at the photo, at first not recognizing it was Nora, then frowning when he did.
He led her out of the bathroom. He pointed to the dresser. She registered the destruction. All the framed pictures, broken. The photos destroyed. Years of memories that Nora had painstakingly created for Quin because their mother had so few photos of them growing up.
“There is blood on the comforter. Not a lot,” Duke added quickly, “but it was stuffed in the closet. I only moved it to make sure no one was hiding under it.”
Or dead under it.
“Where would she take her?” Nora’s voice cracked. “Not her apartment, so where?”
“We’ll find her.”
Downstairs the bell rang, followed by loud knocking.
The police.
Nora paced the FBI conference room while on hold waiting for Warden Jeff Greene at Victorville to pick up. A dozen agents and analysts were working tonight digging through property records under a variety of names—anyone Maggie might know—phone records, and emails trying to get an idea of where Maggie had taken Quin. Every law enforcement officer in the western U.S. had a memo on Quin’s car with her photo and Maggie’s photo.
An hour ago, just before midnight, Scott Edwards’s truck had been found parked on the street three blocks from Quin’s office. It had been towed to the sheriff’s impound lot. Steve Donovan’s team was going through it now.
They’d already tried to trace Quin’s cell phone. It was in her purse, left behind at her town house. Her car, which she rarely drove, didn’t have GPS or any trackable security device.
Upon arrival at Quin’s town house, the coroner determined that the victim, Dr. Devon Blair, had been dead for several hours, but the exact time would be difficult to determine because the cold water had lowered his body temperature. After talking to hospital staff, they learned he’d left Sutter General at four in the afternoon.
At Maggie’s apartment Duke and Nora, along with three specialists, had meticulously searched for any clue—a receipt, note, journal—that might lead them to where Maggie had taken Quin. There was nothing. In fact, other than a familiar alias on the apartment rental agreement, nothing they had come across even suggested that Maggie O’Dell lived there. ERT went through printing the place and pulling trace evidence, and had felt confident that they could prove that she was there through physical evidence, but the lack of personal belongings suggested Maggie was far more shrewd than most young killers.
She had no credit cards or bank accounts, so tracing plastic or a checking account was out. They ran her father’s credit card and came up dry; it had only been used by him locally.
The pair of agents who had interviewed him yesterday went back and asked for his help, but he refused. He didn’t believe them when he was told that Maggie was under suspicion for murder and kidnapping. He owned no other property in the state, though ownership was certainly not a requirement for Maggie’s purposes. She would pick a place that was private and accessible to the highway. An abandoned cabin or empty vacation home would work for her purposes. Thinking of that, Nora had sent the pair of agents in Lake Tahoe to check on Jonah Payne’s place. That, too, was empty and the police seal undisturbed.
Hans Vigo at Quantico seemed positive that Maggie would contact Nora directly before harming Quin. But it already had been more than six hours.
Nora had done everything she could that night. Making sure every branch of law enforcement had recent photos of Quin, the high school picture of Maggie, and a copy of the more recent picture found in her closet. A description of Quin’s car, Scott Edwards’s truck, sending agents to re-interview students at Rose College, pushing Donovan on the evidence. It
was one in the morning and she had nowhere to turn, nothing to do except think about the danger Quin faced.
She did have one more option. Her last option. God knew that she’d never attempt to speak with Lorraine unless she had no other choice. Lorraine might know something about where Maggie was living. Maybe she would help. Quin’s life was at stake; she had to help!
She dialed Warden Greene at the Victorville Federal Penitentiary and worked on controlling the desperation that rose in her chest. If Lorraine knew how scared Nora was, she might clam up just to hurt her. Nora had to prove to Lorraine that this was about Quin. That was the only way she’d help.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Agent English.”
“I’m sorry to drag you from bed, Warden, but it’s an emergency. I need to talk to a prisoner immediately.”
“I know. That’s one of the reasons I took so long. I had Lorraine Wright woken and asked her to take your call. She refused.”
“She can’t!”
“I can’t force her to talk to you.”
Nora rubbed her eyes. Lorraine would never change. Selfish, angry, distrustful. “Please ask her if she knows where Maggie is staying. If she has any idea where she might be living. Tell her that her daughter Quin is in danger.”
“I’ll ask. Hold the line. This may take a few minutes.”
“I’ll wait, thank you.”
Duke stood at her side and took her hand. She said, “Lorraine won’t talk to me.”
“Dr. Vigo said Maggie would call you.” Hooper had already put a trace on all her phones. If Maggie called, they’d quickly pinpoint her location.
“But he doesn’t know that she’ll call. And that puts her in the driver’s seat. We need to find out where she is first. Otherwise, she’ll jerk us around.”
“Everyone is working on it.”
“I know.” She sat on the edge of the table and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to panic, she had to think clearly. “Quin has to be okay.”
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