“If the opportunity presents itself, we’ll talk about it, but for now we’ll carry on as usual. Don’t go off half-cocked. Let us discuss this and do it the right way. I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t lose me.” His mouth sought hers in such heated passion that her legs felt like Jell-O. There was a soft knock on the door before Caleb walked in and cleared his throat.
“What are you doing here?” Ethan asked, his voice uncharacteristically clipped.
“Hello, to you, too. I was driving by with Cap when we heard the call come over the radio.”
“Whatever you two think you are agreeing to, you can get it right out of those pretty little heads of yours. The DFPD does not use civilians as bait.” Bob’s booming voice came from behind Caleb, and he stepped around the man who dwarfed him to stand toe to toe with Ethan.
“Bob, with all due respect, if this is the way to end it, then we end it. Tonight.” Quinn said wearily.
“Not a chance. I said we don’t use civilians as bait. I won’t allow it. I’ve worked for Darkness Falls my whole life, and I plan to retire here. I also plan to leave this place with a good track record. I don’t do bullshit things like sending a civilian in to do a job like this. End of story. You are dismissed.”
“Um, Bob, this is my office. You can’t dismiss me from my own office. You know, that whole civilian thing you were just lecturing me about? Yeah, that. If you want, you can leave?” Quinn smiled sweetly at the older man but didn’t back down one iota.
Ethan gave her credit for bouncing back so quickly and for the fact that she was telling Bob Wickman to get out of her office. Bob handed Ethan a sheet of paper and then turned to leave. Ethan glanced at it, and as Caleb and Bob walked out of the office, he fed it into the shredder.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Nothing for you to worry about.”
“Ethan, don’t shut me out.”
“I’m not. Trust me on this one, okay?”
Quinn had told him there was no one she trusted more than him, and even though he could see the wheels turning at a hundred miles an hour, she nodded her head in agreement. Without any explanation, he grabbed her hand and started to tug her out of her office, but apparently, that was more than she was willing to allow because she dug in her heels and refused to move.
“What are you doing?”
“We have somewhere to go, and we need to run to my place and get cleaned up. We both have Jasmine’s blood on us.”
“Where are we going after we get cleaned up?”
“I’ll explain later.”
It wasn’t until they were in his apartment and he had stripped her naked and shoved her in the shower, only to climb in behind her that he explained what was going on.
“The shower should drown out our voices, but talk directly into my ear. The piece of paper Bob gave me had the address where Becky is. We have her in a safe house until this is over. Even I didn’t know where she was.”
“Are they being guarded?”
“There is a bodyguard that I called in to help out. I would trust him with my life.”
“A bodyguard?”
“The department couldn’t spare an officer right now, so her parents wanted to hire someone. I suggested my friend’s company for the job. I trust him to watch over her. The safe house is his, and he’s doing this as a favor to me, and per my request, he was told to contact me through Bob, and only if it was necessary. It was best that as few people as possible know her whereabouts. No one other than my guy and his trusted few knew where they were. Until now. Something important must have happened for him to tell Bob the address.”
“Why contact you through Bob and not just contact you?”
“Bob’s more removed from the case. It’s far less likely they’re going to pull him off the street and try to torture the address out of him. Not to mention, it would be crazy to pull in someone with his ranking. That would bring the whole thing toppling down on their head in a hurry. Every cop in the city would be going after them, but even Bob doesn’t know whose address it is that he handed me. He just knew that he was given an address to give me and that I was to shred it once I saw it, but he does know it’s connected to this case.”
“Why the cloak and dagger act in the shower?”
“I’m being overly cautious. I don’t like that this guy knows where you are. I don’t like that he’s been watching this apartment and having you followed. I also don’t think that the man the other night came in here strictly to hurt Rodriguez and send you a message.”
“You think they bugged the apartment?”
“Possibly, and if they did, your office is probably bugged, too. I’ll have someone sweep both places. They know you’re digging into this, so we need to tread lightly, and for now, let’s keep our conversations about your favorite color on the down low.” He hoped she understood he was referring to Black and how they had to make sure not to give out any information regarding him.
His mind raced back to the few conversations they had about Harrison Black in this apartment. They never used his full name, and his undercover persona had a different name. If they were being listened to, at most, they would know someone had breached their network. Maybe he was just paranoid, and the apartment wasn’t bugged. More than likely, they were only watching the apartment and following her, but he didn’t want to chance it. They’d already said too much regarding Black.
“I’m not sure that’s my favorite color, after all. I’m kind of fond of blue.” God bless the girl for being able to play along. She kissed his ear and pulled back, blinking water out of her eyes, and he knew she completely understood what they had to do to protect the undercover officer. “Why did he tell you where Becky is?”
“I don’t know. The note said her name and address and to shred it immediately. I imagine we’ll find out when we get there.”
“Then we better get a move on so we can find out what’s going on. Something tells me we should hurry.”
After their very fast shower, where they didn’t get to enjoy the luxuries of exploring their wet soapy bodies, they dressed quickly, with whispered promises that next time they showered together, they would make better use of their time. The unspoken statement being, once this case was done, they could actually enjoy life a little more. Quinn put some hair gel in her short hair, slipped on her shoes, and rushed out the door behind Ethan. A small meow from the front porch had her stopping abruptly. She dropped to her knees, and the cat flew at her, rubbing her body all over Quinn while she purred so loud that she found herself chuckling.
“I missed you, too. How about we get you in the apartment with some kibbles and some water?” She looked at Ethan. Her darn eyes stung with relieved tears, and he was smiling from ear to ear.
“Good to see you came back. I should call you a traitor for running straight to Quinn. But if I had to decide, I would choose her, too.” He rubbed the cat between the ears, and she purred even louder.
Once they had her secured in the apartment with food and water, they left to go see Becky. Quinn worried since she had just come back, and now they were rushing out the door, and she hoped she didn’t feel abandoned. She was just so relieved to see her back. Seated in the car, she turned and looked at Ethan.
“I think you’re rubbing off on me.”
“How so?”
“All I want to do is lock Cat in your apartment and never let her out again. I want to keep her safe. Who do I sound like?”
“Me. And you know what? You won’t, just like I won’t lock you up.”
“Because you can’t cage a person or an animal, it isn’t fair or right, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to firmly lecture her for running off. I know she was freaked and everything. Of course, maybe she did come back sooner, we were gone…” Ethan glanced at her and started the car.
“You carry so much guilt.”
He saw through her so easily, and he was right. If it wasn't about the cat, it was about how she'd not gone to the
police all those years ago. She’d wanted to believe that when she fled, he got scared and stopped what he was doing, that he didn’t want to get caught, so he changed his ways, but she knew now that wasn’t the case. That was wishful thinking, a fairy tale she had told herself to help her sleep at night, and she was going to have to endure the guilt of what she’d done for the rest of her days, but she wouldn’t let him go on. Even though she was freaked out, she couldn’t be locked up and hidden away. It would be easier because isn’t that exactly what she’d been doing for the last fourteen years? If she had gone to the police back then, she would have stopped his reign of terror. Instead, she ran and hid herself away and allowed him to prowl the streets, taking more and more children.
“I can practically hear your thoughts, and I don’t like them.” His voice was so soft, like he was talking to a frightened doe.
“I’m not sure what you’re referring to.” She tried to play the dumb act but failed miserably.
“You’re thinking that if you had gone to the police all those years ago, none of this would be happening.”
“Well, damn, you’re good at that whole reading minds thing,” she quipped.
“I can tell you this: there is no way to know what would have happened if you went to the police. First, one of the police officers was a client of his. If you had gone to the police in that town, they might have returned you to him. They would have said you were a runaway.”
“I—”
“Let me guess, you never even considered that, did you? I can almost guarantee that’s exactly what would’ve happened if you went to the police there. Even if you went to the police in the neighboring community, the same results might have happened. He’s smart, or he wouldn’t have evaded the law this long, and he had paperwork to prove he had legal claims to you, right? At the very least, he would have shed doubt on what you’d said, and you would’ve been returned to him…or maybe not. But he would’ve known where to find you, and in the end, he most likely would’ve been left to continue roaming the streets and building his business.”
“Maybe, but maybe he would have been locked up.”
“It would’ve been the word of a sixteen-year-old against a man who had clients that were respected members of the community. I think you know, down deep, that you wouldn’t have survived if you went to the authorities, and I know it’s a burden you have to carry on your shoulders, but there is no way to know if the outcome would be any different than it is now, and there’s no way to change it. Kara has the same guilt.”
“Kara’s guilt is different.”
“Is it? You both have survivor’s guilt. She still thinks that if she would’ve done things differently, those other girls wouldn’t have died, but there’s no way to know for sure, is there?”
“Well, no, but that’s totally different.”
“How so?”
“She thought he was dead. She didn’t know there were two people.”
“Didn’t she? She said she thought that he was two people.”
“But she was told that her abductor died. She had no way of knowing.”
“You’re right, but she also never talked about it until many years later. She made a choice she needed to in order to go on, to live. She has regrets, but she’s working on it. You made a choice you had to in order to survive. You were a young girl. There is no one on this planet that if in the same shoes, would judge you.”
“What about the parents of the children he’s hurt since?” Her voice shook with frustration.
“Those parents might be angry, but if you were their child, and if they sat back and considered it, they would want their child to do exactly what you did. They would’ve wanted them to run, to survive. Quinn, you didn’t just run, you helped a small girl get away. You carried her for part of your journey.”
“Anyone would have done the same thing.”
“No, I don’t think they would have.”
“But we don’t know that, and we don’t know if I changed her life for the better.”
“Her name is Megan,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“The girl you saved. Her name is Megan.”
27
“How do you know that?” Her heart was racing, and her hands had gone clammy.
“I searched for her when I was at work. You said that she was in the newspaper, a little girl in a rural town, that they were looking for her parents. I found that article and the follow-up one from a couple weeks later. They found her parents, and the little girl told them an incredible story of a fairy princess who carried her through the woods and left her with a nice person, and the fairy princess told the person that she had found her in the woods. That the fairy princess had saved her from the monster.” A single tear slid down her face as he spoke.
“Because she was so little, and you said she was found wandering in the woods, they called Child Protective Services and the police. I assume the police weren’t willing to return her to him because the person had already called CPS as well. She was taken into custody until they were able to find her parents. It only took a few days for them to find them. The parents had a reward to find the fairy princess who returned their daughter to them. Do you want to know what became of Megan?”
She nodded her head.
“She graduated from high school a year ago and is currently enrolled in college at Yale University. She’s studying prelaw. She was valedictorian, and in her speech to her graduating class, she thanked the girl who rescued her, the fairy princess, and said that she was going to become a lawyer with aspirations to become a district attorney and that she planned to also work on cases, pro bono, for parents with missing and exploited children. She is doing all that because of you. You are her fairy princess, and I bet she would love nothing more than to meet you. Would you like to meet her when this is all done?”
“I would like that very much.” She brushed the tears from her face. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For finding her, for telling me her story, that she’s doing well. It’s what I needed to hear right now to help me focus on the task in front of us.”
“I didn’t tell you that story to encourage you to do something stupid.”
“I know, but I needed to know that I did something right back then. Even if I hid like a coward afterward.”
They had pulled up to the address they’d been given, and he turned to look at her. His hands came up to cup her face, and he tipped her head up until she had no choice but to look him in the eyes.
“Quinn Sanders, there are a lot of words I would use to describe you and not one is coward. Not. One.” He kissed her soundly and then released her face. “Let’s go inside and see why we were summoned here.”
Quinn didn’t know why, but she was suddenly really apprehensive. Something, some intuition was screaming at her that if she went in that house, there was no turning back. No way she could cut and run—not that it was even an option. She knew she had to finish this, but she was also struggling to accept that her worst nightmare was happening. How could this be happening had been repeating in her head since the moment she’d left the center. The walk to the front door seemed to take an eternity, yet they were there before she knew what was happening. Ethan knocked on the door, and a tall, muscular man opened the door.
“Hey, Cole,” Ethan said.
“Hey, man, glad to see you got my message. Thanks for coming so fast.” As soon as they were inside, he shut the door behind them. “As soon as we’re done here, I’m moving them. My instincts are telling me shit is about to get real. I don’t want her near this when it happens.”
“And that’s why I asked you to watch over her. There are very few people I would trust to keep her safe, and you are the top one on that list. Just don’t tell Caleb; he might get a complex.” Cole snorted, and Quinn liked him immediately. “Cole, this is Quinn. I guess you would call her my girlfriend, though the word seems inadequate. She’s the reason we’re here right now.”<
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“Nice to meet you. Too bad it’s under such shitty circumstances. After all this is over, I would like to get to properly have a conversation about your intentions with my man here.” He winked at her. Yeah, she liked him, all right.
“I’m actually really surprised that Becky is out of the hospital so soon,” Quinn said. “I would’ve thought she’d be in there a couple days longer.”
“She rebounded remarkably well once she was given fluids and food. Her eyes are still a bit sensitive and getting her healthy and thriving again is going to take a bit, but the hospital was willing to let her go because I’m a doctor.” Quinn turned to look at the woman who had spoken. She hadn’t seen her behind Cole. “Once we determined that we didn’t feel she was completely safe at the hospital, we contacted Detective Vanderbilt and said we would be moving her. He offered the services of Mr. Davenport.”
“What made you feel unsafe at the hospital?”
“Why don’t you come in and I’ll explain everything and then you can go see Becky. I know you’ll want to see her, but then we’ll be leaving, like Mr. Davenport said.”
“All right, and yes, I would like to see Becky before we leave.”
Once they were in the living room, Quinn sat on the edge of the couch, her body unable to relax. Apprehension filled her until she felt consumed by it and she felt a sense of unease that she couldn’t pinpoint. Maybe it was the fact that they were summoned to this secret location, which meant something had happened, or maybe it was the look on Becky’s mom’s face. Whichever it was, she couldn’t explain it.
Breaking Shadows (Darkness Falls Book 2) Page 27