Unraveled

by Allie Hawkins

  Michael boomed, “Jesus, Quinn! Did you hear a word I said?”

  “Uh-huh.” The beep in her ear stopped. She rubbed a spot on the desk, but saw frame after frame of her and Pierce finishing their business reviews with mind-bending sex on the shiny glass surface. Of course she’d thought they were making love and unspoken promises.

  “Quinn!”

  She swallowed, her throat so dry she inhaled twice. “Sorry. I spaced out for a sec.”

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing’s. Wrong. With. Me.” Four calls in ten seconds represented a record—even for Pierce.

  “Someone should’ve knocked His Pierceness off his hobby horse years ago.”

  She flinched, hating the flutter in her stomach, and tried to marshal a defense.

  A snort from Michael wrecked that coping technique. “You’re a wimp, Big Sis.”

  “Am I?” Show her a wimp who fought off caped crazies with—

  “Let’s say I put a gun to your head.” Michael’s offhand tone carried a shot of venom.

  Her breath caught. She should tell him how she’d felt three years ago when he asked her to find the perfect job for Rex.

  “Which would you choose, Quinn? Arguing, or appearing buck naked on Oprah?”

  “Your point being? Oprah’s left her daily sho—”

  “Ten times out of ten, you’d go with Oprah.” Gotcha rode his undertone of certainty.

  “I see.” He knew she loathed arguing, but he didn’t have a clue how much she’d always disliked Rex, his bud since kindergarten. She massaged her temples. The sleet smacked her floor-to-ceiling window, cracking like bullets.

  “You know I’m right.” Aggression sharpened his words.

  “I know I don’t like arguing. That makes me a wimp.” Stiffness crept from her bruised knees to her neck. “Pierce, on the other hand, lives to argue. In your eyes, that makes him a bastard.”

  “Go ahead, defend your prince.” A long sigh. “I’m not like you. I don’t pretend life’s a fairy tale.”

  Eyes stinging, she crossed her fingers. Don’t let him go there. Please. Not today.

  “We both learned a long time ago shit happens,” he said.

  In self-defense against his words—harsher because he whispered them—she tuned him out, but couldn’t tune out another Call Waiting. Pit bulls showed less persistence than Pierce.

  “Pierce fires Rex. Who cares?” The silkiness in Michael’s tone telegraphed danger.

  Quinn picked up the silver-framed picture of her and Mom seated in front of Michael in his Mizzou cap and gown. She knew she should care about Rex, but she didn’t.

  Not a truth her brother wanted to hear. She said, “Just tell me why Pierce fired him.”

  The question rang in her ears as Michael kept on ranting. He hurled new slurs at Pierce’s character and lamented Rex’s fate. She heaped Rex with silent curses. Selfish, demanding, whining jerk. Some friend—saddling an exhausted father-to-be with one more problem. She exhaled then interrupted.

  “But why?” she insisted, willing her voice to remain neutral.

  “Because he could, the SOB.” Michael drove home the rest of his message by shouting, as if she were deaf and stupid. “Did the bastard ever look back after he pierced your heart?”

  Shame caught in her throat. She whispered, “He never pierced my heart as you put it. We broke up—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. His Pierceness can screw over anyone he damn well pleases.” Between the third or fourth regurgitation of this insult and the repeated beeps of Call Waiting, Quinn developed a splitting headache.

  And it wasn’t even eight o’clock.

  Chapter 2

  “Your call is being transferred to auto—”

  “Goddammit, Quinn!” Pierce Jordan punched DISCONNECT, counted to five, and hit REDIAL for the umpteenth time and listened to the robotic intonation of Chatty Cathy.

  Staring eight stories down, unable to see Brush Creek Park through the fog and sleet, Pierce knew his short fuse was lit. He wanted to kill Rex Walker. He should’ve known the little weasel would run straight to Michael Alexander.

  Of course Michael lost no time putting the screws to his big sister.

  Pierce swatted REDIAL, listened to a nanosecond of white noise, and slammed the receiver back in the hook. “Sonofa—”

  The gold-framed picture of his parents skittered across the polished desktop. He fisted both hands. He wanted to punch Rex Walker, but Quinn...what did he want to do to her?

  The question mocked him. He pivoted around and stared at his reflection in the dark, sleet-flecked window. The grimace spreading over his face belonged to a TV-tough guy—all that make-my-day rage. His teeth buzzed with cold fury.

  Christ, how could he help Quinn when she’d rather kiss a snake than accept ice water from him in hell?

  A sharp knock sent an iron fist into his gut. He’d barked no interruptions at his secretary when she arrived at 7:24.

  “Better be good, Linda.” He swung his chair around to face the door. “I’m sitting here butt-naked.”

  She pushed the door wide open, looked down her long, bronze nose like an Aztec princess, shrugged. “Steve needs a minute.”

  At six three, a hundred eighty pounds and at-attention posture, Steve Cutter looked like the retired U.S. Marine Colonel he was. He shook hands with Pierce firmly enough to crack a few dozen bones and got right to the point.

  “We had an incident in the garage a little while ago.”

  Surprise, surprise. Pierce motioned his security chief toward a wing chair. “What’d the weasel do? Total my car on his way out?”

  Steve snorted. “Walker left docile as Mary’s little lamb.”

  “You mean he’s smarter than we gave him credit for?” Pierce glanced at the phone. He didn’t give a damn what happened in the garage, but trusting Steve, he said, “Go on.”

  Steve’s black eyes flashed—the only signal he was flesh and blood, not stone. “Minutes after he drove away, some weirdo scared the bejesus out of Quinn Alexander.”

  Feeling sucker-punched, Pierce jumped to his feet. “She’s okay?”

  “Scraped up. Probably black and blue by now. Laughed in my face when I offered to take her to ER. Informed me her brother’s baby is overdue, Made clear she had no intention of going to ER. I don’t mind saying I shut up.”

  Dry-mouthed, Pierce chuckled and eased back into his chair, but couldn’t stop the video unwinding in his head. Before dawn a week ago. Quinn entering the elevator. Like two strangers, they chat for six and a half seconds about the weather. A pause. Awkward, stiff. He asks about Michael’s baby a second before the doors open at her floor.

  “Due anytime.” Waving, she hustles off, schlepping her hernia-inducing briefcase, never glancing back to make sure the door hasn’t closed on Pierce’s arm or he hasn’t had a fatal coronary.

  The mental video stopped. Pierce said, “She’d raise the dead for Michael.”

  The older man showed zero reaction to the hyperbole. He waited a beat before saying, “The security breach isn’t Joe’s fault. Some kind of virus took our system down. The hacker was damn sophisticated. I can’t find zip. Since the buck stops with me, I’ll resign now or—”

  Pierced leaped up, planted his knuckles on the desk, leaned forward. “Find this guy.”

  A flush spread along Steve’s jawline. He nodded, got to his feet. “That’s the plan.”

  Pierce straightened from his orangutan-pose, but hot blood kept churning in his brain. “Any ideas where to begin?”

  The former Marine looked Pierce straight in the eye. “Makes no sense, but the first thing I’m going for is a connection between our wannabe-mugger, the hacker, and Walker.”

  The door snicked shut behind Steve. From the corner of his eye. Pierce watched sleet slam the windows. He exhaled through his mouth and hit REDIAL one more damn time.

  One more damn time, he got Quinn’s voice mail. Voice low and harsh, he left his seventh deman
d to call him ASAP. Christ, he’d love to hear the spin Michael was putting on this.

  Poor Rex. We can’t turn our backs on him, Quinn. He’s like family, Quinn. You know Pierce hired him because you asked him, Quinn.

  Pierce nodded in agreement with this last bit of the imaginary monologue. It didn’t matter the personal relationship between them had ended in bitterness. It didn’t matter the weasel was the only bad hire she’d ever recommended. Guilt after their break-up had made Pierce stupid enough he’d hoped somehow to regain her friendship.

  Friendship, hell! He stared at the gloom swallowing the park. He’d wanted to crawl back in her bed. Figured if he hired the weasel, she’d give him a chance. He’d ignored every instinct, disregarded his better judgment, and hired the cocky little bastard.

  He wasn’t about to disappoint Quinn.

  And she wasn’t about to disappoint Michael. Then. Now. Or ever.

  The realization stung. Pierce jerked open his top drawer. He removed the weasel’s file. His fingertips buzzed as if he’d touched a live wire. An electrical current shot to his brain, and he saw how Quinn’s brother would bring her to her knees.

  He would, of course, play the A-card.

  Jesus! As if being abandoned by his father thirty years ago explained why Rex Walker embezzled five million dollars from people who had never hurt him in any way.

  “Five million bucks,” Pierce whispered. Fuckingincredible Walker had pulled it off. More fuckingincredible how many people now knew.

  Christ, what a fuck-up. The fallout was going to be ugly.

  The ashes in his gut stirred, but he laughed at the irony. Would Michael trot out the ugly scapegoat argument?

  Hell, let him. The weasel was a thief. Not up there with the talented Bernie Madoff, but would even tabloid readers feel sympathy for the bastard?

  Pierce closed his eyes, reading imaginary headlines. Abandoned at Birth, Disfigured Computer Whiz Embezzles Five Million Bucks!

  Pierce pinched his nose, studied the ceiling and edited his imaginary headlines: Disfigured Computer-Whiz-Turned-Embezzler Will Walk.

  Without repaying a dime. Or spending a day in jail. Or losing a night’s sleep.

  “Sonofa—” Pierce pulled out the report that had knocked him for a loop. Let the shit hit the fan. He’d take care of Quinn.

  First, though, he had to make sure he’d covered his own ass.

  ****

  “What? No Lamar's?” Nineteen-year old Leah's yelp carried through Quinn’s closed door and into her office. She covered the receiver. How much longer could Michael ventilate?

  “Shhh. Quinn’s on the phone.” Officer Manager Extraordinaire, Sami ruled the outer kingdom. “It’s not as if there’s no Santa Claus.”

  Muffled laughter made Quinn smile. Horns honking and tires screeching stopped her cold. “Michael?”

  She grabbed the receiver and jammed it against her ear. Please, let him be okay and she’d give up sarcasm forever.

  She imagined pressing his head against her heart, holding him, protecting him, soothing him the way she'd done so many times when they were kids sharing her guilty secret.

  “Michael,” she whispered, her voice thick.

  “Damned rubberneckers.” He spoke in a quiet, amused tone, sounding more like himself than at any time during his tirade.

  “You okay?”

  “Peachy. One-celled organisms would outscore these rubberneckers on an effing driver’s test.” He sighed. Long. Loud. In the next breath he said, “You know that damn job is Rex's life. It means everything to him. If he does something stupid, it’s on Pierce’s head.”

  “Okay, okay. I realize Rex’s computer-analyst identity hinges on thinking he’s as intelligent, as interesting and as important as DAs and MDs.” Two dozen white roses and a handwritten thank-you note had arrived from him for the past three years on his anniversary with Jordan Banking Consultants.

  “Pierce does nothing related to business without a reason,” she said. “Why’d he fire—?”

  “He claims Rex embezzled five million dollars.”

  “Five mill—” Quinn's brain ran down like a broken toy.

  “Rex swears he's innocent. I believe him.”

  The hard, flat pronouncement discouraged further questions, but dozens of them collided in Quinn’s head. In this post-Madoff age, how could anyone embezzle five million dollars? How did Pierce determine Rex's guilt? What, or who, tipped him off? Were there other suspects? Was Pierce pressing criminal charges?

  After her ears stopped ringing, she asked, “Where is Rex now?”

  “Across the street. In the park. His Pierceness escorted him out of the building.”

  Weak knees and aching ribs reminded her of her fall an hour earlier, and now she’d fallen into this quagmire. Was it too late to back out?

  And upset Michael?

  Risk an argument that could end in a car accident?

  Potentially rob her unborn niece of a father?

  The hollow in her stomach contracted. She closed her eyes, unwilling to face the irony. Why couldn’t she like Rex? Michael had always considered him his younger brother.

  “I'm worried, Big Sis.” Michael's compassion drew her unwillingly back to the present. “He sees his whole future going down the toilet.”

  Her guilt buttons started going off like fire alarms, but she inhaled and held her breath. No rushing toward inevitable capitulation. If she shared a bit about her morning... Seemed only fair her own brother should listen for a while to her problems.

  Since he has none of his own at the moment.

  Something inside her shrank, and shame made her voice small. “Is he going to call me?”

  “Let me call him. He’s afraid you won't believe him. How long before you can see him—ten, fifteen minutes?”

  “Why wait?” She glanced at the clock, felt her stomach lurch, but lied anyway. “My first appointment’s at nine-thirty. He can come over right—”

  “Won’t work.” Her brother’s impatience felt as if he'd shaken her, the way some adults shook children who dared to disagree.

  Carefully neutral, she said, “Why not?”

  “He doesn’t want to risk a showdown with Pierce.”

  “But he wants me to go out in the cold?”

  A blip of silence deepened. Her heart clanged in her ears. Kansas City’s not Siberia, she thought, ready to surrender. Michael didn’t need attitude from her.

  As she opened her mouth, he whispered, “You—of all people—can’t give Rex a break?”

  ****

  The laughter died as soon as Quinn stepped into the outer office. Lounging against Sami’s desk, twenty-year-old Janelle recovered first. “Whoa!”

  Sami’s dark eyes widened. “What happened?”

  “You did take the other babe out, didn’tcha?” Janelle jabbed a right over Quinn’s head like a prize fighter.

  “Janelle!” Sami and Leah said in unison, their eyes bright with curiosity.

  “Do those bruises have anything to do with no food?” Janelle punched an imaginary opponent.

  Feeling naked under their scrutiny, Quinn nodded. So much for makeup camouflaging scratches and bruises. “When I get back, I’ll tell all.” Quinn tugged the collar of her wool coat, glad to postpone telling them about the fluke in the garage. “In the meantime, who needs a carb fix?”

  Groans gave her the answer she expected. Afraid she’d never leave if she delayed longer, she told Sami to dispatch the cab, warned them to save her at least one glazed chocolate fat pill and slipped out the door before anyone fired off more questions.

  Luck was with her for the first time that day. The elevator arrived empty and made no stops on its descent to the lobby. Joe had gone off duty, replaced by George, another senior citizen. He made noises of commiseration about her “troubles.”

  “Let Joe know I’m offering a reward if he loses that tape.”

  “Oops. Mr. Cutter already took it.”

  “Darn.” Quinn snapped her fing
ers, gave George a glib wave and sailed outside into a blast of Arctic air that collapsed her lungs. Sleet pelted her face, snaked past her scarf and formed ice-clumps halfway down her back. An eerie, silvery fog reduced her visibility to the level of the legally blind.

  Her heart banged her ribs. Worries about the security tape evaporated. Her major concern now was surviving a trip commonsense advised forgetting.

  “Only for you, Michael,” she muttered and stepped gingerly off the curb to cross Forty-Seventh to Brush Creek Park. Jaywalking was illegal, but her guardian angel, or maybe it was sheer dumb luck, guided her safely to the other side, which, illogical as she knew it was, felt a hundred times darker than the steps in front of The Jordan Building. She glanced over her shoulder. Nothing visible except her breath. Fog had engulfed the eight-story building she’d just left. Mist and shadows surrounded her. For a second, she was back in the parking garage.

  Panic uncoiled in her stomach, rushed up to her chest and roared in her ears. “Nothing to fear but fear itself,” she whispered, taking no comfort in the cliché.

  Breathing hard, she stumbled toward the hazy glow from a street lamp. Why, in God’s name, hadn’t she let Michael offer her comfort? Like he always had?

  An image of the masked marauder tried to surface, but she clamped down on her imagination and sucked in a deep breath. A rush of cold air seared her lungs, brought tears, and cleared the mental cobwebs.

  “Breathe.” Comforted by the drop in her pulse, she inhaled more deeply.

  The masked marauder was a fluke. Plain and simple. Why tell Michael about a homeless guy who'd probably missed his meds?

  Besides, it wasn’t as if her kid brother had held a gun to her head. She’d volunteered to meet Rex. She was always volunteering. Another major character flaw. So, it was pay-up time.

  Or, she could turn around, sneak back to the office and swear she couldn’t find Rex.

  How the heck could she find him in this gloom?

  Listen for screams, she thought, immediately disgusted by her cynicism about Rex’s face.

  She took another step. God pity the unsuspecting jogger who met up with Rex. Catching sight of him in murk like this could send the fittest jock into cardiac arrest.