He held up a copy of the lift card and studied the nice ridges of the hypothenar zone and the tented arch and whorls of all four fingers. INDENT had fed the prints into AFIS but unfortunately hadn’t received a hit. Just like it was with the list of names on the writers list, Quinn knew in his gut that he was staring at the hand of a serial killer.
The cell phone hooked to his belt rang, and he answered without reading the caller ID. “Detective McIntyre.”
“Quinn. It’s here.”
He straightened in his chair and set the copy of prints on his desk. “Lucy?”
“Yes.” There was a pause, as if she were trying to swallow. “It’s here.”
“What?”
“The letter. It came to my house. She knows where I live.”
Shit. “Did you open it?” He gathered the papers on his desk and put them into his notebook.
“No.” A sob broke in her throat.
“You’re not there alone, are you?”
“Yes. Adele spent the night, but she had to leave. I thought I’d be okay here by myself. It’s broad daylight and I thought-”
“Are your windows and doors locked?” He grabbed his notebook and laptop and headed for the door.
“Yes.”
“I’m on my way.” He walked out the front doors and headed toward his unmarked car. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“It’s a twenty-minute drive.”
He unlocked the car door and set the laptop and notebook on the seat next to a dozen pink roses. “Not for me.” Probably not for her either.
Quinn hung up and called Sergeant Mitchell’s and Kurt’s cell phones. Neither picked up, and rather than leaving a message, he decided to call back once he had more information. Breathless had sent the letter to Lucy’s house, and that changed everything.
The drive took him fifteen minutes. He parked his car by the curb and grabbed his evidence collection duffle out of the trunk. With the duffle in one hand and the laptop and his files in the other, he jogged up the sidewalk. The door to the house opened as he took the steps two at a time. He stopped on the porch and looked at her standing within her dark house, the curtains and blinds drawn against the sunlight. Her white pajamas had red lips printed all over them and were a stark contrast within the gray shadows. A sob broke between the fingers she pressed against her lips, and then she was in his arms. He wasn’t quite sure how it happened. One second he was standing on her porch waiting for her to invite him inside, the next he was inside with the door closed behind him and the duffle at his feet.
She buried her face in his neck. “I thought I could handle this,” she cried as her hands grasped the front of his black polo shirt.
“Shh. It’s okay now.” He slid his free hand up and down her back, bunching the flannel shirt. “I’m here. I’ll take care of it.” He pressed a kiss to the side of her head as his palm slid up her spine to her shoulders. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.” Beneath the soft flannel of her pajamas, he didn’t feel bra straps. He tried not to think about what that meant.
“I always thought I could handle anything.” She shook her head, and her grasp on his shirt tightened. She seemed to want to burrow under his skin. “I always thought I was one of those fearless people who could survive a tsunami and outrun a bear. One of the smart ones who jumps in the life raft and doesn’t go down with the ship. But I’m so scared I can hardly think straight.”
He smiled into her hair. “Honey, no one can outrun a bear.”
“I know, but I always thought that if I had to, I could do it. I thought I was the smart one, the strong one, but this whole thing has just knocked me on my ass. I’m not brave or strong or in control.”
His gaze fell on the stark white envelope sitting on the coffee table. There would be plenty of time to deal with that later. “I’ll help you.”
“How?”
Yeah, how? He pulled back far enough to see her face. Dark circles smudged the skin beneath her eyes, and she was very pale. “When was the last time you ate?”
“Last night. Adele stayed here, and we had takeout.”
He brushed a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “A real meal.”
Her forehead wrinkled in thought, and he fought the urge to press a kiss there. “Like in cook?”
“Yeah.”
“Wednesday Maddie made lasagna, but I haven’t been really hungry.”
“You’re going to make yourself sick.” He set his laptop and files on the table, then he grabbed her hand and pulled her with him into her kitchen. He flipped the light switch on his way toward the refrigerator. He let go of her hand, then opened the door to discover several boxes of old takeout and half a bag of chick salad, the kind that looked like weeds and flowers. He also saw a half gallon of milk, three beef weenies, and a brick of cheddar. “There’s not much here.”
“Except for last night, I haven’t been here all that much. Just a few hours during the day to try and get some writing done and to meet you with my mail.”
He shut the refrigerator and moved to open a few cupboards. “Your friend shouldn’t have left you alone today.”
“Adele’s a writer and is busy. All my friends are busy with deadlines. They can’t stay with me twenty-four/seven.”
His gaze skimmed over cans of soup and vegetables, jars of olives, and two boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese. “You should have called me.” He pulled out the macaroni and cheese and turned to look at her.
She shrugged but didn’t answer. He supposed she didn’t need to. They both knew why she hadn’t called him. “You’re going to cook?”
“Sure. I’ll make you something my mom used to make me when I stayed home from school sick. Where are your pots and pans?”
The bottoms of her slippers made a soft skidding sound as she moved across the tile floor. She walked to a cupboard next to the stove and bent over at the waist, drawing Quinn’s gaze to all those red lips on her butt. He wondered what she’d do if he grabbed her up and placed kisses everywhere those lips were printed.
“This ought to work,” she said as she straightened with a pot in one hand. She walked toward him, and his gaze lowered to the lips printed on the pockets covering her breasts. He thanked God she wasn’t a mind reader, or she probably would have tried to slap his head off like she’d done the morning he’d told her he wasn’t a plumber.
She handed him the pot, and he filled it with water. “Weenie mac and cheese is exactly what you need.” He tore the top off the blue box and dumped the noodles in the water. “Good old-fashioned comfort food.”
While the noodles boiled, he shredded cheddar cheese and cut the weenies. She stood with her hip shoved into the counter next to him with her arms folded beneath her breasts. To fill the time and take Lucy’s mind off the letter in the living room, Quinn talked about the Raymond Deluca case. Yesterday, Mr. Deluca had been convicted of killing his wife and her three children, and Quinn talked about the case and the evidence that had hung him.
“I remember when that happened,” Lucy said, watching as he drained the macaroni. “And the faces of those little kids in the newspaper.”
While Quinn mixed the cheese sauce and tossed the cheddar and weenies into the pot and turned the burner on low, Lucy set the table. She poured two glasses of milk. “This usually gets baked for a while with extra cheese and little croutons on top,” Quinn said as he filled two plates, “but you look too hungry to wait.”
“Maybe I am a little more hungry than I thought,” Lucy confessed as he held her chair. He sat across from her, and they ate for a few moments in silence.
Lucy reached for her glass of milk. “This is better than I thought it would be.”
Quinn stabbed a few noodles and a slice of weenie with his fork. “Don’t tell me you’ve never had weenie mac? It was a lunch staple at the McIntyre house.”
A little white mustache rested on Lucy’s top lip when she lowered the glass. She shook her head and licked it off with the pink tip of her tongue.
“I did most of the cooking in my house. My mother had to work late a lot, so I made dinner for me and my brother. I got to be a really good cook.”
Quinn recalled the chocolate torte she’d made him and how she’d said chocolate was better than sex. Granted, the torte had been good, but not that good.
She yawned behind her hand until her eyes watered.
“Am I boring you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m tired.”
“Are you having trouble sleeping?”
“It’s more like I’m staying up late trying to work. I have a book due in four weeks and I haven’t written a word since I found those letters. My deadline stress is adding to my insomnia. I’m a mess.”
Yeah, she was. Her hair could use a brush, but that didn’t keep him from wanting her. Spiffed or messy, he didn’t care. “Why don’t you take a nap? I can do some work here while you sleep.” They both knew what work he was talking about, but neither wanted to talk about it just yet.
“I doubt I could sleep, but I would appreciate it if you’d stay while I took a shower.”
Quinn pictured her naked and wet and all soaped up. “That’s fine,” he uttered as he picked up his plate and walked to the sink. He didn’t have to try and imagine her naked. He knew what she looked like. He’d seen her from the waist up, and what he’d seen had rocked his world. Turned it on its head until he’d lost his friggin’ mind.
Quinn rinsed while Lucy loaded the dishwasher. The late morning sun streamed golden light through the window and into Lucy’s hair. It got caught in her lashes and poured across her cheek and into her parted lips. He’d lived with Amanda, had thought he’d spend the rest of his life with her, but he couldn’t recall if they’d ever washed dishes together.
He handed Lucy a wet plate, and a drop of water slid from the edge to slip across her palm and wrist and disappear beneath the long sleeve of her pajamas. It wasn’t until the machine was loaded that he brought up the subject they’d both been avoiding.
“Do you want to know what’s in the letter?” he asked as he dried his hands with a dish towel.
“I’m not sure.” She took one end and dried her hands too. “A part of me does. The curious part that killed the cat, but I know I’ll regret it. So, no.” Her fingers brushed his, and a wrinkle appeared between her brows, as if she was confused about something. “Thanks for lunch.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And ah…if Snookie meows at you, don’t feed him. He’s on a diet.” She moved across the kitchen to the doorway leading to the bedrooms. “And if you have to leave-”
“I’m not leaving.”
She looked at him one last time and disappeared.
Quinn tossed the towel on the counter and moved into the living room. Instead of turning on lamps, he opened the drapes and let the sun in. He grabbed his duffle from the floor and tossed it on the couch, then took out a pair of rubber gloves and snapped them on his hands. He picked up the letter sitting on the table and sliced open one end with the small utility knife he kept in the front pocket of his jeans. As he sat on the couch, he pulled a letter from the envelope. This time there was no newspaper clipping.
Somewhere in the house, Quinn could hear the water turn on as he unfolded the paper and read:
Well, I am so disappointed, Lucy. I saw you with him. The cop. The one with the dark hair and eyes. He looked at you as though he was picturing you naked. Dirty man.
I thought we had an understanding. I thought I could trust you. I have felt such a deep connection to you through your books. I thought you felt it too. Through your writing, I have come to understand myself. Your words speak to me and give me power. In turn, I told you some of my secrets and shared with you my deepest thoughts. Quid pro quo-remember? You betrayed me. I know you’ve shown him my private letters to you.
What’s to be done, now? I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. I’m so upset with you. You’ve plunged a knife into my back.
Shall I return the favor?
The hair on the back of his neck stood up, which didn’t happen to him very often anymore. He slid the letter and envelope in a clear evidence bag, sealed it shut, then pulled the gloves from his hands. He tossed them on the coffee table and skimmed the letter once more. He was going to have to tell Lucy about this one. He couldn’t keep it from her. She had to know that Breathless was clearly threatening her.
When Lucy had called with this last letter, Quinn had known the stakes had changed: He just hadn’t known to what degree. Now he did. Lucy was going to have to relocate for a while or agree to have two undercover cops move in for around-the-clock protection. Those were the options-he just hoped she’d agree to one of them.
He opened his notebook and booted up his laptop. Breathless had seen him and Lucy together. She knew Quinn was a cop. Either she’d seen him on the news at a press conference, or he’d interviewed her. Quinn had a gut feeling it was the latter.
First, he wrote down all the places where he and Lucy had been together. The list started with Starbucks and included restaurants and Barnes and Noble. The list ended with the last time he’d been in her house.
Next, he flipped to his notes and wrote the names of everyone he had interviewed since the first killing. He pulled the Women of Mystery writers profile and membership roster from the notebook and circled the three members who worked at Barnes and Noble and possibly could have met the victims. Then he circled the four Peacock chapters that met in bookstores and the presidents of the group he’d already interviewed. He checked the three employees and Peacock members against the victims’ phone records and e-mails. He came up with a big fat zero.
Across the house, the water shut off, and he took out the xerox copies of the other letters and laid them side by side on the coffee table, checking to see if there was anything he’d missed. There wasn’t, and frustration tightened his forehead. Finding a clear connection would have been too damn easy. And nothing about the case had been easy. He flipped pages in his notebook until he turned to the interviews he’d done with employees at bookstores where all four victims had purchased books.
Bookstore receipts were just one link connecting all four victims. There were others, but the receipts were looking to be a bigger piece of the puzzle than Quinn had originally thought. If Breathless wasn’t communicating with men online, then she was probably meeting them in the bookstores. Trolling the aisles for victims.
Quinn didn’t have all the personal profiles from the Peacock ladies, and he didn’t know which, if any, worked in bookstores. A week ago he’d seen several of them in the Barnes and Noble where Lucy had been speaking to the mystery writers group. It was possible they knew he was a cop. Even if none of the Peacocks worked at bookstores, they were readers who hung out there and could not be excluded.
“Christ,” he cursed and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. He was going around and around in circles. Each break in the case added as many questions as it answered. Each time he crossed off one suspect, it seemed like ten more were added. Breathless was on one of those lists, though. He knew it. If he kept whittling away, he’d find her. He had leads and suspects. It would take time to get through them all. Unfortunately, time was one thing he didn’t have. Once he turned over the latest letter, the sergeant would be more determined than ever to use Lucy as bait.
Hell, if this were happening to anyone but Lucy, Quinn would be the first person to want to use her to establish more communication with Breathless. Use the media to anger Breathless into doing something stupid like showing up at a staged event, or baiting her into a physical confrontation. But this wasn’t happening to anyone else, and the last thing he wanted to do was place Lucy in even more danger.
The thought of something happening to her twisted his insides into knots and burned a hole in his gut. He thought of Merry and the pink roses in his car. It was the thirtieth. He always put flowers on Merry’s grave on April thirtieth.
There was no way he was going to have the
death of two women on his soul. No way in hell that he would let anything happen to Lucy. He didn’t care if he had to hog-tie her and shove her in a closet. His closet. The one in his bedroom was big enough.
Of course that was out of the question. Mitchell would have a fit. Besides, having her in his house would drive Quinn insane. He couldn’t have her, and he couldn’t keep his hands off her. Oh, he would have every intention of keeping his hands to himself, but something would happen and she’d be in his arms again, pressed up against him, and he’d be feeling for bra straps. Getting all hot and bothered and thinking about all the places on her body he wanted to put his mouth. At the same time knowing her feelings for him and that it was never going to happen.
He was thirty-six. A grown man. If he really put his mind to it, he could control his hands. The bigger problem was that he couldn’t seem to control his body, and the last thing he wanted was to walk around his own damn house with a constant hard-on.
Frankly, he just wasn’t up for that kind of abuse.
Chapter 13
Freefallin: Seeks Solid Place
to Land…
Lucy looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and brushed her wet hair. As much as she hated to admit it, Quinn made her feel safe. Safer than she’d felt in days. It bothered her that it took a man to make her feel safe, and not just any man. Quinn. What she’d told him earlier was the truth. She’d always thought she was strong and could cope with anything and everything head-on. Snake bite? No problem, she’d just apply a tourniquet, then suck the venom out herself. Shark attack? No sweat, she’d just punch the shark in the eye. Chased by killer bees? Too easy, jump in a lake or run indoors and get a can of Raid. Get a letter from a wack job? Cry like a baby and call a big strong man.
Lucy brushed her teeth, then tipped her head upside down and dried her hair. She wondered what Quinn was doing, and she thought of the lunch he’d cooked for her. There was no way anyone would confuse it for a culinary masterpiece, but it had been just what she’d needed. Warm and filling and full-on comfort food. It also had been a very nice thing for Quinn to do.
Sex, Lies, And Online Dating Page 16