Quinn Security

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Plus, it was Tuesday. She was due at Yellowstone in her Trail Runner uniform in less than an hour. She needed to get back to her apartment, get changed, and head on over to the National Park. No matter how much her life was falling apart, it still had to go on.

  With that in mind, she rolled onto her other side, facing Kaleb, and took a moment to drink in the sight of him. He was, hands down, the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, and realizing that went way deeper than his looks. He’d always been undeniably good-looking. She’d felt her cheeks blush every time he’d sat in her section of Angel’s Food. But it was only after she’d gotten to know him that the exact degree of his gorgeousness had revealed itself. After last night, he was now something of a god in her eyes. What if she could have this, and have him, for the rest of her life?

  She traced the arc of his dark eyebrow with her fingertip as she studied his handsome bone structure. His cheekbone and crisp jawline were enough to make her ovulate, and the thought made her giggle out a breathy laugh.

  It woke him. He groaned and yawned, rolling onto his back and rubbing his eyes.

  “Oh my God,” he yawned out then looked at her. “You’re really here.”

  “I really am.”

  “We really…”

  “Yup,” she told him with a smile. “We really… did a few things last night.”

  “Only a few?”

  “Well, one thing definitely stood out,” she assured him playfully. “We decided to save a few other things for later, though.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” he said, grinning as he pulled her into a kiss.

  She was tempted to tell him he was great, but hadn’t enough women let him know that over the years?

  “I can’t be late,” she said instead as she lifted up on the bed, holding the comforter against her bare chest.

  Kaleb tugged it down then cupped his large hand around her nude breast and her nipple instantly hardened.

  He lifted up, angling to bring his grinning mouth to it, but she slipped out of bed.

  “If you’re trying to keep me at bay,” he warned playfully, “standing in front of me in your birthday suit isn’t exactly going to slow my roll.”

  She laughed and told him, “I need to get to Yellowstone.” When he quirked his eyebrow, she clarified, “I volunteer there sometimes as a Trail Runner. Today’s my day.”

  He groaned, flopping back down on his back and throwing a muscular arm over his eyes. But it only lasted a second. Then he hopped out of bed and together they found their clothes, dressed, and were out the door in no time, Lucy having mentioned that she would need to stop off in her apartment to put on her park uniform.

  When they reached her apartment, the door was ajar and Lucy was filled with a sudden jab of terror.

  She cut her wide eyes to Kaleb, as he stepped in front of her with his fingertips against the doorframe.

  He eased the door open and peered inside. It looked like he was listening out for someone, but after a moment, he entered and she followed in after him.

  She gasped at what she saw.

  Her apartment had been tossed. Pictures and framed photos that had been on the walls were either off kilter or lying shattered on the floor. The coffee table was on its side. Every couch cushion was on the floor. Even the coffee maker and toaster in the kitchen had been thrown to the floor.

  “What… the… hell…” she breathed as she edged through her destroyed apartment, Kaleb having darted briskly through to check that no one was in the bathroom or bedroom.

  When she joined him in the bedroom, her stomach dropped with a feeling of dark trepidation.

  The mattress had been stripped and was set at a terrible angle in its frame, the comforter and all the sheets ratted in a mess on the floor.

  Spray painted across the naked mattress was a single word: SLUT.

  It was then that she knew whoever had broken in last time to draw that oval in lipstick on her bathroom mirror, the shaming word GUILTY above it, wasn’t someone from her past or Dante himself. This was way too personal, too recent, and it had Courtney Harrington’s name written all over it.

  When Kaleb cut his dark eyes back at her, looking furious on her behalf, she told him without hesitating, “Slut? I bet you anything Courtney did this.”

  “You think?”

  “Kaleb, my mattress says slut,” she pointed out as though it was evidence enough. “I want her arrested.”

  “You want to call the sheriff?”

  “This is crazy!” she blurted out, fuming so hotly that she’d lit up like the sun. “Enough is enough!”

  “Alright!”

  As she tried to calm herself, or at least dim her skin, Kaleb pulled his cell phone from his jeans and placed the call to the police station.

  Lucy sucked in a deep, fortifying breath. If the sheriff handled this, then she wouldn’t go ethereal on Courtney and get herself into serious trouble. She started through the bedroom, stepping carefully since it looked like all of her closet was scattered across the floor. Of course, her Trail Runner uniform wasn’t where it should have been, hanging in the closet, and as she began wading through the wreckage that was her wardrobe to find the taupe-colored National Park tee-shirt and khakis, she knew there was no way she wouldn’t be seriously late to Yellowstone.

  “Thanks,” she heard Kaleb say before he returned his cell phone to his pocket. “The sheriff will be here in a few minutes.”

  Great, she thought, the one man in town who thought she was some kind of drugged-out troublemaker hellbent on corrupting his daughter was heading over to help.

  This should be interesting.

  ***

  PO Rachel Clancy pulled her police cruiser up along the curb in front of Acorn Fashion and Accessories, which was set in from Libations near the corner of Trout and Main.

  She had a lot on her mind and questioning Courtney Harrington about the alleged vandalism and harassment of Lucy Cooper wasn’t among her top priorities, that was for damn sure. But when the sheriff gave an order, she rose to the challenge. Period.

  Rick had called her from Lucy’s apartment, having surveyed the damage and taken into consideration the girl’s conviction that it had to have been Courtney who could do such a thing. Apparently, this had been going on for almost a full week. Someone had broken in to write the word guilty on her bathroom mirror. They’d also spray painted the word murderer on her door, and now had tossed her apartment and sprayed the word slut across her mattress in the same color paint.

  If Rachel was interested in pursuing this at all, that interest was wrapped up in the possibility that whoever had caused such destruction in Lucy’s apartment might have a unique take on what had happened to Lucy’s parents all those years ago. Rachel was no longer convinced that Peter Swanson had played any kind of real role in the double-murders of twelve years ago.

  In her gut, Rachel sensed that it all tied in. The Cooper murders. Holly van Dyke’s fatal wolf attack. Even Leeanne Whitaker’s gruesome murder had to link in. They were all related somehow. She could smell it. And her hunch was that Dante Alighieri was the key.

  As she stepped out of the cruiser into the warm late-morning sun, she had to wonder about Courtney’s culpability. She knew Courtney Harrington like she knew everyone in the Fist. Superficially. Courtney had always struck Rachel as a sort of pageant girl. They were basically the same age and yet Courtney had never quite outgrown her college years. Sorority life must have been too good to move on from and every time she set foot in the bar, it was like she was stepping back in time.

  It was also no secret that Courtney had been carrying quite a torch for Kaleb Quinn and her interest in him had reared its territorial head way before the girl had actually managed to go home with him one night.

  Yes, it was odd that Rachel knew that. But Devil’s Fist was one hell of a small town, and the strange fact of the matter was that it had been Courtney herself who had spread the gossip of her night with Kaleb. A measure she’d taken, perhaps, to make i
t known among the single and eligible ladies that he was no longer on the market. He was hers.

  Well, not quite and not by a long shot, evidently.

  The motive was there. Courtney wanted Kaleb. Kaleb took sudden interest in Lucy. Courtney, out of jealousy, retaliated. Sure, Rachel could see it. But it was too petty to hold her interest.

  Now, on the other hand, the guilty and murderer accusations were infinitely more intriguing, and she stepped into Acorn Fashion and Accessories with that in mind.

  The little boutique clothing store smelled of potpourri. A trendy pop song played softly over the sound system. As she crossed through the store, Rachel made a mental note to shop here more often. For some reason, Conor Quinn had been entering her mind and it might be a good idea to start dressing a little more attractively during her off hours. But that was neither here nor there.

  She found Courtney folding skinny jeans at the jean display in the back.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, sensing more than seeing Rachel. She hadn’t even lifted her heavily made-up eyes. “All of our bathing suits are on sale, twenty-five percent off.”

  “Courtney, I need to ask you a few questions,” Rachel announced and the girl finally looked at her.

  Without so much as a breath of preamble, she immediately launched into a frantic tale about Lucy Cooper.

  “Whoa, whoa, slow down,” said Rachel. “What are you telling me?”

  “Lucy! She flashed into a witchy ball of light right in the middle of the diner for all eyes to see then almost attacked me!”

  “What?” It wasn’t that Rachel hadn’t heard her. It was that she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “I’m telling you,” Courtney insisted. “She has, like, powers or something. I can’t believe no one is talking about this.”

  “She attacked you?”

  “She almost attacked me. I could see it in her eyes. She would’ve killed me.”

  Rachel wasn’t a fan of embellishment, but Courtney had definitely piqued her interest. “She turned into a ball of light?”

  “I don’t know how she did it, Officer, but she did. And not only that, but one second she was standing at the hostess stand and the next second she was two inches from my face. Like a witch.”

  Rachel felt her brow furrow with extreme confusion and reminded herself of the reason she’d come here. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe Courtney. This was a world with werewolves, after all, a notion she would’ve never believed had the DNA findings not come back canine on Dante Alighieri. Quite frankly, anything was possible and her mind was wide open. But she had a job to do as ordered by the sheriff himself.

  “In fact, I’m here to ask you about Lucy but not about that incident.”

  “Christ,” she huffed. “Then what? Did another dead waitress turn up in her apartment?”

  There wasn’t a shred of worry on the girl’s face in terms of paranoia as to why a police officer was preparing to question her, and it gave Rachel a moment of contemplative pause.

  “No, no one else turned up dead in her apartment,” she allowed. “But someone did break in. They vandalized her place, likely on three separate occasions.”

  “Good,” Courtney snorted.

  “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  “I know that she probably deserves it. I’m telling you. She’s witchy and if she intimidated me, she probably intimidated other people. People who probably were prepared to get her back.”

  “Alright,” Rachel groaned, losing her patience. “Where were you between the hours of eleven last night and seven o’clock this morning?”

  “Excuse me?” Courtney asked, incredulous at the implication. “You think I broke into Lucy’s apartment?”

  “I think I asked you a question and I’d like a straight answer,” she maintained, raising her eyebrows at the girl.

  Courtney folded her arms, resenting every second of this, and told her, “As a matter of fact, I was at Libations until closing.”

  “So until two in the morning.”

  “That’s right,” she snapped with an air of finality.

  But the conversation was far from over. “Where’d you go after that?”

  “Home,” she hotly retorted. And Rachel was about to ask alone? when she curtly tacked on, “With Conor Quinn. Ever heard of him?”

  Rachel felt her stomach twist with a queasy knot of profound disappointment. “Did you now?” she forced herself to say.

  “I did, in fact,” she said, lifting her entitled head high.

  “And he’ll verify that if I question him?”

  Courtney looked a touch uneasy, but asserted, “He will. Yes. Definitely.”

  It felt like the wind had been completely sucked out of her sail, and Rachel did everything in her mental power to reel in her personal emotions. Why should she care if Courtney slept with Conor Quinn? It wasn’t like Rachel had made any actual attempt to date the man. She’d barely garnered his attention other than the occasional small talk around town here and there.

  “Do me a favor,” she said. “Stay away from Lucy Cooper in the meantime.”

  “You’re telling me?” Courtney balked. “I don’t want to be anywhere near that witch.”

  Rachel made her heavy way out of the boutique and by the time she reached her cruiser, she’d resolved to verify the girl’s alibi immediately.

  Next stop, Quinn Security.

  She’d never before dreaded the prospect of speaking with Conor.

  But that’s what she felt now.

  Dread.

  ***

  At about the time Rachel was driving out west along Highland Highway on her way to Quinn Security, Lucy was deep in the wilderness of Yellowstone, stomping along a trail that had been appropriately named Rocky Road. The trail cut alongside a falling rock zone where a crumbling mountainside made up its northeastern edge. This time of year, it being tourist season and all, the trail seemed fairly busy with hikers passing through every few minutes.

  Equipped with red tape and a walkie-talkie, Lucy made her way along the trail and stopped to tape off certain sections where loose rock had tumbled across the moist dirt hiking path. If the rocks were small and light enough, she was to take the time to toss them off to the wayside, but those were few and far between. The mountain had been deteriorating and in a sense it seemed like Yellowstone was determined to take back this particular stretch of the National Park by any means necessary.

  The sheriff’s visit could’ve gone a heck of a lot better, not that she had expected it to. Rick had spent more time questioning what she might’ve done to deserve the harassment than he had actually investigating the scene. It didn’t surprise her, but it had made her remarkably late to her volunteer shift. And it had also revealed to her that her harasser had vandalized the entrance side of her apartment door, a fact that she’d learned from Kaleb.

  It had to have been Courtney. Who else would be so over-the-top aggressive? The sheriff had promised her that as soon as Officer Clancy questioned the shop girl to see what might shake out of her, he’d call her with an update. But cell service was greatly limited around these parts. Lucy was eager to finish up with Rocky Road and get back to the Trail Office in case she’d missed a call in the interim.

  Kaleb had been walking the trail with her, but had left her minutes ago when his brother, Troy, had reached him, having texted him about some urgent matter concerning Peter Swanson. That was another aspect that she hadn’t fully wrapped her mind around. She wanted to trust Kaleb, but it didn’t sit right with her that an innocent man had gone to prison for her parent’s murder.

  She heard footfall behind her, boots padding over moist earth, as she crouched near a small boulder she was taping red, and she glanced over her shoulder.

  It was a Swedish or German couple, the clunky language they were speaking not exactly identifiable to her untrained ears.

  “Excuse me,” the woman said in a thick accent. “Lookout Point?”

 
; Lucy pointed boldly and clearly in the direction they were headed in anyway, and loudly pronounced, “Twenty-five minutes.”

  “Donk yah!” the woman smiled and her partner gave Lucy a companionable wave.

  “Donk yah right back!” she told them good-naturedly.

  Soon they were out of sight and Lucy was back to stomping ahead in her hiking boots, eyeing the next rock to decide whether or not she’d be strong enough to lift and toss it to the wayside.

  The next set of padding boots she heard was much fainter and she was less concerned with greeting whoever was nearing her. The rock in question looked small enough for Lucy to remove from the trail, so she tested its weight, finding the best grip, and lifted it as she stood.

  Then an eerie feeling washed over her as she carried the rock to the side of the trail and let it drop from her arms.

  When she turned, she found Pamela, another salesgirl from Acorn Fashion and Accessories, nearing her. Rumor had it that Pamela had also found her way into Kaleb’s bed, or vice versa, and the way she was looking—no, glaring—at Lucy brought that expiring fact to mind. In a bad way.

  “Hi, Pamela,” she said, hoping that the woman wasn’t glaring at her so much as just squinting through the beams of sunlight that were cutting through the seams in the canopy of treetops overhead. “Great hiking weather we’re having.”

  “How’s life with Kaleb?’ she asked, but it sounded more like an accusation than anything else, and Lucy was immediately uncomfortable that anyone around the Fist would think her life was taking place with Kaleb. Sure, it was. But that shouldn’t have been common, public knowledge yet. It shouldn’t be past the rumors and gossip stage of the game where the social etiquette was to gush about it behind Lucy’s back until it was old news.

  “Fine,” she said uneasily. “I’m not sure what you heard—”

  “I heard enough,” she snapped.

  “Oh?”

  Lucy wouldn’t have attempted to force a friendly edge to her response, but it was clear that Pamela had no plans to continue hiking along the trail, and if she was going to engage Lucy, Lucy wanted to keep things light and civil.