Quinn Security

by Dee Bridgnorth

  As soon as he saw Rachel with Harry in custody, he did was he was known for. He tried to steal her progress.

  “Who have you got here?” asked Eddie before she could reach one of the interview rooms to properly question her suspect.

  “An innocent man,” Harry asserted.

  “That’s yet to be established,” she scoffed. “Harold Marple.”

  Eddie looked pleased that she had delivered Harry to him. “I’ll take it from here.”

  “You don’t have all the information,” she objected.

  “Then brief me,” he said easily before asking the other officers, “take him to Interview One.”

  As the officers carted Harry off, Rachel maintained, “I ordered the APB. I made headway on the arson. That is my suspect to question.”

  “It’s my investigation,” he reminded her.

  “I’m putting my foot down, Friendly. Step aside.”

  “Why don’t we get the sheriff to weigh in on this?” he suggested with a smug smile, but it was only a veiled threat.

  Rachel decided to call him on what she hoped was a bluff, though she knew that this probably wouldn’t end well for her.

  “Fine.”

  It was a race to the sheriff’s office. Whenever she quickened her pace, Eddie picked up his, and soon they were jogging and barreling through his closed office door.

  Rick was hunched behind the desk, sweating like a pig and holding his head.

  “Sheriff?” she asked, immediately concerned. “You look feverish.”

  He didn’t yell at them or even lift his head. He must be very ill to miss an opportunity to startle her with his barking criticism.

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  Rick groaned, “Get out.”

  “I’ve apprehended Harold Marple,” she stated proudly. The sheriff might be seriously ill, but he was here and so long as he was, Rachel fully intended to argue her right to interrogate Marple. “Permission to proceed with questioning him?”

  “It’s Eddie’s case,” Rick groaned, as he angled his eyes up. They looked dark. Too dark. Almost black, but then again Rick had turned the lights off and closed the blinds.

  “What did I tell you?” Eddie beamed boastfully at her. “I’ll be in Interview Room One with him if you need me, Sir,” he told the sheriff before turning on his heel and starting through the precinct.

  “Unbelievable,” she grumbled.

  Instead of following after him, though she would’ve loved to harass Eddie all the way to the interview room door, she rounded the desk and placed her inner wrist against Rick’s forehead.

  “My God, Sheriff, you’re burning up.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” he snapped.

  “I really think you should go to the hospital,” she suggested.

  “What are they going to do? Give me some extra strength Motrin? Waste of time.”

  “Then at the very least you should go home and get some rest.” Rachel grasped his desk phone and started dialing. “I’m calling your daughter. I don’t think you should drive in your current state.”

  Rachel knew the sheriff was dangerously sick when he didn’t angrily hang up the phone and chew her out for her decisive call.

  When she heard Whitney’s outgoing voice message, having dialed her cabin, Rachel hung up without leaving a message and tried her cell phone. As soon as she heard the young woman’s voice through the line, she relayed the information that Rick was burning up with a fever, on the brink of delirium, and insisted she come get her father. Whitney, who was at the corral stables at Yellowstone, immediately agreed and said she was on her way.

  “Your daughter will be here shortly,” she told Rick as she returned his desk phone to its cradle. “Hang in there.”

  As she turned to leave, Rick caught her by the wrist. His grip was so tight that it made her skin burn.

  “Sheriff?”

  “I’m worried.”

  She stooped so that she could meet his eye and promised, “Whitney will take you to the hospital. Fevers don’t last forever. You probably caught something.”

  “No,” he breathed. His voice sounded like grinding gravel. “You don’t understand. I’m worried for my soul.”

  “Sir?”

  Rick turned woozy. His head lulled and he spilled back in his chair. Rachel reacted quickly. As soon as he released her wrist, weak from the fever, she grabbed his shoulders to steady him from falling sideways to the floor and by the time it was clear he was balanced, he had passed out.

  Acting fast, Rachel began dialing 9-1-1 but Rick perked up and depressed the plunger on the phone.

  “You’re drifting in and out of consciousness!” she shouted, frustrated that he could be so stubborn.

  “I’ll be okay. Just leave me.”

  “No, I won’t do that,” she asserted.

  She waited with him, holding him whenever he flopped unconscious and arguing with him whenever he startled back to life and complained.

  Whitney barreled into the office, breathlessly, and rushed to her father.

  “I really think he needs to see a doctor,” Rachel informed her.

  “Oh, Daddy,” she breathed, feeling his forehead. “Let’s get him in my car.”

  Together the women hoisted Rick out of his chair and began the slow, heavy work of helping him through the station and outside. Shane was waiting in her idling car. He jumped out immediately as soon as he saw Rick’s state of health, and took over the task of easing him across the sidewalk and into the backseat.

  “We’ll keep y’all posted,” Whitney assured her, but before she could climb in behind the wheel, Rachel pulled her aside.

  “He said something strange to me and I’m not sure it was because of the fever.”

  “What?”

  “He told me he was worried for his soul,” she relayed grimly.

  Whitney looked a strange mix of being both confused and alarmed, but all she said was, “Hopefully the fever will come down quickly. As soon as it does, I’ll ask him about it.”

  “Take care,” Rachel told her as she settled in behind the wheel and drove off down Main Street.

  Inside the station, she made a beeline for her desk where she’d left a printed copy of the business insurance for Devil’s Advocate along with a few other crucial documents. With those in hand, she entered the interview room where Eddie was in the midst of questioning Harry Marple.

  “My son has been murdered?” Harry echoed as he darkened at the news.

  Eddie glanced over his shoulder at Rachel, annoyed in an instant that she’d had the audacity to interrupt, but she kept quiet, placed the insurance document on the table in front of him, and pointed to the beneficiary line and then the revision date.

  Eddie nodded at her and she guessed he valued this update so greatly that he didn’t ask her to leave. She stood aside, her back to the wall, and watched as Eddie proceeded.

  “Mr. Marple, you listed yourself as the sole beneficiary of Devil’s Advocate, making the change not two weeks ago, I see.”

  Harry frowned and hunched into a defensive slouch. Guarded. “So what?”

  “Well for one, that was a fraudulent act,” he coolly pointed out. “Did you know that arson isn’t covered by this insurance policy?”

  The man’s jaw dropped. He quickly snapped his mouth closed, but he couldn’t whitewash his reaction from his widened eyes. He stammered some nonsense, his response refusing to form, then insisted, “I didn’t commit any arson.”

  “Okay,” Eddie said easily. “Where were you two night ago?”

  Harry did not look like he was interested in answering that question.

  “And I’d also like your whereabouts on the night of Jake’s murder,” the detective added. “Well?”

  “I want a lawyer,” Harry said. “Now.”

  Eddie turned and touched eyes with Rachel over his shoulder. She knew they were both thinking the same thing. Requesting an attorney wasn’t supposed to be viewed as an admission of guilt, b
ut in cop-speak, it generally was.

  “Let’s go, Mr. Marple,” Rachel said as she came to his side of the table. “You can make your phone call and wait in one of the jail cells for your lawyer.”

  Once she deposited Harry inside the jail cell she stopped in the breakroom for a strong cup of coffee. That’s where Eddie found her.

  “When were you going to tell me about the insurance policy?” he confronted.

  “You got the information when you needed it,” she said. She wasn’t about to make nice. They’d never been friends and Rachel had no problem with keeping it that way.

  “For the record, I wanted you on this investigation.”

  “For the record,” she countered, looking his square in the eye, “you’ve stolen credit for my work just about every time I’ve cracked a case. I have no plans of working under your directive.”

  “I outrank you, Officer. Working under my directive is where you belong.”

  He’d dropped the nice act and his true colors, as dark as they were, shined through. “It’s where I happen to be at the moment,” she allowed. “But it is not where I belong and you know it.”

  With that she left the breakroom, her mug of coffee in hand. Damn Friendly that their hot exchange had caused her to forget to add cream and sugar. She frowned down at her mug of black coffee and debated venturing back to the fridge.

  After a moment’s consideration, she decided she’d rather choke down bitter coffee than have to choke down any more conversation with Friendly, so she sat at her desk and began plowing through the mountains of paperwork on her desk.

  ***

  The blazing Wyoming sun lowered in the sky, marking the onset of dusk and end of another day at the precinct. Rachel organized her desk, shut down her computer, and avoided Friendly like the plague as she started for the exit.

  Harry’s lawyer had managed to come to the station, but his meeting with his client extended so long that it was decided they’d sit down with the police for further questions and a formal statement tomorrow. Rachel was determined to sit in on that interview as well, but asserting her position to Eddie was not something she was interested in doing at the moment.

  Outside, she found Conor’s pickup truck idling along Main Street, the passenger’s side window rolled down. She came to it and rested her arms on the ledge. Conor smiled then, registering her mood, and asked, “Bad day?”

  “I’d categorize it as weird. Very, very weird,” she said, though the description didn’t entirely satisfy her.

  “Hungry?”

  She knew the only correct answer to that question would have to be yes so she climbed into the passenger’s seat and mentioned, “I take it we’ll go to the only restaurant in town?”

  Conor grinned as he eased out into the street and bided his time to pull a U-turn so that he could park in front of Angel’s Food.

  As he did, he told her, “My brother had an interesting experience being the third wheel on our grandmother’s date.”

  “Right,” she responded with interest. Why did it feel like a million years ago that she was at Sasha’s little stone castle of a house? She’d almost forgotten about the elderly woman’s date with Gaylord. “Good thing we had a man on the inside.”

  Conor pulled the keys from the ignition, having parked as closely as he could to the diner entrance, and they made their way inside.

  It was packed, which was to be expected, so they waited at the hostess stand for one of the waitresses to notice they’d like a table.

  “Sasha’s taken a serious shine to the professor,” he mentioned as they stood patiently. “They’re going to see each other again tonight.”

  “No way,” she said, impressed.

  “Who knows, maybe those two will get together,” he commented as Lucy breezed to the hostess stand, apologized to them for the wait, and wasted no time leading them through the diner to a fresh booth in the very back.

  “I heard about the sheriff,” she said as they settled into either side of the red vinyl booth. “Whitney called me when she was at the hospital.”

  Rachel was glad to hear that Whitney had managed to get Rick to Jackson Hole. She’d always been good with her father’s stubborn side. “He was burning up with a fever,” she said for Conor’s benefit. “Said something crazy about being worried for his soul.”

  “Whitney mentioned the same thing to me,” Lucy told them. She looked concerned and it gave Rachel serious pause. Ever since Lucy had gotten together with Kaleb, she’d had a tremendous amount of inner strength that she carried herself with. If Lucy was concerned now, it was an indication to Rachel that Rick could be in serious trouble. “We’re both hoping it’s just the fever talking, but last I heard his temperature hasn’t come down. Is she keeping you posted?”

  “Not as much as you, apparently,” she admitted.

  “I’ll keep you in the loop,” Lucy promised before taking their orders.

  When she padded off, Rachel began thinking out loud. “Rick has been acting really strange recently. Dropping the Alighieri case was totally out of character and it seems like over the course of the past few days he’s been bogged with something on his mind. Now he has this bizarre fever…”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I just find all of it odd.”

  They pondered in silence for a moment then Conor said, “Gaylord managed to get out of Sasha the name of the man she was with, Dante’s father.”

  “Oh?” Rachel asked, perking up.

  “Kaleb mentioned that the professor spent all day digging through books and also records at the library, trying to find out more about the man and seeing if he linked up to any folklore.”

  “Good,” she said. “What was his name?”

  “Colton Barnes. He was about forty-five when Sasha met him. She said she learned virtually nothing about him. Kaleb’s impression was that it might have been a one-night stand or no deeper than a month-long fling, something to that effect. This was in the late 1700s or early 1800s. I guess Sasha didn’t remember the exact year.”

  Rachel was temporarily hung up on the century, realizing the lifespan of werewolves. It was incredible that Sasha could live so long and strangely funny that the town had thrown her a hundredth birthday parade. She was a hell of a lot older than one hundred years.

  “Kaleb said he’d keep me updated and let me know if their conversations reveal more information,” he told her.

  “Hopefully, he’ll gain some insight that helps us,” she said, feeling warm in her police uniform. “You know what I could really use?”

  “What?”

  “A long hike,” she said, gazing out the window. “I felt like I haven’t done anything to clear my head since I found Jake bleeding to death. I could use some fresh air. I always get struck with helpful perspective when I’m out in nature.”

  “Let’s go after we eat,” he suggested. “We won’t lose the light. It won’t get dark for another two hours or so.”

  When their meals arrived, they ate quickly and Conor wouldn’t let Rachel leave any cash on the table for the bill. He paid it, adding a generous tip, and they climbed into his pickup truck. After a quick stop at his cabin to change into proper hiking attire, they drove out to Yellowstone as the orange sun teetered on the mountain tops, casting the park in a beautiful glow.

  Tourists and hikers were making their way into the parking lot, having spent the day at Yellowstone. It seemed that as Rachel and Conor were starting into Yellowstone, everyone else was leaving, which was good news for Rachel. She liked when it felt like she had the park to herself and she was surrounded only by the soft sounds of nature and not cackling children and the authoritative parents who were tasked to wrangle them.

  They decided to trek Hawk Hike Loop, which was a steep trail that stretched straight up the side of one of the mountains. It was treacherous but brief and would put them out at one of the lookout points Rachel favored.

  The air became cool and crisp as they asce
nded, keeping their pace quick enough that talking was taxing. In comfortable silence they pressed on until they reached the very top of the hike. The towering evergreens and pines thinned out, and soon they crossed a shallow clearing, coming to a guardrail that overlooked one of the craterous valleys of Yellowstone just as the sun turned red, painting the sky in bright hues of orange and pink.

  “Where else on Earth can you see such a sight?” she marveled. There was no place in the world like Yellowstone. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Wyoming was God’s country and every time she set foot in the National Park she was reminded of that fact.

  “It’s beautiful,” he agreed.

  After drinking in the sight, she turned and leaned back against the railing, filling her lungs with the pure, fresh air. She looked at Conor and asked, “How have you handled it all these years?”

  “Handled what?”

  “Being what you are?”

  He smiled, gazed out at the incredible view, and said, “When it’s all you know, it’s all you know.”

  “But you had to have known you were different,” she pointed out. “Did you ever want to be normal? When you were a little boy, perhaps?”

  “Back then, there wasn’t much to Devil’s Fist. The pack seemed to fill the whole town. I’m not sure I was confronted with the fact that I was different. Plus, I had all my brothers. I guess it was an isolated world.”

  “I feel like if it was me, I would crave normalcy.”

  “You have to understand, though, back then there was no internet, no TV. We had radio, but we didn’t depend on it to entertain ourselves. It wasn’t like how it is today. It was just us and nature. In a lot of ways, I wish the world had never changed.”

  “Did you ever fall for a mortal in school, when you were a teenager?”

  “I wouldn’t say I ever fell for anyone,” he explained after giving it some thought. “But there was a sense that we shouldn’t get too close to the mortals. Again, having four brothers satisfied any need for socialization. I suppose though,” he went on after another thoughtful lull, “that Troy, Shane, and I committed ourselves to the military for many, many years for a reason. It’s possible that at the time we might not have realized that, in part, it was a way to keep us busy, keep us focused on a specific way of life that pulled us out of society. Maybe it was our way of avoiding getting too close to any mortals. But then again, Kaleb and Dean never served. They stayed in town.”