by L B Wyatt
Drawing on every ounce of self-respect she had left, she refused to give in. She gnawed on the inside of her lip and looked back at her lap as she turned the last page over and saw dialogue from a report by M. Denton. As she read on, she learned Denton was a lieutenant in the Navy and had reported a breach in security on the PIER Program. After that, the log just didn’t make any sense to her. There was no elaboration on what that program was and she sighed when she realized it was another wild goose chase. She was going to have to find out even more information to clear up what information she had just discovered. Frustrated, she threw the papers down and finished her wine. She leaned back in her chair and shook her head.
All this time.
All that waiting.
And for what?
Her anger came like a swarm and she overturned the coffee table with a savage cry. She slung it hard enough it slammed into the dresser beneath the television and one of the legs broke off. It wasn’t enough. She turned and picked up the chair and smashed it into the TV screen. It shattered, but the chair remained intact and for some reason this detail further fueled her rage. She continued to slam it into the dresser until it was nothing but pieces on the floor.
She tossed the portion still in her grasp down and raked her hands through her hair. She looked down at her feet and the white envelope with her name on it jeered back up at her.
Just as it had during her dream in that miserable hospital.
She knew better than to look at it. It would just make her even angrier. Losing her father was awful, but losing Victoria too had been devastating. She had already looked at the illegible handwriting on that certificate. She couldn’t make heads or tails of the two signatures, so why torture herself further?
Before she could make another destructive decision, Veronica heard a knock on the door. She turned, cursing inwardly at herself. She glanced back over the mess and knew she’d definitely lost her security deposit and probably any future stays at this hotel. Thinking it was the hotel staff she pulled the door open just a crack and stood there in surprise as Quinn Murphy stared back into her face.
From what she could see, he looked good. As usual. She frowned and held the door a little tighter.
“Not going to invite me in?” He raised an eyebrow with a playful expression.
“What do you want, Murphy?”
“Just to talk. I was heading down the hall when I heard all the noise. Everything okay in there?” He peeked over her head, but his eyes turned back down into hers and she saw his expression harden a little. “Or am I interrupting something?”
She shook her head and wondered if it was really jealousy that overcame his face for a second. That would be laughable, she decided. And she refused to be flattered by even the notion. “No, just me and my temper. I’m sure you don’t want to visit that. It’s late, Murphy.”
“I won’t stay long,” he promised.
“I’m not in the mood,” she growled. “And how the hell did you find me anyway?” she demanded.
He shrugged. “I’ve been following you.”
“That’s not creepy.”
“It sounds creepier than it is,” he assured. “You’re a hard woman to track down. When I get you in my sights, I try to keep you there.”
“Why?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
“Thrill of the chase, I suppose.” He grinned. “Now let me in.”
“No.”
His face dropped suddenly and he looked very serious. “If I found you, who’s to say others haven’t? I’ve been watching the news. The senator probably isn’t too thrilled you busted his wife, you know?”
Did she ever. But what Quinn didn’t know was the senator was the least of her worries right now. She was more concerned about the Barber’s bulldogs. She shifted her weight, leaning into the door a little so it started to close.
“I can take care of myself,” she promised, feeling agitated and a little lightheaded from drinking her wine too fast. Veronica tried to slam to door, but Quinn’s large hand caught it before it latched. She was momentarily taken by surprise and that was the only reason he was able to force his way inside. He pushed the door to behind him and turned the lock before Veronica could even process what had just happened.
She was still facing the door and facing him as he looked over the destruction of the room. After a quick survey, he looked down into her face.
“You read it, didn’t you?” he guessed.
Veronica tilted her head back and crossed her arms defiantly. “You knew I would.”
He lifted one broad shoulder in a half-shrug. “I’d d hoped you would listen to me. Just this once.”
There was something in the tone of his voice that caused her heart to skip a beat. Regret, maybe? Remorse, guilt, distress? It was so very slight, she barely noticed it, but the fact it was there at all made it abundantly clear he wasn’t in her hotel room for a welfare visit. She stared into his face, but he had turned his eyes back to the envelope on the floor. She never dreamed after all they had been through together a single piece of paper would be their ultimate downfall.
Veronica moved slightly then. And slowly. She didn’t want to startle him but she needed him closer to the kitchenette—closer to her phone. It worked, and she turned to see that when she had moved, so had he. She carefully took another paper cup and poured some more wine.
“Want some?” she offered, but he just shook his head, his attention drawn once more to the envelope on the floor. She watched him watching it and his eyes turned a shade darker as though he were deep in thought.
“You didn’t take it to protect me, did you?” she whispered abruptly. She was still gripping the neck of the wine bottle, her knuckles turning white as her heart sped up in cadence.
Quinn slowly shook his head no, still staring at the floor.
“Then why?” Her voice was so quiet, she wasn’t sure he had heard her.
“Because you’ll figure out what we’ve been hiding from you.”
With those words, Veronica acutely heard the regret his tone hinted at earlier and she worried. And just who the hell was we?
“Then why didn’t you get rid of it? Why take the chance I would find it?”
Quinn had moved a couple steps back over to the envelope, but she could see the side of his face and she watched his mouth twist into a half-smile.
“I’m tired of being bossed around, V,” he muttered after a moment. “And I wanted you to find it,” he confessed calmly. “All my life…I’ve always done what I was told. Always holding back.” At that, he slowly turned his eyes onto her and she visibly gulped at the demented expression on his face.
“I don’t want to hold back anymore. This gives me the chance I’ve been waiting for.” He looked back down at the floor and she saw his jaw muscle tick. She wasn’t sure if it was in anger or anticipation.
“You know I won’t go down easy.” Her voice was still low as if someone might be listening in. She was startled when Quinn moved his eyes back onto hers, slow and deliberate, and there was a new shine behind them—one she recognized only when trouble was close by. And in this case, trouble was officially between her and the way out the door.
“I do know that,” he conceded. “I’m actually looking forward to that part the most.”
“Why’s that?” she asked, although she had a feeling she already knew. There had always been something mildly volatile about Quinn. She’d recognized it the very first time she’d met him and even more so after she had slept with him. She believed him when he spoke so unfavorably about holding back. She had always sensed by his actions in the bedroom that there was more he wanted from her, lines he wanted to cross and barriers he wished to take down. He had never pushed her to do anything she hadn’t wanted to, but there were times when they were right there on the cusp. And she had never minded his rough tendencies; in fact, she kind of liked how he never treated her like something delicate. He handled her like he knew she could take it—and she always had—which said a
lot about her destructive personality, now didn’t it?
She had other ideas about how he was thinking about handling her now, though.
“You know I was there at that party the night you and her met,” he declared unexpectedly.
Veronica was shocked. “You were?” she asked dumbly.
Quinn had a playful smile plastered on his face, a side of him she wasn’t used to seeing. She wondered if it had something to do with finally being able to tell her all the truths he had been hiding for so many years. The pride at how he had been able to outsmart her, out maneuver her, was evident by the gleam in his eyes.
“Oh, yeah,” he said almost excitedly. “I knew you hired her for something. As soon as my boss heard, well, he just had to know. Veronica Covey asking for help? Must be something big,” he smirked. “Your little friend wasn’t very receptive when I cornered her one night and questioned her, but I let her go because I knew she’d finish the job and then I could eventually take whatever information you hired her to steal.” Quinn paused for a breath then continued with another wicked smile. “Honestly, I thought she’d be more like you. I figured with you two having the same tattoo, you were probably part of the same little hot-girl spy club. I was wrong, though.” His face dropped into a frown for a second. “She was such a disappointment. She just ran. No fight at all. A bullet to the back was all I could do,” he confessed. And then his eyes flashed bright again with obvious delight.
Veronica hoped her face didn’t betray her inner emotions. She focused on keeping her expression like stone while her insides were thrashing with disbelief. Quinn was a complete and total psychopath.
“Why?” She managed to say the word without her voice trembling through with the anger and betrayal she felt inside. She lifted her wine to her lips and took a sip to appear as if his little admission wasn’t a surprise to her at all.
“You sent her after the wrong thing, V. My boss wanted her stopped before she could share it. And the little bitch wouldn’t take a bribe for nothing. I didn’t want to kill her. Murder raises too many eyebrows, but it was necessary.”
Veronica didn’t believe him. What kind of person said they didn’t want to have to kill someone with a smile like that on their face?
She did believe, however, that Parker refused to take someone else’s money for the info. Veronica had paid Parker generously for her services. And while working for Arc, one didn’t necessarily want for money. It was a tactic he used to ensure his agents weren’t easily swayed by dollar signs. It was effective for the most part. If Veronica hadn’t been a former Rogue, Parker would have never agreed to help. But Veronica had promised the girl something unobtainable in addition to the money. Hell, Parker was so desperate for a way out she might have done it without a payment.
Between not needing the extra cash and loyal to one of her own, Veronica wasn’t surprised Parker would refuse Quinn and his offers. No, what shocked her was the cold-blooded murder and how casually he spoke of it.
“Was that thug who attacked me one of yours? In the stairwell?” she asked as the thought occurred to her, but she knew it wasn’t. She knew that assailant was hired by Everly Ross, but Veronica still wanted to milk Quinn for all the info he might spill. And stall the inevitable by distracting him with a few senseless questions didn’t hurt either.
“I’m insulted you’d even consider that was us,” he scoffed. “Of course it wasn’t,” he stated. “That move was way too sloppy. Surely you know that was the senator’s wife. Seems as though you pissed her off digging around in places you don’t belong. I have to admit, I was more than a little let down when I thought you might bleed out on those stairs. I’ve been waiting for my turn.”
“To kill me.” It wasn’t a question. Veronica knew what he had meant. But for some reason she just needed to say it out loud. To hear the words so she could fully accept the situation at hand. To embrace what she was going to have to do next.
“Oh, not just kill you, sweetheart. No, no, no…I can’t even begin to tell you all the things I want to do to you before I kill you.”
He was practically snarling as he said the words and Veronica was astonished at how well this man had hidden this evil side of himself. She knew he was bad news, but this took everything she once thought to a whole new level. How could she have ever associated herself with someone so heinous? How many times had she let her guard down around him? What had kept him from killing her while she slept right next to him? Then her mind flashed back to that text she’d seen on his phone in the hotel bathroom so many nights ago.
As long as you keep her alive, it had read.
But why? Why did Quinn have clear orders to hold back when he was confessing his desire to kill her from the get-go?
“According to your text messages, you’re supposed to be keeping me alive,” she reminded him. How she kept the tremor out of her voice this time, Veronica wasn’t sure. Especially when his eyes narrowed and he peeled his top lip off his teeth in a gruesome sneer.
“I’m done with that. You’ve had some sort of guardian angel watching over you all this time, V, and it sure as hell wasn’t me.” He stopped for a moment and looked around. “Where’s that angel now, I wonder?”
She thought fleetingly of Arc. She pictured a face she’d carved from her own imagination and wondered to herself just how many times his actions had interfered with her imminent death. Part of her wanted to look around for him too, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the enemy.
She watched nervously as he reached around in the waistband of his jeans and slid out the biggest knife Veronica had ever seen. It wasn’t just any knife. It was a nine inch Bowie saw-back tactical knife often used by the military. It was an eight hundred dollar weapon—not that she had secretly drooled over one on EBay or anything. She had never been able to bring herself to buy one. What would she use it for? She had asked herself. It wasn’t just something you could conceal either. It was a blade aimed to kill. She never dreamed she would get gutted by one when she was lusting after it online.
“I’m just supposed to give you a warning,” he acknowledged, his eyes shining as he looked over the blade like a man looked over a woman’s body with desire. “Destroy that information, clean up my mistake. But I’ll have to tell the boss you wouldn’t listen. He’s got a soft spot for you, always has. But he’ll have to understand when I tell him you don’t take anyone’s advice.” He ran the dark blade over his palm, admiring the craftsmanship in his hold as much as Veronica had admired the picture of it on the computer.
“A warning?” she bated, though that wasn’t the part of his ranting that caught her attention the most. Just who the hell did he work for that would have a soft spot for her? She felt more confused now than ever as she tried to think back over her list of friends and foes—the friends list was much, much shorter, of course—but the situation was far too dire for her brain to appropriately make a plausible list. The only conclusion she drew among this madness was Quinn’s boss couldn’t be a friend, even if he did want her alive. And if they wanted to prevent her from digging into Tori’s death then this enemy went farther back than even Veronica’s associations with Arc; which meant it couldn’t be someone she dealt with while working for him.
So—perhaps an enemy of her father?
Just the notion sent her heart into palpitations and her mind swirling.
He cut his eyes over at her for a second before admiring his weapon again. “Yes, a warning,” Quinn confirmed sharply. “To stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong,” he explained. “But, like I said, you never listen.”
“Maybe I’ve changed,” she offered with a small shrug.
He finally tore his eyes off his knife and looked at her with a smirk. “Maybe I doubt that.”
“Like I doubted you in Reno?” Ah! she thought. Bringing up Reno was a sore spot, but she was desperate to buy herself a little time. This wasn’t looking good for her. She had a gun, yes, but it wasn’t in her hand like that Bowie was so careful
ly placed in his palm.
“What I did in Nevada was necessary.”
“Killing an innocent man?” she accused.
Her words drew a harsh laugh from his lips. “He was far from innocent. He was a liability.”
“To your cover?” she guessed.
“He was close to blowing it all to hell,” he confirmed.
Veronica wasn’t sure why Quinn seemed to think that. All the guy did was call Quinn out by the wrong name. As she thought back on that night in Reno she could recall so vividly being on the rooftop of that high-rise casino. How she had been shocked to run into Quinn Murphy again after a rendezvous in another city a few months prior. He had told her he was undercover working on a case with the feds. Something to do with the owner of the casino and a national drug-ring. She had been there too, on one of her first cases as a new officer of the law and not an international spy. She was after a different bad guy in the same hotel, having chased the guy all the way from another state without her chief’s permission (old habits were hard to break). To say she was on the down-low was a massive understatement. She wasn’t supposed to be taking weekend trips to chase bad guys she couldn’t catch while working at the police station tethered to a desk.
When their paths crossed, Veronica was intrigued and a little suspicious. She had raided Quinn’s hotel room after she stayed the night with him and when she found nothing other than case files about the casino owner, she had lowered her guard. With the sting of leaving her position at the agency with Arc still very fresh on her mind, she had been feeling spiteful and vindictive—ready to do something completely out of character. So she had some fun with the FBI agent and ended up on the roof with him, overlooking the lights of the city among the elite group that had held a private party atop the building. Both of them undercover—from everyone around them and each other, it seemed.
The man was nothing special. He had been just another face in the crowd until he shouted out to them. By the time the stranger had made his unfortunate appearance, Quinn had already pulled Veronica away from the crowd to a secluded area on the other side of the roof. The man had obviously followed them and Veronica remembered feeling embarrassed at the act the stranger had caught them in.
