“Seems pretty far-fetched to me.” Malone shifted, his thigh brushing against Quinn’s leg. Somehow she’d ended up between him and Chance again.
“What?” August asked. “That my lying con woman of a sister would lie and con the most naive and easily tricked—”
“How about you stop?” Malone said. “Before you say something you are going to regret.”
“What I’m saying is the truth. Quinn has always been—”
“Smart,” Malone interjected. “She believes Tabitha is in danger. Until we have evidence to support that, we’ll act on her assumption.”
“You don’t have to stand up for me, Malone. I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself.”
“Just because you can do something alone, doesn’t mean you have to,” he responded.
“If Tabitha’s phone has been found,” Stella said, “are the police taking the threat against her any more seriously?”
The question was directed toward August, and Quinn was interested in the answer.
“Agent Spellings is great at saying that she’s looking into things when she doesn’t want to directly answer a question,” he responded, shifting in his seat and meeting Quinn’s eyes. “I’m sorry, kid. There’s bad blood between me and Tabitha, but it has nothing to do with you. I shouldn’t let it influence the way I act. If you think that she’s in danger, I’m willing to go along with it.”
“It’s—”
Before she could finish, Chance’s cell phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen. Frowned. “My sister Charity has been watching local Echo Lake news. She works for HEART, and helps us keep track of events in the locations where we’re working. There’s been a body found in the water. Local PD is on the scene.”
“Male or female?” Quinn said, her body icy with fear, her throat tight with it.
“No news on that, yet. She called but local PD won’t answer questions.”
“So, it could be Tabitha.” The words echoed through the silent car.
No one responded.
Quinn guessed that they had no idea what to say.
* * *
Seven hours, one stop for gas and a few terse conversations, and they were riding through what looked to Malone like a Norman Rockwell painting—well-lit houses on quiet streets, old Victorian homes standing on distant hills, water gleaming in the moonlight.
Stella pulled up in front of a row of brownstones—the pretty brick buildings nestled one right next to the other, their pitched roofs and dormered attics quaint and charming. Five shops were housed in the buildings, their door signs turned to Closed probably hours ago. It was a nice street in the business district of a small town. Malone imagined it got very quiet at night, and very lonely for anyone who might be renting space above one of the shops.
Anyone like Quinn.
Sure, the crime rate was probably nil, but being alone made a person an easy target. Especially if that person was young, female and attractive.
Stella parked, and he got out of the SUV. Here, the air held more than a hint of fall, the coolness of it bathing his face as he offered Quinn a hand.
“Finally home,” he said, and she nodded, climbing out of the vehicle.
She seemed steady enough, okay enough, but she’d been quiet during the trip, all her usual questions and speculations kept to herself.
She was worried about her sister.
He couldn’t blame her. They still hadn’t been given information about the body. Agent Spellings hadn’t returned calls, and Charity hadn’t been able to dig up any further information. The police were keeping quiet, the medical examiner was mum, all they knew for certain was that a body had been pulled from the lake.
“I’ll let you guys in, and then I’m going to the sheriff’s office. I know him from church. He’ll tell me what I want to know.” She jogged past him, racing up metal stairs that stretched up the side of the last building in the row.
He followed, grabbing her hand before she could unlock the door. “Careful,” he cautioned.
“Of what?”
“You’re deep into this now, Quinn. Anything could happen.” He took the keys, the metal staircase clanging as the rest of the group ascended. “Let me check things out before you go in.”
The door creaked open before he inserted the key, and he gestured for Chance and Stella to move in. August followed behind them.
“What’s going on?” Quinn whispered as if talking loudly would bring danger down on their heads.
He ignored the question, easing the door farther open as Stella hit the landing and positioned herself behind him.
“Door was unlocked,” he said quietly and felt her nod as he cleared the threshold and walked into a dark living room.
He knew something was wrong before he turned on the light. A table had been upended, pillows lay on the floor. He ran his hand along the wall, flicked on the light.
Trashed.
That was the best way to describe it.
Cushions slashed, books torn off shelves. Damp splotches on the carpet. A porcelain lamp lay shattered next to the fireplace.
He pulled his gun, heard Quinn gasp. Stella would keep her out. Chance would call the police. Malone was going to search the place, make sure it was as empty as it seemed, see if there was any sign that Tabitha had been there.
What better place for her to hide out?
From August’s description, she was street-smart and savvy. She knew how to work a situation to her advantage. She’d have known that Quinn’s apartment would be empty for a night or two. Why not break in? Sleep? Maybe take a few things she needed for whatever trip she planned to take?
He moved through the living room, eased into a narrow hall. The place felt empty but he wasn’t taking any chances.
There were three doors there. All opened. A bathroom. Empty. Office with futon and desk covered with knickknacks that had probably come from students. Also empty. None of the areas had been touched. No drawers pulled out. No cabinets emptied.
Whoever had trashed the living room hadn’t bothered there.
He walked to the final room, peering into a large space.
Like the living room, it had been wrecked. Sheets and blankets on the floor. Books thrown. A Bible lay spine up a few feet from the door, the pages fanned out and crinkled.
The floor creaked as Malone moved to a closet door. He opened it, found nothing but gauzy dresses and a few pairs of shoes. He turned, scanning the room, his gaze settling on the floor on the far side of the bed, the purse that lay beside it—contents dumped, money spilling out. Lots of money. More than he thought Quinn would ever carry around.
A splotch of red stained the wood floor a few feet away from it, and Malone crouched near it, studying what looked like blood. There was another splotch a few inches away. One on the white sheet that lay at the foot of the bed.
The mirror on the dresser had a crack in it, a bronze globe lying dented beside it.
The place hadn’t just been trashed. There’d been a fight there. A violent one. Based on the spots of blood on the floor and the bedding, someone had been hurt.
Tabitha and someone else?
He moved to the window. It looked out over an empty lot dotted with dry grass and spare plants. A few trees marked the edge of the property, and beyond those, several trees towered up toward the night sky. He could see the lake through them, the water gleaming with reflected moonlight.
A pretty view, but the lake and the empty lot made undetected access to the brownstones easy. All a person had to do was walk along the shoreline, cross the empty lot, pick a lock and enter the building.
“Malone?” Quinn called, her voice shaky.
Stella should have held her back, but she was there, in the doorway, her eyes wide. “What happened in here?”
“To me, it looks like a fight.” He tried to position himself so she couldn’t see the purse, but she moved into the room, Stella right behind her, her face red with anger or embarrassment.
“I tried to stop h
er,” she sputtered. “But she slipped right past me. I must be getting old. I’ve never had someone so puny get the better of me.”
Malone would have laughed, but Quinn had spotted the purse.
She crouched next to the dumped bag.
“Don’t touch it,” he warned, stooping beside her, scanning the items that lay on the floor—wallet, keys, lipstick, money. A child’s hair band, the glittery plastic ends of it something no adult would ever wear.
“It’s Tabitha’s,” Quinn said, her face parchment pale. “She must have come back here after I left.”
“She might have thought it was a safe place to stay,” Stella said gently. She must have suddenly realized what she was seeing, what it meant.
“It wasn’t, though.” Quinn pointed to the red stains. “That’s blood. She was attacked here. The body in the lake—”
“Just because she was attacked, doesn’t mean she’s dead.” Things looked bad. That was true, but Malone had seen a lot of things during his career. Not all of them were what they seemed.
“It doesn’t mean she’s alive, either,” Quinn said, her gaze still focused on the purse. “Someone’s body was in the lake, and all my sister’s stuff is here. She’s not.” Her voice broke, and he pulled her to her feet.
“Are August and Chance still on the landing?” he asked, wanting to distract her from the purse, the body, her thoughts about her sister.
“Yes.”
“Go tell them that we need the police here quickly. Chance knows how to get the local PD moving fast. He can do it a lot more efficiently than I can.” That wasn’t quite the truth. They were all good at getting people to respond the way they wanted. It was part of the job—making sure local authorities were willing and happy to cooperate with the mission.
Quinn probably knew it. She hesitated, her gaze dropping to the purse again before she nodded.
“I’ll tell them,” she said, and then she nearly ran from the room.
EIGHT
The body wasn’t Tabitha’s.
That was what Quinn had wanted to know, and Sheriff Cameron Lock was quick to assure her that the deceased was a middle-aged man. Probably a drifter who’d had too much to drink and fallen in the lake. An autopsy had been scheduled, but as far the sheriff was concerned, there was no connection between the dead man and Tabitha.
Good. Great.
Quinn was happy to hear it. The problem was, Tabitha was still missing, and Quinn was sitting in an SUV waiting for the police to finish collecting evidence in her apartment.
DNA evidence. Fingerprints. Photos. They’d called in the state crime lab to oversee things. They were being cautious and careful. Which was exactly what Quinn wanted, but she also wanted to be done. Normally, Quinn thought of herself as a patient person. Right then, she felt anything but able to wait things out.
She had to find Tabitha.
Had to.
And sitting in the SUV wasn’t going to help her do that.
It also wasn’t going to help her explain who’d broken into her apartment, whose blood was on her floor, if that person was still alive.
Quinn had a feeling that her sister was the answer to the first question. She hoped she wasn’t the answer to the second. As far as the third went, Malone kept assuring her that there was every chance, every hope that her sister was still alive.
She wasn’t even sure she knew how to hope anymore.
She’d tried. She prayed, she read her Bible, she offered her petitions up to God. In the end, she felt as empty as she had the day Cory had told her he was done with treatment, that all he wanted was a few more months of peace and happiness.
She pushed away the thought.
That situation had been different.
This one couldn’t be nearly as hopeless. She couldn’t be nearly as helpless as she’d felt then. She didn’t have to sit around waiting for other people to offer her hope. She could go out and find reasons to hope herself.
She shifted in her seat, eyeing the facade of the brownstone that housed her apartment. She’d loved the place the minute she’d seen it. The two bedroom, one bath space above a bakery had been the perfect place for a newly widowed woman. There’d been hardwood and old plaster walls. Pretty medallion ceilings in the living area and an oversize 1920s stove in the kitchen. More than anywhere she’d ever lived, it had felt like home.
The day she’d moved in, she’d cried thinking about Cory, about what she’d thought they’d have together—the lifetime they’d planned. She’d cried, and then she’d unpacked and she’d started her new life, because that had been the only thing that made sense for her to do. She’d always been a person of action. She’d always done what needed to be done to achieve her dreams and accomplish her goals.
So, why was she sitting there like a lump while other people solved her problems?
“Enough,” she muttered, opening the door and stepping out into the cold night air. Her sweatshirt had disappeared after the fire, and she shivered as the coolness seeped through her T-shirt. There was nothing she could do in the apartment, but the local diner was open, and she knew the people there would tell her everything they’d heard about the man who’d died. Even better, if Tabitha had been in to eat, they’d remember her. They’d be able to tell Quinn how her sister had looked, how she’d acted.
If she’d been there.
She thought about checking in with August or Malone. She could see the two men deep in discussion with several sheriff’s deputies. The break-in at Quinn’s apartment was big news in a town like this, and the sheriff and most of his deputies had responded to the call.
Quinn knew most of them by name. She could have called out to any of them, announced her plans and headed out, but she’d walked to the diner alone dozens of times before. She knew the way like the back of her hand—knew the well-lit sidewalk along Main Street, the tiny side road that connected to 5th Avenue.
The place wasn’t far, an easy walk, and she needed some air, some exercise and some time to think. Besides, Echo Lake was safe, the crime rate so low she wasn’t even sure it existed.
She hitched her purse onto her shoulder and walked east, bypassing a long row of brownstones that had once been private homes but were now businesses—a chocolate shop, a bakery, a used bookstore, a yarn store. She’d always enjoyed the quaintness of her adopted hometown—the well-kept properties, the kind and sometimes nosey residents. Cory had grown up there, and he’d wanted to return after college. She’d wanted to make him happy so she’d agreed.
She hadn’t thought that she’d fall in love with the area, but she had. Now, years later, she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
She crossed Main Street, turned onto Piper Way.
This street was darker, no businesses with exterior lights—just a couple of empty lots and a church that had seen better days, the old clapboard siding hanging this way and that, the windows coated with years’ worth of grime. It had been at least a decade since the church had been occupied, the old location giving way to a newer, bigger building on a more upscale, touristy street. She’d heard rumors that someone was purchasing the old church and turning it into a youth center.
She hoped so. Even with the cemetery behind it—headstones dotting a grassy knoll that overlooked the town—the building was charming.
A pebble bounced across the street in front of her, and she stopped, her heart pounding frantically. Moonlight danced through the breeze-swaying trees and dotted the grass and pavement with golden light. No one had bothered putting street lights on the road, but she could see the old church fence, the steps that led up to its door. She could see the cemetery behind it, the whitish stones visible through the darkness.
Shadows swayed on the road in front of her, blocking her path to 5th Avenue. She’d never been afraid to walk across that darkest patch of road. She’d never worried about the tall pine tree that hid her view of the well-lit street beyond. Her pulse slushed in her ears, her skin cold with fear.
“Quinn,
” she thought she heard someone whisper, the name mixing with the swish of grass in the breeze, the rustle of leaves.
Behind her, another pebble skipped across the road, and she whirled, her heart in her throat. Was someone in the shadows by the corner of the church? She peered in the darkness, eyes probing the blackest areas.
“Quinn,” that whisper again, and this time she was certain it was her name.
“Who is it?” she called, her voice shaking.
“Me, dummy! Hurry up, before they find us.”
Tabitha.
Relief flooded over her, and she didn’t think, just darted off the sidewalk and into the churchyard.
Someone grabbed her, a rough hand covering her mouth as she was dragged toward the trees. She heard someone screaming, the sound piercing through a haze of panic. Tabitha? Did they have her, too?
She fought, ripping the hand away from her mouth, screaming. The sound was cut off by that hand, slamming over her face, covering her mouth. Her nose.
“Shut up and stop fighting!” a man growled, his free arm hooking around her neck, pressing against her jugular. “Or I will kill you.”
She could hear the desperation in his voice, and she knew he’d do it.
She stilled and the pressure on her throat eased.
“Call your sister!” he demanded.
“What?”
“Call her name!”
“No.”
He spun her around, slapped her so hard she saw stars.
“Do you want to die tonight?” he snarled, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. “Call your sister! Yell for help. She’s close. I heard her talking to you.”
Quinn wasn’t going to do it, and she braced herself for another blow.
Something moved in the trees behind her attacker, leaves swaying soundlessly, a shadow moving silently between thick pine boughs.
Tabitha?
No. The person was broader, taller, moving stealthily, not even a hint of hesitation. A man? She thought so, but it was too dark to see, and then she was slapped again, the blow knocking her off her feet.
She fell hard, the breath knocked from her lungs, her vision going dark. She heard grass and leaves crackling, the sound of two bodies colliding. A man called out. A woman responded. And, then her vision cleared, and she could see shadowy forms milling around her. One. Two. Three.
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