A guy on the ground, Malone standing over him, a knee in his back.
“Get up,” he growled, yanking the man to his feet, and shoving him toward a deputy. “You want to take care of him?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, just crouched beside Quinn, his expression unreadable in the darkness. “That wasn’t the smartest move you’ve ever made, Quinn,” he said, his arm slipping around her waist.
“I didn’t think—”
“Obviously not!” August snapped. “You could have been killed.”
She didn’t respond.
He was right.
She’d taken a stupid chance.
She just hadn’t realized it was stupid at the time.
“Echo Lake has always been safe. I’ve walked to the diner dozens of times,” she tried to explain, but August raised his hand, cutting her off.
“This isn’t dozens of times, sis. This is tonight, and we’re dealing with some dangerous people.”
Who aren’t after me, was on the tip of her tongue, but obviously they were. Obviously, they’d planned to use her to get to Tabitha.
“Tabitha—”
“Stella and Chance are going after her. We think she was in the church, but we got on the scene too late to see which direction she was headed when you were attacked.” Malone touched Quinn’s chin, tilting her head with his finger and leaning in close. “You’re going to have some nice bruises.”
“It’s better than being dead,” August muttered. “As for Tabitha. I can tell you one thing for sure, Quinn. She didn’t run to your rescue. As a matter of fact, she took off running, and she didn’t look back.”
“She saw the cavalry,” Malone pointed out. “She knew help was here. It’s not like she abandoned Quinn.”
“It is like that, Malone,” August retorted. “She dragged Quinn into her mess, and she’s leaving her to deal with it. Typical in my family, but you’ll figure that out yourself after a while. I’m going to see if I can find her. I’ll try to think like a coward. That might help.”
“Guess he’s a little bitter,” Malone said, his hand sliding from Quinn’s side to her back.
“He was the oldest son. She was the oldest daughter. He tried to make things work in the family, she jumped ship.” That was the simple explanation. There was more to it, but now wasn’t the time for it.
“She left home how long ago?”
“She was sixteen.”
“Maybe it’s time for your brother to let it go.”
She agreed, but she was too shaken to say so.
His hand moved to her nape, and he kneaded the tense muscles there. “Relax. Everything will work out.”
“How? Someone is after my sister. She’s on the run for whatever reason—”
“The reason,” he explained gently, “is probably the money that was lying on the floor of your room.”
“I know.” She sighed. “I know she took something from her husband, but I don’t believe that’s what this is all about. Jarrod has a lot of money. He has a lot of power. Why would he need her or the money and jewels she took from him?”
“A power trip? Maybe he doesn’t like to lose his possessions.”
“He’ll lose a lot more if he gets caught trying to hurt my sister.”
“He isn’t planning to get caught. Men like him never do. They think they’re above the law, too smart to ever be found out.” His hand shifted to her shoulder, settled just under her hair.
His touch was light, his hand gentle. He wasn’t holding her in place. It would have been easy to walk to the sheriff’s car that was pulling up the street. It would have made sense to ask questions about the guy the deputy had taken into custody. She could have done those things, but the cool air felt good on her throbbing cheek, Malone’s hand felt good on her shoulder, and she just stood in the shadow of the old trees, trying not to look at the guy the deputy was questioning.
Would he have killed her?
She shuddered, and Malone’s hand dropped away. Seconds later, a warm jacket settled around her shoulders. It smelled of smoke and of masculinity, the spicy fresh scent of soap and shampoo and the outdoors.
“Thanks,” she murmured, burrowing into it.
“Favor for favor,” he responded, and she met his eyes.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I give you the jacket, and you tell me why you decided it was smart to leave a safe position and walk into a dangerous one.”
* * *
For a second, Malone thought Quinn would refuse to answer. She watched him through hooded eyes, the bruise on her cheek dark against her fair skin. He could see it clearly, even with the shadows and the darkness, even with her chin tucked into his coat, he could see that bruise. He wanted to leave her where she was, walk to the guy he’d tackled and repay him the favor.
He’d learned to control his fists and his temper a long time ago. Emotion had no place in situations like this one. It didn’t help the victim. It didn’t keep a person a step ahead of the bad guys. All it did was cloud a person’s thinking and make wise action nearly impossible.
“I was heading to the diner,” Quinn finally said. “Everyone in town goes there. It’s open all night, and—”
“You were hungry?”
She laughed, the sound hollow and shaky. “No, but I figured my sister had gotten hungry at some point over the past forty-eight hours. The diner is somewhere she could go late at night or early in the morning when fewer people would be around to notice her.”
“Good thought,” he said, cupping her elbow and leading her out from beneath the trees. He’d seen her getting out of the SUV. He’d watched her walk down the street. He could have stopped her at any time, but he hadn’t realized she’d planned to go somewhere. He’d thought she was getting air, and he’d figured she needed space.
Until she’d disappeared from view.
He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“How about next time, you fill me in on the plan before you act on it?” he continued, walking her past the sheriff’s cruiser. The perp was in the back of it now, slumped down so far in the seat, Malone couldn’t get a good look at his face. It didn’t matter. He was in custody. Hopefully, he’d talk.
“I didn’t think I was in any danger.”
“I didn’t think you’d take off and disappear. We were both wrong. Let’s not be wrong again. It could end a lot differently than it did tonight.”
“Ma’am,” one of the deputies called out. “We’d like to take your statement.”
It wasn’t something Malone wanted to waste time doing—standing around while the sheriff’s department asked more questions and realized they had no answers.
Protocol, though.
HEART never interfered with local police efforts. They cooperated fully and they avoided stepping on toes.
And Malone was a member of the team.
Despite Chance’s words and his response. They butted heads a lot. It was part of what they did, but they never stopped being a team.
“You up for that?” he asked, and Quinn nodded.
“The sooner I get it over with, the sooner I can get to the diner. I have a feeling Tabitha was there. If she was, I know people noticed her.”
“She stands out?” If so, that was a good thing. In a town the size of Echo Lake, a stranger would be noticed. A stranger who stood out would be noticed even more.
“She looks rich and polished and very sure of herself. There are plenty of people like that in Echo Lake, but none of them wear it quite so loudly.”
“Jewelry?” he asked.
“Understated but very expensive. Same for her clothes. Plus, she’s beautiful.”
“She’s the key to all this, you know,” he said as they approached the deputy. “August might be overreacting, but Tabitha’s entrance into your life brought everything else into it.”
“I know.”
“You might be better off taking a vacation, going somewhere and hiding out until your sister is
found and the police figure out what’s going on. We’ve got safe houses. HEART can put you up in one until—”
“Would you do that, Malone?” She stopped short and turned to face him. Out from under the shadowy trees, the bruise was even more noticeable, her cheek and jaw swollen. “If it were a member of your family, would you go hide away and let other people solve the problem?”
“No,” he answered honestly.
“Then don’t ask me to.” She started walking again, resolutely heading toward the deputy, the hem of Malone’s jacket falling nearly to her knees. He kept forgetting how small she was, but he hadn’t forgotten how easily she could be hurt. The guy they’d found in the lake hadn’t died of natural causes. The sheriff had brought that piece of news to Quinn’s apartment. Blunt-force trauma to the head. That’s what the medical examiner had said. Homicide was what the sheriff had said. They’d identified the deceased through fingerprints. The guy was a small-time thug from Las Vegas, Nevada, and his prints had matched the ones found on Tabitha’s phone.
Connections everywhere. Tabitha, her husband, Jubilee, a bunch of small-time criminals who seemed intent on getting Tabitha back to her husband.
One of those criminals was dead.
Why?
Had he asked for more money? Found out something he shouldn’t have? Had he ceased being useful? Messed up on the assignment?
Maybe the last was closest to the truth. Nothing had been taken from Quinn’s apartment. If Malone’s theory was correct, Tabitha had waited until her sister left town, and then she’d returned to the apartment, broken in and squatted there, figuring that anyone looking for her would assume she’d left town.
Only the guys who were after her weren’t as stupid as she’d thought. They’d tracked her down, nearly taken her in the apartment. Somehow, she’d escaped. Had the murdered man been punished for that?
Too many questions. Until they had answers, Quinn wouldn’t be safe.
His cell phone buzzed, and he glanced at it. Boone’s number flashed across the screen, and he picked up.
“Malone, here. You in the States yet?”
“You know my schedule. I’m in London. Flight boards in ten minutes. Have you seen her?”
Malone didn’t need to ask who he was talking about. “Just briefly.”
“And?” Boone asked. He had the information from Chance. Malone knew it, but he repeated what had already been said.
“Red hair. Blue eyes. Tiny.”
“Like her mother.”
“I never met her mother, but the kid is very small for her age.”
“Red hair and blue eyes is a rare combination,” Boone said softly. Maybe he was talking to himself, but Malone responded.
“It is, and we’ve found a connection between her and the cult your wife was in.”
“Jarrod Williams, right? Chance sent me the information. It’s her, Malone. I’m sure that little girl is my daughter.” His voice cracked, the first time Malone had ever heard him sound even close to a breakdown.
“You okay, man?”
“Yeah. I just need a box of doughnuts or something. They don’t feed you crumbs on these long flights. I called my wife. She’s camping in the CPS lobby waiting with the kids.” Boone had married Scout Cramer nearly two years ago after helping her out of some trouble she was in. She’d already had a little girl—a child Boone loved like his own. Now they had a baby together, a little red-haired imp that had the entire family wrapped around her little finger. “She seems to think they’ll take pity on her eventually and let her see my...”
“Daughter?”
“It’s a hard thing to say after so long, Malone. It’s a hard thing to believe that I could actually see her again after all these years. Chance told me her name. Jubilee, right? That’s what they’ve been calling her.”
“Yes.”
“We won’t change it. She’s had enough trauma in her life.”
“You’re a decent guy, Boone,” Malone said, and he heard his friend chuckle.
“High praise. You still on your vacation?”
“Finishing up some business first.”
“What business?”
Obviously Chance had decided not to fill him in on everything. “We can discuss it after you see your kid.”
“If she’s mine, Malone. Don’t think that’s not in the back of my mind. There are a lot of things that have been making this look good, but I’ve had other times when I thought we might have found her. I’ll call you when I land. You can fill me in then.”
He disconnected, and Malone shoved the phone in his pocket.
There was nothing he could to do make things easier for Boone, no action he could take to speed things along. All he could do was work to find some answers that might make sense.
And the first step to that was finding Tabitha.
He hadn’t heard from Stella or Chance.
They had to have come up empty.
It was time to do what Quinn had suggested—go to the local diner. It was a hangout for everyone and the perfect place for juicy town gossip.
She was still talking to the deputy, but Malone figured he knew exactly how to speed that process along.
NINE
Quinn wanted to sit down.
She didn’t know if it was her shaky legs that were making her desperate for a chair or if it was the pulsing pain in the side of her face. Whatever the case, she felt weak, and the more Deputy Leon Ernst assured her that they would throw the book at the guy who’d attacked her, the worse she felt.
She touched the swollen place on the side of her jaw, and Deputy Ernst frowned. “Do you need medical attention? It looks like you’ve got a lot of bruising there.”
“No, but—”
“Yes.” Suddenly Malone was beside her, his arm around her waist, his hand splayed against her side. “She does need medical attention.”
“I can speak for myself,” she sputtered, but neither man seemed to be listening.
“I can call an ambulance. I should have thought to do that before.”
“I don’t need an ambulance, and I’m not going to the hospital,” Quinn said firmly.
“You’re pale.” Malone ran a finger along her jaw, skimming lightly over the sore spot. “And that’s quite a bruise. Maybe you just need to sit down, put some ice on it. Maybe have some juice or a coffee. Know anywhere where that might be able to happen?”
My place, she almost said, but that didn’t seem to be the answer he was going for, and her sluggish brain wasn’t able to conjure anything different.
“Like,” Malone nudged, “a coffee shop? A diner?”
There! That was it! The diner.
“Yes. Another three blocks down. Betty Sue’s place.”
“You could just sit in my cruiser,” Deputy Ernst offered. “I’d be happy to find some ice for your bruise.”
“She’s probably hungry, too,” Malone suggested, and the deputy frowned.
“I’m getting the impression that you don’t think she should be interviewed any longer.”
“Only because I have the impression that the perpetrator is already in custody. Can you take Quinn’s statement later?”
“I already got it. I was just clarifying a few things. Which I guess I could do tomorrow morning. Do you want to come to the station then, Ms. Robertson?”
Not really, but it was better than hashing it out on the street corner. “Sure. I can do that.”
“I’ll be in the office until ten. If you need to meet later than that, give me a call.” He pressed a business card into her palm.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it, ma’am.” He gave a quick nod and headed toward his cruiser.
Which meant she and Malone were free to go.
The problem was, her legs didn’t seem to want to work. No matter how many times she told them to move forward, they stayed stuck in place.
“Maybe you really do need an ambulance,” Malone said, cupping her face, his dark gaze tracing the c
urve of her cheek, stopping for just a moment on her jaw. “He really did get a couple of good hits in. I should have been there sooner.”
“I’m the one who decided to go off on my own.”
“If I’d been paying more attention to you, you wouldn’t have,” he growled.
“Are you saying that somehow you could have stopped me?” she demanded, her legs suddenly unstuck, her body finally moving forward. “Because, I can tell you right now, I would have gone anyway. As a matter of fact...”
He was smiling, a mischievous smile that reminded her of the way one of her students looked when they got one over on her.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” she accused, and his smile broadened.
“What?”
“Got my mind off the apartment and the blood and—”
“Tabitha missing? You needed your mind off it. At least for a few minutes.”
“I just don’t understand it.” She led him to the end of the block, turned the corner onto 5th. She could see the lights from the diner up ahead, and could imagine hot coffee sliding down her throat, warm pie filling her stomach.
“Understand what?”
“Tabitha was in the church or near it. I heard her calling for me.” At least, she’d thought it was her sister. “Why did she run off when help arrived?”
“Maybe she didn’t see the help. Maybe she just saw the guy who attacked you. In which case, the better question would be—why didn’t she run to help?”
“That sounds like something August would say,” she accused, but he didn’t seem bothered by the comparison.
“Your brother might have an issue with your sister, but he wouldn’t be wrong. What kind of person sees her sister or brother in trouble and doesn’t run to the rescue?”
“Someone who is scared?”
“I hope,” he said very quietly and very clearly, “that I am never too afraid to help someone who needs it.”
He pushed open the diner door, motioned for her to walk.
She wanted to tell him that he had no idea what it was like to be vulnerable, that it was easy to judge someone when you’d never even spent a minute in that person’s shoes. She turned to face him as he entered the diner behind her, saw the scar on his face, the thick line of it marring his skin, and she thought that maybe he did know. That maybe he’d sacrificed a lot for people he cared about.
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