Sometimes she wished things didn’t have to change, that time didn’t have to march on the way it did. Sometimes, like when Cory had just been diagnosed and his health was still good, she wanted time to stand still, things to stay exactly the way they were.
There were other times, though, when she understood how wonderful it was to grow and change as time swirled around her. Like when she’d finally gotten her college degree, finally said I do, finally kissed Cory goodbye for the last time and watched him slip from suffering into eternity.
And, maybe, like now, when a man she admired seemed to admire her, and when she thought that maybe she could accept that.
“What is it?” Malone said, turning her so that they were face-to-face, ignoring Stella and Lucille who were walking back into the room, discussing the best recipe for yeast dough.
“I understand, but I can’t go until I know she’s okay. I can’t.”
He nodded, his jaw tight, his expression grim.
He didn’t try to convince her, though, didn’t say another word as the door opened and August walked in with Chance.
* * *
August pushed hard to get Quinn to leave. She refused. Once. Twice. A dozen times while everyone sat at the booth eating sweet bread and drinking coffee.
Finally, Malone had had all he could take. He’d spent most of his teen years listening to siblings squabble, he didn’t plan to spend any more of his adult life doing the same.
“Enough,” he said, interrupting August midsentence.
“What do you mean enough?”
“She’s not leaving town. Obviously nothing you say is going to convince her to do it. The best thing any of us can do is bed down for the night, get some rest, and come at the problem fresh in the morning.”
“The problem is Tabitha’s, and I say we let her deal with the mess she made on her own.” August paced across the room.
“I can’t lose both my sisters over this,” he continued. “And if things escalate the way they have been, that’s exactly what might happen.”
“You’re not going to lose either of them, if we have anything to do with it.” Stella touched his arm, and Chance frowned.
“We’re not going to lose anyone, but we’re also not going to accomplish any more tonight.” He stood. “Let’s see if we can find a place to stay. I think there’s a bed-and-breakfast in town. If not there, then—”
“Don’t be silly!” Lucille exclaimed. The woman looked like she was ninety and acted like she was twenty-four, bustling around on spindly legs that didn’t look as if they could hold a toddler up. “You’re not going to pay a dime to that old bat who owns the bed-and-breakfast.”
“Lucille!” Quinn chided. “Mary isn’t an old bat. She’s not even sixty.”
“And she doesn’t care squat about that property. You know it, and I do, too. Which isn’t the point. The point is, there is no reason for any of you to pay for a place to stay. I have plenty of room at my house.”
“We couldn’t put you out like that, ma’am,” Malone said, not because they really couldn’t but because the danger seemed to be following Quinn, and he didn’t want Lucille to get hurt.
“Put me out? Are you kidding? This is the most fun I’ve had in decades!” Lucille sighed happily, and Malone almost felt bad for refusing.
Almost.
“We really do appreciate the offer, but there’s been some trouble...”
“Like the blood, right? Someone was murdered upstairs? And you’re worried the murderer will come after me while I’m sleeping because I’ve given you all a place to stay?” She shook her head, white curls bouncing wildly. “It’s a sad, sick world we live in, but don’t worry, I’ve watched plenty of true-crime shows. I know how these things work. I’ll keep my bear spray under my pillow and spray any intruder who enters my boudoir in the face.”
Someone snorted.
Maybe August. It was hard to tell because he’d turned away and was staring at the floor.
“Lucille,” Chance said, taking both her hands in his, turning on the charm the way Malone had seen him do countless times before. “We appreciate your willingness to sacrifice your safety for us, but my organization is built on the premise that we never draw someone into an unsafe situation unless it is absolutely necessary. Tonight, it isn’t. We can rest in the SUV—”
“You’ll stay here, then!” Lucille interrupted, her cheeks pink. “I’ll just drive over to the house and get some pillows and blankets. This young lady can come with me.” She grabbed Stella’s hand and started dragging her to the door. “You can sleep on the benches or the floor. Not the most comfortable arrangements, but better than the Blue Bonnet. Besides, I may not like Mary, but I certainly don’t want her dead.”
Stella paused at the door, met Chance’s eyes. He nodded his approval of the plan, and she disappeared, dragged out into the darkness by a woman who was two inches shorter and about twenty pounds lighter than she was.
“Man!” August said. “That woman must have been something when she was young.”
“She’s still something,” Quinn said, grabbing plates and empty coffee cups and piling them onto a tray. “I’m going to wash these.”
She hurried from the room, and Malone had the distinct impression that she was running away.
From him?
From her brother?
From the pressure people had been putting on her? She’d held fast in her refusal to leave town, but he’d seen her wavering, seen how tired she was getting.
And why wouldn’t she be tired?
She’d been running nonstop since Tabitha had handed Jubilee over to her.
“You going to check on her?” August said casually. “Or should I?”
“I will.”
“Before you go—” August stepped in front of him, blocking his path to the kitchen “—I’m going to tell you right now that I don’t want my sister hurt.”
“That’s what we’re working to avoid.” He didn’t much like having his way blocked, but since August was Quinn’s brother he didn’t push him out of the way or try to step around him.
“You know what I’m talking about, Malone,” August growled. “So don’t try to be a smart aleck.”
“He doesn’t have to try,” Chance said. “Being a smart aleck is his natural state of being. So is being excellent at his job, so how about you step out of the way before he decides to take you down, and I let him?”
“I’d like to see him try,” August said.
“For the record,” Malone said, forcing his voice to be calm, his tone conciliatory, “I don’t hurt people I care about, and for the record, I care about your sister.”
August frowned, all the anger draining from his face.
“Way to make me feel like a loser, man,” he mumbled, moving to the side and letting Malone pass.
He walked into a large kitchen. An old-fashioned oven took up most of one wall, bread warmers on either side of it. A larger industrial oven stood on the other side of the room, a long marble island between them. There was a walk-in freezer, an open pantry filled with ingredients, a stainless steel counter with a wide sink.
Quinn stood there, her back to Malone, his jacket still dwarfing her small frame. She’d pushed up the sleeves, and he could see the narrowness of her wrists, the delicacy of her bones.
She knew he was there.
Her shoulders tensed as he moved across the room, but she didn’t turn from the pile of dishes or the sudsy water she’d shoved her hands into.
“What’s wrong, Quinn?” he asked. “The truth. Not some pretty lie about being worried about your sister.”
“I am worried about my sister,” she mumbled, and he realized she was crying, her voice muffled by her tears.
He urged her around, used a clean dish towel to dry her cheeks and then her hands. He’d known a lot of women in his life, and he’d dated more than a few, but he’d never wanted to understand anyone as much as he wanted to understand Quinn. “So, why the tears?”
/>
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know or don’t want to say?”
“A little of both.” She offered a shaky laugh, turned back to the sink. “When my husband first got sick, we knew how limited his time might be.”
He moved in beside her, nudging her over so he could rinse the dishes after she washed them. He didn’t speak, just waited for her to finish whatever it was she wanted to say.
“I was thinking a little bit ago, that I wanted that time to go on forever, because he was feeling good, and it seemed like if we could just hold on to those moments everything would be okay,” she continued, handing him a plate. “But, no matter how much I wished time to stand still, it just kept on moving forward. Then he got sicker and sicker, and I wanted time to fly by because I knew he was suffering and there was nothing we could do, no way to change the trajectory he was on. I just wanted him to be at peace.”
“I think most people would feel the same.”
“Maybe. I’m only me, and I can’t speak for anyone else. It’s difficult to watch someone you love suffer. I knew he’d be in Heaven when he died, that he’d be whole and healthy and happy, and I knew it was what he wanted, that it was my selfishness that made me want him to hang around a few more days or hours or minutes.” She finished the last dish, handed it to him, her gray eyes dark with fatigue. “The thing is, logically I know that Cory would want me to be happy, too. That he’d never want me to spend my life mourning him, but it’s hard moving on.”
“Wouldn’t it be harder to stay in the same place?” he asked gently, and she nodded.
“Yes, but I’m moving slowly, Malone. Time is just kind of creeping along, and I don’t want to rush it, because everything feels new, and I feel a little...” She shrugged and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I don’t know how I feel. Except that I’m twenty-eight, and starting all this again.” She gestured to him and to herself.
“I just told your brother, I never hurt people I care about. I also never rush them. We have all the time in the world, Quinn.” He traced the line of her jaw, ran his thumb across the pulse point in her neck, feeling the rapid throb of her heartbeat.
“Quinn!” August shouted, and she jumped, a nervous laugh bursting out.
“Not if August has anything to do with it.”
“Your brother has issues,” he muttered, and she laughed again, the sounded lighter and easier as she grabbed his hand and tugged him back into the service area.
THIRTEEN
Lucille brought enough blankets and pillows to provide every citizen of Echo Lake a comfortable place to sleep.
At least, that’s the way it seemed to Quinn as she lay on a thick padding of blankets and sheets and stared up at the shop’s ceiling. The room was quiet, just the soft sound of breathing from the three people who weren’t on guard duty breaking the silence.
Chance was somewhere in the kitchen, keeping his ears and eyes open for trouble. No one seemed to think there’d be any. It helped that the sheriff had parked at the curb outside of the shop. Only a fool would try to get in, and Quinn didn’t think Jarrod was that. The fact that he hadn’t returned Stella’s call seemed to make everyone think that he was still out of the country. Maybe he was. Quinn hoped that he was, but there was something nagging at the back of her mind. That Post-it note on the photo album page. The man in the picture who hadn’t been in any other photo in the book. Nothing? Something?
She didn’t know, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed to look at it more carefully, try a little harder to figure out why her sister had stuck a Post-it note on that page.
She eased up from her heavy down comforter, trying to move quietly enough not to disturb anyone. She’d ask Chance to retrieve the backpack, and then she’d sit in the kitchen and look through it, really study all the pages, try to decipher any message her sister might have been sending.
“Flying the coop?” Malone asked quietly as she stood.
“I thought you were asleep,” she whispered.
“I could say the same about you.”
“And I could say that I wish the two of you would shut up, but I don’t think it would do any good,” Stella grumbled.
“What’s going on?” August muttered.
“I was thinking about the backpack Tabitha left for Jubilee.”
“That little pink one?” Stella sat up, apparently wide-awake and ready for whatever would come.
“Yes.”
“What about it?”
Quinn explained quickly, and Stella stood. “Well, that’s it. None of us are going to be able to get back to sleep until we know what’s going on with the picture. I’ll get the backpack. You want to tell Chance, Malone?”
“Tell me what?” Chance flipped on the light, and everyone was moving, heading for the door or into the kitchen, grabbing coffee cups and pouring some from the pot Lucille had insisted on brewing before she left. An hour ago? Two?
By the time, Stella returned with the backpack, the group was sipping coffee and the sheriff had joined them, his long legs spread out under one of the tables, his fingers tapping against the tabletop.
“You’re sure the Post-it note had your name on it, Quinn?” he asked, and she nodded, reaching into the pack and pulling out the small book.
It was a baby album, the cover stained and worn, a picture of a red-haired infant glued into a cardboard oval cutout on the front.
Chance whistled softly when he saw it, touching the photo and then snapping a picture of it with his phone. “I’ve seen that photo before. Boone has the same one in his wallet.”
“I guess the album has been with Jubilee all along, then,” Quinn said. Imagining Jubilee’s mother pasting that photo into the album made her heart ache, and she opened the book, turning to the page that had been marked with the Post-it note.
The photo was still there—the older man staring out at her, his eyes such a light blue they looked nearly translucent.
“Wonder who that is?” Malone said, leaning in, his arm brushing hers.
She’d said a lot to him in the kitchen. Too much, maybe, but she didn’t regret it. She’d learned a lot of things from her father. Most of them about how she didn’t want to be. No games. Ever. That’s the way she lived her life. Malone made her feel things she hadn’t felt in a long, long time, and she wasn’t going to pretend it wasn’t true, she wasn’t going to try to hide it.
“I have no idea.” She opened the clear plastic pocket that contained the photo, slid the picture out.
Something dropped onto the table. A folded up piece of newspaper that Malone picked up.
“Do you mind?” he asked, and she shook her head.
“Go ahead.”
He unfolded it, frowned. “It’s dated a month ago. An article about a suicide in Las Vegas.”
“Whose suicide?” Sheriff Lock asked.
“Based on the photo in the paper, I’d say it’s the guy who’s in that picture.” Malone lay the newspaper down, smoothing the folds to reveal a black-and-white photo of a man who looked remarkably similar to the one in the picture Quinn was holding.
“John Engle,” Sheriff Lock said, as if somehow saying it would help them all understand exactly who the man was and why his photo was in Jubilee’s album.
“Hold on,” Malone said, lifting the article again. “This says he was a real estate broker, partner to—”
“Let me guess,” Chance broke in. “Jarrod Williams.”
“Exactly.” Malone smiled, his lips curving, his eyes predatory and hard. “Messy suicide, too. His wife found him in his bathtub at home. He bled to death.”
“Slit wrists?” Stella asked.
“Probably. The article doesn’t say. There were drugs in his system, though. Prescription pain killers, antidepressants.”
“A note?” Chance asked.
“Not that the article mentions.”
“It sounds like the guy had problems,” August cut in. “But I’m not sure what that has to do with Ta
bitha or her husband.”
“This kind of suicide is one of the easiest to stage,” Stella remarked. “You drug the guy, strip him down, toss him in a tub and slit his wrists.”
“That’s a very cold way to say it,” Quinn said, shuddering at the thought of someone being so calculating, so cruel as to plan a murder that would make the victim look like the perpetrator.
“Not cold. Factual. I saw it once or twice during my time in the navy. A spouse fed up with his or her marriage, deciding that the easiest way to end things was to get rid of the person they were tired of. Of course, no one wants to get caught, so the smart ones? They try to make someone else look guilty. Suicide is the perfect cover, if you can make it look authentic.”
“If that’s the case this time, the perp was successful. There’s no mention of an investigation, no indication that the police were suspicious.” Malone pulled out his phone. “I’m going to call the Las Vegas police department. They might be able to tell us more.”
“I’ll do that,” Sheriff Lock responded. “They’ll be more open to a fellow police officer.”
“What’s interesting to me,” Stella remarked, her gaze on the article, “is the quote from the guy’s widow. She says she got home from a shopping trip to New York and found him in the bathroom. The walls and floor were splattered with blood. It takes a lot of force to cut into a major artery. Most people are too scared and too pain sensitive to do it. Which is why most suicide attempts like this one aren’t fatal.”
“He did have prescription drugs in his system,” Chance said.
“Which would make it even less likely that he’d be effective at cutting that deeply.”
“Maybe the wife was exaggerating,” August suggested. “It happens. People get into traumatic situations, and what they remember isn’t always what happened.”
“If she wasn’t,” Malone remarked, “anyone in the room with him would have been splattered with blood, too. Or am I overreaching there, Stella?”
“If a major artery was hit, people in the vicinity would be splattered. That’s the way it is.” She set the article down. “So, the question is, did he do it to himself, or did someone help him along?”
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