The Killer You Know

by Kimberly Van Meter

  So what did that mean?

  Was he ready to insert himself into the equation in a less than peripheral manner?

  It would ruffle feathers.

  Did he care?

  Again, his thoughts bumped into Quinn. The unerring direction his thoughts seemed intent on going was disturbing.

  She was not his type.

  One, she was too young. The generation gap was more than he could stomach. He preferred older women when he took time to date. More mature, less interested in games and they didn’t cry and carry on when the relationship had run its course.

  Two, she annoyed the hell out of him. That persistent tenacity to dig until she found her prize was a thorn in his side.

  Three, he hated reporters. That wass all that needed to be said on that score.

  Three excellent reasons why thinking of Quinn in any capacity was ill-advised.

  And yet...he wondered what the texture of her hair would feel like between his fingertips.

  Wondered if she was a wildcat in bed.

  Heat crept into his cheeks.

  What the hell, Silas? Try digging a deeper pit to climb into, why don’t you?

  But Quinn had the body type that usually turned his head—strong, athletic, with curves in all the right places—and his best efforts to shut down that kind of interest didn’t seem to be working.

  And the way she looked at the world, inquisitive, tenacious, wondrous...that quality intrigued him.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt any of those things.

  The nature of his profession had a tendency to jade even the best, but circumstance had blunted Silas’s edges way before joining the Bureau.

  Quinn seemed to kindle that dying spark he’d long since forgotten could burn.

  Like you need that kind of distraction.

  Being in Port Orion already had him edgy as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rockers.

  He was off his game when he needed to be razor sharp.

  Spencer haunted this place. Silas saw his little brother everywhere.

  That was the trouble with going back to his hometown...there was the potential threat of mental contamination everywhere.

  He pulled up to his hotel room and saw Quinn sitting out front, waiting.

  Swearing under his breath, he exited the car and went to Quinn. “What are you doing?”

  “Stalking you?” she supplied as if that was obvious. “But I think you’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”

  Silas didn’t have the mental energy to play games. “Yeah? And why is that?”

  “Because I have something big. Something I shouldn’t have. And you want it.”

  He narrowed his gaze at Quinn, trying to discern her angle, but the sky suddenly opened up and buckets of water began to fall, pelting them both.

  Quinn shrieked, covering her head as Silas opened the door and they both rushed in.

  “Man, that came quick,” Quinn said, grinning as water dripped down her hair and into her eyes. “Got a towel I can borrow?”

  Silas grabbed two towels and they wiped down quickly.

  The way the light in Quinn’s eyes danced with an inner joy briefly caught him off guard. If she had half a mind to, Quinn could make men crawl after her, hoping for a crumb of affection.

  But Quinn seemed oblivious to her own reflection.

  Which was probably a good thing.

  Silas roused himself to fix a stern look her way. “All right. Spit it out. What’s so important that you had to stalk my hotel room?”

  “Well, I don’t have your phone number so I really had no choice,” she said as if that made perfect sense. “But I agree that it’s really not efficient to stalk you when I need to talk so we should exchange phone numbers.”

  Silas hesitated. Did he want Quinn having the ability to call him at all hours? Yeah, he kinda did. He’d examine that motivation later.

  “Fine. But this is just for business. Don’t go calling me to chat.”

  Quinn fixed him with an incredulous look. “Like I would call you for some scintillating conversation. You, my friend, are the poster boy for dull.”

  Dull? He was a Kelly. Dull was not a word used to describe them.

  “I’ll try to be more entertaining,” he retorted. “Now, out with the intel or you’re back in the rain.”

  “Right,” she said, excited. “Get ready for a doozy... I can barely keep this to myself.”

  Silas gestured impatiently.

  “Rhia was pregnant.”

  Silas regarded Quinn with a frown. “How do you know this?”

  “I am not at liberty to reveal my sources, but let’s just say that the person who may have inadvertently revealed this information may not have known that I gained access to it.”

  “You stole it.”

  “When something is lying in plain sight on someone’s desk, it’s not stealing.”

  “It’s a credible source?”

  “If you consider the coroner’s office a credible source.”

  Yeah, that was pretty credible.

  He had to admit, this was good intel.

  “You can bet her parents didn’t know.” A thought occurred to Quinn. “What if the father is some bigwig in town and he murdered Rhia because he didn’t want to get caught?”

  “Or maybe she just had a boyfriend on the side,” Silas countered, playing devil’s advocate. “But I agree it warrants a second look.”

  Her pleased smile played with his insides. A flutter of unwanted pleasure danced through him. Her smile could light up Martin stadium.

  “Don’t get too excited. It could lead nowhere,” Silas said, trying to remain realistic. “So what’s your agenda for bringing me this intel?”

  “So suspicious,” she said but her grin was filled with mischief. “Okay, you got me. I do want something.”

  “Spit it out.”

  “I want you to work with me. Give me access to exclusive content so I can break the story, whatever that may be.”

  Back to that argument again. “It goes against my personal values to make deals with press.”

  “C’mon, Silas. You can’t honestly be this rigid. If you pull that stick out of your ass for just a minute, you might find you can relax a little.”

  “Is this your idea of driving a hard bargain? I’ve yet to hear why I shouldn’t just run with your lead and leave you out.”

  “Because you have more integrity than that.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “It’s something I can sense,” Quinn said. This time she wasn’t joking or playing around. This was probably the first time Silas had seen her completely serious. That turn was intensely arousing. It was easy to keep her at arm’s length when he saw her as an irritating kid. But when he saw her as an adult...it changed things.

  “You could get hurt. The person who did this could be hiding in plain sight and we wouldn’t know if you were in danger until it was too late. I don’t want to take that chance.”

  “I’m not asking you to be my bodyguard,” she said, stubbornly refusing to back down. “I’m asking you to stop stonewalling me. We can help each other. It’s no secret I want out of this town. I want to make something of myself. I want to be more than just Quinn Jackson, that spunky niece of Leo Jackson, the town photographer. I want my life to be more than what others think it should be. I won’t be able to do that until I leave this place.”

  “What makes you think that writing about this tragedy is going to do that?”

  “Maybe it won’t. But it’s the best shot I have of writing something that matters. Something I can send to other newspapers for writing samples. I have to try.”

  Silas could respect her ambition, even if she got in his way a
t times.

  “Look, I can appreciate your desire to make more of yourself—and hell, I can even respect your tenacity—but I can’t willingly do something that could put a civilian in danger. I could lose my job.”

  “I’m not asking you to break rules...just don’t deliberately keep me out. I wouldn’t reveal that you were my source anyway.”

  “That’s not how I operate.”

  “C’mon, Silas...you can’t tell me you’ve never bent the rules before. We can help each other. I can get access to things that you might need a warrant for otherwise.”

  “True, but the problem with unlawfully gained evidence is that it’s inadmissible in court. I’d rather go the legal route for a better outcome.”

  She stomped her foot in frustration, an action that should’ve been annoying but he found ridiculously endearing. The urge to smile took him by surprise. He was slipping further and further down a wet slope, which wasn’t like him.

  “Sorry. I can’t help you. But I appreciate the intel on Rhia.”

  “That’s it? Wham-bam, thank you, ma’am?” Quinn asked, frowning. “You’re willing to chase down my lead but you’re not willing to give me something in return. Real classy, Silas. Real classy.”

  “I never asked you to bring me leads. I would’ve found out about Rhia tomorrow but I do appreciate the heads-up.”

  Quinn huffed, casting Silas a sour look. “I’ll remember this when you’re looking for help and I give you the cold shoulder. Quid pro quo and all that.”

  Silas walked Quinn to the door and once she was safely on the other side he gratefully closed and locked it.

  There were too many things going around in his mind at once.

  Quinn had undoubtedly dropped some good intel in his lap. It was true that the coroner would probably share the same information tomorrow but it helped to have a heads-up.

  Of course, the biggest question was, who was the father? Was Quinn correct in her assumption that Rhia had been killed by a man trying to keep a secret?

  It also opened up a whole new can of worms. Rhia’s family thought their daughter had been a saint. It was going to break their hearts even further to find out that Rhia had bigger secrets than they could’ve imagined.

  Silas was accustomed to being the bearer of bad tidings; it was a role he knew well.

  But it never got any easier.

  * * *

  Unbelievable. What a jerk.

  Quinn had gambled giving Silas that information. She’d been pretty sure that if she could prove that she was useful he would’ve had no choice but to include her in his investigation.

  The joke was on her, because Silas obviously had no integrity.

  Okay, maybe he had integrity. The reason he wasn’t letting her into the investigation, or so he said, was to protect her but she sensed that wasn’t the only reason.

  And, maybe she was crazy, but there may have been a brief moment when she thought for sure she saw a spark in Silas’s gaze that suggested something far more personal was going on behind those dark eyes.

  How did she feel about that?

  She wasn’t sure.

  The thing was, she didn’t have the option of getting involved with someone like Silas. She had goals, dreams, huge ambition, all of which did not include hooking up with a rigid FBI agent.

  But then sometimes things happened without our express intention, right?

  Maybe she was trying to justify the fact that when she saw him, there was a faint tickle in the pit of her belly.

  So sue me, he’s cute.

  Cute in a stiff I-always-play-by-the-rules, I-probably-report-pennies-picked-up-on-the-sidewalk-on-my-taxes kind of way.

  And just as she’d feared, in the brief moments when he smiled, he was actually quite handsome.

  Pearl-white teeth, the sensual smile, the shock of dark hair that made Quinn want to run her fingers through it—yeah, he was good-looking.

  But that’s beside the point.

  Silas had punted her idea of working together so far across the field, it was in another stadium.

  And that’d hurt her feelings, pricked her pride and pissed her off.

  What was his deal with reporters? Everyone had to make a living, right?

  What made him so hateful?

  Quinn walked into the house and found her uncle Leo sitting in his recliner quietly working on a crossword by the light of his small lamp and firelight.

  She dutifully kissed him on the cheek and then flopped into the chair beside him. “I don’t understand men,” she said without preamble then immediately clarified perhaps for her own benefit, saying, “No, I don’t understand men like Silas Kelly.”

  Quinn wasn’t sure if she was asking for advice, per se, but her uncle had always been good for a listen at the very least and she needed to vent.

  Usually Leo just nodded and let her blow steam but tonight he seemed of a mind to offer his own brand of wisdom. “What do you care what Silas Kelly is all about?” Leo asked with a frown. “He’s much too old for you anyway.”

  “He’s not that much older. A handful of years,” she disagreed, but that wasn’t the point and said as much. “Besides, I’m not looking to date him. I just don’t understand why he hates reporters so much. I mean, he looks at me like I’m vermin.”

  Well, not every time. Sometimes Quinn caught him looking at her in a way that made the butterflies in her stomach triple in count. But the moments were brief—so brief that sometimes that she wondered if she’d imagined them.

  “I mean, I know it probably has something to do with his brother’s death but why does he take it out on me? I wasn’t a reporter when Spencer died.”

  Leo sighed, placing his crossword on the small nightstand beside his chair. “I wouldn’t worry yourself about Silas Kelly. Soon enough he’ll leave again and everything will go back to normal.”

  That’s exactly what she didn’t want. She didn’t want normal. She wanted something new, something that challenged the status quo.

  Leo continued, “As far as I’m concerned, I think it’s an insult to our officers that he’s here poking around at all.”

  “An insult? Only an idiot would pass up the opportunity to work with someone with Silas’s experience,” she disagreed.

  “Honey, all he’s doing is stirring up trouble. Look how he’s ruffled your feathers,” he teased.

  But Quinn wasn’t in the mood to be placated. “Even if Silas leaves, it doesn’t erase the fact that a young girl was murdered. Rhia deserves justice.”

  “Of course, of course,” Leo agreed quickly. “And I’m sure Lester will do his best to solve this terrible crime. But the fact is bad things happen to good people and sometimes we never know why. There’s no rhyme or reason as to why it happens. We just have to trust that we are living our lives in the best way possible and pray for the families involved.”

  Prayer? Yeah, that worked. “Sorry, not a huge fan of ‘prayer is the only answer.’ Prayer isn’t going to bring Rhia back.”

  Leo leveled a look her way that he reserved for when she was being a pill. “You’re in a fine mood. Have you eaten? You always get crotchety when you haven’t eaten.”

  It was true; she tended to get “hangry.” But she didn’t want to eat. She wanted people to stop looking at her like she was still a kid. She wanted Silas to treat her like a peer. She wanted everyone else in this town to realize that she was meant for bigger things and stop stonewalling her.

  The worst part was that she had no freaking clue how to make any of those things happen. It was as if she didn’t know the secret handshake and everyone else was determined to keep that information from her.

  “I think I’ll just go to bed.”

  “It breaks my heart that you’re taking this case so hard,” Leo said. “I know you
want to be this big shot reporter and I think you have the writing chops to do it. However, maybe you should think about what the cost of your ambition could be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sweetheart, you’re a nice girl. Investigative reporting takes a certain type of personality and I just don’t think you have it. You’re charming and sweet and kind and generous. None of those qualities lend themselves to the career that you’re chasing. And frankly, it worries me when I think of you putting yourself in dangerous positions just to get a story. Let someone else do that kind of work.”

  Quinn didn’t know whether to be angry or understanding. On one hand she knew that her uncle’s words came from the heart. On the other, he was the one person she’d expected to understand and support her no matter what.

  A bubble of hot words danced on her tongue as frustration welled under her breastbone.

  Her uncle Leo was a good man and had always been in her corner but right now she wanted to tell him to shove his poor opinion.

  Instead, she managed a curt, “I think I’ll just go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Before Leo could say anything else, Quinn escaped.

  She leaned against her bedroom door, allowing a moment to wallow in her own pity party created by the day’s turn of events. She’d been on a high when she’d discovered the coroner’s report.

  But when Silas hadn’t reacted the way that she thought he would, followed by her uncle’s opinion on her career choice, she just wanted the day to end.

  Tomorrow was a new day.

  She’d think of a solution.

  I’ll find a way to get Silas to trust me, she vowed to herself.

  And if she couldn’t do that, she would find a different way to break the case open because it was her ticket out.

  Anyone who thought otherwise could stick their opinion where the sun didn’t shine.

  Including Uncle Leo.

  Tomorrow she would do whatever it took to put herself back on track.

  Quinn crawled into her bed and pulled the covers over her head.

  Chapter 9