by Mikayla Lane
He slowly opened the door, his eyes adjusting to the complete darkness of the windowless room. He looked towards the bed and flipped on the light when he saw it was empty. Chris quickly scanned the room and noticed that the bathroom door was ajar, and he went in, even though he knew she wasn’t there.
The first thing Chris noticed was that most of her basic toiletries were gone. He turned to the bedroom in concern and looked towards the milk crates she’d spray painted bright colors, stacked, and used as a dresser.
He ran his hand through his hair trying to figure out if any clothes were missing as his mind raced to think of where she could have gone.
She’s probably as big as Angel and Dree, so it’s not like she’d fit in her regular clothes anyway, he thought, discarding the clothing as a way to judge where she might have gone.
Chris would normally never violate her privacy, but he thought it was a life or death situation, and he shrugged off his unease and began going through every single thing in her room to try and figure out if she’d left and where she’d gone.
When her bedroom yielded no clues, Chris made his way into the main room and started going through everything there as well. The only thing he figured out was that she hadn’t just boxed up the things he’d given her, she must have gotten rid of everything, and he didn’t think it was going to bode well for his attempts to make things right with her.
Chris looked at his watch and knew the bar she worked at wouldn’t be open, but with no other clues and nowhere else to look for her, he decided to head there and hit the grocery stores along the way, hoping someone knew her or where she may be.
He took one last look at the now-empty book shelf before he closed the door and locked it behind him. He was heading back to his car when a voice halted him.
“Chris? Is that you?”
He turned and a smile broke out on his face when he saw Quinn’s downstairs neighbor sitting on her front porch.
“Martha! How are you doing?” Chris asked as he walked over to the elderly black woman who lived in the apartment beneath Quinn.
“I’m fine, boy. But you ain’t doing so good now, are you?” Martha said as her sharp eyes looked him up and down.
Chris shook his head and looked away for a moment.
“You’re pretty perceptive, Martha. I seriously screwed up and have some fixing to do,” Chris admitted, hoping the woman would take pity on him and tell him where Quinn was.
Martha snorted and shook her head as her arthritis-riddled hands reached for her coffee cup.
“I don’t know what all happened, but I do know you destroyed that poor girl. I don’t think you’re going to fix this,” she advised with a shake of her head.
“You know I have to try, Martha. Please tell me where she is,” Chris pleaded, uncaring how pathetic he sounded if it led him to Quinn.
“I don’t know where she went, but she was done supposed to be back days ago,” Martha admitted.
“Did she pack a bag? Did she take a bus, train, plane . . .” he asked, desperate for any information.
Martha shook her head dramatically at each suggestion.
“No, that was the strange thing. ‘Bout a week ago, a pretty limousine parked out there on the street. Driver gets out, and next thing I know, he’s leading her to the car. Ain’t seen her since,” she explained.
Chris felt like someone had kicked the air from his lungs, and his mind raced as he tried to think of who would come get Quinn in a car like that.
“Was she giving up the baby?” Chris whispered in horror, thinking the car may be the adoptive parents.
“No!” Martha barked out. “That girl was excited about that baby. She loved that little one. She sang to it all the time and rubbed her belly. Said she wasn’t gonna let her baby go through what she did. Said she was determined to make a good life for the both of them.”
“Was she still working?” Chris asked, wondering if he could find out where she’d gone and who with from one of her coworkers.
“Boy, what do you think? The girl had to eat!” Martha said, her disapproval of him clear.
Chris thought for a moment and looked at Martha.
“If you see her, can you please call me, but not tell her I was here?” he asked.
“Not on your life, boy,” Martha retorted. “That girl deserves better, and I won’t lie to her.”
“I agree with you on that, Martha, I really do. But I have to try. Please,” he begged.
Martha looked at him with narrowed eyes before she nodded sharply.
“Fine, I’ll call you. But I’m still telling her I saw you. I won’t lie to her,” she conceded.
“Thank you, Martha!” Chris said as he kissed the top of her head, handed him a card with his contact information, and headed back to his car.
Chapter Two
Chris sat at the end of the bar and downed the shot glass of whiskey put in front of him. He’d gone to every shop, store, and business from her apartment to the bar and spoke to dozens of people. None of them knew where Quinn was or where she’d gone, but everyone had been under the impression that she was coming back.
He was mentally kicking himself for leaving his comm back at the base. He could have hacked into her emails, checked her bank records, and looked at her entire digital trail to see if there was anything in them that would lead him to where she’d gone.
He was sick to his stomach at the thought that Quinn might be thinking of putting their baby up for adoption. Though he could understand why she might think it necessary, he just couldn’t see her doing it, and he believed Martha when she said that Quinn was looking forward to the baby coming.
Chris wasn’t stupid, he knew that unscrupulous people preyed on the poor, and child abductions and black market sales were rampant. Quinn was by no means an idiot or too trusting, but she could be overpowered in her condition.
He caught a flash of movement in the mirror and was taken back 10 years.
“What are you having?” Quinn had asked.
“Straight whiskey. Not your stomach cauterizing stuff either,” Chris replied.
“Coming right up,” Quinn said with a nod and went to get his drink.
“Yo, bitch! You owe me a beer first!” A fat, unkempt, loud mouth, bald man said from the other side of the bar.
“Told you, Cam; you’re cut off. Again. Go home,” Quinn had warned.
Quinn was pouring Chris’s whiskey when Cam grabbed an empty beer bottle from the bar and threw it at her head. Quinn fell to the floor, her head spinning as blood poured down her face.
Chris had just been admiring the bartender’s understated beauty when he saw the beer bottle fly and jumped the bar to try and protect her. He got there in time to see Cam grab a beer from behind the bar, crack the lid with his teeth, and take a large swig.
Chris went to his knees to check on the woman and saw the huge gash on her forehead near her hairline and grabbed a towel from the top of the beer cooler. He gently batted her hands away from head and pressed the towel to the wound.
“Hold that tight,” he said as he put her bloody hands to the towel and held them there until she kept it there herself.
“Fucking bitch . . . you’ll get me that beer next time, won’t ya!” Cam taunted.
Chris’s mind went completely blank, and he could feel a sudden coldness engulf him as he gently pushed Quinn to the side and stood, facing the drunken bastard who’d thrown the bottle. He leaped back over the bar and faced Cam.
The drunken fool wasn’t smart enough to realize the danger he’d put himself in, and he gave Chris a dismissive once over before grabbing another beer from behind the bar. He was getting ready to throw his empty at a cowering Quinn, who was still sitting on the floor behind the bar, when his wrist was caught in Chris’s bruising grip.
Chris glared at the open-mouthed man as he increased the pressure on Cam’s wrist until the bottle dropped from his hand, crashing to the floor. With his teeth clenched in fury, Chris ignored the bully’s crie
s as he increased the pressure until he heard a loud snap. He let go of the man’s arm as he screamed in agony, clutching his broken wrist.
Without a word, Chris drew back his fist and punched the man so hard he flew seven feet across the bar, landing unconscious at the feet of a stunned patron. It didn’t take another minute for the bar to clear, and Chris had a feeling that the cops would be there soon.
He sighed as he went behind the bar, picked the woman up in his arms, and carried her out of the bar and into the cool night air.
“I can’t leave,” Quinn whispered. “I promised to close.”
“The place will be crawling with cops in about two minutes,” Chris began when he heard the wailing sirens in the distance. “No one is going to rob the place while you get some stitches.”
Quinn had started to fight him, trying to get down.
“I can’t lose my job! And I can’t afford a doctor! Just let me down; I’ll be OK.”
He only held her more tightly, her weak efforts to stop him having no effect on his determination to see the abused woman properly cared for.
Chris shook his head to clear the memories. It’d been the best and most aggravating night of his life. Quinn had fought him every step of the way that night. She’d refused to let him pay for her stitches and set up a payment plan instead. She’d also demanded to be taken back to the bar, which he gave into solely because he knew the police would have questions and he wanted to see that bastard behind bars for what he did.
A simple questioning had turned into a nightmare because Quinn kept interrupting, trying to lie to protect Chris from getting into trouble for assaulting the man. He had to take the lead investigator aside and explain about her concussion before telling the man exactly what had happened.
Luckily the only person hauled off to jail that night had been Cam. It was obvious that it wasn’t the man’s first rodeo with the police either when one of them said they’d call his wife for him.
Chris shook his head and wondered what kind of life the man’s family had with an asshole like that heading it up, and he vowed to visit with Cam when he got bail. He’d considered it community volunteer work when he explained to Cam that the black eye Chris had seen on his wife and the verbal and physical abuse of his step-son was unacceptable in the future.
He’d left no doubt in Cam’s mind that if he was ever to even look at Quinn, he wouldn’t be a problem for anyone again. Cam had gotten the message pretty quick, and Chris wasn’t surprised to find out that he’d lost his family, became homeless, and left the city.
Chris held his empty shot glass up to the bartender and was waiting for a refill when he felt the strong hand clamp onto his shoulder, and he closed his eyes and groaned.
“I’ll have the same,” Mikal called out to the bartender.
“Make it three,” Declan added as he sat on Chris’s left.
Mikal laid Chris’s comm on the bar and slid it in front of Chris as he sat down on his right.
“Figured you might need that. We started the search, and what we’ve found so far is waiting for you to look at,” Mikal said, nodding his thanks to the bartender when his drink was set in front of him.
“Go ahead and leave the bottle,” Declan said as he slid several hundred dollar bills across the bar.
The bartender almost slammed the bottle down in his rush to grab the money before he headed to the other side of the bar, leaving the brothers alone.
“How did you know?” Chris asked, downing his drink.
“We’re not the baddest bullets in the gun, but we can still sting,” Declan said, ignoring the looks on his brother’s faces.
“Your analogies are still fucking awful,” Chris said with a shake of his head.
“He spied on you, then I spied on you and saw the messages on the phones you hid in your closet,” Mikal admitted.
Declan huffed in outrage for a second before his shoulders dropped.
“Yeah, I did. Kind of glad I did though, not gonna deny it. You should have come to us,” he offered.
“Yeah, I know,” Chris admitted, running his hands through his closely cropped hair.
“From the information we found, she’s not giving it up for adoption. Every dime in her bank accounts have come from a valid source. The girl works hard,” Mikal said, respect in his voice.
“Real damn hard,” Declan agreed. “For the last few months it seems she’s taken on several odd jobs to make more money. One of the neighbors we talked to after you left her place said she’d already picked the crib and was going to have it delivered next week.”
Chris had no idea how heavily that was weighing on him until it was confirmed that Quinn wasn’t planning to give up their child. He sucked in a deep breath and closed his eyes in pure relief.
Mikal patted him on the shoulder.
“Wherever she is, she’s taking care of herself and that baby,” Mikal tried to comfort Chris, whose energy was a complete, unreadable mess.
“Where the hell is she? If there was anything in there telling us where, you’d have told me,” Chris said as he nodded to his comm on the bar. “Not got me a bottle of whiskey.”
“We got Siggy cracking her email,” Declan offered. “If you think about it, she can’t get real far in her condition so we’ll find her soon.”
Chris shot Declan a dark look.
“What the hell is wrong with you? She’s pregnant, not crippled. She could have gone anywhere!”
“No,” Mikal said with a shake of his head. “She took on the extra classes she needed to graduate a semester early. She’s scheduled to walk next week.”
“And the crib’s coming,” Declan said as he held up his whiskey and downed it.
Chris sighed in relief as he ran his hands down his face. He reached for the refilled shot glass and swallowed it as he tried to piece his wrecked emotional state back together.
“OK . . . so she planned on coming back. She didn’t expect to be gone so long. But according to her boss over there,” Chris said, gesturing to the bartender, “she’s not called or showed for four days, and Quinn would never do that.”
“The grocer she stocked shelves for twice a week after her shift here said that he was expecting her back as well, even though she was so big so fast he thought the free clinic was wrong, and she was having twins. Maybe we need to figure out the clinic she went to and have Siggy check the records?” Mikal suggested.
Mikal patted Chris on the back when he put his head on the bar and covered it with his hands.
“We’ll find her, Chris,” Declan said, hoping nothing bad had happened to Quinn.
“My child, instead of being loved and adored and cared for by me, with expert medical care, was going to a free clinic. What the hell kind of father does that to their mate and child when they can provide better? I have to find her. I have to fix this,” Chris groaned.
“Chris, you had every reason to doubt it. Hell, even the docs didn’t find out until a few days ago,” Declan said. “Cut yourself some slack and clear your head so we can think through this.”
Mikal listened to the information Siggy was giving him about Quinn through the shengari’, and he closed his eyes briefly before turning to Chris.
“Come. Siggy is meeting us at the old townhouse in the city. He has news,” Mikal said, hoping to get Chris out of the bar before he had to tell him anything.
“Does he know where she is? Is she OK?” Chris asked as he stood and put his jacket on.
“Not yet. Let’s get out of here and find out what he does know,” Mikal said as he put his hand on Chris’s shoulder and herded him outside.
Declan opened the passenger door of the SUV they’d brought and waited until Chris got inside before getting in the seat behind him. Mikal soon had them speeding towards the townhouse they had in DC.
As the scenery passed by, Chris silently stared out of the window. In his mind he could see the last time he’d walked these streets with Quinn.
“Come on! You’re like twice my
size and can’t keep up with me. Henrietta is expecting us for dinner, and I’m not fond of cold paella,” Quinn argued with a smile as she pulled him down the street.
Chris had never been a touchy, feely kind of guy, but after being best friends with Quinn for over 10 years, it would have felt odd not to hold her hand as they walked along the sidewalk to dinner. It wasn’t like he had a choice either; Quinn was a big believer in hugging and touching, and no one was immune to her.
To prove his point, the moment they’d entered the small restaurant, Quinn had rushed to the owner, Henrietta, and gave her a big hug with a smile to match. When they stopped hugging and chatting, Henrietta turned to Chris.
“You’re late! You better be glad I know you well enough to have expected it, so your food is still hot. Sit down,” the gruff woman said as she led Quinn to the best table in the place.
Chris had no sooner sat down than Henrietta was back at the table and placing heaping plates of food in front of them both as a server put a bottle of whiskey in front of Chris and a big glass of milk in front of Quinn.
Chris looked at the bottle oddly when everyone left the table but went ahead and poured himself a glass while Quinn stared at him with her face shining and a brilliant smile. He looked at her glass of milk with a quirked brow before turning his attention to his plate.
“Chris . . . remember when we . . . uh . . . we . . . you know . . .” Quinn was blushing such a deep pink color that Chris almost burst out laughing at her embarrassment.
Trying to push aside his own very vivid memories of that particular night, he nodded his head as he played with the food on his plate, wondering where she was going with this. It was a topic that both of them had steadfastly refused to ever discuss after it had happened, and he couldn’t imagine why she’d want to bring it up now.
“I’m pregnant.”
Chris knew he couldn’t have heard her correctly.
“What?” he asked, dropping his fork to his plate.
Quinn’s smile dipped only a little as she squirmed nervously in her chair.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered again.
