After avoiding it for days, Carter had begun reading it last night. Elliott had been right—it was enthralling, a tense domestic thriller about a man in an unhappy marriage who gets involved with his child’s nanny, then later becomes a suspect in her disappearance.
“It’s pretty great,” he admitted, aware it was Elliott’s bait for getting him interested in working again.
He had begun to doze in the warmth of the car’s sun-bathed interior when he heard the blinker come on. Carter opened his eyes as they neared one of the Rarity Cove public beach access points. “What’re you doing?”
Quinn decelerated and turned into the parking lot.
“Your afternoon cardio.” She pulled into one of the marked spots and turned off the engine. “I’ve already been on the beach today, and it’s really nice. The windbreaker you’re wearing should be enough. Who knows how long this weather will hold out? I thought we’d go for a walk.”
Carter stared at the waves rolling onto the shoreline. Shifting in his seat, his mind fluttered uneasily. “I can’t use my cane out there.”
“I’ll be your support when you need it.” Quinn took a tortoise-shell clasp from a tray in the armrest, then used it to secure her hair into a messy bun. Unsnapping her shoulder belt, she turned to him, reassurance in her voice. “We’ll go slow and take breaks. I’ve learned what you’re capable of at this point, and I won’t let us go so far you can’t get back.”
He ran a hand over his facial scruff, tense and uncertain.
“Remember what you said when we first talked about what you really wanted?” she reminded. “You said you wanted to walk on the beach. The steps at your place are a bit much right now, but I remembered this place. There’re only a few steps down to the sand.”
His throat ached at her thoughtfulness.
“With the off-season, there aren’t too many people out,” she continued. “I’ve also been watching in the rearview mirror. I’m fairly sure no photographers tailed us from the medical center, despite whoever it was camped across from your house the other night.”
Carter had gone to the windows after Quinn called to warn him about the car, but he had been unable to see anyone parked on the undeveloped property.
“So what do you think?” Encouragement shimmered in her gray-green eyes. The same color as the ocean that spread out in front of him, he realized. Carter had seen too much of hospital rooms and physician offices. Despite his anxiety, the sand and sea called to him.
“You’re kind of small to be my only support out there.” He was only half joking.
“I’m well trained and stronger than I look. Trust me, Carter.” She issued an ultimatum, however. “It’s this or the treadmill. Your choice. You still owe me a second walk today.”
Carter shook his head in amused disbelief. He had begun to trust Quinn, as much as he had trusted anyone in a long time, outside of close family. Celebrity and the brutal politics of Hollywood had leached much of that ability from him. Maybe Mark was right. Maybe it was because she had been a part of the St. Clair family, at least peripherally, for so long.
“Screw the treadmill,” he muttered under his breath.
Her sunny laugh caused his heart to lift. She exited the car, closed her door and went around to open his. Holding his right shoulder carefully, he climbed out to stand in front of her. The salty breeze met his face as seagulls cawed in the air overhead. Squinting up at him, loose tendrils of her hair tossed by the wind, Quinn smiled.
“Let’s do this,” he said with quiet determination. Leaving the cane in the car, he took the arm she offered.
Chapter Eleven
Quinn sat at the rustic dining table in the beach home’s living area, using her iPad to begin the process of transferring her National Physical Therapy Exam scores to the South Carolina licensing board. The shadows outside the wall of French doors had deepened, but she was in no hurry to return to her mother’s—partly due to their argument that morning, but also because the B&B’s wireless Internet was down, something Nora considered a low priority for repair. Instead, Quinn had worked here in solitude while Carter napped upstairs.
He had come down for dinner a short time earlier and now lounged on the sofa in front of the hearth, long legs propped on the coffee table, movie script in his lap and Doug’s head on his thigh as the dog snored softly. Nearby, the large-screen television was on, although its sound was muted.
Carter had done well at the beach, Quinn thought, a sense of accomplishment filling her. He had walked for a good amount of time without assistance, although he had leaned on her a bit more on the way back.
A short time later, she powered down her device and stood. Arms crossed loosely over her chest, she went to where Carter sat, intent on his reading.
“Doug’s been fed, and the kitchen’s cleaned up. I’m leaving soon. Thanks for the wireless access.”
He looked up at her from the sofa, a pair of preppy reading glasses on his nose. Unsurprisingly, he looked good in them. Quinn thought of the nerdish spectacles she had worn nearly until college.
He nodded at her comment. “Thanks for dinner.”
Since she had stayed later tonight, she had cooked for them both, bypassing the takeout cartons from Café Bella inside the fridge. She had made a lentil and brown rice dish and also sautéed a chicken breast with rosemary for Carter. He had eaten rather well, she’d noticed. Perhaps the outdoor exercise had piqued his appetite, or the cortisone injection was beginning to provide some relief.
“Isn’t that what personal assistants do?” she asked lightly. “Make dinner?”
“In LA, they make dinner reservations. And you’re thinking of a personal chef—two different people.”
“Which reminds me, there’s only one of me and I’m going to run those errands tomorrow morning.” She planned to go to the BI-LO for groceries, then to McSwain’s drugstore on the town square to have two of his prescriptions refilled. Carter had also asked her to drop off some papers to Mark at the St. Clair. “We might not get started until after lunch.”
“Torture session delayed—duly noted.” He returned to the script. She went to gather her things, but he spoke again, causing her to turn back to him.
“Quinn…today was okay,” he said, a vulnerability about him. “It felt good to be on the beach, and for you to have my back. I’m sure I looked like some geriatric case—”
“You looked like someone recovering from a traumatic injury,” she corrected, earnest. “Like someone who’s finally starting to fight his way back.”
His gaze held hers. Unsettled by her lapsing objectivity, Quinn searched for something to say. “Let’s hope this weather holds out. Maybe we can trade the treadmill for another walk on the beach tomorrow.”
His full mouth quirked faintly, the grooves of his dimples deepening. “Are you going soft on me, or am I falling into some kind of Stockholm-syndrome situation here?”
Quinn smiled back. “Don’t worry. You’ll start hating my guts again soon enough. I’m hoping to start your shoulder work…”
She stopped at the image that appeared on the television. The national news had moved to an entertainment segment, and her stomach dipped as Bianca Rossi posed on the red carpet in front of them. His features sobering, Carter removed his glasses and leaned forward for the remote, upping the volume as he appeared in the footage, as well.
“Filming on the sitcom has been halted since Rossi’s murder in November at the home of actor Carter St. Clair, who was also seriously injured in the stalker attack,” the voiceover stated as the screen switched to a clip from the show in which the young actress had starred. “The network announced today Rossi is being replaced by twenty-four-year-old actress Serena Ruben-Reyes…”
Once the segment ended, Carter cut off the television, their lightness of earlier vanished. Leaving the cane against the sofa’s arm, he rose, causing Doug to leap from the couch and trot off to the kitchen.
“You can go, Quinn,” he said quietly, appearing distracted
.
As he walked slowly to the row of French doors that led to the deck overlooking the beach, Quinn’s heart beat dully. A voice inside her pointed out she had just been dismissed like a servant, that she should do what he asked and leave him alone. But some stubborner, more compassionate part of her remained. Moving closer, she could see Carter’s profile as he stared onto the dark plane of ocean. Sensing his anxiety, she gave a gentle reminder. “Deep, slow breaths.”
His eyes squeezed closed, and he said with a slightly breathless forced patience, “I’m fine, Quinn. I’ll see you tomorrow, all right?”
At his rebuff, she took a step back, prepared to leave. But as she reached for the duffel she had left on the table, he spoke again, his voice troubled.
“The footage was from the charity gala we went to that night. I remember that much, at least.”
Quinn turned. Carter remained at the doors, his back to her. Unsure of what to do, she hesitantly returned to where he stood.
“We’d been seeing each other for about a month.” The perfect symmetry of his pensive features reflected back to her in the door’s glass. “Our studios set us up. That’s not unusual. I’m not sure, but I think maybe she was also sleeping with her show’s producer. I’d seen some texts between them.”
Quinn thought of the photos she had seen of the actress with Carter in the weeks leading up to the stabbing, the same images used repeatedly in its aftermath. Like the rest of the world, she had assumed they were in love.
“I never confronted her about it,” he admitted somberly. “I guess it really didn’t matter that much to me. I was leaving for Perth to start filming a movie in two weeks. I figured whatever was going on between us would end once I left.” He continued to stare out over the water. “I suppose I haven’t changed all that much to you, have I, Quinn?”
She heard the self-recrimination in his voice.
“I’m not here to judge you,” she said quietly, peering up at him. “But, Carter, you can’t…surely you don’t think her death is your fault.”
He looked at her then, his eyes like twin pools of indigo. “If she hadn’t been with me that night…if I’d broken things off with her sooner, she’d still be alive.”
Jaw clenched, he bowed his head and swallowed.
The mood was subdued as she departed the house a short time later. As she waited for the electronic gate at the top of the drive to open, Carter’s admission weighed on her. She wondered now if the dream he’d had about trying to get to the actress through a locked door wasn’t a recalled memory at all, but was instead his subconscious still trying to find some way to save her. Quinn believed she now understood why he had been so apathetic toward his recuperation.
He felt guilt for his survival.
But what he had revealed was also a cautionary tale. Bianca Rossi wasn’t the first actress, the first supermodel, to whom Carter had been linked. She thought of the serial dating in Hollywood, the constant cycle of celebrity pairings and breakups. Although he hadn’t said it directly, it sounded as though his relationship with Rossi had been more of an arrangement, created at least initially for the PR buzz.
Regardless, the lifestyle seemed superficial and lonely. Not unlike the world she had left behind.
It had grown dark, the road that ran alongside the beach illuminated only by the Mercedes’s headlights and spill of moonlight in the cloudless evening. Where the subtropical foliage was low, Quinn could see the silvered sheet of the ocean’s surface as she drove. To her right, roads that traveled inland were marked by street signs. Hers was the only car on the thoroughfare. The oceanfront property on the north side of town was undeveloped in stretches, and what had been occupied was owned by the wealthy, who had constructed vast homes—many just for summer—on large lots of land. Nor were there public beach access points, which were mostly in town or to its south.
Quinn glanced briefly down to change channels on the radio. But as she looked up again, she startled as headlights entered her peripheral vision, shooting toward her from a side street.
There was no time to react.
She screamed at the bone-jarring impact and crunch of metal as the cars collided.
Chapter Twelve
Stunned, her chest heaving, Quinn tried to process what had just happened. Whether she was injured. Upon impact, the Mercedes had spun off the asphalt before coming to a stop in the undergrowth of an undeveloped property, broadsided by a car that had driven through the stop sign on the interconnecting street. The car that hit her sat in the road, hood crumpled and smoke rising from its mangled grille.
Releasing her seat belt with trembling fingers, she heard a car door opening and approaching feet.
A dark-haired man wearing sneakers and jeans strode toward her, his eyes locked on hers through the windshield. Sudden realization prickled her nape. The car. It was the one she had seen across from the beach house earlier that week. A warning bell sounded in her brain.
Quinn locked the Mercedes’s doors and grabbed for her purse that had slid off the passenger seat. She searched frantically through it, finding her cell phone just as the man yanked at the door handle where she sat. He cursed when he found it locked.
“Open the door, bitch!”
This was no paparazzo. Heart slamming inside her chest, Quinn began to dial for help on her phone as the man pulled something from his pocket. A second later, she flinched and cried out as the window glass shattered.
The door flew open. Hard hands dragged her from the car despite her struggling and screaming. The man smelled like nicotine, his grip on her bruising. Quinn kicked as hard as she could, landing a solid blow to his right kneecap. He bellowed in pain, and she wrenched free. But his large frame blocked her path to the road. She fled in the opposite direction toward the shoreline. Thorns and bramble tore at her clothing as she ran deeper into the shadowy undergrowth, through a stand of tall bamboo, her breath rasping out of her, her hand still gripping her cell phone.
Daring to look back, she felt her heart lurch. The man was coming after her—gaining on her. Gasping, Quinn broke free of the scrub a minute later. She half stumbled, half fell down an outcropping of rocks before her feet sank into soft sand. Ahead, waves crashed onto the beach. If she could make it to the water’s edge where the sand was hard-packed, she could increase her speed.
But as she gained purchase on the firm sand, something jerked her backward with violent force. Her feet flew out from under her as pain seared her throat, the cell phone flying from her grasp. It took a second to realize what had happened. The man had caught up to her, used her jacket’s hood to lasso and drop her. Sprawled on her back, Quinn clasped her throat, coughing and wheezing. As he stood over her, cold terror poured through her. She attempted to scream, but her lungs had lost power and only a hoarse croak emerged.
“Fucking bitch,” he snarled, winded, his chest heaving. Quinn skittered away, crawling backward from him like a sand crab. But instead of coming after her, he picked up her cell phone that lay among streamers of seaweed washed onto the shore. He lit up the screen.
“Give me the code!”
Quinn stared at him in confusion. She cried out, recoiling and shielding her face with her arm as he advanced on her, his hand curled into a fist and drawn back as if to strike her. “Give me the fucking passcode!”
“Eleven…” she stammered, panting. “Eleven seventeen!”
Her stomach soured in realization as he worked the screen, no doubt deleting her saved voice messages. Then he turned to the water and threw the device as far as he could. The ocean swallowed it.
He had something else. The key fob for the Mercedes. As he hurled it into the water next, Quinn glimpsed the small tattoo on the inside of his wrist, visible in the strong moonlight beneath his jacket sleeve. She had seen the tattoo before.
He spat on the sand. A look of victory in his stony, dark eyes, he turned and stalked off, back into the thicket at the edge of the beach.
She couldn’t stop shaking. Quinn rem
ained on her knees on the wet, cold sand. She touched her face, and her fingers came away with blood.
The messages she had threatened Jake with were gone. Tears crowding her vision, Quinn nearly choked on her frustration and hate. The flowers he had wired from San Francisco had been a subterfuge so she would let down her guard. Jake had returned to California, but he’d sent someone else to do his dirty work here.
She managed to stand. Quinn thought with dismay of the Mercedes. She pressed her hands to her face, knowing she could have been seriously injured or killed tonight. Thinking of the car accident that had taken Shelley’s life, she trembled harder.
She didn’t dare go back to the road, in case the man was still there. And even if the Mercedes was drivable, she no longer had the key. She was still several miles out of the Rarity Cove township, but Carter’s beach house was only a mile or so back.
She was fearful of being alone on the isolated beach.
Arms hugged around herself, not knowing what else to do, Quinn began walking northward along the shore.
Chapter Thirteen
“It sounds like things with Quinn are actually working out,” Mercer said over the phone once Carter had given her the requested rundown on his day. Her nightly calls to check on him were becoming a ritual. “I won’t say I told you so.”
“Thanks,” he replied dryly.
“You okay? You seem a little down.”
“I’m just tired,” he lied, wishing his sister couldn’t read him so easily. The last thing he wanted was for her to worry about him. Thinking of his brother-in-law, he changed the topic. “Tell Jonathan to hang in there. I’m glad his recent scan showed improvement. I know he’s happy to have you back home.”
“I’m happy to be here, too,” she admitted. After they talked for another few minutes, she said, “Okay, gotta go. Love you.”
Low Tide: Rarity Cove Book Two Page 10
