by Denise Wells
God, that face of his, it’s so tragically beautiful.
I nod and return my attention to the road. We’re about ten miles from a safe house that Mack has access to, where he can question David more thoroughly, and we can meet up with Reed and Quinn. I have no reason to doubt Mack, or his ability to keep Quinn safe, I never have, so I won’t start now.
He calls Quinn back and tells Reed where to bring her and that he’ll explain everything once they arrive. True to what Mack predicted, Reed seems placated and agrees to not bring Quinn in until they meet. I’m so proud of Quinn for not caving and telling Reed the entire plan. Had you asked me before today if she would have been capable of keeping anything from Reed, I would have said no.
I only hope she can keep it together until we get to her.
16
Reed
It took every ounce of strength in my body to resist Quinn when she tried to kiss me. We were alone in a room with a bed, and she was rubbing on me and kissing me and all I wanted to do was throw her down and fuck her until neither of us could see straight. But I stopped myself. I know she’s keeping something from me. And I don’t believe that she wanted to shoot David because their break-up upset her.
I look at her now, sitting in the passenger seat next to me as we head out to meet Mack and Daria. The slit in her dress is open to her thigh, making me want to slip my hand through it, spread her legs, and touch her through her panties. I don’t know what it is about her tonight, whether it’s the dress or the gun, maybe her attitude, but I am hot for her. I usually run at a slow burn for her anyway, but this is something else altogether.
I exit the highway and take surface streets to the back road that will lead us to the safe house. She shivers next to me.
“Cold?”
“A little.”
I reach in the back seat and grab my jacket, handing it to her. She brings it up to her nose and sniffs it before slipping it on. The bottom of the coat covers a decent part of her exposed thigh. Which is disappointing, but for the best.
“Why didn’t you kiss me?” Quinn turns to look at me. “Back there, when I tried. I know you wanted to.”
I’m not sure what to say to that, so I stay silent.
“Well?” she goads.
“I won’t let you manipulate me like that,” I tell her.
“Why assume I was trying to manipulate you? That’s not nice.”
“Weren’t you?” I watch her from the corner of my eye, waiting to see what she’ll do. Instead of responding verbally, she waves her hand dismissively and looks back out the window. “Quinn, I have a job to do. You were at a party with a loaded gun and by your own admission, intending to shoot someone. That’s not something I can just ignore whether or not I want to kiss you.”
“You’re admitting you want to kiss me?”
“Of course, I want to kiss you! Look at you, you’re gorgeous.”
“You think I’m gorgeous?” Her lips spread from cheek to cheek. A complete one-hundred-and-eighty-degree flip from her attitude thirty seconds ago. “You like me, don’t you?”
“Yes, I like you.”
“Okay, you like me? Or you like me?”
“What’s the difference?”
“If you like me, then you’ll have no problem kissing me. But if it’s just that you like me, then you say hi when you see me, and maybe you smile, but that’s it.”
I try to wrap my head around what she’s saying. Part of me understands the difference and part of me thinks she’s a bit of a wack job.
“I don’t think this is the time to talk about it.”
“Well, then when is?”
“After this case.”
“What case?”
“This sex trafficking case.”
“You’re working on the case too?”
“What do you mean ‘too’? It’s my case.”
“I thought . . .”
I wait for her to continue, but she bites on her fingernail. A small fleck of polish comes off and sticks to her lip. I reach over to brush it away.
“What?”
“You had nail polish.”
“On my lip?” She looks down at her nails. “Oh no, I chipped a nail.”
“That’s what happens when you chew on it.”
“You know this because you paint your nails so often?”
I shrug in response. I don’t paint my nails. But when you adhere a synthetic product to something growing and living, at some point it’s going to breakdown and weaken. If it’s polish and nails and you add teeth to that equation, it will chip. But I don’t tell Quinn that. Instead, I say, “I have sisters.”
“I didn’t know that. How many?”
“Two.”
“Are you close with them?”
“Yes.”
“I love that. I’m an only child. Do you have any other siblings?”
“Nope, just the three of us.”
“Are you the oldest?”
“I’m the youngest.”
“Hmm, you seem like you’d be the oldest.”
“Based on what, exactly?”
“How you act, your maturity level.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Okay, you don’t have to get snippy.”
“I wasn’t . . .” I start to defend myself but realize I don’t want to have this argument with her. It’s stupid and pointless. “What were you going to stay earlier?”
“When?”
“When you stopped to bite your nails. You were saying something about my case?”
“I said nothing about your case. You said you had a trafficking case.”
“You said ‘too.’”
“Well, yeah, isn’t that what Mack is working on?”
“How would you know that?”
“You guys are partners, duh.”
Once again, something is not jiving with Quinn and what she’s telling me. But I let it go and wait until we reach Mack and Daria. Mack said he’d explain everything once we meet in person and that it would all make sense. I’m hoping that is the case. I make the turn from the back road to the dirt road that acts as a long driveway to the safe house.
Trees conceal the house, almost entirely. Which is a coincidence, not all our safe houses are so well hidden. One is in the middle of suburbia, one in an apartment complex, and another in the middle of downtown. The benefit of tree concealment being the concealment part. The downfall being the trees interfere with most wireless or cellular communication devices.
I pull around to the back side of the house and park near Mack’s standard issue SUV. The surrounding air is still as I step out of the car. Eerily so. I wait for Quinn to join me and guide her into the house, following behind with my hand at the small of her back.
“Ohmigod!” Quinn stops short in the doorway, then spins around to face me. “You don’t want to go in there.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
17
Mack
I haven’t hit Tremblay—much—by the time Reed and Quinn arrive. She stops in the doorway before entering the house and turns back to say something to Reed. He pushes her to the side and storms in, trying to look everywhere at once.
“What the hell have you done, Mack?”
He’s upset, and I get that. I even try to see the situation from his point of view, but really, I just want to tell him to fuck off.
Yes, I have his friend tied to a chair, and roughed up his face, but he’s conscious, so he’s fine.
“Reed,” David says. “You gotta help me, man, this guy is fuck-nuts crazy.”
“What are you doing Mack?” Reed turns to me, his face filled with fury and frustration, with maybe a touch of resignation.
I grab Reed by the arm and pull him aside. “He’s guilty. I have a recorded confession.”
“Under duress?”
“No, in the car on the way here.”
“In the car? Did you kidnap him? Why are you all dressed up? What’s going on?”
“I
worked security for the party tonight. I handled getting him to a safe place after we discovered the gunman.”
“The gunman? You mean Quinn?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“So, she was going to shoot him?”
“No, the gun has blanks in it.”
“How would you know?”
“I gave it to her.”
“Fuckin-eh, Mack. Start at the beginning and leave nothing out. I want the truth.”
You can’t handle the truth! Rings through my mind. No way am I telling Reed everything. As planned, I will tell him what he needs to know. Nothing more.
“Quinn was the distraction so I could get Tremblay out of the party to talk to him with no one realizing it. In case anyone else involved in the HT ring was there. Daria did me a solid acting as my getaway driver.”
I look across the room to where Daria and Quinn are speaking in hushed tones, heads bent together.
“Why didn’t Quinn just tell me that?”
“I asked her not to.”
“Why?”
“So, you wouldn’t be involved.”
“Involved in kidnapping my best friend.”
“Borrowing, for a bit.”
“What did he confess to?”
“All of it.”
“Fuck.” Reed hangs his head.
“Sorry, man.” I clap him on the shoulder, in a gesture meant to be sympathetic, but I think it comes across as more of just a slap.
“Did something lead you to believe he was guilty?”
“Call it a well-educated hunch.”
“Is the confession legit? Can we even use it?”
I hold my hand up and waver it slightly. “Maybe.”
“So . . . no.”
“Probably not. But at least we have something to go on.”
“It doesn’t matter if we can’t use it.”
“Look, Reed, you needed to know if he was guilty, now you do.”
“Based on a coerced confession.”
“It wasn’t coerced.”
“The entire thing was a setup. How did you get on the security detail, anyway?”
“I have a friend who owed me a favor.”
“Jesus Christ, Mack. None of this is on the level, not a single fucking thing.”
I shrug.
“Unbelievable.” He turns to look at Tremblay, who is watching us intently, before continuing, “Let me hear the confession.”
I pull my phone out and cue the recording. I watch as his facial expressions go from incredulous to furious to dismay. I can only imagine which emotion goes with which part of the playback. He hands my phone back to me. “So, what else have you gotten from him since you’ve been here?”
“Not much. He claims to not know the other players or the locations. I think he’s lying.”
“Let me try talking to him.”
“Suit yourself.” I don’t really want Reed talking to Tremblay, but it’s not like I could tell him not to at this point. I need to play this carefully if I’m to protect Daria. And Quinn.
I head over to confer with the girls as Reed approaches Tremblay.
“What does he know?” Daria asks, her voice low.
“Not much. QT was a distraction, the gun had blanks—”
“I was a distraction?” Quinn sounds upset. “The gun had blanks?”
I lower my head, then look back up at her with my best “please forgive me” eyes. “Sorry, QT. I couldn’t risk you hurting anyone.”
“So, I wasn’t really an assassin tonight?” She looks to Daria for confirmation, who shakes her head in response.
Quinn’s head jerks back, her eyes widen. “Wow. Okay.” She turns away and Daria grabs her by the upper arm.
“Quinn, don’t be mad, please. There wasn’t enough time to train you in everything you would need to know to pull this off. That would have taken months, if not years. And what you did was so important. If it weren’t for you, Mack never would have been able to get David alone.”
“You lied to me, Daria.” Quinn’s voice shakes slightly. She’s dwarfed by Reed’s jacket, which hangs loosely off her shoulders reaching past her mid-thigh.
“And I’m sorry for that. Truly.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”
“Because we needed your reactions to be genuine, especially with Reed.”
“You knew Reed would be there?”
“Of course.”
“And you didn’t tell me that either.” Quinn’s chin trembles. Daria lowers her head, as though ashamed of her actions.
“It was my plan, QT. Don’t be upset with Dar for this. I pushed it on her because I wanted Tremblay alone,” I say.
Both women look at me: Daria with gratitude and Quinn with understanding.
“I still can’t believe David is the bad guy,” Quinn says. “I mean, he really sells women into sexual slavery?” She looks to me for an answer.
I nod. “Pretty much.”
“What will happen now?” Quinn asks.
“Well, now we try to nail Tremblay to the wall.” I mention nothing that’s happened until now. Daria already knows it all, and Quinn doesn’t need to know.
“How can I help?”
“You don’t,” Daria answers Quinn before I have a chance to. “It’s not safe.” Daria and I decided not to tell Quinn that she was an original target, no good can come from having her know that. It’s over now and Daria will be vigilant about protecting Quinn from here on out.
“Were you ever going to tell me it wasn’t real?” Quinn asks Daria.
“It was real, QT.” I reach out and touch her on the shoulder to get her attention. “You set the stage that made it possible for me to get the guy. Don’t doubt that. I truly could not have done it without you.” I lay it on a little thick, but I don’t want Quinn upset with Daria, and I don’t want Daria to feel bad about how this went down.
I could have apprehended Tremblay on my own, in a way that would not have attracted attention, but this made it easier, and for that I’m grateful. Plus, no one was hurt and I’m spending more time with Daria. It’s a win-win all the way around. As I’m breathing a sigh of relief, I hear the sound of flesh and bone hitting the like.
I turn toward the other end of the room to see Reed punching the shit out of Tremblay.
Fuck.
18
Quinn
I drag Reed into the bathroom with me after Mack pulls him off David. His breath is heavy, his chest heaving, and he’s split the skin of the knuckles on both hands. I push down on his shoulders until he sits on the closed toilet seat, then get the first aid kit from under the sink.
“Let me see,” I ask of his hands. He holds both up for my review and hisses as I dab at the wounds with antiseptic wipes.
“I’m sorry if it hurts.”
“It’s fine,” he says, but still tries to pull his hands away.
“Stay still.” I reprimand. “I can’t get a good look at them otherwise.” I wipe the blood and loose skin off his hands as gently as I can. Reed closes his eyes, but I don’t think it’s because of the pain, not physical pain anyway. I can’t imagine how he must feel right now. I dress the wound on his right knuckles as best I can, then kiss the tips lightly before setting his hand in his lap.
“Are you kissing my owie?” He smiles as he asks me that.
“Don’t knock it,” I tell him. “It helps speed the healing process.”
He chuckles. “Thank you.” Then reaches his undressed hand up and touches my cheek. Our eyes meet and my breath catches as I see affection and desire in his gaze. I want to stop time in this moment right here, where we are looking at each other, and it’s just the two of us, and he’s touching me, and anything at all could happen. As though there are infinite possibilities in my immediate future where Reed and I are concerned, and maybe there are.
I try not to look disappointed as he drops his hand, instead busying myself with tending to the cuts on it. “You should be good as new in a day or two,�
� I tell him as I finish.
A half smile takes over his face as he stands, towering over me, even though I’m in my heels. He looks down at me, sets his hands on my shoulders, and runs them down my arms and back up again. “It looks better on you.”
I raise a brow in question.
“My jacket. Looks better on you.” His hands stop moving and he grips me lightly on each arm, halfway between my shoulders and elbows; his voice soft like a caress I want to lose myself in.
I can’t look away from him, even though the longer his gaze holds mine, the harder it is for me to breathe.
“Are . . .” I clear my throat. “Are you okay?”
Reed shakes his head in response, looking so sad I want to cry for him. He pulls me into his embrace, and I wrap my arms around his waist. We stand that way for a long moment, and I try to memorize every second. Until he sits back down on the toilet seat and pulls me toward him, to perch on his thigh. Then I want to commit every second of that to memory, how it feels to be so close to him, enveloped by his warmth. I snake my arms around his neck and hug him, sensing that’s what he needs right now.
“How can he be guilty?” Reed whispers as he buries his head in my neck.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him. I know it must be harder for him than any of us. I may have gone out with David, but he was Reed’s best friend since they were kids. Daria and I haven’t known each other that long but I know that if I found out something like that about her, I would have a tough time accepting it.
That said, I suppose some people would have had a challenging time with Daria after finding out about her after hours vigilante sprees. But that’s something I admire about her. Her ability to set fear aside and do what she feels needs to be done. It’s a beautiful tribute to her sister, if you ask me.
I run my hand up and down the back of Reed’s neck in what I hope is a soothing motion. He raises his head after a minute. “I keep running the gamut of emotions. One minute I’m so furious I want to kill him. The next I just feel broken and confused.”
