Quinn Security

by Dee Bridgnorth

  It was a flimsy-looking door, however, with an even flimsier-looking lock. He imagined it had to be a push lock, like one that belonged on a bathroom door. Shane had picked his way in and out of far more complicated situations, so he searched his many pockets, found a paperclip, bent it straight open, and got to work on the lock.

  It popped open with ease in less than three seconds and he again slipped on through, being sure to depress the lock back into place before he began climbing a dim, narrow staircase that led up to Delilah’s apartment.

  He didn’t expect to find her there and when he pushed the unlocked apartment door open, he was not surprised that she was nowhere to be found. He also wasn’t surprised that she’d failed to lock her apartment door. He’d never been here before, but he didn’t need to have been. It seemed completely within Delilah’s nature to leave her apartment unlocked as though it just wouldn’t matter one way or the other who decided to come and go.

  It was dim so he found the light switch. The windows facing out on Main Street, he discovered, were concealed by draping cuts of gauzy cloth that were haphazardly pinned to the panes. The apartment was so “Delilah,” he determined, as he had himself a look around.

  Bohemian chic.

  Beaded lampshades and ashy sticks of burnt out incense everywhere, it seemed every piece of eclectic furniture was draped in more gauzy scarves.

  Shane had every reason to assume and trust that Delilah had simply plumb forgotten that she’d committed to hanging out with Whitney last night. He wasn’t about to err on the side of seriously worrying that something might have happened to her. In fact, there would probably be a two-week threshold where she could be gone and he wouldn’t think twice about it.

  Of course, it nagged at him, the desperation she’d used the last time he’d seen her.

  Well, she clearly wasn’t here and he hadn’t noticed her car out front. He had no way of knowing if anything in her apartment was suspiciously out of place or taken. He did a quick sweep of the place, through the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and little bedroom, specifically looking for her everyday purse. No woman on God’s green earth would be caught dead out and about without their purse. It was practically a bodily appendage, and if he found her purse with her driver’s license tucked inside, he’d know for sure something was wrong. But her purse was nowhere to be found and the collection of purses he found her in closet were just that, a collection, each empty of any important materials.

  He left her apartment, being sure to leave the door unlocked just as he’d found it, and then proceeded to check the other usual places that Delilah tended to go when she wasn’t at the corral stables at Yellowstone.

  Libations bar obviously wouldn’t be open at this hour but Shane still walked the length of Main Street to peek in through the large, storefront windows just in case. It was dark as death in there and the bright, Wyoming sun cast one hell of a glare against the glass. It wasn’t until he pressed his nose right against the pane, shielding his eyes with the length of his large hand, that he was able to fully confirm there wasn’t a soul inside.

  He crossed the street, kitty-corner, and checked the library where Reece was scanning a stack of books into the front desk computer. She looked healthy. She’d been having an easier and easier time of controlling her shifts and urges. Shane was still getting used to the look of her without the red-framed glasses that had become her signature style.

  “Hey,” he said at a volume that was quiet for him as he neared the front desk.

  Reece must not have agreed, because she furrowed her brow at him and shushed him. “What’s up, Shane?” she breathed.

  He had to employ his werewolf hearing just to catch her response.

  “You know Delilah Dane, right?” he asked at as low a volume as he could muster without irritating his vocal chords and coughing. Barking loudly was so much easier.

  Reece screwed her face up as she wracked her brain to recall. If Shane had to guess, even the name wasn’t ringing the clearest bell.

  “The Native American girl?” Reece finally asked, having remembered that much, though Delilah was only a very small fraction Native American, ethnically speaking.

  “Yeah, long straight black hair, fair skin, almond shaped eyes…”

  “Never reads,” Reece supplied as she shook her head. “I know of her, Shane, but she never comes in here. Why?”

  “So you haven’t seen her?”

  “Ah,” she thought out loud. “At some point or another I’ve seen her. Oh,” she suddenly realized. “It might have been at the parade. Yes, Grandmother Sasha’s parade, that’s where I saw Delilah last, and I only really saw her from afar honestly. I didn’t get within ten feet of her or say so much as hi.”

  “Okay.”

  “Why do you ask?” she wondered.

  “No reason,” he told her. He didn’t want to tell her that Delilah might be missing since he barely thought that himself. Better to play this one close to the vest. “Thanks, Reece.”

  “Hey,” she said, catching him before he could start off to head out.

  “Yeah?”

  “Has Troy been acting, I don’t know… has he said anything…”

  “About…?”

  A look of bewildered frustration came over Reece as if she wasn’t sure how to refine her stammering worry into a coherent point so Shane saved her. He knew what was on her mind. It was on everyone’s mind in the pack.

  “Troy is battling a lot right now,” he offered. “Yes, he’s been acting strange, but not too much more so than he has for the past two years ever since inheriting the throne from our father.”

  “It’s his foresight,” Reece found the words to say, which she kept at a confidential whisper as she leaned across the front desk counter. “It’s becoming slightly more refined and he’s gaining a shred of clarity, but only if he sits in quiet meditation for an unreasonable length of time. It isn’t practical. And if he doesn’t, he’s bombarded at times by random, flashing images that he really can’t make sense of.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Reece,” he said, sympathetically. “This is uncharted waters for all of us.”

  “But not for Dante,” she said with grave concern. “He’s back. I can feel it. And Troy is in no position to take him on.”

  That’s when it hit Shane.

  In terms of the types of men Delilah Dane would be drawn to if she really was angling for fast cash, Dante Alighieri would fit her preference to a T.

  If she really had disappeared, and if Dante had anything to do with it…

  “What makes you say that?” he asked her, intrigued at the conviction in her statement.

  “I can’t explain it. I can just feel it.”

  “Have you talked to Lucy about it?” he asked.

  Of course, he had no reason to presume that Reece and Lucy had grown close just because they’d both united with Quinns and were now managing the trying task of controlling their newly acquired werewolf urges and cravings, but Lucy Cooper had her own degree of foresight. As an Astral Goddess, she could see things that werewolves and mortals couldn’t.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” she agreed, indicating that no, as of yet she hadn’t.

  “Just don’t tell Troy that you went to Lucy for help and insight,” Shane advised. “It might rub him the wrong way.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and he started off, leaving the library in favor of exploring the next most likely place for Delilah to be at the moment.

  Yellowstone.

  But he decided, if he wanted to search every corner of the massive National Park, he was going to need a pair of shoes that actually breathed and maybe a lighter pair of pants.

  His cabin was, in a roundabout sense, on the way, so he swung home and left his pickup truck idling in the driveway.

  As he unlocked the front door and pushed it open, something on the ground caught his eye.

  Just inside the foyer, lying face up on the wooden slats, was a perfectly square Polaroid photo,
the kind that develops instantly within seconds of being spit out of its bulky camera.

  At first the image it depicted just looked like lines and colors that he couldn’t make sense of, but when he crouched, picked it up, and examined it closely in his hand, his stomach tightened into twisting, sour knots at what he saw.

  Shane tussling with Delilah Dane.

  He knew exactly when the photo had been taken.

  The last time he’d seen Delilah, after the parade and before he’d driven off to Whitney Abernathy’s cabin last night.

  Judging by the blurry, vertical lines in the foreground, Shane knew that whoever had taken the photo had been standing outside in the backyard, looking in. Documenting his argument with Delilah. Capturing the force he’d had to use against her just to get her to the front door.

  In the photo, it looked like Shane was violently attacking her.

  It gave him the chills.

  He rose to his feet with the photo in his hand then looked out over his shoulder at the bright day. He sensed more than saw eyes on him. He felt watched.

  As he eased into his cabin and shut the door, Shane knew that someone was fucking with him, threatening him, and they were using Delilah to do it.

  But why?

  Chapter Six

  WHITNEY

  As the hot, Wyoming sun beat down on the grassy knoll far behind the corral stables, Whitney mounted Buttons, her black stallion, in front of a group of five tourists. She’d assisted all of them in the complicated tasks of saddling and harnessing their horses, which had taken longer than usual that afternoon, as well as helping them, one-by-one, carefully climb onto their stallions and mares.

  She had her eye on one of them, a mother, whose fourteen-year old son did not share her innate terror for horses. Jessica was her name, and rather than sit in the erect, confident posture that Whitney had demonstrated, the woman was clinging, cheek-to-shoulder, against her horse like a sloth draped over a tree branch.

  “Use those inner thigh muscles,” Whitney encouraged, “and work your way into an upright position, please, Jessica.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “You can,” she assured her.

  “I feel like I’m going to slide right off the side of this thing if I do,” she fretted.

  The thing she was referring to was hands-down the calmest old mare in all of Yellowstone, a brown, squat horse named Mumbles, who preferred to graze and clomp lazily along. Mumbles had never bolted or surprised a rider in all the years she’d been at the stables. It was a match made in heaven, Jessica and Mumbles, if only the woman would trust her.

  “That’s not going to happen,” Whitney promised as the woman’s teenage son snickered and shook his head.

  “This was your idea, Mom,” he laughed with a little eyeroll.

  The other tourists who had paid for a guided horse tour of Yellowstone were growing impatient, so Whitney made fast work of dismounting Buttons, nearing Mumbles, and taking the reins before urging Jessica upright.

  The woman was hesitant. She let out rocky, terrified breaths that soon turned relieved with great surprise that her horse hadn’t made a move to throw her while she finally sat up.

  “There ya go!” Whitney complimented before hopping back onto Buttons and addressing the group. “We’re going to head on out through Eagle’s Pass. It’s smooth, flat terrain. These horses know it like the back of their hooves, and you’ll notice they’ve developed their own formation so as we head out, you don’t need to do too much. They’ll fall into single file in the order they’re used to. Okay!” She gave Buttons a little heel-kick in the ribs and the stallion impressively bucked up onto its hind legs, let out a wild whinny, then leapt off towards the start of the trail as the tourists gasped, impressed.

  That was Whitney’s favorite part, showing off Buttons’ tremendous strength and her own ability to hold on like a cowboy from the Wild West.

  As they clomped off, however, she kept Buttons at a crawling pace and often glanced over her shoulder to be sure the tourists were following. None of the horses were stubborn, and she was definitely correct that they knew what to do, where they were going, and the order in which they preferred. Mumbles followed close behind Buttons, then another brown horse who was leaner—Mr. Jingles, who Whitney had put Jessica’s teenage son on—came next. The remaining three tourists were on horses that quickly fell in line, and soon they were off at a slow and steady pace.

  Whitney kept her eye on Jessica. Technically, they should be taking the first mile of Eagle’s Pass at an official trot, but given Jessica’s uncertainty, Whitney chose to hold off until it looked like the woman had acclimated.

  As she led the group along, the bright overhead sun soon became blocked by a thin canopy of leaves and branches. The trail felt cooler. The air crisper. This was the happiest place on earth, as far as Whitney was concerned. There was nothing quite like being out in nature with fresh air and the relaxing sounds of overlapping hooves clomping against packed dirt, the occasional nay and whinny of a content horse here and there.

  Shane came to mind. It didn’t catch her off guard. Shane had been on her mind for weeks, sometimes lurking in the back of her thoughts, other times he sat right in the forefront of her mind and made her nearly blind to her surroundings.

  He’d caught her eye in a very big way years ago when he’d finally returned home to Devil’s Fist after serving his country overseas for God only knew how long. Whenever she thought about it, she didn’t recall much about him in terms of seeing him around the Fist before he’d shipped out. But as soon as he’d come home, he was hard to miss.

  Their subtle flirtation had started so naturally and quietly, like a flower blooming at dawn. It had felt right, and unlike when she’d gotten to know other men flirtatiously, with Shane there had never been a little voice in the back of her head warning her that she was in for trouble or about to get used. There wasn’t even a shred of self-consciousness begging her not to be a bonehead and say something dumb, which she usually felt at constant risk for. With Shane, it had felt different.

  But now she didn’t know what to think.

  Luckily, thanks to the serenity of the setting and mood of the day, she didn’t trouble herself to try and figure out too much. Sure, the fact that he’d taunted her with the possibility or probability that he was a werewolf was an unsettling, nagging proposition. But it was easy to settle into the hot memory of what had happened between them at her cabin.

  Good Lord in heaven, he’d felt like a dream.

  He certainly looked like a rock-solid mound of pure muscle and hot skin, but nothing could’ve prepared Whitney for the actual, real-life feel of him. He was strong and rough, but when he’d kissed her, he’d been smooth and tender, a beast determined to be extra careful with his beauty.

  What would’ve happened if her daddy hadn’t run him off like that? Would Shane have stayed a bit longer, kissed her more? Would she have lost all sense of herself and invited him into her bedroom? She’d felt as though she was certainly at risk for throwing caution to the wind like that.

  Whitney realized she was smiling and hadn’t glanced back at the group of riders for a few minutes so she shifted on her saddle and looked at Jessica and the long line of obedient horses.

  Jessica had settled right in. She no longer had a full-fledged death grip on the reins, quite the opposite in fact. She was holding her iPhone up and tapping photo after photo at the scenery, her son behind her, as well as smiling selfies. Mumbles was the best, thought Whitney. Whenever she took a group out, there was always one worrywart, and Mumbles was the mare for the job.

  “Let’s pick it up to a trot, everyone!” she called out to the line of tourists as they clomped along. “Remember, use both feet to tap your heels gently against your horse’s ribs and they’ll know what to do! Like this!”

  Whitney demonstrated and Buttons increased his pace to a bouncy trot that felt like the third-gear of riding. She kept her eye on the lot of them and watched a
s, as a group, they all gave their horses a little kick and picked up the collective pace to a bouncy trot.

  When Whitney faced forward again, taking a moment to get her bearings—they had about four miles to go before they reached the first clearing, a lookout point that had great views of a mighty river sweeping through one of the many valleys that Yellowstone had to offer—she expected to settle into a light fantasy starring Shane Quinn and herself, but worrisome thoughts of Delilah Dane took viscous hold instead.

  After Shane had essentially been kicked out of her cabin, thanks to her daddy, Whitney had tried to convey to Rick how unnerved she was that Delilah hadn’t shown up. Her father had treated her like a conniving girl who was trying to change the subject. All Rick had wanted to know was what in the hell had gotten into her that she’d allowed a Quinn into her home. Of course, Whitney had refused to engage the conversation, asserting that she was a grown woman and didn’t have to explain herself to her dad. She’d also made the colossal mistake of telling him that her sex life was none of his business. Rick’s eyes had popped open wide as astonished saucers—sex life!—so any prayer she had of getting him to realize that Delilah might be in some kind of trouble was completely lost on him.

  She’d made what she believed to be a valiant attempt at turning the tables on his accusations of her childish, rebellious nature, by yelling at him for having scared the holy hell out of her when he’d crept around her cabin.

  But Daddy hadn’t crept around her cabin.

  When he’d shot right back at her that all he did was jiggle the doorknob and let himself in, she was suddenly overcome with an unshakable chill. She believed him. Rick was a lot of things—overbearing, controlling, pig-headed—but a liar wasn’t one of them. If he said he hadn’t started around the side of her cabin, hadn’t gotten to the rear door and shouldered against it with a loud thud, then he hadn’t.

  Who had?

  It had disturbed her so greatly that she was deaf to her father’s incessant complaints and didn’t interrupt or challenge him as he raged on, longwindedly, about what bad news the Quinns were and how no daughter of his was going to get mixed up with one of them.