Quincy grabbed her backpack from where she’d dropped it on her mattress after work and dug through the contents. There. She pulled out the old, battered pair of glasses she’d worn as Kara Scott and slid them on, feeling marginally better. A thin sheet of glass between her and the outside world. Like an old, dented shield, maybe they would give her a little protection.
Logan whistled when she stepped through the curtain.
“I guess I can die a happy man,” he said gallantly. “Totally worth the wait.”
Quincy rolled her eyes and ducked her head to hide the small smile she couldn’t force away. She pretended to brush a non-existent piece of lint from the bottom of the black tea-length dress Logan had convinced her to buy for their random excursion tonight.
“Dave already gone?” she asked, straightening back up. Logan nodded.
“He hated to miss the show,” he said, gesturing towards her, “but his meeting started at seven.”
Once a month, Dave met with the program chair and the board of directors for the medical program he partnered with to run the clinic. He had casually suggested Logan and Quincy take advantage of his absence and have something other than hot plate mac and cheese for dinner. Logan of course, in his usual way, had taken the suggestion and ran with it. Now here she was, in a dress she would never wear again, shoes she could never run in, and makeup she was going to have to wash off before pretending to sleep tonight.
“Are we going or what?” she snapped. Logan’s humor had dissolved into a look she wasn’t sure how to interpret and it was making her uncomfortable.
He’s disappointed, the voice whispered. How could he not be?
With effort, she clamped down on the voice and Logan returned to normal.
“Yes, we are going. We are going right now. Before I pass out from low blood sugar. And dehydration. And iron deficiency. And -”
“Then by all means, let’s go,” she cut in. The man would go on all night if she let him. “I’d hate to have to roll your dead body into a corner and take this dress out all on my own.”
“You know, I once told you that you sounded like Greta Garbo,” he mused. “But tonight, you look the part, too.”
Quincy planted her hand firmly against his upper back and pushed. “I’m not blonde.”
“Not anymore.”
“Do you even know any Greta Garbo movies?”
Quincy was immediately sorry she asked.
“Well, let’s see. There was Ninotchka, Anna Karenina, the ever-delightful Mata Hari, …”
***
Logan had made reservations at a small, classy Italian joint in the neighborhood. Quincy had insisted they keep it local over Logan’s stringent protests. Being the security expert he was, she would have thought he would have agreed. But he had been confined to the same tight spaces she had been over the last month, and he was much more energetic and social than she could ever hope to be. She could understand his boredom. But the low lighting and the sequestered tables in this cozy restaurant made her feel less conspicuous, and even though she couldn’t run in these shoes, she was pretty sure they could be used as deadly weapons. So all in all, if she had to step out of her protected cover, this would be the way to do it. Still yet, her eyes scanned the room, taking in the possible exits and all the hidden corners someone nefarious might hide in.
“Would you relax?” Logan finally scolded. “I’ve checked this place out from top to bottom and watched it the last three nights. I’ve clocked all of the other diners, when they got here, who they’re with, and what they ordered. You’re perfectly safe.”
You’re never perfectly safe.
Quincy shook her head slightly to dislodge the voice. It was getting worse. Had been for awhile now, she just couldn’t bring herself to admit it. She pasted on a false smile instead.
“That’s the kind of thinking that can get a girl killed,” she said brightly. “I should know, after all.”
Logan rolled his eyes. “One assassination attempt and it goes straight to your head.”
“Two, but only if you’re counting since I met you.” Quincy leaned her elbows on the table and held up her hands, counting them off on her fingers. “Four, if you count Kara Scott and Grace Elliott.” Quincy gave an exaggerated shrug. “And who knows how many in the years since the accident that I can’t account for.”
Logan stared at her. “Yes, thank you. I had completely forgotten you have no memory of any life before the last two years of false identities and disappearing paper trails.”
“Well, that’s what I do.” She gave Logan a killer grin. “I forget.”
It wasn’t funny. It really wasn’t. And yet, neither of them could keep from laughing.
Go ahead and laugh. It won’t change anything.
Quincy pulled back, sobering quickly. The voice wasn’t wrong. She had no memories of her life beyond Kara Scott. How much longer before she didn’t even have that? Was she destined to live a life on reset every few years? Would she allow herself to make friends like Logan and Dave, to make a life for herself, only to lose them every time?
“Uh oh,” Logan said. “I lost you.”
“What?” Quincy asked, looking up at him.
“You were laughing, and then you went somewhere else.” He nudged her hand gently from across the table. “Where did you go?”
Logan looked so earnest, his arms crossed and leaning on the table, giving her his full attention. And he certainly looked dashing. Quincy could see the not-so-covert looks he was getting from the women at nearby tables. Not that she could blame them. The man attracted attention in gym shorts. Put him in slacks and a jacket, comb his hair - he was electric.
She decided not to ruin the mood by telling him how much more persistent the voice in her head was getting. Why bother? She’d just keep going, until she couldn’t go anymore. That was the bargain she’d made with herself, if not him. There wasn’t anything he could do anyway, so why burden him?
“If you must know, I’m torn,” she said solemnly, her sigh deep enough to make the single candle on the table between them flicker.
“Oh?” Logan leaned across the table and poked her hand again. “What is it? Maybe I can help.”
Quincy ducked her head and smoothed her hair back behind her ears in dramatic fashion, mostly to hide her grin. Then she sighed again and looked up.
“I’m torn, see, because I want the shrimp. But I also want the jumbo shrimp.” She pointed at the menu helplessly. “How am I ever supposed to choose?”
She expected a laugh. Or a gracious acceptance of her misdirect. Instead, was that…disappointment she could see shining in his eyes?
“That’s how you want to play it?” He leaned up, away from the table and from her. “We’ve been through a lot together, you and I. But you still don’t trust me.”
Quincy opened her mouth to argue that she did, in fact, trust him. Against all odds and her own dubious judgement, he had won her over. But she froze.
What good will it do?
Telling Logan the truth - that she did trust him, that she was glad they were friends, would only make it worse for him when it all fell apart. Which it would. So she let the silence linger instead. Or as long as it could linger, with Logan in the conversation.
“You want the jumbo,” he finally said. He looked like he wanted to hold on to his wounded façade but, not quite able to maintain it, finally gave her a small, conciliatory grin. “If you’re going to do something, do it right.”
It was an olive branch, which she gratefully took.
“Andare alla grande,” she said, nodding her head as though it made perfect sense. “Go big.”
Logan rolled his eyes. But then he grinned, one dimple crinkling in his cheek. “Why can’t you just speak English like the rest of us?” he asked ruefully. In Italian.
“You know Italian?” she asked, floored. And delighted. “How on Earth do you know Italian?”
“Careful,” Logan said with that grin locked firmly in place. “You ke
ep smiling like that and people are going to notice you’re here.”
“Oh no, that would be all you,” she said. She gave a toss of her head towards the rest of the room. “You and all your admirers.”
Logan glanced around and they both caught the stares of a couple of singles two tables over who were shooting covert looks their way. She waited until they glanced over again and smiled as brightly as she could, wiggling a few fingers in their direction. They both ducked their heads and turned away, red creeping up the neck of the one closest to the door.
“Like I’m not even here,” Quincy muttered, amused.
“What was that?” Logan asked, though Quincy doubted he’d suddenly developed a hearing condition.
“Back on topic, you,” Quincy directed, pointing a finger directly into his face. “How do you know Italian?”
“What, like you’re the only one who can know weird things?”
Quincy held him in a glare until he finally gave in, good-naturedly running a hand through his hair with a smirk.
“I served part of a tour off the coast of Italy. I picked up a few things.”
“‘Picked up a few things’?” Quincy gently mocked. “That sounded pretty fluent to me.”
“I call it fluent adjacent.” Now it was Logan’s turn to point a finger in her direction. “Now your turn.”
“My turn, what?”
“How do you know Italian?”
Quincy cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Okay, okay. I guess I can figure out the how. Tell me the why.”
“Why do I know any of the random things I know?” she pondered philosophically. “Doesn’t it always come back to the same thing?”
“Maybe,” Logan agreed. “But this time, it’s more specific than absorbing random facts because of RNB. To absorb enough of a language to be fluent, you have to do more than hear it in passing. This had a purpose. You can’t blame it all on Reflexive Neurological Bias.”
Quincy shrugged. “That still sounds made up, if you ask me,” she remarked, not for the first time.
“Patent is only pending, not approved,” Logan quipped. They both knew RNB was being kept under close guard, both by the company that wanted to profit from it and the doctor that wanted to save people from it.
“Submit a name change request. Dr. Garrison will consider it.”
“Maybe something less clunky,” Quincy mused. “Reflexive Neurological Bias doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue…”
“And now we’re back to my original question,” Logan said, stamping all over Quincy’s whimsy.
“Which was what, again?” she asked innocently.
“How are you fluent in Italian?”
“Oh, yes. That question.” How much to tell him…how much did he already know weighed against what he only suspected. She decided to give him an extremely vague truth, to see if she could flush him out. “You never know when you might meet a new friend,” she finally answered, shrugging her shoulders noncommittally.
“A new friend who speaks Italian?”
“It’s always nice to have something in common with new friends.”
“And you’ve decided Claire Montgomery is going to be your new friend?”
“Ha!” Quincy slapped her palm against the table, rattling the silverware and grabbing the attention of Logan’s admirers by the door again. “I knew you had an agenda.” Claire Montgomery was one of the patients Dave suspected of having RNB, who had disappeared before he and Logan had gotten to her. She was a retired opera singer, specializing in Italian performance.
“Excuse me?” Logan asked, a fine mix of bemused and incredulous. “Who has the agenda here?”
“Fine,” Quincy admitted. “I have an agenda. And making Claire Montgomery my friend is on that agenda.” She narrowed her eyes at Logan. “It’s why I came here, after all. And why I stay.”
Is it?
Quincy shoved the voice to the back of her mind, refusing to acknowledge the inference.
“That’s why you came with me?” Logan bit back, mirroring what she was trying to avoid. She hated when he did that. “The only reason? Not to get help yourself? Not to get better?”
Okay, so maybe he wasn’t channeling her as well as she thought, but she’d take it. “You said I could help others like me. Well, all the others like me are being held by the company.”
“And what do you think you’re going to do about that?” Logan asked. This conversation had clearly struck a nerve, because he wasn’t just arguing to argue, in true Logan Davies-style. No, he was truly upset. “We don’t even know where the company is or where they’re holding the others.”
“First of all,” Quincy said quietly, “keep your voice down.” She shot a look at their waiter, beating a hasty retreat from their table. She hadn’t even gotten to order yet. “And secondly, I don’t know what I’m going to do about it. But I’m going to do something. Maybe I haven’t figured out how to find the company just yet, but I can at least learn what I can about the people we think are being held there.”
“And cram your head so full of new information that your brain resets even sooner,” Logan huffed.
So that was the problem at the heart of this latest disagreement. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one concerned about the memory loss. She felt the tension drain from her shoulders and she slumped forward, resting her head in her hands.
“Logan,” she finally said, resignation in her voice and more than a little weary, “I can’t do anything about that. I can’t not see. I can’t not hear.” She lifted her head, searching his eyes imploringly. “I can’t not absorb what’s happening around me. It’s called input for a reason. It just…comes in.”
“Maybe,” he agreed, “but you don’t have to speed it along so much, either.”
He doesn’t understand.
“I don’t sleep Logan,” Quincy said quietly.
“I know that, but…”
“No,” she interrupted him. “I don’t sleep. The little cat naps and periods of dozing I used to have are getting further and further apart. All night long, I toss and turn, my head spinning. Spinning, spinning…” She drifted off, letting her eyes wander past Logan, beyond his shoulder and out the window in the wall behind him, seeing nothing.
“Then come get me,” Logan said. “We’ll run, or spar, or -”
“We already run. We do spar,” Quincy said. “In fact, I had to use some sort of miracle makeup to cover the shiner you gave me over my left eye just two nights ago.” She could hear the acceptance in her own voice. “I can’t run all night, every night, Logan. My body can’t take it. My mind may not be able to rest, but other parts of me still need to.” Quincy smiled ruefully. “Although Dave just gave me a couple of cortisone injections in my knees and ankles to help out with that, so I should be good for awhile.”
“I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work,” Logan said, allowing a hint of a smile to turn his mouth up at the corner.
In the moment of silence that ensued, their waiter must have decided to take advantage of the lull in drama, because he hurried over to take their orders.
“Give me one of each,” Quincy said, pointing to the dessert menu. Logan arched an eyebrow, bemused, but the waiter seemed confused.
“Ma’am?” he asked tentatively. “You don’t want anything for dinner?”
“I certainly do,” Quincy corrected him. “I want sugar, and lots of it.”
“You want…one of each?” the waiter asked again, clearly not sure she was in her right mind.
“Listen kid,” she said. “Of all the things keeping me awake, sugar doesn’t even crack the top five. “
“You heard the lady,” Logan chimed in, folding up his own menu. “Actually, bring us two of each.”
“And some mozzarella sticks!” Quincy added with gusto. That sounded good.
The waiter looked horrified. “We don’t have ‘mozzarella sticks’,” he corrected, vehemently. “We have mozzarella au gratin, crusted in Parmes
an and baked to a fine crisp.”
“Sounds good,” Logan agreed, slapping the waiter on the back. “Two orders of crispy cheese sticks and a couple of ice cold Coca-Colas, my good man.”
“And all the desserts,” Quincy reminded.
“Yes, and all the desserts. Thank you,” Logan said magnanimously.
The waiter numbly accepted the menus Logan held in his direction and scurried off, most likely to prevent them from adding anything else to their order.
“He didn’t write any of that down,” Quincy remarked mildly. “I hope he can remember.”
“Frankly, I’d be shocked if he forgot anything about this particular night.”
They looked at each other for a moment and then the laughter came, long and loud, and if they hadn’t attracted attention before, they sure did now.
Quincy finally wiped under her eyes, no doubt rubbing away the liner she hadn’t wanted to put on anyway, and looked at Logan.
“I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one,” he finally said, smoothly picking the ball back up from where they’d dropped it in order to torment the waiter.
“I can’t stop reading. I can’t stop learning,” Quincy said. “It’s part of all…this,” she gestured towards her head, “and it’s the only thing that gives me any peace.”
Those moments of peace were fleeting, fewer and farther between than she’d like. But at least she had them.
For now, the voice whispered, ice cold in her mind. For now.
Chapter 29
Claire
Claire had no interest in the mystery meat congealing on the plate in front of her. In fact, she had no interest in anything on the plate. She shoved it away and sat back, in no mood to worry about lunch.
Miguel sat across from her, dejectedly picking at his own meal, tray propped up on top of a slim package he’d carried in with him. Depression rolled off him in waves.
Burning Bridges (Shattered Highways Book 2) Page 18
