[19]

For a moment she didn’t move, didn’t blink. Quinn wondered if she’d even stopped breathing. It felt like at least a full minute passed before she wrapped her hands around his. “Tell me.”

He let out a long sigh and wondered if he could even get through the recounting of it. He’d never told a soul what had really happened to his sister. “Stacy’s husband, Reggie, was an accountant. A very successful one. He had a lot of big-name accounts and raked in an impressive salary. They were living the good life and then started their family after they bought their dream home. A six-thousand-square-foot mansion on a hill in one of the most prestigious neighborhoods in Columbia.”

“Sounds lovely.”

He cleared his throat. “Yes, it was. My parents were so proud. Appearances are important to them, you know.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah. Mom grew up in a middle-class family, but Dad grew up on the streets of Columbia, scratching and fighting for every bite of food he put in his mouth.”

“Oh, Quinn, how awful, I’m sorry,” she breathed.

He shrugged. “It’s okay, he’s proud of what he’s done, how he put himself through college and graduated from engineering school at the top of his class. I grew up hearing that story over and over and over.” He pulled away from her and punched a fist into his palm. “Dad was always stressing how you work hard for whatever you get, you don’t take handouts, however, you give to those less fortunate. And you don’t ever steal something that isn’t yours. Ever. Stealing, in his eyes, was about as low as a person could go. Second only to murder.”

“Sounds like a man of integrity.”

He grunted. “Yes. But also one of great pride. Pride in his family, pride in his accomplishments.”

“Too much pride?” Maddy asked softly.

“Probably.”

“How’d he feel about you going into law enforcement?”

“He was proud of that too. Especially when I made detective. Bragging rights, you know?”

“I’m sure.”

“And then Reggie’s boss came to me with a flash drive. He told me to take a look at it and get back to him.” He pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose for a brief second, then dropped his hand. “I asked him what it was and all he would say was that I needed to look at the material on it and tell him what to do.” He drew in a deep breath. “So I did.”

“And?”

“Basically, Reggie had been keeping two sets of books.” He snorted. “Just like something in a stupid movie. I compared them and it was obvious what he’d done. I called Reggie to come in and told him to explain himself.” Quinn shook his head. “He didn’t even try to deny it. He just broke down and started crying. Begged me to say nothing and to let him fix it. He promised to give the money back and no one would ever have to know. For Stacy’s sake, he said. Think of the kids, he pleaded.”

“What did you do?”

“I told him fine. Give the money back. He was to make sure every cent was returned to the rightful owners and he was to bring me the proof. Deposits, records, whatever. And I gave him a week to get it all done.”

“You were going to give him a second chance?”

He looked away, then shook his head again. “I truly don’t know what I planned to do. I was struggling. If I turned him in, my sister and her kids’ lives would never be the same. Then again, could I look the other way when he’d committed a crime? No. I couldn’t. So there you go.”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “That was a tough position to be in.”

“However, if he’d followed through with it and returned the money and no one knew any better, his boss said the worst he would do would be to let him resign quietly and give him a two-months’ salary severance package.”

“Whoa, that’s pretty generous when Reggie’s actions could have destroyed the man’s company.”

Quinn gave her a smile he was sure didn’t reach his eyes. “Well, appearances mean a lot to more people than just my parents. It wouldn’t reflect well on the accounting firm for one of their own to be caught embezzling and arrested, now would it?”

“Of course not.”

“So, he didn’t want it public, but he couldn’t keep Reggie on either. He couldn’t trust him after that.”

“How long had Reggie been embezzling?”

Quinn pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. He needed sleep, but for some reason telling the story, finally telling this story, felt good. And he needed to finish it. “About a year,” he finally said and looked at her. “He’d managed to siphon off about half a million dollars without anyone noticing.”

“That’s . . . insane.”

He shrugged. “Anyway, while I was agonizing over what to do if Reggie didn’t follow through with everything he was supposed to do to redeem himself, someone cut the brake line on my car.”

Maddy sucked in a startled breath and her eyes went wide. “What?”

He nodded. “Three days after I confronted Reggie, I was driving home from work, lost control, and crashed into a tree. I was banged up pretty good, but walked away from the wreck.”

“And you had the brake line inspected, of course.”

“Yes. It had definitely been cut. But the clincher was when I had the line dusted for prints and a partial came back as a match to Reggie.”

“He didn’t even bother to wear gloves,” she said.

“Nope. There was also footage from a neighbor’s security camera of him under my car when I was visiting earlier in the day. He cut the line while I was inside the house celebrating my nephew’s first birthday.”

“Quinn . . .” She reached for his hand again and held on. Anchoring him.

He heard the agony in her voice, the hurt for him, but he was lost in the memories, his gaze on the floor. He couldn’t let her distract him or he’d never be able to finish. “I waited for him to go in to work the next day and then went and arrested him in front of his co-workers for attempted murder.”

She sucked in a breath. “Oh wow. I’m so sorry.”

“I was furious. Hurt. I don’t even remember how I was able to hold it together. I can’t really describe what happened at that point. Emotionally, I mean. I just went . . . cold. Numb.”

“I think that’s understandable.”

“But not excusable. My sister—” His voice cracked and he looked away. The memory of the betrayal in her eyes, her shock and disbelief, cut him. “My sister didn’t handle it well. She’d suffered from depression as a teenager after her best friend was killed in a car accident. But after she met Reggie in college, she seemed to do better. He treated her like a queen and that made her happy.”

“She didn’t know what he was doing.”

“No, no one did. So after I arrested Reggie, she stood by him. She refused to talk to me, to look at me, to even acknowledge my presence. If I walked into the room, she would leave. If I blocked the door, she’d turn her back on me.”

Her fingers tightened on his and he felt tears crowd the back of his eyes. He swallowed. He hadn’t cried at Stacy’s funeral, he sure wasn’t going to cry now. “And then at the trial, when everything came out, the evidence about the cut brake line, the embezzlement, Stacy turned into a zombie. She couldn’t take care of her kids, she couldn’t . . . function. I went to see her, to apologize for arresting Reggie like I had.” He held up a hand. “Not for arresting him, but for doing it so publicly. I—” He cleared his throat. “I actually got on my knees and begged her to get some help and she just stared through me.” Maddy’s hands tightened around his, but she didn’t make a sound. “As I started to leave, she finally spoke. She said, ‘He really tried to kill you, didn’t he?’ I just nodded and then she nodded. She went to a bag that had been hanging on the back of one of the kitchen chairs and pulled out a Yankees baseball cap.”

“The one you lost on the island?”

“Yes. And she placed it on my head and said, ‘Reggie and I had a fun trip. I told Reggie I had to get you that hat. It looks good on you.’” He gave a short laugh. “I’ve pulled for the Yankees ever since my grandfather took me to see them play in New York when I was eight years old. He bought me a cap at that game and I wore it for years until it finally fell apart. Stacy knew how much I missed that hat. She remembered and thought of me and—” He shrugged, unable to finish the thought.

“Quinn . . .”

He focused in on her and saw tears coursing down her cheeks. He raised a hand and thumbed them away. “Don’t cry for me.”

“I can’t help it.” She sniffed.

He sighed. “I was walking out the door when I heard the gunshot.”

Maddy gasped. “Oh no,” she whispered. “Please tell me she didn’t . . . not with you right there . . .”

“She did. Right in the head. I ran back inside and . . . she was . . . just there . . . lying on her left . . . side . . .” His breath hitched. “Bleeding . . . the back of her head was gone, blood and . . . her brain . . . all over . . .” A sob escaped. And another. And then he was on the floor and her arms were around him, hugging him fiercely, while he cried into the side of her neck. “I killed her,” he gasped. “I did. It’s my fault.”

Maddy wasn’t sure how long she sat on the floor holding Quinn and she wasn’t sure how long until his gasping sobs faded. She didn’t care. She’d stay put with her aching shoulder and her now throbbing leg for as long as he needed her to. Her shattered heart beat in agony with his. She now understood so much more about this intensely private man. The amount of hurt he’d been carrying around was incomprehensible.

Still seated on the floor, Quinn pulled from her arms and leaned forward to press the heels of his palms against his eyes and sigh. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“That.”

She shrugged. “You needed that.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Okay, then it never happened.”

He gave a choked laugh and turned to wrap his arms around her waist and bury his face in her neck. Then he pushed away from her to stand. He held out a hand and she grasped it. He pulled her to her feet and gave her a gentle push toward her room. “I can’t do this.”

“What?”

“I . . . I need to be alone right now. I’m going to take a shower and just chill. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She frowned. “I thought you wanted to go swimming.”

“No. I . . . not now.”

“Quinn—”

His face went blank. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

So that was that. “All right.” She raised a hand, then dropped it. There was no reasoning with him when he was like this. “Fine. A shower sounds good. See you in the morning.”

Once back in her own room, Maddy shut the connecting door and stood for a minute staring at nothing while her brain tried to process what had just happened. He’d cried in her arms like his heart had been shattered, then had turned around and effectively shut her out.

She got it.

He’d admitted being embarrassed about his little breakdown, but she didn’t think any less of him. If anything, it had drawn her heart toward him, connected her even more fully to him.

And therein lay a huge problem.

She was so emotionally entwined with him at this point that she was going to have to go with her original plan to disconnect herself, distance herself from him, before she was an emotional wreck.

Only how could she do that when they were spending every single minute together because there was a killer after them?

Forget the shower, she needed a glass of ice water. She grabbed the ice bucket, stuffed her key card into the back pocket of her khaki shorts, and stepped into the hall. Maddy followed the sign to the snack area and found the ice machine. She sighed. Looked like she was going to be spending the evening working or watching television. She turned to leave.

And the lights went out.

Maddy went still and waited for the generator to kick in. When that didn’t happen, she took a deep breath. Could it possibly be a coincidence that there was a power failure at the hotel where she and Quinn had rooms?

She was going to go with a no on that one.

Maddy set the ice bucket on the floor and drew her weapon. She moved to the opening and glanced down the hallway. Lights from the parking lot filtered in through the windows at the end of the hallway, but it wasn’t much help. And while she saw nothing alarming, that didn’t mean the coast was clear.

She hesitated to step out into the open, but she needed to get to Quinn. And while she’d brought her weapon, she’d left her phone in the room.

Then the doors started opening. People, dressed in robes and sweats, jeans and T-shirts, stood in their open doors and threw questions to one another. They also had their flashlight apps working and the hallway immediately brightened. Maddy holstered her weapon but kept her hand on it as she slipped from the snack room and walked toward Quinn’s door.

As she approached his room, something pressed against the small of her back. She stiffened and started to turn.

“Just keep walking,” a gravelly voice said in her left ear.

Maddy stumbled. His left hand came across his body to grip her left elbow. She winced as pain shot through her shoulder. Then focused on the pressure in her back. “Let go of the gun unless you want one of these innocents loitering in the hall to die.”

Maddy let her hand slide from the weapon. “How did you know we were here? I thought we’d left you behind in South Carolina.”

“Word gets around. Although truthfully, I thought it would be a bit more difficult to get to you than this. My intention with the blackout was to simply figure out which room you were in. What luck to find you in the hall of the first floor I tried.”

“Glad I could make it so easy,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Or maybe it’s not luck. Maybe it’s just divine help in fulfilling my destiny.” He shoved her and she continued her trek down the hall, passing a number of hotel guests. All she could think of was that he had help. Someone had seen them and called him and told him where they were. But who? The only person who came to mind was the ferryboat guy. Robert. Or someone in the sheriff’s office? Or Ashley’s husband?

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Just keep walking toward the exit sign at the end of the hallway.”

He was taking her to the stairs. She passed Quinn’s room and kept going, her mind racing, trying to figure out how to handle this new threat without getting anyone hurt or killed. Including herself. She continued to look at him from the corner of her eye. Red hair? Ball cap shadowing his features, five o’clock shadow. A long scar that ran from his temple to the bottom of his chin. “Is that a gun I feel in my back?” she asked. “I thought you were more of a crossbow kind of guy.” She was proud of the steady calmness in her voice.

He actually chuckled under his breath as they arrived at the door with the exit sign just above. “Open the door and go down.”

She pushed the door open and walked to the first step that would lead down to the third floor. She took a step, then pretended to trip. “Ow!” She grabbed the rail with her right hand, as though catching her balance.

He cursed. “You stupid—”

The pressure of the gun was gone and Maddy had the advantage she was hoping for. She leaned forward and, still gripping the rail, stepped down with her left foot, then twisted her lower body right while lifting her right foot. She kicked out, catching him in the stomach. He gasped and went to one knee. The gun tumbled from his fingers and fell through the railing. She had no idea where it would land and didn’t have the time to worry about it.

In the stairwell, he was just a shadow, but Maddy aimed another kick at his face. He ducked, caught her foot, and shoved. With her just below him, gravity worked in his favor. This time, there was no pretending. She toppled backward, trying to catch her balance as she stumbled on the steps, her hand slipping from the rail. Maddy grabbed for it, caught it with her left hand, then went to her knee. She wrenched her sore shoulder and pain shot through her. “Ah!”

The door opened.

“ . . . get a snack and wait this out, okay?” a deep voice said. A flashlight whipped across her face. “Hey, are you okay? What’s going on?”

In the now illuminated stairwell, her attacker, caught between the man and Maddy, hesitated, glared at her, then shoved past the newcomer, causing him to drop his phone. “Hey!”

And up he went, headed for the fifth floor of the eight-story hotel. Maddy blinked against the pain and pushed herself to her feet.

She started up after him but turned to look over her shoulder. “Go to room 419 and tell the police detective in there that Maddy needs help and where I am. Hurry!”

He grabbed his phone and took off.

She went up, not sure if the stranger would follow her directions or not, but one thing was certain—she wasn’t losing the guy who’d just tried to kidnap her for the second time.