Broken (36 page)

IT was still early in the afternoon, but Quinn hadn’t had much trouble finding a bar. Granted, this one had seen better days. Better nights. The outside of it was every bit as unappealing as the inside, and the alcohol was so cheap, it was barely drinkable.

He still had her phone.

He sat holding a shot of whiskey and staring at her phone like he expected it to bite him. The messages had stopped not long after he’d left Sarah at the bus station.

Guilt ate at him. She needed her phone—he’d seen the look in her eyes each time she saw her phone, saw the desperation. It wasn’t so much the
phone
, but the link to whoever kept trying to call her.

Whoever it was, the person meant something to Sarah. Somebody from her old life, maybe. Somebody she trusted.

Jealousy settled in right next to the guilt. He hadn’t really meant to keep the phone, but just maintaining had taken everything he had. He hadn’t been able to think about anything other than holding it together. Thirty minutes after he’d left Sarah, another message had come through and that was when he had realized he hadn’t returned the damn thing.

The phone lay on the counter, next to the folded-up letter that he had planned to give to her in Chicago. He’d spent hours writing the damn thing, trying to think up the best way to word every last line. He opened it, stared at the words without really seeing them.

What good did it do to pour his heart out if he didn’t have the courage to give her the letter?

Blowing out a sigh, he took the letter and folded it back up, smoothing his finger down the crease and then tucking it back into his pocket.

Maybe he’d frame it, hang it on the wall, so every day he saw the glaring reminder of why he was better off not getting involved.

Why he was better off not trusting people.

Why he was better off alone.

Fuck, how had this happened? How had he ended up
here
? What in the hell was he doing?

He lifted the glass, stared down at it as though he might find some kind of peace, some answers,
something
down at the bottom, if he looked hard enough. Stared long enough.

An answer came . . . but it wasn’t exactly the sort of answer he’d been looking for. Staring into the glass, he saw himself. But not as he was now.

He saw himself as a kid, lurking in the shadows while his mother huddled over a drink, much like he was doing now.
Shit.

He slammed it down as though the glass had scorched him. “Shit,” he muttered, wiping the back of his hand over his lips.

What in the
hell
was he doing? Sitting around. Brooding. Feeling sorry for himself and getting more pissed off by the minute.

He heard the echo of his mother’s shrill, whiny voice, every time something had blown up in her face, every time she lost a job, a boyfriend, every time she drank away the money before she could use it to score some dope.
Why?
That plaintive,
whining
tone. That self-pity.

Closing his eyes, he saw Sarah’s face.

He’d lost her.

That’s all there was to it.

Sitting around and drinking his sorrows away wasn’t going to change that—all it would do was nudge him one step farther down a road he didn’t want to go.

Slipping off the stool, he stared at the glass. The liquor in it called to him. Beckoned. For a little while, he could numb the pain. Dull it with a wash of heat and forgetfulness.

But it wouldn’t last.

The oblivion that came from alcohol never lasted . . . not unless he took the path his mother had taken.

Setting his jaw, he reached into his pocket and pulled out enough money to cover the drink. The he took Sarah’s phone, tucked it inside his pocket. He wasn’t pitching it. Wasn’t tossing it. Just like he wasn’t pitching the letter.

Not yet. Not until he didn’t need the reminder anymore.

He was going to go back to St. Louis, and somehow, he was going to get on with his life.

IT was late by the time he got back to the city. Past seven, but he didn’t go home.
Unfinished business
—

He needed to talk with Martin, and if he knew anything at all about his boss, the man would still be at the office. A homebody, Martin was not. He’d go home when there was nothing left to occupy him and that was about it.

As Quinn expected, Martin’s Lexus was parked in front of the offices and as he climbed out of his rental, Quinn wished he hadn’t ever seen that car, wished he’d never seen these offices, wished he’d never met up with Martin—or Theresa, for that matter. That first job had come because Theresa had a friend who had been beaten by her boyfriend and then skipped bail. She’d come to Quinn—why, he didn’t know. But she’d come to Quinn and after he located the man and threatened him within an inch of his life, Theresa had mentioned the little fact of a bounty.

That was how Quinn ended up working for Martin.

If none of that had happened, he never would have known about Sarah.

But his heart twisted even thinking about that. To never have known her, would his life have been any better?

Brooding, he stormed into the offices and stopped dead in his tracks as three of the other employees stood up and started applauding.

Two of them stopped the second they caught sight of the scowl on his face. Juanita kept it up and it wasn’t until Martin appeared in the doorway to the main offices that she settled back down in her seat.

“Damn, Quinn. I had a feeling you’d be good at this, but not
that
good,” Martin said, whistling between his teeth. He gestured to his office.

“Good at what?” Quinn asked.

Martin closed the door behind him, watching Quinn with a wide, pleased smile.

“What in the hell are you grinning about?” Quinn demanded. Unease snaked through him, turning his gut to ice. His spine was itching again. Through the glass walls of Martin’s office, Quinn could feel a dozen pairs of eyes on him—the rest of the staff was staring at him, studying him like they’d never seen him before. It had his skin feeling like it was going to climb right off of his body. He shot a narrow look over his shoulder and most of the people scattered.

Martin snorted. “Shit, never would have thought you’d be modest. You did good, Rafferty. Real good. Hell, no wonder you haven’t been answering the damn phone. You put out this kind of results, I don’t care if you return calls or not.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” Quinn scowled.

“The job, of course. What the hell else would I be talking about?”

Martin was staring at him now, too. Watching him like he’d lost his mind.

Quinn didn’t give a damn.

“What about the job?” he asked in a rough voice.

Martin was quiet. Seconds ticked away. Five. Ten. Twenty. Finally, he answered, “I’m talking about the call I just got— somebody from our client’s offices called and said that you’d found Sarah Morgan and that she would be in Chicago tomorrow morning.”

“I never called the client, Martin.” The bottom of Quinn’s stomach dropped out from under him.

Martin opened his mouth, then closed it, as though he wasn’t quite sure how to respond. Finally, in a careful voice, he said, “I’m a little confused, then.”

This has to happen, Quinn.
The ghost of Sarah’s voice rose up to haunt him.

The determination in her eyes.

Martin said something else. Quinn snarled, “Shut up a minute and let me think.” He pressed the heel of his hand to his eye socket, tried to think past the roar and rush of blood throbbing in his head.

Martin spoke again. Without bothering to respond, he grabbed Sarah’s phone, flipped it open, and brought up the messages.

More of the same.

Again, no indicator of who the messages were from, other than a phone number.

There were two other messages from a different number. No name . . . just the number.

“Getting close to what?” he muttered.

Sarah’s voice echoed inside his head. Over and over.

That odd look in her eyes. That overbright, eager light.

“What in the hell is going on?” he whispered.

“Quinn?”

Looking up, he met Martin’s eyes. “You have the file on her?”

“On Sarah Morgan? Yes.” He went to his desk and went through some of the files stacked on the corner. He found the right one in just a few seconds and turned it over to Quinn.

It was a lot more substantial than it had been the other day. “Any of this recent?”

“No. There is nothing recent on her,” Martin said. There was a world of questions in his voice. “Absolutely nothing. When I got that call from the Renaissance Group, I have to admit, I was shocked as hell. How did you manage to find her?”

Quinn ignored him, flipping through the file.

“You
did
find her, right?” Martin asked.

Quinn shot his boss a narrow look. “Yeah. I found her.”

“If you found her, then why are you telling me you never called the client?”

“Because I didn’t,” he snapped. “I fucking let her go.”

Martin opened his mouth, closed it. Opened it again. “Damn it, what in the hell do you mean you let her go?”

“I mean . . . I. Let. Her. Go.” He closed the file, clenched it in a fist so tight it made his knuckles ache. “I said it in English, right?”

“Listen, Rafferty, I don’t know what the hell is going on here but you’d better explain. I warned you—”

“Shove your warnings up your ass, Gearing,” Quinn snarled. “You want to know how I found her so fast? It’s because I’ve been seeing her for close to two fucking months—I’m in love with her and there was no way in
hell
I was putting her in the hands of that bastard.”

Violent rage spiraled through him and he could barely contain it. Rage . . . and fear. God, he didn’t think he’d been this afraid since . . . since never. He hadn’t ever felt this kind of sick, shaking fear.

Sarah was in Chicago.

She’d gone back.

And no matter what she said, he couldn’t make himself believe she’d be safe there. His instincts screamed at him. His heart had constricted down to a tight, hard knot, and his chest hurt like a son of a bitch.

She’d gone back.

Still standing behind his desk, Martin looked at Quinn as though he’d sprouted a second head. He blew out a breath and then reached up, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Rafferty, I think this is what we call a clusterfuck.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. He really didn’t give a damn what Martin had to say at this point. Once more, he started flipping through the file, searching for answers.

“Look, I had no idea. You should have said something,” Martin said, either unaware of Quinn’s preoccupation or just not caring.

Quinn curled his lip. “Why? So you could send somebody else after her?”

Martin just stared at him.

Quinn stared right back. It was finally Martin who looked away. “I’m a businessman, Rafferty. You know that. But I wouldn’t have put
you
in this kind of position. If you’d told me, I could have had somebody else handle this.”

Hell, if he’d trusted Sarah just a little, maybe neither of them would be in their current position.

He turned page after page, skimming all the bits of information about Sarah’s life. College. Friends. After she’d gotten married, there was little information—no employment history. A few newspaper articles where she’d accompanied her husband to some sort of function—most of them charity balls or auctions.

His gut twisted as he stared at one of those pictures.

She looked . . . well, beautiful. But there was something about the picture that didn’t fit. Her eyes . . . they were dead. Empty. Frowning, he flipped back through the file and found the picture he’d seen just the other day. Her wedding picture.

“Something’s not right,” he muttered, squeezing his eyes closed.

“What?”

Tuning Martin out, he started rifling through the file once more, pulling out all the pictures he could find. There were more at the back that he hadn’t gotten to yet, a few more newspaper articles. Some black and whites. One drifted to the ground, facedown.

Crouching down, he flipped it over.

Just like what had happened a few days earlier, he found himself staring at a picture without really processing just
what
he was seeing. The neurons in his brain fired away but nothing made sense. Nothing connected.

Blood roared in his ears.

His heart slammed against his rib cage with bruising force.

A cold sweat broke out on his spine.

“Quinn?”