Over the Line, page 14
Found you.
CHAPTER 15
“Why the hell was I not contacted as soon as this happened?” Quinn was close to screeching, could hear the hard edge of anger bordering on rage in her voice, but she didn’t care. Cooper looked miserable, his head in his hands and his eyes wide and staring at nothing. “I’m the one he tried to kill before. Do you people even think of the consequences of leaving people like me in the dark?”
Lieutenant Harry Haskell looked embarrassed, his already florid cheeks darkening further as his eyes shot down to the worn tile of the station floor. “Ma’am, I am very sorry for this oversight. We figured we would find him within just a few hours and there was no sense in getting you worked up over nothing. We thought—”
“—just stop right now, would you?” Quinn interrupted, holding up a hand. She could no longer keep the contempt out of her voice. “That prison is a thirty minute car ride from my doorstep, so even if you thought you could have him within ‘a few hours,’ you were still taking the chance that he’d get to me first. All without telling me for fear you’d have, what, a hysterical woman on your hands? How about you just stop trying to think? It’s not your strong suit.”
Cooper choked on a laugh, covering it with a cough behind his hand.
“I can’t say you’re wrong, Ms. Hadley,” Lieutenant Haskell agreed, leaning his bulk on his desk. “I can only apologize so much. We’re doing everything we can to track him down. Officers are going through your apartment, his parents’ house in Hales Corners, and we’re interviewing everyone he’s had contact with since being incarcerated. Warrants to search their properties are in process, as well.”
Quinn nodded, knowing that despite their stupidity in not informing her about Mitch’s escape earlier, there was nothing else that could be done.
There was a loud, crackling screech, and Haskell turned his radio down. “Was there any clue that McDonald was going to do something like this? At the parole hearing, maybe?”
Her eyes widened as she remembered. “He acted so comfortable, like being in prison was no big deal at all. I thought it was odd, because he worked so hard to get a lighter sentence. It seemed like getting out mattered to him, but at the hearing he acted like he hadn’t a care in the world. When he left the room after parole was denied, he smiled at me. It bothered me at the time but I thought it was just because I didn’t want to be in the same room as him. But it was one of those ‘cat-that-ate-the-cream’ smiles. You know, like a kid with a secret.”
Haskell made a note on his pad and scratched his bald head with the pencil eraser. “Might be nothing, but you never know.”
Quinn nodded and paced along the wall. “Do you know what happened?”
“I can’t give any details just yet.” When she shot him an angry look, he held up his hands. “I can tell you this much. This wasn’t something he did on a whim. We found evidence in his cell that he’s been planning an escape for months,” he said. Haskell was evasive, not revealing exactly what they found but telling her enough to calm her down. “We have analysts digging through his telephone calls and footage of his visits as well. Do you know of anywhere else he might go?”
“Just his parents’ house. He’s from Hales Corners and knows the whole city and suburbs really well, or at least he did. It’s hard to say. We’ve been divorced for a long time. I don’t know him any more than you do now,” she said with a sigh.
Lieutenant Haskell nodded, tapping the pencil on his desk. Cooper yawned behind them and all Quinn wanted to do was take him home and let him lie down until he felt better. Pulling him out of practice had taken an act of Congress. After missing two sessions, he’d wanted to finish out the day’s activities. There was nothing she could do for him here, and that rankled. He needed somewhere comfortable to rest. A desk sergeant had run to get him a fresh set of clothes from their apartment, since she couldn’t do it herself.
“Check his mom and dad’s financial records. I know you need a subpoena and a warrant and what-the-hell-ever-else, but I spoke to Tracy on the phone a few days ago and she told me she’d hired a private eye to tail me. I can’t think of how else Mitch would know where I live. She said this detective took photos of me and my client, Gabriel Miller, at his home last Saturday.”
“The football player?” Haskell asked.
“Yes. He takes yoga lessons with me at the studio.” She watched as he took down notes on his pad.
“Do you have contact information for Mr. Miller so we can post surveillance at his home as well?”
She handed over her phone and he poked at the screen until he found the listing he needed. When he was done taking all of it down, he looked through her call logs and text messages. “What’s this call from Tracy on Saturday?”
“That one came right after we left Gabriel’s house, then she called me again on Monday. That’s when she told me about the pictures.”
She thought the lead in the pencil he was using was going to catch fire, he was writing so fast. “We’ll need to subpoena your phone records, unless you’re willing to sign a waiver to let us get at them sooner?”
“Whatever you need, Lieutenant. You can take whatever you want. Why not? My apartment, my life, my own face isn’t mine anymore. The only thing I have left is Cooper, thank God,” she said, flopping down on a chair.
Haskell looked at her with such clear sympathy she had to look away. Sympathy wouldn’t help her right now any more than the phone records would once they came in. All they showed was that she and Tracy had talked, not what they’d talked about.
“Is there anywhere you could go right now, somewhere safe? We could put you up in a hotel, with a standing guard, unless you have somewhere you can stay that we can watch. Your parents, maybe?” Haskell asked, leaning toward her and lowering his voice as if this was some secret between them.
“My parents haven’t had anything to do with me since I left Mitch. ‘A woman stays with her husband,’ that was cross-stitched on a pillow in Shannon Hadley’s parlor.”
“What about a friend?”
“Maybe one,” she said and drew her phone out from her jacket pocket. She tapped the name from the contact list and put the phone to her ear.
Gabriel slammed through the station door, worry in every line of his face and tension in his shoulders. He looked this way and that before spotting Quinn and Cooper. His chest heaved in a sigh of relief and he made a beeline for her, wrapping her in a hug hard enough to make her back pop. “What the hell is going on?” he asked, letting her take a step back.
She explained the situation to him, noting when he glared at Haskell right when she knew he would. “We need somewhere to stay. They’re tossing my apartment. Cooper’s better, but I think at this point he’s angrier that we yanked him out of football practice than anything else.” He looked over her shoulder and groaned at Cooper’s pale countenance.
“Hey, man,” Gabriel said, walking past her and to her son. He crouched before the boy, looking like Goliath before David. “You look like shit.” The jab did just what it was meant to, bringing a smile to Cooper’s face. “And your breath stinks.”
Cooper laughed. “Yeah, well, you smell like a pair of gym socks left out in the sun for a week.”
Gabriel laughed and stood “Let’s get you to the house,” he said.
“I think I just overdid it today, I’m fine. Mom’s just worried,” Cooper said. He stood and fell in line behind Gabriel.
Before he’d let them leave, Haskell promised them an unmarked police car in the neighborhood within the hour. Gabriel grabbed Quinn’s hand and held on for dear life as they left the station, his other arm at Cooper’s back. The boy had paled in the time they’d been at the station and Quinn worried he’d relapse on whatever stomach bug had gotten hold of him the other night.
The drive to Gabriel’s house was uneventful, but they were all tense. Gabriel watched the road, glancing back every once in awhile to check on Cooper and driving one-handed, his other gripping Quinn’s like a vice. Neither of them noticed the car following behind them until they got to the gate outside the neighborhood and Quinn’s heart took off, slamming back to normal rhythm when the officer behind the wheel flashed the red bubble light on the dash. Both adults in the car released the breaths they were holding. The officer tucked right into his back bumper as the gate opened. Once inside, Gabriel guided the truck home and watched the plainclothes officer, a young man about their age in athletic gear, drive by. Smart, going to a neighborhood populated with professional athletes dressed as one.
He parked the pickup in the garage and didn’t let anyone get out until the overhead door rolled shut behind them. Then he jogged around the truck to help Cooper get inside, his big arm around her son’s shoulders igniting the now-familiar yearning in Quinn. This scene was something that she’d only witnessed recently: a man being a father to her son. She had wanted that for Cooper for so long she didn’t know what it felt like to not have to want it. Tears gathered in her eyes, and she hid them by detouring into the kitchen.
After he armed the alarm, Gabriel brought Cooper to one of the guest rooms, got him comfortable on the bed and set a bucket on the floor so Cooper didn’t have to try to make it down the hall if he got sick again. There were a few cans of Sprite in the fridge and he left one on the nightstand.
Quinn was on the couch when he returned to the living room, her eyes wide and hollow but her shoulders square and proud. When he put a hand on her back she jumped, blinking, and came back to herself. “Cooper’s all set,” he said.
She turned and hugged him, surprising him with the ferocity of her arms around his waist, the way her fingers dug into the skin of his back like she was terrified he would disappear. He’d known this same fear tonight and gripped her with the same intensity.
“Thank you,” she whispered. The dam broke within her and her body was racked with sobs. All the strength she’d used to keep herself vertical let go, and she cried into his chest.
There was nothing to say, and he doubted she’d hear him if he tried. Instead, he led her to the couch and sat down, pulling her down beside him and letting her tuck her legs up onto his lap. The sobs eventually calmed and all she had left was the hitching breaths of a woman spent. His shirt was soaked through where she rested her head and her warmth had broken him out in a sweat.
All the terror he’d felt this evening caught up with him at once and left him exhausted. He slouched a little more on the couch, holding Quinn to him as she relaxed, then tipped his head back and closed his eyes. He didn’t realize he was shaking, coming down from the adrenaline that had gotten him to her so quickly, until she lifted her head and asked if he was alright.
“I think so,” he said, hearing the tightness in his voice. She leaned away for a moment, grabbed a throw off the other arm of the couch, and pulled it over them both. “Scared the shit out of me, Quinn.”
She was surprised by his reaction and could do nothing but stare as he tried to calm himself down. His hands rubbed up and down on her back and squeezed her arms, and she thought he needed to touch her to prove that she was real. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said.
“Me too,” she said. Resting her head on his chest, she listened as his heart slowed back down to a normal rhythm. It had been hours since she’d found the note on her door and if she thought about what might happen she’d never leave this house again. There was a boy in the next room that needed her to keep her sanity. And, she thought, maybe the man in her arms needed her too. That idea was terrifying, but not as hard to swallow as it had been just a week ago.
She hated herself for putting Gabriel in danger, but the thought of going through all of this without him was worse. It was amazing how much life could change in so short a time. Here on this couch, she felt safer than she’d felt in ten years. It was ludicrous to feel safe right now with Mitch out of prison but, logic be damned, she did.
Coming down from adrenaline made Gabriel feel sleepy and he was loath to move from this spot. Quinn was relaxed in his arms, the security system was armed, and despite the danger at hand with Mitch on the loose, everything felt right with the world. Having Cooper and Quinn here made him feel like he had everything he needed within reach.
Their closeness was nice but it still made Quinn nervous. It had been a long time since she’d spent this much time in a man’s arms and she felt out of practice. She didn’t want to get up, but she needed a shower and said so, more to herself than to Gabriel.
He let her get up and watched her as she walked away. She stopped outside the bathroom and her head dropped. “What’s wrong?” he asked, looking at her over the back of the couch.
“I don’t have any extra clothes with me and I’m still grubby from work. All of my yoga clothes are at the police station, in my van.”
“Follow me,” he said, getting up and walking past her down the hall. She followed along behind him and leaned against the jamb to his bedroom door. He rooted through the drawers until he found a pair of boxers and a T-shirt. “They’ll be huge, but they’ll do. Once you get out of your clothes, I’ll wash them for you.”
He waited on the other side of the bathroom door as she stripped down, then took the clothes from her hand when she opened the door a crack just big enough to snake her arm through. “Anything I need to do different for any of this, like delicates?”
At the thought of herself having a bra or pair of panties that could be considered nice enough to put through the delicate cycle, she smiled and shook her head. “No, just toss them all in one load. They’ll be fine.”
“All right. Towels are in the armoire, on the top shelf,” he said and hauled her clothes off to the laundry room down the hall.
The shower was the most complicated piece of plumbing she’d ever come across. Instead of one head, there were four in a vertical row staring back at her, and a temperature-control panel. It took her a minute to even figure out how get the water going in the thing, but once she did it was kind of fun. She dialed up the temperature as hot as she could stand and let all four sprayers wash away the slimy feeling she had from sitting in her own sweat all day.
Gabriel had better hair and skin products than she did, and she chuckled as she doused herself with them. She took longer than she did on a typical day and felt great when she got out. Toweling off as fast as her exhaustion would allow, she wrapped her hair back up in a messy knot at the crown of her head and pulled on the shorts and shirt Gabriel had given her.
He saw her step into the hall and his eyes roamed over her body in his shirt. She kept her head cocked away from him as she joined him in the kitchen, trying to hide the scars on the right side of her face now that she didn’t have makeup to do the job for her.
He’d changed while she was in the shower, donning a pair of loose flannel pajama bottoms and a black muscle shirt. He made the shirt earn its name, his arms bigger than her thighs and broad shoulders that stretched the cotton to its limits. He wiped his hands on a towel, and she watched every muscle work from collarbone to the backs of his hands.
He leaned over the counter, taking her hands in his and pulling her closer so she had nowhere to hide. She shied, ducking her head, and he pressed a fingertip under her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. Ever,” he said.
“I’m trying,” she said and smiled. “Not perfection, but improvements, right?” Her eyes drooped and she gave a yawn so big her jaw cracked.
“I’ll go get your room ready,” he said. She was glad for his consideration but not sure that was the room she wanted to wind up in tonight.
When she got to the doorway, he was already standing on the bed unhooking the rings that held the canopy to the posts and rail. He wanted to invite her to stay in his room, but wasn’t sure she would. “I bought this bed for myself when I first got the house but the curtain drove me nuts. I’d always seen rich guys in movies with these beautiful canopy beds and thought they were really cool.”
Quinn smiled from the doorway and watched as he balanced himself on the mattress and moved around the bed.
“They’re cool until about the third time you get your foot wrapped up in this shit and wind up going ass-end over teakettle out of the stupid thing in the middle of the night.” The curtain fell to the floor with a heavy fhwump and he hopped down to gather it up. “Worst idea I ever had.”
“So instead of just taking down the curtain, you moved the whole bed to another room?”
“No, I switched bedrooms and never switched back,” he said and watched as a bubble of laughter worked its way through her. She moved out of his way as he lugged the heavy curtain down the hall to the laundry room.
Once she had her phone plugged in and settled on the dresser, she stepped into the hall. She looked at the keypad for the alarm, by the back door, to make sure the little screen still said ‘Armed,’ just like it had the last three times she checked. “I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to sleep tonight,” she said, then scrubbed her hands over her face.
The buttons and rivets on her jeans clanked and clicked in the dryer down the hall, and Cooper’s snores punctuated how quiet it was in the neighborhood tonight. Gabriel joined her in the guest room again, leaning against the doorjamb.
“I’m sorry I put you in this position, Gabriel,” she said. Her arms were crossed over her chest and on her small frame his shirt looked like it could house the Russian Circus. Her exhaustion softened her features, took away the fine wrinkles brought on by the constant concern and made her look years younger. Without the ubiquitous makeup, her skin was fresh-scrubbed and glowing. Her hair was up as it always was in a high messy bun, still damp from her shower.
