Quinn shaded her eyes. The office was dark inside, but she could barely make out Tias desk. The woman wasnt there. But a man dressed in a suit stood by the big mahogany desk Tia had bragged cost her a small fortune. The overhead fluorescent lights picked up the shining gleam of his black hair, worn long, down to his collar.
He turned, showing his profile, his expression slightly cruel, cold. A shiver raced down Quinns spine. She looked at the unruly cowlick sticking up from his hair. A cigar stump dangled from his mouth.
He didnt look friendly, or welcoming. More like the type who threatened. Then he ran out the back door, fleeing as if the hounds of hell were chasing him.
Quinn hesitated. Wasnt she being judgmental? The lighting inside could have made him look mean. Maybe Tia wasnt working as hard as she claimed and she had a new love. Perhaps he didnt want anyone knowing they indulged in a session of afternoon delight.
Tia, you could have picked a better lover. This guy looks like he gets off on playing it rough. Gooseflesh sprang out on her arms.
Ive seen him before. But where? She frowned. Maybe at Tias office?
None of her business. Only delivering the meal was.
And getting paid.
Quinn set down the food carrier to fumble with the doorknob. She opened the door and grimaced as the stench of cigar smoke wafted outside. As she went to pick up the casserole, she saw a flash of white as an enormous KA-POW slammed the air. A giant hand punched her with a hammering fist, hurling her through the air back into the street. And then the world went dark and she felt no more.
Chapter 4
The shift in air pressure and the tremendous explosion rattled windows and made the ground shake. West instinctively dropped to the sidewalk, spilling the paper bag, and covered his head.
Screams filled the air. He waited for a few seconds, but it felt like minutes, before rising and looking at the edge of town.
In the direction Quinn had strolled. His heart dropped to his stomach and he raced to his truck, where Rex sat in the front seat, the air-conditioning running. West opened the truck, grabbed Rexs leash, but the dog needed no coaxing.
They both ran in the direction of the explosion. Locals stared at the building, now engulfed in flames. West was already running, phoning for backup. No need, for the whole damn county must have heard the blast.
Not Quinn. Please, not Quinn. Let her be far away, hell, in the next town. Not Quinn. Not when hed finally found her, allowed himself to feel again after all these years...
The real estate office was leveled, white smoke pouring from it. Safety first. It had been drilled into him, but that was for cases. Not for the love of his life.
Boards and rubble lay everywhere, shards of glass sharp enough to slice through skin. Flames licked at the back of the building. Ordering Rex to stay back, he picked his way through the rubble.
Quinn always delivered Tias meals in person...putting them on her desk. He had been there once, knew the agent worked at an expansive desk in the back. Everything in the back was splintered, fragments of a profession...of a life. Smoke billowed through the air.
Where the hell was Quinn? Hed seen her head in this direction, knew she was delivering Tias lunch. Maybe she hadnt entered. Please, he prayed. Let her be okay. He whistled for the dog.
Rex, find Quinn, he yelled out.
Rex nosed through the rubble toward the front of the shop, clambering over boards and debris.
Rubble was everywhere. Rex barked, the signal for finding a human. Boards and a chair covered a petite figure sprawled on the ground. West lifted the board and tossed it aside to find a woman lying on her back. A shattered food container, and mangled bits of pasta, was nearby.
Quinn. She couldnt be dead. His breath hitched, and then he saw her chest rise and fall. Relief made him weak, but he got a grip.
Alive, but unconscious, bleeding heavily from a laceration to her head. Blood streamed down the side of her face. West shrugged out of his jacket, tore off his white T-shirt and held it to her head to stanch the bleeding.
Not daring to move her further, in case of a neck injury and shattered vertebrae, he held his shirt against her head, his hand trembling.
Its okay, baby. Its okay. Ive got you, he whispered, everything inside him bunched up in knots. Rex licked her face.
People were running toward him. The whine of sirens grew louder. Help was arriving. Hurry. In his minds eye, he flashed back to that terrible night when he was a teenager. House burning, broken glass littering the front yard, his screams echoing through the night as the sirens wailed a mocking song... Too late, too late, too late...
Not too late. Quinn was breathing. Alive.
EMTs rushed forward. One medical professional squatted by him, opened a kit. West was dully aware of the man trying to shoulder him aside.
Weve got this, the paramedic assured him. Let us treat her.
Let her go. Theyre professionals. But everything inside him screamed to hold on and not let go of Quinn because if he did, he could lose her.
She might die, just like his mother, father and little sisters.
She will die if you dont move it, Brand.
Dragging in a deep breath, he stood and stepped aside.
With quiet, swift professionalism, the paramedics went to work, swapping out his soaked shirt for real bandages, putting a neck brace on her to prevent her head from moving, starting an IV, taking her pressure. He heard a buzz of words, saw them slide Quinn onto a backboard and then lift her onto a gurney.
Shes going to be okay. Has to be okay. I cant lose her.
Everything inside him fought to run back to his truck, race after the screaming ambulance. Follow her to the hospital, make sure she got treated, hover until she opened her eyes and looked at him.
West clenched his hands and unclenched them. Using a breathing technique hed learned from a therapist whod treated him for PTSD, he centered himself and his thoughts.
The best way he could help Quinn was by doing his job. The sooner he helped catch the bastard doing this, the safer she and the town would be.
Brand!
He turned at the sound of Finn Coltons voice. The chief looked at the departing ambulance, his expression grim. What happened?
West told him about finding Quinn, as others arrived and began to work the scene.
He knew cops, knew the tight brotherhood. Quinn had been injuredone of their own, familyand they were going to work this case hard.
West didnt need to get insider information on the local cops to ascertain this. He knew human nature.
Finn gave him a hard look. Brayden and Shane are on their way to the hospital, and theyll question Quinn if she wakes up. I need you to stay here, work the scene.
West nodded, though he fought the instinctive need to rush to the hospital with the chief. He turned back to his truck to fetch his equipment.
No one knew what Quinn meant to him. They had kept their relationship secret on purpose. But right now, as he jogged back to his truck, Rex at his side, he was the one who could openly claim her and join her brothers at the hospital.
* * *
Firefighters had quickly doused the flames and now the cops were working the scene. Someone had marked Tias body.
What was left of it.
He saw a high-heeled red shoe attached to a section of bloodied leg sticking out from beneath half a large-screen television. High heels. Quinn had not worn high heels. Not during the day. At night she liked wearing them when they met in secret outside town. Dinner, a show, good times.
He liked her in high heels, and when she wore them to bed last week...
Was she okay?
Focus, Brand. Focus.
West dragged in a breath and studied the body with cool, professional detachment. Tia lay on her side. One of her arms had been torn off in the blast, and her torso was horribly mangled.
Burns covered her body and part of her head...
He looked at Tias head, noting the head injury and exposed brain matter with analytical coolness. If she had died before the explosion, the autopsy would confirm it.
Find, he ordered Rex, his death grip on the leash making his palm sweat through the latex gloves.
Rex combed through the buildings rubble to search for secondary devices. Nothing found. But near what had been Tias desk, West found pieces of the bomb, including the detonator.
Cell phone. Same kind of burner phone used in the first bombing.
Until the pieces were tested, he couldnt be certain, but he suspected it was the same type of bomb that had gone off earlier in the abandoned building. The first bomb was a trial run, probably to see how much damage the unsub could inflict.
But something had gone wrong. The killer hadnt known that Quinn delivered lunch here every day around noon. Nor had he anticipated the device wouldnt totally destroy evidence.
Or had he? Quinn had told him that everyone knew her schedulethat every day she hand delivered lunch to Tia, one of her best clients. Tia always ate at twelve thirty sharp. The woman ran a tight schedule.
He returned to his truck, fetched his equipment. With methodical care, he combed through the scene. Gray file cabinets were dented, some of their contents blown out. The computer was in shards, but if Tia backed her files up to a cloud, they could access them.
Maybe one of her clients had a grudge. Damn, it was better than thinking someone had it in for Quinn, or wanted to cause more than one injury.
In the rubble, he found the thin stump of a cigar. West bagged and tagged the evidence. Tia smoked. A fact Quinn relayed to him previously, her pert nose wrinkling in disgust. Tia even liked to light up Cubans after hours. But everything had to be looked over.
Something glinted among the rubble in a shaft of late-afternoon sunshine.
West crouched down and studied the fragment. The edge of a key chain, rounded, with the etching of a pine cone. He could just make out part of an address.
#5 Pine P.
Pine Paradise? Acid crept into his throat. Too much of a coincidence.
He knew this.
Pine Paradise specialized in cabins in the thickly wooded canyon south of Red Ridge.
After Quinn had told him she had a key to a cabin there, he planned to take her for a weekend. Maybe taking Quinn with him for hikes in the woods, long bouts of lovemaking into the night. He liked that area of South Dakota; it was quiet, peaceful, and enabled him to think and find peace. Get away from all the people in town and the nosy neighbors. He could use his gray matter to fit together pieces of a complex puzzle called the Coltons, figure out if they were covering up evidence of Demi Coltons whereabouts.
Question her further.
Pine Paradise offered quiet, small cabins near a creek reputed to have excellent trout fishing. Each cabin was set back from the road, nestled in the thick woods. Isolated and accessed only by a dirt road, they were far apart from each neighboring cabin to offer seclusion and privacy.
When hed first arrived in town, hed asked Tia, Red Ridges reigning queen of real estate, about renting a Pine Paradise cabin. Shed haughtily informed him that the cabins were occupied. The property is unavailable, Mr. Brand. Got it?
The woman was just...nasty. He could understand why she mistrusted him for being an outsider and FBI, to boot. Some locals had looked at him with suspicion. Small town, strangers. But Quinn had told him the real estate agent was one of her best clients and a cold, demanding person. It wasnt him. It was Tias personality.
Did that personality get her into trouble? Had the real estate agent gotten into a squabble with someone who decided on permanent payback by killing her?
Until the autopsy was performed, they could not confirm his suspicion that Tia had been killed prior to the explosion, and the killer had used the bomb to cover his or her tracks.
There was another troubling idea in his mind. Maybe Quinn had been the real target.
In his gloved hands, West fingered the evidence, his mind clicking over the facts like a computer.
What if there was a connection between the killer and this property? He needed to find out exactly what other properties Tia owned.
But Pine Paradise was a good, isolated place to hide while experimenting with making bombs, far away from the inquisitive locals. Someone who wouldnt hesitate to blow up buildings and kill innocents like Quinn to cover a larger crime.
But what if this bombing was connected to the Groom Killer? There was no evidence yet to link the two crimes, but as an investigator trained to be thorough, he couldnt rule it out. He had to look at all angles.
Maybe the bomber wanted to kill Quinn because she was related to Demi Colton.
Even without the autopsy report on Tia, Wests instinct warned whoever had planted the bomb didnt do it to kill the real estate agent. Bombs were tricky. Sometimes they didnt detonate, so as a means of killing someone, they were unpredictable.
The killer hadnt used enough explosives to totally destroy Tias body. Hed planted the bomb in the wrong place. Maybe heor shehad been in a hurry. Or perhaps the bombers intention had been to destroy evidence.
Or unfamiliar with exactly where to plant a bomb in order to do the most damage, and destroy the evidence one wanted to cover up.
And then Quinn had interrupted the crime. That meant she was a witness, and whoever did this would want to erase any evidence.
Eradicate any witnesses, especially one Quinn Colton.
Later, he and Rex would take a road trip to Pine Paradise. But not for trout fishing.
Fishing of a different sortsearching for Tias killer.