Chapter 32 Quinn
I sat in Jett’s bedroom on the couch with Gray beside me, his hand held tightly in mine, and I was grateful for it.
“Okay, so I’ve edited the fuck out of this.
There’s nothing that you can see that will cause you distress.
We just need you to look at the guys, see if you know them, recognize them?
” Ash told me. His voice was low and steady, his look of concern trying to calm me down.
I nodded when in reality I wanted to run for the door.
The team had a bye week, and this is how they chose to spend their Saturday.
I loved how much they cared, to give up their Saturday on this, but at the same time, a part of me would have preferred not to be here.
Which Gray knew, which is why he was holding onto me, and Jett was perched on the arm of the couch to my side, close but not touching, offering support. I knew I was being chicken, but I really didn’t want to look at the laptop Ash balanced on his knee.
The video played, and I forced myself to watch. I didn’t see the table or the girls, and there was no sound, but as I watched, I leaned in closer, trying to identify the men even though their faces were covered.
“Why are their faces covered?” I asked in the silence of the room.
“We don’t know,” Jett told me.
“We think they may sell the film,” Gray spoke up as his fingers flexed against mine.
“Jesus,” I breathed out as I kept watching. I tensed slightly as I looked at the larger guy on the screen.
“Who is it?” Ash asked me quietly.
“I think,” I bit my lip, “it could be Dr. Campbell.” I squinted as I leaned forward. “The way he stands makes me think it may be him.”
“What did he do?” Jett asked as he reached for a pad of paper.
“Well, Mrs. Mowberry gave me the leaflet, and it was Dr. Campbell I met first. Then, when I was talking to him, Dr. Newton came in, and he was the one with the binder.”
“Binder?” Ash asked us all.
“With the prospective parents,” I told him.
“Pictures?”
“No, they were anonymous.” I looked at Gray. “I think he could be Dr. Campbell.”
Gray raised my hand to his mouth and skimmed his lips across my knuckles. “That’s good. Mrs. Mowberry? Describe her.”
I did, and Jett took notes, asking me to remember details I wasn’t sure I was remembering or making up. “I don’t know,” I told him in frustration. “It was a long time ago, and I have spent eighteen months trying to forget.”
“I know, sorry.” He patted my shoulder and looked past me to look at Gray.
“You don’t need to look at Gray,” I snapped, and I pushed myself to my feet. “He can’t coax it out of me. I’m not holding back, I am doing my best to help you, but forgive me if I didn’t notice if her hair was colored or not!”
“You’re a girl,” Ash began and flinched at the anger of my stare. “You would notice, you just might not realize it.”
“She was in her fifties, late forties maybe.” I sucked at guessing ages. “Her hair was dark, and it was, I dunno, mousy.”
“What the hell is mousy?” Jett grumbled as he checked his notes.
“Brown,” Gray and I spoke at the same time.
I frowned as I thought about it. “It was dull.”
Jett looked up at me in confusion. “Huh?”
“It was dull, like it was tired.” Screwing my eyes shut, I tried to conjure the image of Mrs. Mowberry in my head. “It could have been colored; natural hair isn’t that dull unless it’s not cared for, and it was curled, so it was cared for.”
Opening my eyes, I saw Ash’s smug look at Gray, and I almost kicked him in the shin. “Don’t look so fucking smug,” I muttered as I resumed my seat, and Gray pulled me into his side with a kiss to my temple.
“Okay, so can we do Dr. Campbell?” Jett asked as he scribbled in his notepad. “Describe him.” He was completely oblivious to the fact that Ash was snickering at his “do Dr. Campbell” terminology.
As I ran through what I remembered about the other doctor I had met, I felt the familiar sadness rise from within, and when I finished my interrogation from my friends, my head was on Gray’s shoulders, and my eyes were strained from trying to hold the tears back.
“You okay?” Gray asked me softly as Ash took the laptop to the desk, muttering about angles, and Jett followed him with his notebook like a reporter on the tail of a juicy story.
“No,” I whispered back. “I don’t like this,” I admitted as I turned my face into his shoulder.
“I know. You’re doing so well.” I felt his lips press to my forehead, and I shifted in the seat to wrap my arm around his torso more.
Ash looked over his shoulder at us, and I saw the frown he failed to hide as he looked at me curled into Gray.
“I want to try this,” he told me, and I didn’t react to the fact that his voice was slightly harder.
“Then we need to go for a site visit.” He turned back to the laptop, and I tilted my head to look up at Gray.
“He seems to be enjoying himself,” I murmured quietly.
“He likes a project, you know this.”
“I don’t like being the project,” I replied testily.
“It’ll be over soon,” Gray said as his nose brushed against mine.
“Will it?”
“I promise.”
We sat wrapped in each other while Jett and Ash spoke among themselves, and then they were came back to us. I straightened, but Gray didn’t loosen his hold, and I welcomed the support as Ash showed the edited films from another angle. I had no idea how he did it, but he did.
“Him.” I pointed at the screen. “I didn’t see it before, but he has a scar.”
Gray lurched forward and studied the guy Ash had paused on. “Down the left-hand side?”
Nodding, I waited for him to continue, but Gray had twisted to look at Jett. “From the basement.”
“Okay,” Jett said thoughtfully as he looked through his notepad. “I have his description.” With a nod to himself as he gathered his evidence, he finally looked at Ash. “Need you to hack,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Databases?” Ash asked with a groan.
“Yeah. Can you do it?”
“Yeah, Onyx taught me years ago, but he’s better.” Ash rubbed the back of his neck. “And I need you out of here in case I fuck up.”
“But you’ll need Quinn,” Gray interjected. “To identify them.”
“Searches aren’t like the movies, they take days. I’ve got three people to look for on really basic descriptions.” His eyes flicked to mine. “No offense.”
“None taken,” I told him.
“You’ll need to run the search from a different IP address,” Jett said as he began to pace.
“We can put it in the basement of Onyx’s building.” All three of them looked at me in surprise. “Seriously, like he doesn’t have a blocker or something to cover his shit,” I snorted in derision.
Ash grinned, and Jett chuckled. “But if he doesn’t have a blocker and the laptop is found, our brother goes to jail,” Gray said softly.
The other two sobered, and I kept my opinion about jail being the best place for Onyx to myself. Gray knew my thoughts, though, as I flinched from the sharp pinch to my side.
“Sorry,” I mumbled as he arched an eyebrow at me.
“I can redirect the redirect,” Ash said as he looked at the laptop. “It won’t slow someone who really knows what they’re doing down, but it will deter run-of-the-mill hackers. And to be fair, you’re only going to come across it if you’re looking for it.”
As they discussed the logistics and pros and cons more, my head slipped back onto Gray’s shoulder.
He moved his arm automatically to let me under, and I snuggled in.
As I drifted in and out of their conversation about their plans, I tried to think back to the day I went to their offices.
Mrs. Mowberry had met me in the reception area.
I thought about the receptionist, and I frowned.
I had been so nervous I hadn’t really paid attention.
She was blonde, I think. Young. I remembered thinking the color of her dark suit made her pale skin seem washed out.
Mrs. Mowberry had taken me to Dr. Campbell’s room, and he had told me about their agency. About the hope they were able to bring to parentless couples. How I was making someone’s dream of being a parent real.
Sitting up, I wiped my eyes as I thought of the lies they had told me, how I had felt slightly appeased that even though I was doing this, someone would benefit. My child would be raised by a family who loved and wanted them.
Unlike me at the time.
Standing up, I heard the lull in the conversation as I walked to the bathroom before Jett started to talk again.
After rinsing my face in the sink, I stood with my head buried in the hand towel until I pushed the tears back and reminded myself that I had thought it was my only choice. The only choice that was right for me and my child.
A gasp escaped me as I said the phrase again. My child.
I felt him close to me before he spoke to me. As he tugged the towel gently out of my hands, I blindly went into his strong embrace as Gray held me and asked me if I was okay. I nodded once, but I didn’t want to talk, and I knew he understood as he held me tighter.
I don’t know how long he held me for, but eventually a light tap on the door caused me to raise my head from Gray’s shoulder.
“You ready for a field trip?” Jett asked me as he looked me over with concern.
“I guess.”
Two hours later, we were cruising down the streets of Nashville as Ash drove us past all the tourist spots into the business district. I directed him past it, and then we were on side streets, still very prominent with business occupation, but not as high spec as the others.
“There.” I pointed to the two-story building. I saw Jett grit his teeth as he looked at the boarded-up windows and the mail choking up the letterbox.
“You sure?” Gray asked me as he peered through the car window to the surrounding occupants.
“Positive.” I leaned forward. “I remember the blue trim. They looked weird then and worse now.”
Ash grunted his agreement. “Who’s going?” he asked as he looked at Jett, then Gray.
“I’ll go,” I said, surprising them all. “You may be recognized. No one noticed me last time when I needed help; they won’t notice me now.” Hearing my own bitterness and being mad at letting my emotions show, I slipped off the seat belt and then got out of the SUV.
“Quinn.” Gray grabbed my hand. “I’m right here.”
Forcing a smile, I nodded. “I know.”
My feet felt like lead as I walked to the front of the building, and I kept my head down when I saw the camera. I knew the building might be abandoned, but I would bet the cameras were still active.
At the door, I reached out to grab some of the mail, checking the dates on some of the flyers.
Some were dated a few months ago. Looking around, I kept my back to the surveillance before I picked the building on the left to make my enquiries.
A launderette. Had that been there when I was here last time?
I had no idea. I’d had tunnel vision then, and it was taking a lot of willpower now to walk through the door of the building.
There were no customers and no staff. A machine on the wall dispensed quarters, and I noted that a few of the newer machines had card payments. I’d not known that was a thing, but in this day and age, who used money anymore?
Leaving the launderette, I went to the other business on the other side of the abandoned agency. Lawyer’s office. Closed.
With a sigh, I turned back to the car where the guys were waiting for me.
My feet turned me away, and I walked slowly toward the parking area I had parked in all those months ago.
Hesitating at a turn, I took it, and then, within a few feet, I was standing at the top of the stairs I had fallen down.
I almost expected there to be some mark or acknowledgment from the hard concrete to note my loss. With slow, measured steps, I went down the stairs, and then, turning, I looked up them.
They were steep and narrow, the handrail a thin wooden strip that I would never have noticed had I not been looking for it now. I never had a chance to even catch myself, I realized as I looked at the ground at my feet.
The sound of the car pulling up behind me alerted me to the fact that they were here.
That he was here. Turning, I saw him coming toward me, his hood up and his bandana over his face.
He looked intimidating, but I saw the pain in his eyes as he reached for me and folded me into his embrace.
Gray bent his knees slightly, and then I was wrapped around him as he carried me back to the car, and I let my silent tears fall.
No one said anything as he placed me gently into the back seat and closed the door behind me. Moments later, he was on the other side, pulling me tenderly onto his lap, and wordlessly, I curled onto him and silently took the comfort he offered so freely.
I knew we were heading back to school, but no one spoke for the entire drive as I stayed wrapped around the man who was slowly piecing the broken parts of me back together.
Helping me.
Healing me.
“I love you so much,” I whispered into his neck, and I felt his arms tighten around me in answer. “I’m so sorry.”
Pulling back from him, I looked into those blue eyes that saw past all my bullshit. Cupping his face with my hand, I dropped a kiss to his lips.
It wasn’t enough, I wanted more. My teeth nipped his lower lip, and he opened for me. My tongue stroked his, and I felt his hand grip my jacket as he kissed me back.
Gray knew my need, but he also had the sense to be more aware of our surroundings, and he finally drew back, his eyes holding a promise that he would finish this later.
A surge of guilt swept over me, and I grimaced when I thought of Ash in the front of the car.
Tucking my head back into the crook of Gray’s neck, I pressed my lips to his pulse and smiled when I felt him thicken underneath me.
“You okay?” Jett asked me quietly.
“No, I’m not,” I said, refusing to move from the comfort of Gray. “But I will be.”
“Yes, you will,” Ash spoke up, his tone low, and I knew Gray was as surprised as me. “You’re so much fucking stronger than you think, Quinn. Why do you think you’ve always been the queen?”
Turning, I met his stare in the rearview mirror. “You really think that?”
“Never thought, always knew it,” he answered as he flicked his gaze off the road and met my wide-eyed stare once more. “We’ll get them, Queeny, I promise.”
Jett murmured his agreement, and I turned back to look at Gray.
“And then what?”
“We end them.” Gray’s look was hard, and I felt fear tingling down my spine as I looked back at him.
“For me?”
“No. For us.” He looked over my shoulder to his brother and his cousin before he looked back at me. “For all of them.”