20. You can eat this nice steak instead of my hand. #3
“Exactly. Due to my heritage, I knew Audrey was unfaithful. We’d been married for a little over three years when she started cheating on me, and it went on for a few months before I decided I needed to get out of the relationship.
At this point, I’d known Bailey more by reputation than anything else.
I first heard of her while she was studying for her CDC certification and knew she had a knack for finding things—or people.
She often found them with disastrous consequences to the involved parties, something that had factored into my decision to ask for her help.
Of course, since the consequences often had legal ramifications, I knew more about her tendency to stir up trouble than she probably liked.
I contacted her, gave her a camera, and asked her to check into Audrey’s activities. ”
I scowled at the memories. Quinn had been, as always, devastatingly handsome, adored by just about everyone, and so out of my league it hurt.
How had my league changed to be his league?
However it had happened, I wasn’t letting him get away.
“Audrey was stupid. She thanked me for getting her out of a so-called terrible relationship.”
Quinn shrugged. “I guess I asked her for the one thing she couldn’t give me.”
“Her loyalty? Seriously? She needed to bang every guy on the block when she was married to the hottest man in Manhattan?”
“Your wife apparently adores you, Chief Quinn.”
My husband sighed. “You know the most eligible bachelor lists? Someone thought it would be funny to name me Manhattan’s Most Wanted Bachelor, playing off the fact I’m a cop. I married to escape the title, and the instant I divorced, I made the list again.”
“It’s true,” I confirmed. “I’m pretty sure he has a rap sheet full of incinerated panties. He walks by and panties spontaneously combust.”
Quinn laughed. “Bailey!”
“What? It’s true.”
“Anyway, let’s just say Bailey and I had a tumultuous relationship at best. With the photos she took, I convinced Audrey to divorce without a fight, and due to her infidelity, the settlement favored me so she wasn’t entitled to a full fifty percent—she didn’t ask for it, either.
She asked for a lump sum, which I paid her without argument.
The judge decided it was a fair enough settlement.
That was that. We went our separate ways.
Bailey had gotten her full certifications by that point.
Afterwards, I made a point of contacting the CDC and requesting that I serve as her primary contact for the NYPD.
I figured her skills at ferreting things out might come in useful.
After my divorce was finalized, I made a point of getting coffee at the shop she worked at most mornings before going on duty. ”
How could things have changed so much? I’d gone from loathing his stops into the cafe to snuggled in his blanket on his lap. “Cream, no sugar, and light on the dust.”
“The dust helped me get through my daily dose of rejection.”
Chief Hollands’s eyebrows rose. “And this continued for how long?”
“I ended up in her shop at least three times a week on average, more when I could manage. This pattern continued until this summer. I admired Bailey’s tenacity and wanted to get to know her better, but I couldn’t figure out how to approach her.
So, I asked her boss for a few minutes of her time.
I was with Mary for thirty minutes before I went to work.
Mary disappeared for the rest of the day, and none of Bailey’s co-workers showed up for their shift.
That was when the recent trouble started. ”
Trouble was a mild way to put it; I considered the circumstances leading up to marrying Quinn a string of catastrophes.
“I guess it’s my turn. Magnus McGee, Audrey’s brother, came into the shop and asked me to find someone.
It happens sometimes. Someone hears how I’m good at finding things people don’t want found, so they come to me.
I usually tell them no. He offered me a substantial amount of money to do the job, gave me a cell phone, and claimed it had the data about the person he wanted me to find.
He also claimed he would call me on it, but he never did.
I put the phone in my pocket and forgot about it until I got home that night.
Since he hadn’t given me the passcode, I wasted a few hours experimenting to unlock the device.
Turns out entering the right passcode detonated the bomb inside, which contained gorgon dust. I locked down my apartment and decontaminated it the best I could with the supplies I had.
I always keep the excess neutralizer in case I need it. ”
Quinn tightened his hold on me, and startled, I canted my head so I could stare up at him. “Quinn?”
“My turn.” He fell quiet, his expression distant.
“Mary called me the next morning. She had reviewed the store’s security cameras and had spotted McGee on the footage giving Bailey something, and she thought something was wrong—she said Bailey looked uncomfortable but took the object anyway.
Mary knew McGee was my ex-wife’s brother, so she thought I needed to know.
Call it a gut instinct, but I interpreted that as evidence something was wrong.
Of course, I had assumed McGee had been attempting to blackmail Bailey. ”
Blackmail would have been so much better than a bomb laced with gorgon dust. “I’d like to see someone try to blackmail me.” If I courted disaster when I used my magic, if someone attempted to blackmail me, I’d actually enjoy using my magic to create havoc.
“While it might be entertaining to watch, I’d rather avoid you being blackmailed.
Anyway, I went over to Bailey’s place during a long lunch break.
She didn’t live far from my house, although her place was in one of the less savory parts of Queens.
When I got there, she refused to open the door.
She ordered me to seal her in while she tried to clean up the gorgon dust.”
“Mrs. Quinn, you’re qualified to handle even impotent dust?”
Right. I’d have to explain my qualifications for everything to make sense.
Sighing, I leaned my head against Quinn’s chest, and he shifted his hold on me and rubbed my back.
I stayed quiet for a few moments to enjoy his attention.
“The dust wasn’t impotent. It was the real deal—and the strong stuff.
Probably the strongest I’ve ever seen. I’m immune, Chief Hollands. ”
“Damned good thing, too,” Quinn muttered.
“After she finished bossing me around, she tried to tell me McGee had given her the phone, but he had put a geas on her. She collapsed. Since my jurisdiction is Manhattan Island, I lost some time calling in for backup and requesting cross-jurisdiction authorization to handle the scene. The CDC helped, as they were aware we had a somewhat functional working relationship—an accomplishment when she’s involved. ”
“Hey,” I protested.
“Sorry, Bailey. It’s not my fault you have a reputation.” With a throaty chuckle, Quinn lowered his head and pressed his lips to my cheek. “I can’t say I mind no one else was wise enough to try to get your attention.”
Chief Hollands cleared his throat. “So the CDC helped you push through a cross-jurisdiction authorization. What happened next?”
“I called in a few people from my station, people who were qualified to handle meters and had basic certifications with the CDC, trained to use custom hazmat suits, and had glass coffin conditioning. Once we were all in dust-rated suits, we broke into her apartment. Fortunately for us, she’s good at her job and had contained the dust source in plastic.
She had managed to neutralize the free-floating particles.
” Quinn drew in a long breath. “I put her in a glass coffin myself.”
Silence.
“I’ve spent more time in a glass coffin than I care to think about,” I complained.
“To add insult to injury, they banged the door into my head breaking into my apartment. Because they hadn’t managed to finish me off by banging the door into my head, they stuffed me in the stupid box for four days.
” I wiggled in the blanket and did my best to pout at Quinn. “You helped them napalm my apartment.”
“It was all part of my clever scheme to force you to live with me.”
“You’re so full of shit, Mr. Police Chief Quinn.”
Quinn sighed. “All right. It didn’t actually occur to me that you really needed to live with me until after you were discharged, decided you were going to stay in the seediest damned roach motel you could find, contracted pneumonia, and almost died.
I may have been the one to suggest the CDC retest all your immunities, knowing of your unique reaction to transformative substances, but Professor Yale picked my house because of my fireplace and space sufficient for a unicorn. It’s in the file the NYPD has on you.”
“You sneaky bastard.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but can we backtrack for a moment? I’m not sure I follow. You napalmed your wife’s apartment?”
“We weren’t a couple then, but yes. Her measures to neutralize the gorgon dust weren’t able to decontaminate the bomb.
While we were able to get her into a glass coffin without spreading the contamination, we had to napalm the interior of her apartment twice; the first round hadn’t managed to completely destroy the cell phone and dust inside.
It was a lower-grade napalm. The second round we used a higher-intensity napalm.
We suspected the same dust batch was used at 120 Wall Street, which is why the CDC agreed with Bailey’s initial verdict to napalm the entire structure.
It was dumb luck Bailey was a unicorn. With the level of gorgon dust contamination, there was no realistic way to get her out.
She knew it. The CDC knew it, too. Any other CDC agent would have been immolated.
That was the second-worst moment of my life. ”