Chapter 73
“LOVE STORY” BY SARAH COTHRAN
Richard let me know early on Quincy was writing to Quinntessa.
It started almost immediately after she was booked.
I had arranged for all calls to be rerouted to her old cellphone.
I kept it in my office in order to record each voicemail in search of any confessions.
What I had not expected was this passionate obsession with my daughter to extend to letters.
Two hundred and thirty-one letters addressed to my daughter.
I sat against the headboard and looked over each letter with a dull soreness in my jaw.
Quinntessa inherited my anxiety and stress levels, including the horrible habit of grinding my teeth in the middle of the night.
Or, in my case, grinding my teeth as I read Quincy’s words to my daughter over and over again.
Each letter showed how Quincy was feeling that day. Some letters had spots where I assumed the girl had cried. A few blood stains from days that matched up with Quincy’s fights, and even a letter with a bloody lip print on the paper.
“Damn it.” I leaned back and rubbed my face, covering my eyes to try to escape the numerous letters I hadn’t open yet.
Quinntessa would never see these. I wouldn’t let her. if Quincy wanted to say these things to my daughter, she’d do them after agreeing to my terms.
It was a risk. I knew it. My boss knew it.
Even a few of my colleagues worried what would happen if Quincy agreed to work with the FBI and CIA in opening communication between the underworld, Russia, and our government.
We needed to know where the threat truly lay inside organized crime rings as dangerous as the Harrekson line, and I knew Quincy wanted to be with her daughter.
And mine.
There were risks in both choices. I could leave Quincy to rot and watch my daughter’s trauma control her behind closed doors, or I could let Quincy become acquainted with Quinntessa enough to help her through it.
I didn’t want her anywhere near my daughter, but looking over all these letters confirmed none of this would be anywhere close to as controlled as I wished it would be.
I love you, Quinntessa. I won’t ever stop.
“Fuck.”
“Security cameras show you rummaging through Quinntessa’s vehicle not long after she disappeared in the hospital car park.” Agent Lane read from the file in front of him, sparing a glance up at Quincy. “Why?”
Quincy sat in silence. She stared at the man with an uninterested look on her face. If not for the cuffs locking her to the table, she might have stood and sat in a corner for more entertainment.
“You’re not helping yourself.” Agent Lane leaned closer to the young woman. “Kidnapping a minor is a serious charge. You already have a possibility of a life sentence. If you are cooperative, we might be able to do something about that.”
“I want Chris Romero.” Quinn repeated. It was the fifth time she’d said it since I arrived to observe the interaction.
“Where were you the night Dominik Quintana was shot?” Agent Lane asked.
I stepped forward and observed the twitch in Quincy’s face. She leaned into the table and smirked at the officer.
“I was ten feet from him when I watched one of your fucking pigs shoot him down over nothing,” she hissed.
My fingers pinched the bridge of my nose. I turned to face the board behind me, absorbing all the information I could from the other agents in charge of interrogating Quincy these past few days.
“How about Jamison Reid? Where were you when the boy was killed?” Agent Lane pressed. “Do you know where you were for any of these people I mentioned today?”
“Chris. Romero.” Quincy gritted her teeth.
“Maxim Vincent? Oscar Vincent? Maddox Petronia?”
Quincy leaned as far back into her chair as possible with her arms cuffed to the table. She rocked her head over to look in my direction, straight at the glass, before a smile broke out across her face.
“I know you’re there, Agent.” She sat up and gritted her teeth. “Don’t be such a fucking pussy. Get out here and face me!”
I picked up the microphone attached to the monitor. I watched Agent Lane try to wrangle Quincy back into conversation now that she was talking, but it was no use.
“Alright,” I spoke into the microphone Bluetooth-ed to Agent Lane’s earpiece. “Walk out. I’ll go in.”
My face fell into my hands. I rubbed the stress lines on my face and tossed a few fingers through my dirty blonde hair. I was really hoping this would be easier for all parties.
“You don’t have to do this.” Bruno laid a hand on my shoulder.
“I do,” I muttered. “She wants to know about Quinntessa.”
“That’s exactly why you don’t have to do it. It’s been months. Eventually, Quinntessa will move on, and Quincy will forget about her.”
“I know my kid.” I rocked my jaw back and forth. “A few months is nothing to a woman that stubborn.”
“Quincy?” Bruno frowned.
“Quinntessa.” I pushed off the table behind me and grabbed the file on my way out the door.
Agent Lane nodded politely before he passed into the other room. I hovered outside the door Quincy waited behind and took a few deep, much-needed breaths.
“She’s not him.” I leaned against the door and took a moment to clear my head. “She’s not him.”
After a moment to settle my thoughts and expectations, I yanked the door open to the interrogation room and stepped inside.
The lights were purposefully dim. Quincy hadn’t been out of max for a while. Her every day was dim lighting and constant noise, lonely day and nights, even after she was transferred into D block with the general population.
Quincy’s eyes raised from her cuffs when she heard the door open. Our eyes met briefly before I focused on pulling out the chair to sit across from her.
“I’ve been told you wanted our talk off the record with your lawyer.” I laid the file on the table and flipped through the different additions from that week. “You’ve stayed busy, I see.”
“Actually, I do a lot of reading now. They have books inside.” Quincy cocked her head and gave me a closed-mouth smile.
“And are these books you read before or after you hired your new followers to kill people from other blocks?” I leaned back and gave her an openhanded shrug when she scoffed. “Oh, come on, Quinn. You didn’t think I just came here to make small talk, did you?”
Quincy’s hazel eyes were almost pitch-black beside the shadows of her dark circles.
She lost weight on the inside, her already skinny body smaller than I remembered.
It made her dark blue jumpsuit look baggier than normal.
Her cheek bones were more noticeable, and the strain of her neck showed how irritated she truly was with this process.
“Why did you want to talk to me?” I asked, tapping the tabletop. “I don’t have a lot of time. You’ll have to be quick.”
“So you can take Quinntessa to her private lessons?” Quincy copied the movements of my fingers and tapped the steel table. “I can’t remember. Does she go to work with Coach Kai on Tuesdays or Fridays now that football is over?”
“Tuesdays,” I answered.
Her eyes brightened at the information. I knew she’d be excited to learn more about Quinntessa. I’d starved her as long as humanly possible.
“Hm.” She spread her hands out on the table and stretched her upper body. “And why is she at the fields on Fridays?”
“Same reason she has been at the field every night since she’s come home: to run.” I leaned forward and laced my hands in front of me. “She can’t sleep. She lays there all night screaming because of you.”
“No.” Quincy’s nostrils flared.
“That star on her face doesn’t help,” I continued, returning to the file in front of me. I flipped through the pages until I came across the letter. “I knew you’d have her watched. I’m surprised you didn’t keep trying to contact her after I changed her number.”
The excitement in her eyes oozed away as her expression darkened. The chains of her cuffs rattled uncomfortably as she shifted repeatedly.
“You changed her number,” she mumbled.
“Yes.” I tossed one of Quincy’s letters on the table between us. “I also rerouted her mail. Did you think it would be that easy to get into her head?”
Quincy stared at the open envelope. Her jaw trembled, clenched so tight, the young woman was starting to shake. Her fingers scrunched over the tabletop, flexing and balling.
“Here’s the deal, kid.” I closed the folder and leaned back in my chair. “You’re going to be in here until you die. Quinns is going to move on in a year’s time after she go to college, and you won’t be on her radar at all. It’s reality. She’s already talking to boys.”
“Yeah, right,” Quincy spat.
Her head hung between her arms as her knee bounced anxiously, her once-strong body language melting down. She wasn’t her father. She wasn’t one of these well-seasoned mob figures. I knew this kid only wanted three things out of this—release, Estelle, and my little girl.
“Your prints were found on most of the weapons on the property. There were bodies in the barn, through the woods, under the floorboards . . .” Quincy avoided my eyes and stared at the floor. “How many people did you kill?”
“I hurt fifty-two people,” she mumbled.
“I didn’t ask what you’re being charged with.” I tapped the tabletop. “How many people did you kill, Quinn?”
Her eyes raised slowly from the floor. She didn’t look directly at me. No, she stared at the letter between us.
“Fi-Fifty-two.” She stayed loyal to her family.
“Was this before or after you kidnapped her?” I asked. “And let’s answer truthfully this time so maybe I can actually help you out here.”
“I didn’t kidnap her.” She rolled her eyes and gazed at the glass window. “I told your friend this.”
“How did?—”
“Oscar Vincent kidnapped her.” She paused. “He’s dead now.”
“Yes, we found the body in the woods with—” I opened the file and sorted through the victims. “Two clean arrow wounds. Second shot went through his lung, and he bled out. Interesting methods.”
Interestingly, Quincy’s lips twitched into a short, tiny smile. She turned back at me with a newfound strength.