Chapter 29 Quinn
TWENTY-NINE
Quinn
The knock cuts through the quiet of my living room.
I set down my wine glass and cross to the door, my sock feet silent on the hardwood.
The afternoon's realization still sits heavy in my chest. Preliminary inquiries do not accelerate like this.
This is warp speed. Martin pushed my recommendation upward this morning, but there's no way in hell Stone Intermodal has been notified.
Keller stands on my porch, still in what looks like conference attire. A dark suit with his coat draped over his arm and a button-down with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. His glasses catch the porch light. He looks composed, but his jaw is tight.
He steps inside and kisses me once. His lips brush mine without a thought, like we've been doing this for a lifetime.
"Hey," he says, looking deflated
"Hey, yourself."
"Come in. Take a load off. I think I have some gym shorts and a t-shirt that will fit you. Want me to go get you something more comfortable?"
"No, I'm okay like this. I just need a glass of wine and to sit down with you."
He moves past me, draping his jacket on the club chair.
"I'll pour you a glass of wine and meet you on the deck."
The sliding glass doors are already open, letting in the mild March air.
He strides toward the back, already gravitating toward the deck like he needs open air more than conversation. I watch him go, noting the set of his shoulders.
I pour a second glass of wine and follow him outside.
The evening air hangs more still than normal. Storm clouds gather at the edges of the sky, turning the light hazy and golden.
Keller stands at the deck railing, staring out at the darkening neighborhood. I hand him the wine. He takes it without looking at me.
"I missed you last night," he says, turning to look at me. He leans against the railing, his fitted button-down looking way too sexy for work attire. I can make out the ridges of his washboard abs.
"I missed you, too. I prefer falling asleep with you."
"Same."
"You look tired. Was it a long day? I know you had a late night."
"Yeah, late night, early morning, lots of kissing ass and shaking hands. And then we left early on a fire drill. Everything's blowing up."
I lean against the railing beside him, leaving a few inches of space between us. "Everything okay?"
He takes a long sip of wine before answering.
"Just dealing with some stuff regarding my father. It puts everyone on edge. Ridge is wound tight. I've got to go in first thing in the morning for a meeting. You know, same shit, different day."
My pulse spikes. I feel it in my throat, in the sudden tightness across my ribs. Maybe it's something else entirely, not the investigation I put in motion. Please, God, let it be anything but that.
My face stays neutral. Years of training keep my expression soft and concerned rather than calculating.
"That sounds stressful. Is there anything I can do to help you?"
Keller exhales slowly. His thumb traces the stem of his wine glass.
"Ridge is handling it, working with lawyers. This isn't really my wheelhouse, so when things come up, I show up and do whatever they need from me."
I file that away. Ridge is leading the response, and counsel is engaged. Standard containment protocol for preliminary exposure.
No full investigative team would be assembled this quickly. This is still contained, still preliminary. It's got to be something else.
"Do they know what they're looking for?"
The question comes out casually. Girlfriend curious, not a federal agent probing.
Keller shakes his head.
He finally looks at me. "Bureaucratic bullshit, probably. But the timing is awful."
"I'm sorry. That's a lot to deal with."
Keller's jaw works for a moment before he speaks again.
"It might be nothing. Ridge thinks it's probably nothing.
But he's already in crisis mode, so." He shrugs, a gesture that doesn't match the tension in his frame.
"October keeps coming back around. It's like we're all stuck in this Groundhog Day loop of dealing with the fallout.
We can't just grieve our father and move on. "
There it is. It's definitely tied to something with Robert. I still can't imagine it's stemming from the report I sent in.
"You said Houston was for Argentum stuff, right?"
He turns his wine glass in his hands, watching the liquid catch the fading light.
"Yeah."
I turn toward him, studying his profile. The tight line of his mouth. The way his eyes stay fixed on something past the tree line.
"Savannah, too? I hope you're on the payroll for Argentum as much as you're traveling."
"Savannah was a little different. Same type of thing, but not the project we were meeting about today." He drains half his glass. "Something tied to my mother. Something I should have dealt with years ago."
I wait. The air between us is suddenly fragile, like the humidity before a storm breaks. That's how I always feel whenever his mom comes up.
I think about the trust in his mom's name, and the sudden use after years of inactivity. My heart sinks.
"Oh, I didn't realize—"
"No need to apologize. I didn't go into detail about it because it's something I'm working through myself, without bringing my brothers in, yet. I found a connection I never knew about." His thumb traces the rim of the glass again. "I thought going there in person would settle things."
"Did it?"
"No."
He doesn't offer any other details. Just "no." My mind races, wondering if Savannah is somehow connected to the trust that raised the red flag that put this investigation in motion. I'm literally nauseated, so I sit down in the black metal chair.
The guilt presses against my ribs. He's standing here trusting me with pieces of his grief, and I'm the fox in the hen house. All of it is almost too much for me to bear. Do I tell him?
"I don't usually talk about this stuff. I'm sorry I'm unloading on you."
His voice is rough around the edges. Stripped of the smooth confidence I've come to expect.
"You don't have to apologize, Keller."
He looks at me then. Really looks. Something shifts in his expression. Not relief exactly. More like recognition. Permission granted.
"She had this whole life outside of us, it seems. Outside of my father." He sets his wine glass on the railing.
And seemingly out of nowhere, the sky cracks open. Raindrops the size of grapes come down with a vengeance, sending us both scrambling.
Thunder rolls through the sky, and a wall of rain slants across the deck in the same breath, hitting the boards like a drum.
"Go, go, go—"
Keller grabs both glasses as I run through the sliding door. We stumble inside together, water streaming off our shoulders. My hair is soaked in seconds, plastered to my neck, and dripping down my back. His shirt clings to his chest, dark with rain.
I slide the door behind us so the sideways rain doesn't follow us in. The storm hammers against the glass.
We stand there dripping on my floor, breathing hard. Keller looks down at himself, then at me. A drop of water falls from his chin.
I start laughing.
He does too. The sound breaks something loose in my chest. Not the tension from earlier, not the weight of what I know and what he doesn't. Just this moment. Rain caught us both off guard.
"Your hair." He gestures vaguely at my head.
"Your entire shirt."
"Fair point."
I grab a towel from the hall closet and hand it to him. He takes it, but instead of drying himself, he drapes it around my shoulders. His hands move to my hair, rubbing gently at the wet strands. The pressure is soft and caring in a way that doesn't ask for anything back.
I close my eyes for a second, allowing myself to drink it in, scared it could all be snatched away from me if he ever finds out.
"We should rinse off. You want to shower with me?"
"I'd like that."
I grab his hand and pull him to the back of the house with me. I find my largest t-shirt and some old basketball shorts I borrowed from Nate a while back and lay them on the bed for him.
"You can't put those wet clothes back on. You're going to have to go commando, though. I don't have any panties that will fit you."
That makes him smile.
I step into the bathroom and turn on the hot water.
The shower is small. Steam fills the bathroom quickly, softening the light. I strip down and get in, calling for him to join me. He walks in already naked, and I have to catch my breath.
Instead, he lowers his forehead to the curve of my shoulder and stays there. His breathing expands slowly against my back, deep and controlled, and his thumbs move in absent circles along my hip bones as though the simple motion helps him think.
After a moment, he reaches for the shampoo.
“Let me,” he says quietly.
I nod and tilt my head slightly, and he works the lather into my hair with careful fingers.
He moves slowly, methodically, as though there is nothing in the world more pressing than making sure the soap reaches every strand.
When he tips my head back to rinse, his hand shields my eyes from the spray.
The gesture is small, practical, and unexpectedly intimate.
He washes my shoulders next, then my arms, his touch steady and unhurried. There is no edge in him tonight, no urgency or escalation. The tension that followed us in from the deck has softened into something quieter.
A chill runs through me, even in the hot shower. I've never had someone touch me so tenderly.
When he finishes, he steps into the spray himself and rinses quickly, efficiently, as if his own comfort is secondary to the simple fact that we are here together.
I step out first and grab two towels, handing him one. He wraps it around my shoulders first and rubs gently at my hair before drying himself with the second one.
Back in the living room, we settle onto the couch beneath the same throw from the night before. He reaches for the remote and starts the next episode of Lincoln Lawyer, as though returning to a fictional courtroom is easier than staying inside his own head.
I curl into him and rest my cheek against his chest. His hand finds my waist automatically, his thumb brushing slow, distracted arcs against my side while the opening credits roll.
I like that he smells like me.
The window where he might have said more about Savannah, about October, about the way all of it presses in on him, is closed now. Whatever opened on the deck has been carefully folded away again. I hold onto the fact that he let me see even a portion of it.
He trusted me, but the thought doesn't bring comfort. Trust implies safety, and I’m not entirely safe for him. And that completely breaks me.
On the screen, the defense attorney makes his opening argument. Keller’s breathing gradually evens beneath my ear. His body relaxes, inch by inch, until the weight of him is less guarded.
He believes this is the one place untouched by whatever is weighing on me. He believes I exist outside the orbit of all the noise around him right now.
Lightning flickers faintly against the dark sky, the storm now a distant rumble instead of a crack overhead. Keller tightens his arm around me in his sleep, drawing me closer without waking.
I lie there against him, very still, listening to his steady breathing and praying to any deity that will listen to please make this all go away for him. For us.
If this inquiry expands the way I know it can, there will be subpoenas and depositions and names attached to decisions, even if no one in the family is ultimately found to have done anything wrong.
And if it ever traces back to the analyst who flagged the pattern, no explanation will make this look like anything but betrayal.
He shifts slightly, his hand tightening at my waist.
I close my eyes and pretend, just for a moment, that none of it will reach us.