Page 44 of Wicked S.O.B.

I clear my throat. “I called her two weeks ago. I wanted her to look into whether I was being followed or if it was just in my mind.”

Thick silence throbs through the living room at my words. Quinn exhales in disbelief and stares at me. “You went to her. Instead of me.”

“Mr. Blackwood—”

“I’m speaking to my—” He stops suddenly, and we’re both thrown back to the moment by the window. Quinn down on one knee, asking me…

Agony ripples through me. Oh God, was it only a half hour ago?

I watch his chest rise and fall. He swallows, then grits his jaw. “You went to her. Then what?”

“We’ve been trawling through CCTV footage and mug shots,” Ellen speaks up again. I have to hand it to her—she has guts.

“And let me guess. You’ve come up with fuck-all?”

The detective’s lips purse but she shrugs her defeat.

Quinn’s gaze swings to Fionnella. “And you, dearfriend? How are you up to speed with all this?” His tone drips with acid sarcasm.

Fionnella shrugs it off. “After what happened last year I put a few safeguards in various places.” She sends Ellen a drolldon’t askglance. “When the detective filed a report about a certain piece of evidence she picked up from an Elyse Gilbert this afternoon, I got an alert. I looked into things, got a picture of what was going on.”

Ellen’s eyebrows spike but she doesn’t respond.

Quinn eyes lock on me. “What evidence?”

I clear my throat. “He…left a package for me this afternoon. I gave it to Detective Schultz before I came to meet you tonight.”

Another forked lightning of censure lances at me. “So it wasn’t just stalking. The fucking bastard madeactualcontact?”

“Yes.”

His forefinger bounces against his thigh as he stares at me. “What…what did he leave for you?” he asks gruffly.

“The laptop case I thought I lost a couple weeks ago. With a Post-it note that saidLost.”

“I’ve handed it to my tech guys. If anything pops, they’ll let me know immediately.”

Quinn doesn’t acknowledge Ellen’s response. He’s staring at me as if he’s never seen me before.

“I’m sorry,” I mouth. His eyes remain on me. Harrowing. Desolate. Infinitely puzzled.

Fionnella clears her throat. “There’s been another development since this afternoon.”

With every cell in my body, I wish she would shut up. I don’t know how much more of this Quinn can take. But his stance is resolute as he turns to her.

“What?” he asks.

She holds up the envelope she took out of her bag minutes ago, opens the flap, and pulls out half a dozen sheets of glossy paper. It’s the kind used to print photos. She sends me another sympathetic look before she holds them up. “He had a courier deliver these downstairs for you an hour ago. The concierge was about to deliver them when I got here.”

Ice drenches me from head to toe as I watch myself in a series of shots taken outside Blackwood Tower. Quinn marches over and snatches them from her. Brows clamped, he stares down at it. “Jesus, he got close enough to take pictures of her?”

Fionnella and Ellen flinch at Quinn’s roar of disbelief. I can’t stop the uncontrollable shaking that is going through me. My stalker is the stranger who tried to share my taxi when I left Blackwood Tower. God. “I…I didn’t recognize him. I have no idea who he is,” I whisper as fresh shivers rack my spine.

Quinn finally sees my reaction. He slaps the pictures on the coffee table and scoops me into his arms. His touch is gentle but the tension vibrating through him is anything but. His hand slides up and down my arm to warm me up, but his focus is fixed on the two women in the room. “What the fuck does that mean?” He points to the Post-it note stuck to the picture that saysFound.

“He’s playing a game, I guess,” Ellen offers.

LostandFound.

---