Page 48 of She Gives Love a Bad Name

Grant

Four minutes of shoutingand pounding on the door, and it still doesn’t budge. I’m half tempted to shoot the lock, but that’ll make more of a mess than I’m willing to deal with—even without the fact that the bullet could hit someone on the other side of the door. Fuck.

I kick the damn thing one last time, then rest my head against the impenetrable wood. Quinn’s in trouble, and I walked into a fucking trap. What kind of shitty cop am I? Running in like some rookie with a lead before scouting my surroundings. Shit.

A sturdy knock vibrates beneath my hand.

“Damn lock’s broken,” I shout through the door. “Quinn’s in danger. Go!”

“Top drawer in my desk,” Claude shouts back. “I’ll check on Quinn.”

In the drawer, there’s a small tool kit. I grab the screwdriver and attack the knob screws with a vengeance. By the time I get the screws out, my hands are slick with sweat and my heart’s racing so fast, I worry I might go into cardiac arrest.

Please be there. Please be okay.The thoughts race through my brain and over my lips, a mantra of protection. A Hail Mary.

It was stupid of me to rush off without verifying the information.

But how could the murderer have discovered where she was? How could they possibly know? Why go to the trouble of getting me out of the apartment first? Nothing makes sense.

I manage to get the doorknob off and unfuck the lock. The door swings open, and I nearly collide with Claude when I round the corner. He catches me by the shoulder, his eyes wide, his mouth set in a grim line.

“She’s gone, Grant.”

“No.” I push past him and race down the hall, tear around the corner, and climb the stairs two at a time. The .38 Special is steady in my hand as I approach the apartment. My chest nearly bursts from the exertion on top of the panic crushing it like a two-ton stone.

The door’s wide open.

“It was like that?” I ask Claude, who comes up beside me.

He nods, and I notice the revolver in his grip—the Smith & Wesson Pap used to keep under the bar for rowdy patrons and light fingers.

We slip into the apartment and clear it. Strange. The air conditioning is off, but the stove burner is on, water boiling away. I turn it off. There’s no sign of Quinn or the intruder.

What’s even stranger is there’s no sign of a struggle. Quinn would have put up a fight.

Confusion leaves me angry. This can’t be the murderer because it doesn’t fit their MO. In all the cases, none show any attempt to abduct a victim. They were killed on the spot and left for dead. If this were the killer from the Madison case, he would have removed her as a threat and left her lying in a pool of blood as a reminder. A shiver courses through me at the thought.

No, this is something else entirely. But I have no idea what it could be.

“Are you sure she didn’t decide to leave?” Claude tucks the gun into the back of his waistband.

My mind conjures the moments before Claude interrupted us earlier. Her body wrapped around mine, her pussy tight around my fingers as I coaxed her to orgasm. The sweet, sinful promise of continuation on her lips as I walked out the door.

“There’s no way in hell she just left.” I shake my head and holster my weapon.

“You sure?”

“Positive.” I shoot him a narrow glance to convey my affirmation. Claude doesn’t need to know everything that goes on between Quinn and me. Not yet. But my brother’s smart. I’m sure he’s figured it out.

“This guy who wanted to speak with me?” I pace as I work the details through my mind. “What did he look like?”

“Thirties, brown eyes, brown hair. Nothing remarkable. No tats or scars that I noticed.”

“Black-and-neon-green running jacket?”

“Yeah.” Claude straightens. “Did you see him?”

“Bastard is the one who locked me in your office. Must have disabled the phone and the lock before I showed up. He shut the door behind me.” Regret stings like bile at the back of my throat. “I should have known it was a trap.”

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