Page 53 of Shattered Reflections

The emotions ran wildly through my heart as we waited for forensics to get back to us regarding IDs for the multiple victims in that slaughterhouse. My world teetered with the blinding hope that Cassie wasn’t among them.

I held my stomach. The ache set deep, my nerves and pain swirling in my blood like poison.

“Has anyone claimed her yet? A partner? Family?” I said, forcing myself to breathe through this awful panic. Shutting down the emotions that wouldn’t bring Cassie back, I held onto the ones that would.

“No,” he said. I could hear papers flipping around as he shuffled for something. A slight ‘a-ha,’ and he drawled. “She spoke to a psychologist at ten am this morning. It says on her charts she referred to losing her parents when she was little and never having married. And not having any other family,” he read.

I frowned. Geez, this girl went through hell, survived, and now she was alone in this world? How the fates were cruel.

“Okay, well, maybe we can track down friends she may have known. She has such a thick Russian accent. Was she kidnapped from there and brought to the States?”

Quinn was silent, more shuffling and then a groan.

“She wouldn’t say. Her statement just says she was sleeping, and they took her.”

I pondered that. “Plural. They. Whoever was behind this—it had to be two or more people.”

I didn’t mention that she said the same last night when I visited her right before being discharged. My body was banged up, but as opposed to usual, I didn’t notice much difference. The stairs hadn’t been all that high. I was more likely to die from a disease of getting scraped in that fungus-infested grave site than the fall itself.

“I agree. I have spoken with her myself,” he admitted. That must have been off-book because he’d been off duty since getting her from that horror.

“Did you stay at the hospital?” I said, realizing that he had to have been there a while to collect all that data.

There was a beat of silence and then a long sigh. “Yeah, I just wanted to make sure she was okay. Had someone familiar around for a bit.”

Quinn had to have been hurting badly from this, his sister’s treatment and death at the forefront of his memory. And yet he was still being the kind man he was, making sure that a scared woman had a friend.

God, they should make medals for the guy. I certainly was no saint. That was for sure. I mean I became a criminal analyst because I couldn’t deal with what happened to me. I needed to find every bad man and save every seventeen-year-old girl from the same fate.

“Ella,” he said, a serious note to his tone. “Did something like that happen to you?”

I blinked. Micah Quinn had read my file.

“Uh, no. Nothing like Ivy. I was kidnapped at a friend’s place…when I was walking back home, some tweakers knocked me out and threw me in a trunk.”

My heart rate picked up, and my mind went all fuzzy. It was like static, trying to find a channel. “I don’t remember much at all, to be honest…” I admitted.

My heartbeat thrummed wildly in my ears. I didn’t remember anything past being shoved in a trunk. I obviously got away somehow, but….

Quinn was silent, his own mind’s cruelty bogging him down.

“I’m so sorry, Ella. You’re very strong.”

“I think it killed my dad,” I blurted. “He was never the same after that. And honestly, I felt like a stranger when I came home. I had moved out later that year, putting all my focus on becoming a CA.”

Quinn murmured all the right things. The way my dad loved me, the way he never would have judged me. But I couldn’t know for sure. My dad was gone.

* * *

Arriving at the hospital, I was greeted by a kind receptionist. Her mousy face and slim neck made her look like a fascinating creature. Actually, she kind of looked like a painting.

“Hi there,” she said—a southern accent prominent. She was a classic Southern belle.

“How do I get to room two-one-one, please.”

“Oh, that’s the room that handsome detective visits. He has barely left her side,” she said with a dreamy sigh. Quinn was always leaving girls wistful in his wake.

“Thank you,” I said and walked to the gift shop.

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