Beneath the Surface
Read Beneath the Surface Online
Authors: Melynda Price
ALSO BY MELYNDA PRICE
Against the Cage Series
Win by Submission
Passing His Guard
Fighting for Control
The Redemption Series
Until Darkness Comes
Shades of Darkness
Courting Darkness
Braving the Darkness
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 Mindy Weeks
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503937222
ISBN-10: 1503937224
Cover design by Damonza
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
1
Q
uinn’s heart leapt into her throat and beat a wild staccato when the doorknob to her apartment came loose in her hand. Looking closer, she could see the jamb was fractured; small slivers of wood littered the ground around her feet. She pressed her ear against the door, listening for movement. Silence answered.
Oh, God . . . Emily!
Fear for her roommate gripped her as she dug through her purse and pulled out her cell. Her hands shook as she scrolled through her contacts and selected Emily’s number. Time stopped, the air frozen in her lungs as she waited for the phone to ring, praying to God she wouldn’t hear the resonating echo on the other side of that door.
This was all her fault. She never should have come back here. If anything had happened to her roommate . . . The cell rang on Quinn’s end and hope rose with each millisecond that passed in responding silence. Then her heart broke as “All About That Bass” sounded in their apartment. Frozen by indecision, she was torn between going in and running for help as Emily’s phone sang on about that boom, boom that all the boys chased, and how she had all the right junk in all the right places.
With a trembling hand, Quinn pressed on the door. The hinges protested loudly as it opened and she winced, hoping and praying that whoever had broken in wasn’t still inside.
Please be all right, please be all right . . .
she prayed as music echoed through the apartment, claiming to be all about that bass, no treble. The song abruptly cut off, rolling her call over to voicemail.
“Hey, this is Emily. Leave me a message.”
Quinn disconnected the call mid
beeeeep.
“Em?” she called, stepping inside. Simon, Emily’s Siamese, meowed a greeting from the living room, but there was no answer from her roommate. She forced one tentative step into the entryway and let out a startled yelp when the cat darted across her path.
Her gaze fell to the bloody tracks left behind on the tile and her hand flew up to cover the scream building in her throat. “Em!” she cried, racing forward and then stumbling to a halt. This time there was no stopping the terrified cry that tore from her lungs as her mind refused to reconcile the horror her eyes could not unsee. There wasn’t one thing left in its rightful place. Blood splattered the walls and the overturned furniture. Emily’s broken body lay in a crimson pool like a centerpiece in this sick macabre scene. Sightless eyes stared at the ceiling, frozen in an expression of terror. The awkward angle of her head caused by the deep gash across her throat was Quinn’s final undoing.
The scent of death assaulted her, slamming into Quinn like an invisible wall. Sharp and pungent, the sickly sweet smell mixed with the apple cinnamon air freshener. Bile surged up her throat and her stomach rebelled. She took a step back and the heel of her boot slipped out from under her when it came down on her sister’s wedding photos scattered over the floor. She stumbled back and knocked into Simon. He let out a shrill meow and hissed. Quinn’s ankle rolled, pain searing through the joint as she lost her balance and fell, whacking her head against the overturned end table. Stars burst behind her eyes and a wave of dizziness washed over her, but she pushed it back, scrambling to her feet.
Quinn limped over to the phone, lifted the receiver, and was dialing 911 when her gaze landed on a vase of roses sitting in the middle of the dining room table. The beautiful bouquet amidst all the destruction was its own obscenity, but what stopped Quinn cold was the sight of her name written on the envelope. Her breath froze in her lungs.
Oh my God . . .
Somewhere in the back of her mind she was vaguely aware the phone was ringing on the other end of the line. She was shaking so badly, it took several attempts to pluck the envelope from the forked holder among the blood-red roses. She pulled out the small floral card, her stomach lurching at the blood smeared across the bottom of the envelope. Her pounding heart seized inside her chest.
Quinn Summers,
You can run but you can’t hide.
I’ll be seeing you soon . . .
“Hello, 911. Please state your emergency . . .” said the voice on the phone.
Quinn couldn’t speak, she couldn’t breathe.
“Hello, 911. Do you need assistance?”
The phone fell from Quinn’s numb hand, hitting the floor as she took a step toward the door. She had to get out of here—now! The pain in her ankle grounded her to reality as this horrifying moment threatened to steal her sanity.
Nooo . . .
She shook her head in denial, but she already knew the truth. This was no random act of violence, and she was holding the proof of it in her hand. She’d been back in the States only forty-eight hours and already someone was dead. Not just someone—Emily.
“Violet . . . ?” Quinn’s knees buckled in relief at the sound of her sister’s voice. Thank God they were all right.
“Quinn? Is that you? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
No, she wasn’t. She wasn’t okay at all. The adrenaline flooding her veins was the only thing keeping her standing. Her ankle had its own heartbeat, throbbing in time with the rapid pounding of her pulse. Unsure where to go, she’d made it as far as the library. She didn’t know if she was being followed, but common sense told her the safest place to be was in public. Finding a remote corner where she could still see the entrance, she hid between two towering shelves of the paleontology section. Out of breath, her words came in a whispered pant. “I’m in trouble, Vi.”
“What kind of trouble? Quinn, you’re scaring me.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I just . . . needed to hear your voice. I needed to know you were all right.” Swallowing back the rise of tears, she took a deep breath, trying to steady her voice.
“All right? Why wouldn’t we be? Are you still in Haiti? Quinn, if you’re in trouble, you need to go to the embassy.”
“I’m in New York, Vi. And I can’t go to the police.”
“Why not?”
“Because someone’s trying to kill me, and I think the government could be involved. I don’t know who I can trust right now.” Even as she said the words, she could hardly believe them herself. This sounded insane. Over and over, her mind tried to reject that this was actually happening. But there was no other explanation. She’d gone straight from the airport to the US attorney general’s office in Washington, DC. She hadn’t contacted or seen anyone else since returning from Haiti, and forty-eight hours later, her apartment had been ransacked and her roommate was dead.
“Someone’s trying to kill you?” Her sister’s shout blasted into her ear. The fear in her voice mirrored the terror pumping through Quinn’s veins. She shouldn’t have called. The last thing she wanted to do was pull Violet into this, but she didn’t know what else to do, where else to turn. Desperation clawed at her insides as her mind raced with dwindling options.
“Clover, who are you talking to?” Quinn could hear the deep voice of Nikko, Vi’s husband, in the background and a pang of envy sliced her heart. Never in her life had she felt more alone and hopeless than she did at this moment. Her faith in humanity was destroyed—her trust in the government shattered. She had no one to turn to, no one she could trust with her secret. No one to help her . . .
“It’s Quinn,” Vi whispered. “She’s in trouble.”
“Let me talk to her.”
She was about to protest when Nikko’s voice came across the line with a decisive calmness she really needed right now. “Quinn? Quinn, talk to me. What’s going on?”
“I’m in a lot of trouble, Nikko.” It was hard to speak with the tears clogging her throat. Taking a deep breath, she swallowed past the lump and tried again. “I was doing this story in Haiti, and I found out some stuff I shouldn’t have . . .”
“Where are you at right now?”
“The Mid-Manhattan Library.”
“How are you calling?”
“My cell.”
He growled a nasty curse. “Quinn, you need to get off that phone. Back up your contacts and then destroy it. If there’s someone after you and he’s worth a shit, he’ll be using that cell to track you. Go to the ATM and pull out all the cash you can get—debit cards, credit cards, all of it. Go to the train station and buy an Amtrak ticket to San Diego. If you buy it at the counter and use cash, they won’t require an ID to board. You’ll be safest traveling in a large group that makes several stops. Get off in Salt Lake City and I’ll pick you up there. If you exit midroute, it’ll be harder to track you.”
“You can’t come get me.” It didn’t matter how much she wanted to take Nikko up on his offer, she couldn’t put his family at risk. Not after what happened to Emily. “I can’t bring you guys into this. It’s really bad, Nikko. They killed my roommate.” Her voice broke.
It was the first time she’d said those words out loud, and somehow hearing them made this all too real, forcing her mind to accept with finality what it was trying so hard to deny—the government was trying to kill her before she could go public with what she’d discovered in Haiti. What she didn’t understand was what the US government had to gain by covering it up.
She was in too deep now to let this go, even if she wanted to. They would never let her live, not with what she knew, and Quinn refused to let Emily’s death be in vain. Rallying her nerve, she let the seed of anger take root and watered it with injustice, clinging to those emotions like a lifeline. In that moment she made a decision—she could either become a victim—like Emily, like those children in Haiti—or she could become their voice for justice. Many people had martyred themselves for less. If she was going to die, at least it wouldn’t be for nothing. She’d die telling her story to the world.
“If you won’t let me come get you, Quinn, then you need to go to Asher. He’ll keep you safe.”
Asher? Asher Tate from her sister’s wedding? Nikko’s whoring best man? No freaking way. The guy was such an insufferable prick, she never wanted to lay eyes on him again.
She was about to tell Nikko she’d rather take her chances on her own when he pressed the issue. “Listen, I realize you two didn’t exactly hit it off.”
That was an understatement.
“But you need to be with someone who can protect you, Quinn. Someone who’s trained in this kind of stuff and can help you get this shit straightened out.”
A lot of words came to mind when she thought of Asher Tate, but “protect” and “safe” were not two of them.
“There’s no one I trust more, Quinn.”
There had to be some other way, some better alternative. But as her mind raced through options, she was coming up blank and running out of time. She couldn’t very well stay holed up in a library.
Well, shit . . .
“Do you have a pen and paper?”
“Yeah, just a minute . . .” Her hands shook as she dug through her purse. She pulled out a pen and then fished around to find something to write on. Her fingers connected with the sharp edge of the floral card she’d shoved inside the pouch. She pulled it out and a shiver of dread coursed down her spine at the sight of her name penned by her roommate’s killer. She flipped it over. “All right, I’m ready.”
“Get off the Amtrak in Denver. Then take a cab to Grand Junction, Colorado. There’s a little bar outside of town called The Rabbit Hole. When you get there, ask for a man by the name of Robert Tate. He’s Asher’s father. He’ll be expecting you. I’ll call him and arrange for him to take you to Asher’s.”
Colorado? Was he crazy? Nikko was sending her halfway across the United States to get protection from a guy who hated her just as much as she loathed him, and he didn’t even know she was coming?
“Can I get his number? Why can’t I go straight there?” If she was seriously considering doing this, then perhaps she should at least talk to the guy first.
“He isn’t taking calls or answering any e-mails. I think his cell’s turned off. Since this Nisour Square shit hit the press, he’s gone off grid. I’ll keep trying to contact him, though.”
“He was part of Nisour Square? Seriously, Nikko, what are you getting me into?” She hadn’t been back in the States more than two days and even
she
knew about the Nisour Square massacre. The news coverage she’d seen at the airport had focused on the Peterson trial. She hadn’t been aware Asher was involved.
“You can’t believe everything you hear on the news, Quinn. Asher didn’t kill those people.”
Maybe not, but guilt by association and all that crap. In her experience, all lies tended to have some fabric of truth woven into them. He might not have pulled the trigger, but she’d be surprised if he wasn’t complicit to those murders in some way, shape, or form. For all she knew, she could be running from one killer straight into the hands of another.
“I’m not sure this is a good idea, Nikko. I don’t trust him—”
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then go to Asher.”
“What if he refuses to help me?” Lord, she must be out of her mind for actually considering this. But what better option did she have? Stay here in the city and be hunted down like a rabid dog? She never thought she’d be saying this, but right now Asher Tate really was the lesser of the two evils. And make no mistake, that man was quite possibly the devil incarnate.