The Best Part of Me (9 page)

Quinn felt lethargic and slow, her head throbbing with the pulse in her chest. She tried to blink several times to clear the haze, her sight the only sense that seemed to be working.

After stumbling to her feet, she pushed her purse onto her shoulder and noticed a bright red smudge on the strap. She looked down at her hand to find it was covered in blood. She looked at her other hand, and it too was stained with crimson.

Staring at the pieces of glass embedded in her right arm, she couldn't bring herself to draw a conclusion. Some people were getting up off the floor. Some were sitting; some were still lying down. A middle-aged woman cupped her bloody face, her mouth open as if she were screaming.

Quinn staggered her way to the door, stepping over and around the debris of people, furniture, and potted plants. The security guard at the door was on his feet and raised his hands as though to grab her shoulders. He looked dazed. If he said anything, Quinn didn't hear him. She pushed against the glass door with both palms, only slightly aware of the red handprints she left behind.

It seemed like the world was muted.

She squinted at the change in light. She could have sworn it had been a sunny day, but there were dark, angry clouds that blocked the view of the tops of the buildings.

Why were her eyes burning?

As she tried hard to concentrate on what direction she needed to go, her stomach gave a slight lurch, and there was vomit on the sidewalk when she looked down. Her shoes were a mess, but she couldn't remember how they'd gotten that way.

Her head suddenly weighed so much that it was an effort to pick it up. She noticed that it was snowing, but she couldn't feel the chill on her bare arms. The snowflakes were ugly. Instead of being crystalline white, they were dull and dirty. She had no idea what it was that was falling from the sky, but it started to cover the ground and the cars that were stopped at all angles on Grant Street.

A man was suddenly in front of her. He must have been tall because he had to bend down to put his face right in front of her.

Who was this guy?

His lips were moving, but she couldn't hear him. Quinn frowned and shook her head. She narrowed her eyes and concentrated to figure out what he was saying. Now there was a woman beside him. There were tear streaks on her dusty face. She was trying to take Quinn's arm to pull her toward a dirty bench. She let them pull her, still confused, still shaking her head.

They didn't bother to wipe the filth off the bench before they gently pushed Quinn to sit on it. A small piece of paper fluttered in front of her and landed on her thigh. It looked like a piece to a centuries-old treasure map with its burnt edges and brittle texture. She studied it, wondering where it had come from. The woman with the tear-stains was still holding her hand. She was rubbing Quinn's arm like a mother would a child who was crying.

Am I crying?

She swiped her index finger across her cheek and examined it. There was blood there, but it had been there before. She didn't think she was crying, so why was this woman rubbing her arm? The tall man standing near the bench was on his cell phone. Quinn looked over her shoulder and through the empty windows of the bank and could still see the woman who was sitting on the floor clutching her head. Someone was talking to her now.

Quinn looked back at the piece of the treasure map on her leg. Its blackened edges were jagged, but there was writing on it that was still legible.

This wasn't a treasure map. This was someone's legal papers. A thought struck then, but she couldn't quite grasp it. Were these her legal papers? She didn't remember having any. There was something she was forgetting. Something with this piece of paper. She held it with her fingers, watching as a red stain spread on the paper under her thumb.

Ah, yes! Her parents! She was supposed to meet them for lunch. They were going to wonder what had been keeping her.

Quinn quickly tossed the piece of paper aside and stood up, fighting the uneven ground under her feet. The woman holding her hand started to shake her head. The man on the cell phone held his hand up, asking her to halt. Quinn turned in the direction of the federal building, where her mom and dad were waiting for her.

She didn't get more than five steps down the sidewalk before all her senses came rushing back.

A putrid burning smell hung in the air. Car horns mixed with emergency vehicle sirens joined the high-pitched ringing sound in her ears. The air, filled with what seemed like smoke, was hot against her face. A low ache started to creep up her arm as she felt a drop of something wet run down the side of her neck. Her tongue was heavy and tasted metallic as she wetted her swollen lips.

Quinn stared ahead to the next block through the hazy cloud of dust and ash. A huge, gaping hole swallowed the front of the federal building.

She started to run, and the only sounds Quinn could hear were her own screams as she raced toward the building.

“No!”

Quinn shot up in bed with a start. Her breath was fast, her chest rising quickly, and she was covered in sweat. She had to squeeze her eyes shut to block out the remnants of the nightmare. The same dream she'd had for months following her parents' deaths. It had been quite some time since she'd suffered one of those.

The clock on her nightstand read 5:30. The sun was an hour away from coming up, but there was no way she was going to be able to get back to sleep.

She slipped out of her covers and changed her clothes in the dark. After pulling her hair up into a messy bun, she tiptoed down the hall and silently let herself outside on the porch.

The early-morning air was still and cold. Even with the early hour she could hear a few birds singing. Quinn carefully made her way to the old garden shed in the back, trying not to trip over the piles of flagstone and wood that awaited their place on the pergola walkway.

She used her shoulder to push the heavy wooden door open and flipped the switch. The newly added gas lanterns came to life, casting a warm glow inside the quiet garden shed.

Whenever she'd needed a break from the pergola project, she'd cleaned and organized the shed. It'd been covered in dust and cobwebs, and she couldn't stand the clutter. In a perfect world, everything had a place. After she was done using a tool, it should go back into the same place she'd found it. And she sure as hell wouldn't put it back into the same place if that place was a pile of tools on the dirty cement floor of the shed.

She'd scrubbed the stonework surfaces until they shined. She'd put up shelves for pots and buckets. She'd hung tools and shovels, rakes and ladders. She'd swept the concrete floor until every ounce of dirt was gone. She'd even strung up some twine between some of the ceiling planks so her aunt could hang dried flowers after she cut them.

As Quinn walked around the small space, she silently thanked her uncle for running electricity to the shed when he'd had it built. He had been a kind man with a thick Irish accent. She'd met him only a couple of times when her mother had brought her along on a few trips to visit Ballagh.

Her uncle Graham had passed away more than five years ago. He'd been a longtime smoker and ended up getting lung cancer. Aunt Maura had said the last round of treatments hadn't been as successful as they'd hoped. He'd lived with the illness for a little under a year. Her aunt had said it was actually a blessing when he'd passed since it had taken so much out of him.

She had her uncle to thank for bringing her mom to the States from their childhood home in Killarney, Ireland. When Aunt Maura had married Uncle Graham, they'd moved to the Boston area for his job. Her mother, Nola, had just turned eighteen and had asked to come with them.

She'd lived in their home in Ballagh for a year before she was able to enroll herself into a small liberal arts college in Boston. It was there that she'd met Quinn's father, Josef Adler. Her aunt had never approved of her father with him being a German immigrant and all. Then again, her aunt didn't really like anyone who wasn't from Ireland.

When the topic came up of why Aunt Maura had disliked her dad so much, her mother would just sigh and say, “You can't force a square peg into a round hole.”

Whatever had happened between her aunt and her father had happened long before she was born. So when Quinn and her mother had gone to visit the few times that they had, her father was happy to stay behind. It was just the way things were. Her dad never had a bad thing to say about Aunt Maura or Uncle Graham and vice versa.

Quinn leaned against the stone counter and watched out the open door as the sky turned violet at the horizon.

She missed her parents. Sometimes more than others, but they were never far from her mind.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to push the grief away. That pain often struck so quickly it was as fresh and debilitating as the day of their incident. Every time she thought she was past that point, something would happen to bring her right back down to her knees again. She knew she'd never get over it, but she hoped she could get to a place where her sadness would turn to happy memories of them all together.

There were some days when she'd think about them and break into pieces. She'd sob until there was nothing left. Other times—times like this morning—she got angry. Angry at the situation, angry at God, angry at herself. This internal rage lay dormant in some deep, dark place inside her. When it surfaced, nothing seemed to smother it.

At first the only thing she could do to extinguish the anger was go out for a run or walk. It would eventually burn itself out, leaving her exhausted. Now when the anger hit, she breathed through it. Her therapist had told her that after a certain point in the grieving process, anger was unhealthy. Every minute she spent hating something was a minute wasted. It wasn't worth her effort.

Throwing herself into her aunt's gardening project had been wonderful. She was planting new life and cultivating it. She was turning nothing into something. She'd forgotten for a moment how quickly life could snatch that something away.

Maybe it was the incident at the bar last night that had brought on the nightmare. That reminder of violence and fear that had lingered in her subconscious until she'd fallen asleep. Maybe it was her reaction to Ewan and the numbing pleasure she'd felt under his touch. Maybe somehow it had triggered the memories because she'd truly never felt that alive, especially since their deaths.

For the hundredth time, she reminded herself it was a good thing he'd stopped things when he did. Yes, she had wanted him. Sure, she would have probably allowed him to take her to his bed. And hell yeah his rejection had stung like a hornet. But if Quinn had learned anything in her short twenty-seven years, it was that life was unfair and she would be stupid to expect that to change.

So she chalked up the whole Ewan experience as just that—an experience. She wasn't going to dwell on something that was out of her control.

She watched from the shed as a bird perched on the top line of her aunt's house. Ballagh was waking up, and she needed to get out of her head. She stepped through the door of the shed and pulled it shut behind her. As she walked back to the house, she could hear her aunt in the kitchen fiddling with the coffeemaker. Quinn looked up at the brightening sky and smiled.

I miss you, Mom and Dad.

She was sure they could hear her.

What the fuck was he doing here?

Ewan leaned up against the bar, a half-empty tumbler of some God-awful scotch in hand, watching as his cousin Sean conversed with a middle-aged woman several feet away. Apparently, his presence served some purpose, but Sean had yet to fill him in on the details. With the sidelong looks the woman kept sending his way, Ewan was beginning to form his own conclusions.

Taking a sip of his drink, he surveyed the crowded lobby. They were at some opening for a performing arts center at a small university in Boston proper. High slanted ceilings and glass walls surrounded them on three sides, with acoustic panels strategically placed throughout the huge open space for sound absorption.

Too bad they didn't work. The crowd noise made it difficult to think, let alone have a conversation with anyone.

He shifted his weight, wishing for the hundredth time he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt instead of charcoal trousers and a black dress shirt. He'd drawn a firm line about not wearing a tie, even though Sean had bitched about it, saying he'd be out of place without one.

Sean was full of shit.

The crowd was a mix of students, middle-aged alumni, and a few older couples who must have deep pockets. Most of the men were dressed just like he was, with and without ties. The women ranged from business casual to Sunday best. Some of the younger women looked like they might be hitting up a club afterwards.

He didn't look out of place. He just
felt
out of place.

All these pretentious people were walking around, talking in small circles, laughing about God only knew what. Didn't these people have anything better to do on a Saturday night than to kiss each other's asses?

After finishing his scotch, he slid the empty glass onto one of the temporary bars set up in the corner of the vast room. If Sean hadn't shoved the damn glass into his hand, he'd have preferred to drink water. Drinking didn't do anything for him. It rarely ever took the edge off, and his days of seeking that warm, cozy oblivion found at the bottom of a bottle were long gone.

He preferred other ways to work out his stress.

Glancing down at his hands, he noticed the cuts on his knuckles had scabbed over from the weekend before. He hadn't had a good fighting match in a few weeks, and the small skirmish with Hardy and his boys hadn't even taken the edge off.

He used to think that there was something wrong with him when he longed for the sharp lick of pain that shot up his forearm after smashing his fist into a worthy opponent. Growing up with a lot of resentment would do that to a kid. He'd learned to curb that need to fight into more productive things, mainly working.