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Malone would have laughed, but Quinn had spotted the purse.

She crouched next to the dumped bag.

“Don’t touch it,” he warned, stooping beside her, scanning the items that lay on the floor—wallet, keys, lipstick, money. A child’s hair band, the glittery plastic ends of it something no adult would ever wear.

“It’s Tabitha’s,” Quinn said, her face parchment pale. “She must have come back here after I left.”

“She might have thought it was a safe place to stay,” Stella said gently. She must have suddenly realized what she was seeing, what it meant.

“It wasn’t, though.” Quinn pointed to the red stains. “That’s blood. She was attacked here. The body in the lake—”

“Just because she was attacked, doesn’t mean she’s dead.” Things looked bad. That was true, but Malone had seen a lot of things during his career. Not all of them were what they seemed.

“It doesn’t mean she’s alive, either,” Quinn said, her gaze still focused on the purse. “Someone’s body was in the lake, and all my sister’s stuff is here. She’s not.” Her voice broke, and he pulled her to her feet.

“Are August and Chance still on the landing?” he asked, wanting to distract her from the purse, the body, her thoughts about her sister.

“Yes.”

“Go tell them that we need the police here quickly. Chance knows how to get the local PD moving fast. He can do it a lot more efficiently than I can.” That wasn’t quite the truth. They were all good at getting people to respond the way they wanted. It was part of the job—making sure local authorities were willing and happy to cooperate with the mission.

Quinn probably knew it. She hesitated, her gaze dropping to the purse again before she nodded.

“I’ll tell them,” she said, and then she nearly ran from the room.

EIGHT

T
he body wasn’t Tabitha’s.

That was what Quinn had wanted to know, and Sheriff Cameron Lock was quick to assure her that the deceased was a middle-aged man. Probably a drifter who’d had too much to drink and fallen in the lake. An autopsy had been scheduled, but as far the sheriff was concerned, there was no connection between the dead man and Tabitha.

Good. Great.

Quinn was happy to hear it. The problem was, Tabitha was still missing, and Quinn was sitting in an SUV waiting for the police to finish collecting evidence in her apartment.

DNA evidence. Fingerprints. Photos. They’d called in the state crime lab to oversee things. They were being cautious and careful. Which was exactly what Quinn wanted, but she also wanted to be done. Normally, Quinn thought of herself as a patient person. Right then, she felt anything but able to wait things out.

She had to find Tabitha.

Had to.

And sitting in the SUV wasn’t going to help her do that.

It also wasn’t going to help her explain who’d broken into her apartment, whose blood was on her floor, if that person was still alive.

Quinn had a feeling that her sister was the answer to the first question. She hoped she wasn’t the answer to the second. As far as the third went, Malone kept assuring her that there was every chance, every hope that her sister was still alive.

She wasn’t even sure she knew how to hope anymore.

She’d tried. She prayed, she read her Bible, she offered her petitions up to God. In the end, she felt as empty as she had the day Cory had told her he was done with treatment, that all he wanted was a few more months of peace and happiness.

She pushed away the thought.

That situation had been different.

This one couldn’t be nearly as hopeless. She couldn’t be nearly as helpless as she’d felt then. She didn’t have to sit around waiting for other people to offer her hope. She could go out and find reasons to hope herself.

She shifted in her seat, eyeing the facade of the brownstone that housed her apartment. She’d loved the place the minute she’d seen it. The two bedroom, one bath space above a bakery had been the perfect place for a newly widowed woman. There’d been hardwood and old plaster walls. Pretty medallion ceilings in the living area and an oversize 1920s stove in the kitchen. More than anywhere she’d ever lived, it had felt like home.

The day she’d moved in, she’d cried thinking about Cory, about what she’d thought they’d have together—the lifetime they’d planned. She’d cried, and then she’d unpacked and she’d started her new life, because that had been the only thing that made sense for her to do. She’d always been a person of action. She’d always done what needed to be done to achieve her dreams and accomplish her goals.

So, why was she sitting there like a lump while other people solved her problems?

“Enough,” she muttered, opening the door and stepping out into the cold night air. Her sweatshirt had disappeared after the fire, and she shivered as the coolness seeped through her T-shirt. There was nothing she could do in the apartment, but the local diner was open, and she knew the people there would tell her everything they’d heard about the man who’d died. Even better, if Tabitha had been in to eat, they’d remember her. They’d be able to tell Quinn how her sister had looked, how she’d acted.

If
she’d been there.

She thought about checking in with August or Malone. She could see the two men deep in discussion with several sheriff’s deputies. The break-in at Quinn’s apartment was big news in a town like this, and the sheriff and most of his deputies had responded to the call.

Quinn knew most of them by name. She could have called out to any of them, announced her plans and headed out, but she’d walked to the diner alone dozens of times before. She knew the way like the back of her hand—knew the well-lit sidewalk along Main Street, the tiny side road that connected to 5th Avenue.

The place wasn’t far, an easy walk, and she needed some air, some exercise and some time to think. Besides, Echo Lake was safe, the crime rate so low she wasn’t even sure it existed.

She hitched her purse onto her shoulder and walked east, bypassing a long row of brownstones that had once been private homes but were now businesses—a chocolate shop, a bakery, a used bookstore, a yarn store. She’d always enjoyed the quaintness of her adopted hometown—the well-kept properties, the kind and sometimes nosey residents. Cory had grown up there, and he’d wanted to return after college. She’d wanted to make him happy so she’d agreed.

She hadn’t thought that she’d fall in love with the area, but she had. Now, years later, she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

She crossed Main Street, turned onto Piper Way.

This street was darker, no businesses with exterior lights—just a couple of empty lots and a church that had seen better days, the old clapboard siding hanging this way and that, the windows coated with years’ worth of grime. It had been at least a decade since the church had been occupied, the old location giving way to a newer, bigger building on a more upscale, touristy street. She’d heard rumors that someone was purchasing the old church and turning it into a youth center.

She hoped so. Even with the cemetery behind it—headstones dotting a grassy knoll that overlooked the town—the building was charming.

A pebble bounced across the street in front of her, and she stopped, her heart pounding frantically. Moonlight danced through the breeze-swaying trees and dotted the grass and pavement with golden light. No one had bothered putting street lights on the road, but she could see the old church fence, the steps that led up to its door. She could see the cemetery behind it, the whitish stones visible through the darkness.

Shadows swayed on the road in front of her, blocking her path to 5th Avenue. She’d never been afraid to walk across that darkest patch of road. She’d never worried about the tall pine tree that hid her view of the well-lit street beyond. Her pulse slushed in her ears, her skin cold with fear.

“Quinn,” she thought she heard someone whisper, the name mixing with the swish of grass in the breeze, the rustle of leaves.

Behind her, another pebble skipped across the road, and she whirled, her heart in her throat. Was someone in the shadows by the corner of the church? She peered in the darkness, eyes probing the blackest areas.

“Quinn,” that whisper again, and this time she was certain it was her name.

“Who is it?” she called, her voice shaking.

“Me, dummy! Hurry up, before they find us.”

Tabitha.

Relief flooded over her, and she didn’t think, just darted off the sidewalk and into the churchyard.

Someone grabbed her, a rough hand covering her mouth as she was dragged toward the trees. She heard someone screaming, the sound piercing through a haze of panic. Tabitha? Did they have her, too?

She fought, ripping the hand away from her mouth, screaming. The sound was cut off by that hand, slamming over her face, covering her mouth. Her nose.

“Shut up and stop fighting!” a man growled, his free arm hooking around her neck, pressing against her jugular. “Or I will kill you.”

She could hear the desperation in his voice, and she knew he’d do it.

She stilled and the pressure on her throat eased.

“Call your sister!” he demanded.

“What?”

“Call her name!”

“No.”

He spun her around, slapped her so hard she saw stars.

“Do you want to die tonight?” he snarled, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. “Call your sister! Yell for help. She’s close. I heard her talking to you.”

Quinn wasn’t going to do it, and she braced herself for another blow.

Something moved in the trees behind her attacker, leaves swaying soundlessly, a shadow moving silently between thick pine boughs.

Tabitha?

No. The person was broader, taller, moving stealthily, not even a hint of hesitation. A man? She thought so, but it was too dark to see, and then she was slapped again, the blow knocking her off her feet.

She fell hard, the breath knocked from her lungs, her vision going dark. She heard grass and leaves crackling, the sound of two bodies colliding. A man called out. A woman responded. And, then her vision cleared, and she could see shadowy forms milling around her. One. Two. Three.

A guy on the ground, Malone standing over him, a knee in his back.

“Get up,” he growled, yanking the man to his feet, and shoving him toward a deputy. “You want to take care of him?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, just crouched beside Quinn, his expression unreadable in the darkness. “That wasn’t the smartest move you’ve ever made, Quinn,” he said, his arm slipping around her waist.

“I didn’t think—”

“Obviously not!” August snapped. “You could have been killed.”

She didn’t respond.

He was right.

She’d taken a stupid chance.

She just hadn’t realized it was stupid at the time.

“Echo Lake has always been safe. I’ve walked to the diner dozens of times,” she tried to explain, but August raised his hand, cutting her off.

“This isn’t dozens of times, sis. This is tonight, and we’re dealing with some dangerous people.”

Who aren’t after me
, was on the tip of her tongue, but obviously they were. Obviously, they’d planned to use her to get to Tabitha.

“Tabitha—”

“Stella and Chance are going after her. We think she was in the church, but we got on the scene too late to see which direction she was headed when you were attacked.” Malone touched Quinn’s chin, tilting her head with his finger and leaning in close. “You’re going to have some nice bruises.”

“It’s better than being dead,” August muttered. “As for Tabitha. I can tell you one thing for sure, Quinn. She didn’t run to your rescue. As a matter of fact, she took off running, and she didn’t look back.”

“She saw the cavalry,” Malone pointed out. “She knew help was here. It’s not like she abandoned Quinn.”

“It
is
like that, Malone,” August retorted. “She dragged Quinn into her mess, and she’s leaving her to deal with it. Typical in my family, but you’ll figure that out yourself after a while. I’m going to see if I can find her. I’ll try to think like a coward. That might help.”

“Guess he’s a little bitter,” Malone said, his hand sliding from Quinn’s side to her back.

“He was the oldest son. She was the oldest daughter. He tried to make things work in the family, she jumped ship.” That was the simple explanation. There was more to it, but now wasn’t the time for it.

“She left home how long ago?”

“She was sixteen.”

“Maybe it’s time for your brother to let it go.”

She agreed, but she was too shaken to say so.

His hand moved to her nape, and he kneaded the tense muscles there. “Relax. Everything will work out.”

“How? Someone is after my sister. She’s on the run for whatever reason—”

“The reason,” he explained gently, “is probably the money that was lying on the floor of your room.”

“I know.” She sighed. “I know she took something from her husband, but I don’t believe that’s what this is all about. Jarrod has a lot of money. He has a lot of power. Why would he need her or the money and jewels she took from him?”

“A power trip? Maybe he doesn’t like to lose his possessions.”

“He’ll lose a lot more if he gets caught trying to hurt my sister.”

“He isn’t planning to get caught. Men like him never do. They think they’re above the law, too smart to ever be found out.” His hand shifted to her shoulder, settled just under her hair.

His touch was light, his hand gentle. He wasn’t holding her in place. It would have been easy to walk to the sheriff’s car that was pulling up the street. It would have made sense to ask questions about the guy the deputy had taken into custody. She could have done those things, but the cool air felt good on her throbbing cheek, Malone’s hand felt good on her shoulder, and she just stood in the shadow of the old trees, trying not to look at the guy the deputy was questioning.

Would he have killed her?

She shuddered, and Malone’s hand dropped away. Seconds later, a warm jacket settled around her shoulders. It smelled of smoke and of masculinity, the spicy fresh scent of soap and shampoo and the outdoors.

“Thanks,” she murmured, burrowing into it.