Quinn (The Waite Family) (16 page)

“Are you going to say anything or just lay there?
You’re not helping matters by being stubborn, Quinn.”
He looked so angry at her.
“If this about your accusations about me raping you, we both know what happened that night and it was you who started it. And now we both have to pay for the consequences.”

Her heart had broken at that very moment.
And she also knew that no matter what her feelings for him had been, he was no different of a bully then her ex-husband had been. The only difference was Carl used his fists and Drew, words.

The bus station was nearly empty when she got there. The cab driver asked her if she was going to be okay and she could tell he knew she’d been crying.
But after giving him a generous tip he went on his way.
She went to the counter and purchased a ticket for the first ride out using her credit card to do so.
A five day trip to California cost her over two hundred dollars.

The trip to the bathroom had her flushing the ticket and cutting up the credit card. She was pretty sure it wouldn’t flush so she put some of the little pieces in each of the little trash cans in each of the fourteen stalls.
She didn’t know if it was necessary, but it made her feel like she was doing something productive.
Pulling on the big hat and the ugly coat she’d gotten two summers ago on clearance, she left the bathroom and went to the parking garage on Fifth.

The car had been a good buy when she’d gotten it eight years ago. It was when gas was cheap enough to make driving a gas guzzling machine not quite such an expense. Now with gas at nearly four bucks a gallon, it was going to cost a fortune to drive even across the street. Getting in it, she drove the eight miles to her apartment on Brown Street.

By the time she’d taken her bag inside and taken the cloths off the furniture she was exhausted.
But she was also hungry. Ordering from the local Chinese place, she sat down to wait and to get her new cell phone charged.

Quinn knew she couldn’t hide out forever. And she had no intentions of doing so now that the baby had come along.
But she did need a break. Her plan was to stay here until she could get her head on straight. Now she needed to make plans about the baby too.
Pulling out a sheet of paper from her purse, she started writing down her own rules.

No marriage.
No matter what Drew said she wasn’t going to marry him. She wouldn’t marry anyone for all the wrong reasons and just because she was going to have a baby didn’t mean she needed to make another mistake and marry.
She had to find a job too. Not that she couldn’t afford to live off the money she’d saved, but she didn’t think she could remain idle. Quinn had been working all her life and didn’t see any reason not to continue to do so now.

By the time the delivery boy had shown up she started feeling like she’d taken control of her life again. When she’d eaten the last of the lo mein noodles, she was beginning to believe she’d made the right decision.
Going to the bedroom she didn’t so much as lie down
,
but fell into the bed and closed her eyes. For the first time in her adult life and maybe even before Quinn didn’t set the alarm and she didn’t worry about laying her clothes out for the next day.

Shannon watched the news again.
She’d actually done it. Guinevere had hired a man to kidnap Alyssa just like she said she was going to do.
Of course it had failed. Miserably failed, but she had done it.
Without taking her eyes from the news account she answered the phone without looking at it.

“So, did you see it? That fool Sheppard fucked it all up, but she’ll come running back to you now, see if she doesn’t.”
Speak of the devil—Guinevere.
“I’ve already taken care of him so you don’t have to worry about that.”

Shannon had a second to wonder just how she’d taken care of the man, but they were pulling Alyssa out of the limo again and she wanted to see that.
She looked so helpless and every time Shannon saw it she got just a little happier.
Yes, by God, this might work.

“I was going to go down to the hospital, but the news report hasn’t said which hospital they had taken her to.” She called them both, too, and they wouldn’t give her any information unless she could provide them with the code to do so.
“I don’t suppose you know which one, do you?”

“Bethesda.
The one on Forrest Avenue.
Cain has privileges there and that’s where they took them both.” They were pulling out the man when Guinevere suddenly spoke up. “Hey, do you know that man she was with?
I can’t seem to make out his face on this TV I got.”

Oh
,
Shannon knew him all right. The lawyer.
“Andrew Miller. His grandfather used to work for my late husband. He’s been a pain in my ass since Alyssa came back.”

“Hum, nice-looking guy.
Wouldn’t mind getting a little of that myself.”
Shannon shuddered at that when Guinevere cackled at her own joke.
“He single that you know of?”

“No, I don’t know.”
She started to ask if she thought he might be a tad too young for her, but decided she really didn’t care all that much to know.
“So, what do we do now? You said this was a three part plan.”

“Next, we go after one of mine.
That way there’s no suspicions about you or me having anything to do with this.
I was thinking that we’d go after Quinn. She’s the one that had my Roscoe killed, you know.”

Shannon didn’t know her version of the events, but the paper had said that he’d taken his own daughter and had held her for ransom for the two million dollars that he felt had been promised him.
Shannon honestly thought that Alyssa should have paid him.
She had no idea why her daughter had to be so tight-fisted with her money. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have plenty.

“You know what you’re supposed to do, right? You snatch her right from her office and then take her to that place that idiot was supposed to take your kid.”
Guinevere snorted.
“Watch out for the mess in there. I don’t think the people who helped me with my…let’s call it a problem, were all that neat.”

Shannon hung up and wondered again what she was doing with such a lowlife as Guinevere. Shannon didn’t mind Cain so much, not now that she knew he was a doctor.
She loved telling her friends that her daughter had married a doctor.
She smiled when she said it.
She was sure all her friends were jealous that her daughter had done so well for herself.
Shannon frowned when she thought about how few of her friends had been around lately and blamed that on Alyssa as well.

“Ungrateful kid. Just like her father.”
Shannon went to the liquor cabinet and took down the cheap bourbon that she’d been reduced to buying.
“That’s her fault too.”

Shannon was well into her fourth bourbon when Samuel came in with her son Robert.
She looked at the two men and wondered what the hell she’d done to deserve such assholes as relatives.
Then she giggled.
Oh yeah, she’d fucked one and birthed the other.

“Mother, must you?
You’re as bad as Colleen with her cheap liquor.
That’s one of the reasons I divorced the stupid twit.
If you must drink,” her son said with a condescending tone, “please do so behind the closed door of your room.
I so do not want to see you like this. It’s unbecoming of a Howard.”

Shannon laughed harder.
“You do know that the only reason you’re a Howard is because I was married to one at the time I conceived you, don’t you?
I’m not even sure who your father is come to think of it.”

“Really, Shannon, get up.
There is no reason for you to rehash all that now.
We have news about Alyssa.
Did you know that she’d been in an accident today? I don’t suppose it’s too much to hope that she was killed?” Shannon looked over at her lover and brother-in-law.
“Oh don’t look at me like that. You know as well as I do that you wish the chit was dead.”

Shannon supposed she did, but there was no reason for someone to point it out to her.
Alyssa had been a pain in her butt for longer than she’d care to think.
And her being married now just added insult to injury.
If she managed to get herself pregnant too, then that would make Shannon a grandmother and she did not want that to become a reality.

“No, she wasn’t hurt. But the idiot who was supposed to do the job is.”
Shannon giggled again.
“I’ve been told it was messy. Messy, messy, messy.”

Robert glared at her while Samuel left the room. She’d had about enough of all of them.
She had no men in her life that gave her any respect, she thought.
Hell, even her own daughter treated her poorly.

“Oh by the way,” Robert started.
“I’m going to need to have more money soon. I got this girl preggers, or so she claims.
But you’ll have that.”
He flopped down in the chair across from her.

Shannon just looked at him. He couldn’t possibly be serious. There was no way that he expected her to…

“So how much do you suppose she should get, Robert? One hundred, two maybe?”
Shannon sat up more on the couch.
“It doesn’t matter.
We don’t have that kind of money no matter what the amount is.”

Robert snorted.
“I doubt a hundred bucks will buy her off anyway.
I have no idea how much it’ll cost and frankly, I could care less.
Just pay it.”

Shannon stood up and over her son.
“Did you not hear me?
There is no money to pay her off.
You’ll have to…I don’t know, work something out with her or something.”

Robert stood up so quickly that Shannon nearly fell back.
She was suddenly afraid of him. When he doubled his fist up she was sure he was going to hit her.

“Get the fucking money.
I don’t care where, but you pay this bitch off.
Go to that bitch of a daughter of yours.
She’s certainly got it.”

Cowering now, she looked up at her son.
“She won’t…she refuses to see me.
She said that she doesn’t have to—”

The slap made her fall.
She was on the floor and looking up at him as he towered over her.
She wondered how he’d gotten so tall, so large, and knew without a doubt that he would hurt her more if he wanted to.

“Tell your daughter,” he said between clenched teeth, “that if she doesn’t pay her off then she will get more of what I just gave you.
Do you understand me?”
Shannon nodded.
“Good.
Now I’m going out and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll shut the fuck up and do what I tell you.”

Shannon stayed on the floor until she heard the front door open and then slam closed. She crawled her way to the phone and called the only person she knew who could help her. “Guinevere, do you know of someone I can hire to hurt someone?”

~~~

Drew was sitting on the couch at his grandda’s feeling sorry for himself when Millie brought him his lunch.
His arm hurt, but not all that badly.
He was just trying to figure out how to eat the sandwich when she took it from him and started cutting it up. He knew she was pissed.
First, because of the way she sawed at his food; second, because she was sawing at his sandwich.
She’d been in the room three times in the last hour and huffed at him every
time.
He just didn’t know why yet.
The way she was cutting up his meal he had a thought that she was visualizing some other part of his anatomy.