Chapter 27 27
Quinn's POV
I flagged down a cab three blocks from the alley, my hand shaking profusely as I raised it. I got in, gave the driver Maddie's address and sat back.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking, no matter what I did to reassure myself. I pressed them flat against my thighs and stared out the window at the city moving past in the rain. All I could see was wet pavement from the August rain, red headlights and people going about their normal Thursday evenings.
But Jonathan was dead.
I had watched it happen, and yet I still couldn't fully process it. Four stabs, my brain had counted them. He had died so fast, it still felt surreal to me. And if those homeless men hadn't laughed at exactly the right moment I would have been right behind him.
I turned my face toward the window and tried to hold it together.
The cab pulled up outside Maddie's apartment building fifteen minutes later. Maddie was my friend who also studied journalism, and I had been living with her for the past week. I paid the cab man and got out, and before I even opened the front door I could hear the noise.
Loud voices and laughter were coming from inside the apartment. Someone's loud rap music was competing with TV noise. I pushed the door open and walked into a living room that had three extra people in it, all of them in various states of comfortable sprawl across Maddie's furniture. Several pizza boxes were open on the coffee table and a cluster of beer bottles beside them.
This was the third time in four days.
"Quinn!" Maddie looked up from the couch with a bright smile. "You're back. Come and sit, we have pizza."
One of the others, a copper-skinned girl with very large hoop earrings, patted the space beside her. "Yeah, come join us, there's plenty."
"I'm fine, thank you," I replied with a stiff smile, and kept moving toward the bathroom.
"Are you sure?" Maddie asked, throwing her blonde hair back. "We have pepperoni and also a veggie one if you—"
"I'm sure." I closed the bathroom door.
I stood at the sink and looked at myself in the mirror. The red mark along my jaw where the man's arm had been was already darkening. There was a small cut above my eyebrow, dried but visible. I ran cold water and cleaned my face carefully, pressing a folded piece of tissue against the cut until it stopped stinging. This was not the first time I was sustaining injuries in my quest for information, and it certainly would not be the last.
A soft knock came from the door, followed by Maddie's voice.
"Quinn?" The party version of Maddie was switched off. "Can I come in?"
I unlocked the door. She stepped in and took one look at my face, and her eyes immediately filled up with concern.
"Oh, my God!" She gasped. "What happened?"
"I slipped getting out of the cab. The pavement was wet."
Maddie looked at the mark on my jaw, then at the cut above my eyebrow. "Quinn, that's a very bad lie."
"I'm fine, Maddie."
"That doesn't look like it came from a slip."
"Okay, fine. I caught the door on my way down," I lied again. "It looks worse than it actually is. I just need to pop some pills and get some sleep. Look, can you tell your buddies to turn that awful music off?"
She studied me for another moment, and I could see her working through it, the journalist in her turning the details over. But she was also kind, which was the thing about Maddie that made all of this even harder to hide.
"Okay," she said finally. "But if you want to talk..."
"I'll let you know, yes, yes." I managed enough to a smile. "Go back to your friends."
She left, pulling the door gently behind her. I finished cleaning up, changed out of my clothes and sat on the edge of the bed in my room.
The laughter from the living room filtered through the wall, punctuated by someone telling a bad joke. I pressed my eyes shut.
Aaron had hated loud gatherings too. He was the kind of person who liked to be on his own, which had always surprised people who only knew him from the ice, where he was all presence and energy. In private he was more reserved. Funnier in a dry and understated way that took people off guard. He used to say that the best conversations happened when everyone wasn't performing.
I missed him so much—the pain it was physical sometimes, a dull persistent ache that I hadn't yet learned to carry well.
We had both been in that car when the accident had happened, but only one of us had come out of it. And not a single day had passed in the year since where I hadn't asked myself why. What made me the one who walked away? How was I sopposed to deal with all of this guilt?
The answer I had settled on was to find out the truth. Because I had never believed it was an accident, not from the moment I regained consciousness in that hospital bed. Something in me said that this was wrong. Aaron was a very mindful driver who never gave in to road rage. The timing of the accident was too convenient.
All of my prodding and investigating had led me straight to Bennett.
Jonathan had died tonight because he had information on Bennett. Which meant Bennett's reach was longer than I had accounted for, and he was watching more carefully than I had hoped.
I looked around the small room. My bags were in the corner, most of my things still inside it. The cardboard boxes with my books and other things were under the apartment stairs. I had never properly unpacked, and now I was glad.
I couldn't stay here anymore, since it was obvious that Bennett's men could trace me. It was a matter of time, not possibility. And when they did, Maddie would be in this apartment with her open trusting face, completely unaware of the danger she was in.
All of a sudden, the image of Jonathan getting stabbed slipped into my mind again. But this time, it was Maddie on the sharp end of the blade. I was not going to let that happen.
I would give her an excuse in the morning, something that wouldn't worry her too much. I would be out before noon and I would find somewhere to stay, with no connection to anyone I knew. I would start digging again.
It wouldn't be the first time.
I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling while the laughter continued on the other side of the wall. I thought about Aaron, and Jonathan, and I wondered how many more people were going to get hurt before this was over.