Chapter 91 Angry at Me?
Quinley felt the cold metal settle around her wrist, and dread began creeping through her chest like ice water.
Zachary emerged from the hospital room with an arctic chill radiating from him. His jaw was clenched, his face carved from stone—a predator barely leashing his fury.
The officer stepped forward. "The surveillance footage confirms Ms. Quinley entered your mother's room. Whether she actually attempted to harm your mother requires further investigation at the station."
Zachary's silence stretched like a taut wire. When he finally looked at her, his pale lips pressed into a knife-thin line. "Do you have anything you'd like to explain?"
Sylvia had nearly died, and Quinley was the prime suspect. He was giving her a chance—she should take it.
Her expression remained steady, unflinching under pressure, yet she smiled with bitter amusement. "If I explained, would you believe me, Mr. Jennings?"
Mary continued her theatrical performance, voice shrill with manufactured outrage. "Mr. Jennings, don't listen to her! She made Ms. Parker's life hell, and now she's back to finish what she started. Someone that evil deserves to rot!"
"Mary, the police will handle this." Lucas approached, gently steering her toward Sylvia's room. "Please go check on Ms. Parker."
The hallway emptied except for the two officers, Quinley, and Zachary. He stepped closer, his voice roughened with barely controlled emotion. "Go with them. I will get to the bottom of this—I promise you that."
"Thanks, Mr. Jennings." Quinley held his gaze one last time, memorizing the conflicted shadows in his eyes, before walking away with the officers.
At the station, the interrogation began immediately.
"That person in the footage wasn't me."
The surveillance had captured someone entering and leaving Sylvia's room, but Quinley denied any involvement.
"If it wasn't you, then who?"
"Someone who looks exactly like me."
She spoke the truth, but they treated her words like a desperate lie.
"Quinley, I suggest you start cooperating."
She had nothing to confess and could only maintain her silence through two grueling hours of questioning. Every answer she gave seemed to dig her deeper into their suspicion.
That evening, Jameson Pierce arrived with paperwork and apologies. "Ms. Elikin, you can await trial outside, but you cannot leave Rosewood City until this case is resolved."
As they exited the station, Quinley thanked him politely, but Jameson shook his head with an awkward smile. "The person you should thank is Mr. Jennings."
Thank him? For what—sending her here in the first place? The bitter irony wasn't lost on her.
Following Jameson's gaze, she spotted a black Maybach parked across the street like a sleek shadow. Lucas emerged as they approached, dismissing Jameson with professional courtesy. "Mr. Jennings wants to speak with Ms. Elikin privately."
"Get in." Zachary's voice carried from the car's depths, but Quinley's feet felt rooted to the pavement.
"Ms. Elikin, please. Mr. Jennings has been waiting over an hour." Lucas opened the door wider, and after a moment's hesitation, she slid inside.
The partition rose, sealing them in intimate darkness as the Maybach glided into traffic. The air felt suffocating, pressing against her lungs until she cracked the window. Night wind rushed in, whipping her hair around her face like dark silk.
"Are you angry with me?" Zachary reached for her hand, but she pulled away, her coldness more cutting than any words.
"No." The lie tasted bitter on her tongue.
"I know you didn't do it." His voice was low, almost vulnerable. "Someone doctored the footage—composite images. You never entered my mother's room. Lucas is investigating."
"Mr. Jennings." She cut him off, turning from the window to face him fully. "The footage is real. Someone did enter Sylvia's room. It just wasn't me."
Quinley had never been one for games or half-truths. Streetlights flickered through the windows, painting Zachary's face in shifting shadows and light.
"I'm sorry. I wasn't doubting you—I was protecting you. I was afraid someone might—"
"Stop." The same excuse he'd used the first time she'd been dragged to a police station. Repetition had stripped it of all meaning. "Don't you want to know who it really was? Or do you already know?"
Her question hung in the air like a challenge. Susan wasn't dead—Quinley was certain of it. And she refused to believe that woman could return to Rosewood City without Zachary's knowledge.
He knew. He was protecting someone, and they both understood who.
Zachary's gaze remained fixed straight ahead, his jaw working silently. She could feel his anger radiating like heat, but whether it was directed at her or himself, she couldn't tell.
"Mr. Jennings, don't you have anything you want to tell me?" The question turned back on itself, roles reversed, but the weight unchanged.
Quinley stared at him with burning intensity, waiting for him to finally speak Susan's name, to explain the history that stood between them like an unscalable wall.
"No." The single word fell like a stone.
Disappointment sliced through her chest, clean and brutal. She knocked sharply on the partition. "Mr. Murphy, pull over. Now."
Lucas glanced at Zachary through the rearview mirror, caught between conflicting loyalties. At a red light, Quinley yanked desperately at the door handle.
"Let her out."
The locks disengaged with a soft click. Quinley burst from the car like she was escaping a cage, slamming the door with enough force to rattle the windows.
Lucas watched her storm away. "Mr. Jennings, should we follow—"
"No." Zachary's voice was granite. The light turned green, and the Maybach disappeared into the night, leaving Quinley alone on the sidewalk.
The city pulsed with evening energy around her. Near her apartment complex, the food street teemed with crowds, vendors calling out over sizzling grills and bubbling pots. She was starving but had no appetite, her stomach knotted with frustration and hurt.
Too much had gone wrong today. Her heart felt like a stone in her chest as she pushed through the crowds, desperate to reach the quiet of her apartment.
But just as she neared the end of the food street, a familiar silhouette caught her eye and stopped her cold.