Her Private Avenger

  “Don’t you see?” Tony said, staring at her imploringly. “I couldn’t let her leave. Mom left, you know.”

  Tears stung her eyes when she saw the pout on her brother’s face. God, he was a child. A troubled, misguided child who was scared to be alone.

  “I know,” she murmured, her throat tight. “But I was there. You could have talked to me.”

  Tony shook his head. “You would have left, too. One day.”

  She shook her head right back. “You’re my brother. I would never abandon you.”

  A sharp burst of laughter came from his throat. “Maybe not, but you’re going to take her away from me, and I can’t let that happen.”

  “Take who away from you?” The fear in her gut deepened, congealing in her blood.

  The wild look returned to his eyes. “Caroline!”

  “Your girlfriend?” she echoed in confusion. “I’m not trying to take her away from you.”

  “You want to send me to prison! She’s going to leave me if that happens! They always leave me!”

  His voice went shrill again. Fighting back tremors of panic, Morgan began to rise from the couch, only to sin back down when Tony snapped, “Sit down!”

  His hands were still concealed in his coat. Morgan suddenly noticed the bulge in his right pocket, and her heart started beating a little faster. “Tony—” she began.

  “Shut up.” He slowly took one hand out of his pocket, and she saw a flash of silver.

  Terror seized her chest. In his hand Tony held a small pistol. If she wasn’t mistaken, it had belonged to their mother. Locked up in the safe along with Patricia Kerr’s jewelry.

  Tony noticed her staring at the gun and smiled. “It was Mom’s. I grabbed it from the safe the day I took the necklace.”

  She swallowed. “You knew the combination?”

  “Mom gave it to me when I was eight.” He sounded smug, as if to say, see, she loved me more than you! “We were very close, you know.”

  Morgan let out a shaky breath. “Well, why don’t you put that away, Tony? We both know you’re not going to use it.”

  His jaw hardened. “Don’t pretend to know me! She’s the only one who knows me!”

  She had no idea which “she” he meant. Their mother. Layla. Caroline. Not that it mattered. It was obvious her brother had snapped years ago, probably long before he murdered Layla Simms. And like an idiot, Morgan hadn’t seen it. She’d spent all her time rebelling against their father, fighting for her independence, desperate to get away from the senator and his demands. She saw Tony’s devastation following Patricia’s death, witnessed his inability to commit to anyone these past ten years, and she’d brushed it off. He’s just picky, can’t quite settle down, she’d always told Quinn.

  How ironic, that her father spent years spinning stories to the press about how mentally ill his daughter was, when he had a mentally ill son under his nose the entire time.

  “Put the gun away, Tony,” she said gently. “Someone could get hurt.”

  She tried to get up again, but he pointed the weapon at her. “Sit. Down.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  Even as she spoke, her gaze was glued to the pistol. It dangled at Tony’s side, loosely gripped by his fingers. Could she make a run for it? A part of her refused to believe her brother would ever use that weapon on her, but the strange glaze in his eyes made her wary. She questioned the wisdom of launching herself at him, making a go for the gun, and decided it was too risky.

  “I tried to make you stop,” he said, looking at her in disapproval. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Morgan, but now I have no choice. I can’t let her leave me.”

  Her pulse raced as she echoed, “Make me stop?” Horror slammed into her. “You tried to kill me on the bridge.”

  “I didn’t try to kill you,” Tony said with a defensive whine to his voice. “You can swim like a fish. I knew you’d get out of the car. I only wanted to scare you, get you to leave town.

  “And last night in my bedroom?” she shot back. “That was you?” He nodded, actually looking remorseful, and his expression brought a rush of fury. “You never left Autumn, did you? You called me, made me believe you were back in the city, but you stayed in town.” Betrayal flooded her belly. “How did you know I was alone in my room, that Quinn wasn’t with me?”

  “The intercom,” Tony said with a shrug. “I turned it on before I left.”

  “And what, you snuck back in later and eavesdropped on us?”

  He flushed, suddenly looking annoyed. “You have no right to be angry with me, Morgan. You’re the one who opened this can of worms. If you’d just left it alone, everything would be okay now.”

  “Layla would still be dead,” she whispered.

  “I couldn’t let her leave!”

  She was growing sick of his convoluted logic. Her brother had murdered a young girl in cold blood. Her father had covered it up. And no matter how many excuses they tossed her way, she would never forget what either of them had done.

  She leveled her gaze at Tony. She felt like shouting at him, throwing something, but she kept her voice calm as she gestured to the gun in his hands and asked, “What exactly are you planning to do with that? Are you going to shoot me, big brother?”

  He frowned. “Of course not.”

  She arched a brow. “No?”

  “No, you’re going to shoot yourself.”

  Morgan went speechless. Time seemed to halt. She stared at the fierce look in Tony’s eyes, and realized he was dead serious.

  Taking a step toward her, he carelessly waved the gun in the air. “Another suicide attempt,” he said softly. “Only this time you won’t fail.”

  “I’m not shooting myself,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “That’s how it’ll look to the cops.” Tony gave her a grim look. “Get the pad of paper from the desk, Morgan.”

  Her entire body went cold, her veins icy with fear. Oh, God, he was insane. He actually meant to kill her and make it look like a suicide. “No,” she said.

  He shrugged and walked over to the desk himself. “Fine.” He grabbed a pad of paper and a pen, then placed them both on the wooden coffee table in front of her.

  “Start writing,” he ordered.

  Morgan swallowed, searching her mind for a way out of this. She could lunge at him, but chances were, the gun would go off in the struggle. No matter what he’d done to Layla, she didn’t want her brother hurt. It was painstakingly apparent that he needed serious psychiatric help.

  She suddenly longed for Quinn. If he were here, he’d know exactly how to handle Tony, how to diffuse the time bomb ticking in the room. But Quinn was gone. Probably on his way to Panama or Colombia or who knew where. He didn’t want her in his

  She bit back a hysterical laugh as her gaze landed on the gun pointed at her. Well, looked like Quinn might get his wish. Any second now she might truly be out of his life. For good.

  Stall, a voice whispered in her head.

  Ah, the old stalling cliché. Keep the psycho talking. Play along until you figured out a plan. Too bad Tony looked like he was through with talking. Impatience creased his face, and he was tapping his foot like a customer at the end of the longest checkout line at the grocery store.

  “Start writing!” he snapped, wagging the gun again.

  “What do you want me to write?” she finally asked, blinking back the tears.

  Tony gave a contemplative slant of the head, then said, “Start with, Dear Dad, I can’t do this anymore.”

  Drawing in a wobbly breath, Morgan picked up the pen.

  She was all right. He was just overreacting, Quinn tried to convince himself as he steered the car away from the senate building. He’d tried reaching Morgan on her cell to let her know what he’d just discovered, but he’d been bumped over to voice mail. Then he’d remembered her phone had been confiscated in the psych ward, so he’d dialed her apartment and got the machine there, too. For a moment he’d been tempted to call the police,
but he didn’t want to alert them about Tony, not until he told Morgan.

  Why wasn’t she picking up her phone, damn it?

  He merged into traffic and almost immediately found himself at a red light, which only gave him more time to imagine all kinds of not-so-pleasant scenarios. The most terrifying one involved him walking into Morgan’s apartment to find her dead on the floor.

  No, that was absurd. Tony wouldn’t harm his sister.

  Would he?

  The question had been gnawing a hole in his gut since the second he heard Senator Kerr say Tony’s name on the phone. Would Tony hurt his own sister? That he couldn’t quite answer a definite no to that scared the hell out of him.

  The light ahead flicked to green, and his foot shook on the pedal as he accelerated. He was worried. Uneasy. Frankly, even a little terrified. The senator had told Tony that Morgan found the necklace.

  Quinn had never killed anyone in cold blood, but it wasn’t hard to put himself in Tony’s shoes. Tony would be panicking just about now. He’d probably slammed into Morgan on that bridge, probably broken in last night, not to mention all the break-ins ten years ago. The guy was desperate to cover his tracks, to tie up loose ends. And Morgan was a whopper of a loose end.

  To hell with it. He’d been heading for a hotel to spend the night in, but at the last second, Quinn yanked on the wheel and pulled a U-turn that made the tires screech and elicited angry honks from other cars on the road. He had to talk to her in person, to make sure she was all right. His instincts were simply misfiring, that’s all.

  As he sped toward Morgan’s place, he tried hard not to imagine the worst. Morgan was almost certainly fine. Angry as het her father, who she believed had something to do with Layla’s death, but in danger? Nah. She couldn’t be. He would stroll into the apartment, find her safe but pissed off and tell her what he’d learned about Tony. He’d convince her to turn her brother in, and then he’d…

  He’d what?

  Leave her again?

  His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. Damn it. What was he supposed to do? Ever since Morgan walked back into his life, the entire world felt off-kilter. He’d been doing just fine without her. He had his job, the men he worked with, the opportunity to travel all over the world.

  He didn’t need Morgan. Didn’t need anyone.

  You’re a coward. Morgan’s accusation buzzed through his brain. He tried to shut out her voice, but it continued to hover in his mind. She was wrong. He wasn’t scared of being with her again. He simply wasn’t interested.

  So why are you rushing to make sure she’s okay?

  Duty. Friendship. Because it was the right thing to do.

  The voice in his head didn’t seem overly convinced by his reasoning. Fortunately, he reached Morgan’s low-rise before the voice started up again.

  Unfortunately, a familiar tan sedan sat by the curb in front of Morgan’s building.

  Tony was here.

  A vise of dread clamped around Quinn’s heart. He parked behind Tony’s car and jumped out of the SUV. Hurrying through the glass doors at the entrance, he bypassed the elevator and headed for the stairwell, because in his experience elevators were too damn slow. He pulled his gun from his waistband as he sprinted up the stairs to the second floor. Morgan’s apartment was at the end of the long corridor. Quinn slowed his pace, inching down the plush carpeting beneath his feet toward Morgan’s apartment.

  The door was closed, but a gentle tug on the handle showed it wasn’t locked. Holding his breath, Quinn slid inside. Nobody greeted him in the front hall, but he could hear the murmur of voices drifting out from the den. The small apartment was cloaked in darkness, save for the shaft of light coming from the living room doorway.

  He moved toward the light without making a solitary sound. His pulse surprisingly steady, his body relaxed, his mind void of emotion. This was what he did. Crept in the shadows. Eliminated the enemy. He’d been trained for this. Often enjoyed it.

  But he wasn’t enjoying a damn thing at the moment. As he got closer to the doorway, he heard Morgan’s throaty voice. “No one will believe I wrote this,” she was protesting.

  “Keep writing,” came her brother’s sharp reply. “Say I’m sorry for all the pain I’ve caused everyone.”

  Quinn flattened himself against the wall next to the door frame, then, ever so carefully, cocked his head to peek inside. For the first time since he’d entered the apartment, his pulse sped up. Morgan sat on the couch, a pad of paper in her hands. Looming over her was Tony.

  And pointed at her forehead was a small, but very lethal, pistol

  Chapter 18

  Quinn swallowed the lump of fury that rose in his throat. He wanted to hurl himself into the room. Heave himself at Tony, knock the gun out of his hand. Or even easier, simply step into the doorway and put a bullet in the back of Tony Kerr’s head. But he kept the volatile urges in check. Any sort of ambush was liable to get Morgan killed.

  “They won’t believe it,” she said again. “This doesn’t sound like me.”

  Tony’s responding shout was heavy with aggravation. “Just do it!”

  “Fine, but I’m just saying…”

  She sounded scared, but in control. A burst of pride filled Quinn’s chest. Any other woman—hell, any man—would have been freaking out just about now. Stay calm when someone had a gun aimed at your head? Not many people could do it. But Morgan…God, she was so damn strong. In some ways, a hell of a lot stronger than him.

  “Now sign it,” Tony ordered.

  Quinn could practically feel her hesitation. He didn’t blame her, either. Evidently Tony was forcing her to write a suicide note, which meant that the moment she signed her name, it was all over.

  A long silence descended, finally broken by Tony saying, “Good girl.” Regret dripped from his voice. “I’m so sorry about this, Morgan. You understand why I have to do this, right?”

  Quinn’s muscles tensed as he heard Tony’s footsteps, most likely moving closer to Morgan. He tightened his grip on the gun.

  “She’ll leave me if the truth comes out.”

  “But I’m expendable?” came Morgan’s embittered retort.

  “Don’t say that.” Tony sounded genuinely remorseful. “I love you, Mor. But you’re the one who screwed everything up.” A beat of silence. “Close your eyes, okay? It’ll be over soon.”

  Like hell it would.

  Quinn propelled into action. He swiftly entered the room and fixed the weapon on the sandy-haired man. “Put the gun down, Tony,” he said sternly.

  Tony spun around, a stunned expression on his face. The surprise quickly faded into an irritated scowl.

  “Why are you here?” Tony demanded. “Why can’t everyone just leave this alone?”

  “Put the gun down,” Quinn repeated. “You don’t want to do this, Tony. You don’t want to hurt your sister.”

  Morgan’s brother stared at him in disbelief. “You shouldn’t care what happens to her, Quinn. She left you!”

  Quinn’s lips tightened. “Actually, I left her.”

  He’d been doing his best to not look at Morgan, but he couldn’t help it now. His gaze swept over to her, and his heart squeezed when he noticed the tears sticking to her thick eyelashes. Haphazard strands of golden hair had fallen from her loose ponytail to frame her face. She was pale. Looked exhausted and scared and concerned—and so incredibly beautiful his eyes hurt from looking at her.

  And she was his. She’d stolen his heart the day, no, the second, they’d met, and for the past two years he’d been kidding himself. He wasn’t over her. Never had been. Never would be. That heart she’d stolen, well, she owned it now, and she always would.

  “You left because she didn’t give a damn about you,” Tony replied. A knowing look crossed his face. “Layla didn’t give a damn about me, too.”

  “So you decided to take a rock and smash her head in?” Quinn spat out despite the warning voice telling him to keep quiet.

  Tony’s fac
e turned a bright shade of crimson. “It was an accident.”

  “Sure didn’t look that way on the coroner’s report. Six fractures to the skull.” Quinn made a tsk sound with his tongue. “Sounds more like old-fashioned murder to me.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Morgan’s face pleading with him to stop. Don’t bait him, she mouthed. But Quinn knew exactly what he was doing. As he spoke, he moved ever so nearer to the other man, until they were standing only a couple of feet apart.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Tony ordered, panic flooding his gaze.

  “You murdered that girl,” Quinn said softly. “You murdered her, buried her in the woods, and put it out of your mind.”

  “Shut up!”

  “And now you’re about to murder your own sister.”

  “I said shut up!”

  Quinn took another step forward. “Tony, you need help.”

  “Don’t move!” The gun shook wildly in Tony’s hands.

  Quinn’s peripheral vision caught Morgan beginning to rise from the couch, but he ordered her with a glare to stay put. She got the message loud and clear, and sank back down.

  “You’ve made some terrible mistakes,” Quinn went on. “But that doesn’t mean your life is over. There were obviously extenuating circumstances, Tony. Any judge would see that.”

  “Judge?” Tony echoed. His eyes widened. “There won’t be a judge! I can’t go to jail! Caroline will leave me if I—”

  Quinn pounced, ramming his shoulder into Tony’s chest. The sudden attack caused Tony to drop the pistol. As the gun fell onto the carpet, Tony fell, too, the force of Quinn’s blow sending him sprawling backward. But the other man took Quinn with him, his fingers clutching the hem of Quinn’s sweater. As his equilibrium failed him, Quinn lost his grip on his own gun. The two men hit the floor.

  A fist connected with Quinn’s left cheekbone. He fought back, landing a left hook in the corner of Tony’s mouth. Blood spurted from Tony’s , eliciting a strangled shout. Quinn was amazed by Tony’s strength as they struggled on the carpet. He pinned the other man down, only to have the tables turn and find himself flat on his back. Tony landed another punch, then heaved himself off Quinn, one arm outstretched in a desperate attempt to reach the gun that had been pushed under the coffee table.