The Next Accident

  She ran a hand through her newly shorn hair again. She was still getting used to the look, and the heat made it flip out like a dark, chestnut dish mop. Then there was her tank top—old and sweat-soaked. Her denim shorts, ripped up, frayed, and hardly professional. She was just doing paperwork today, no need to dress up, and oh God had she put on deodorant this morning, because it was really hot in here and she could no longer tell.

  Supervisory Special Agent Pierce Quincy remained gazing up at the security camera, and even through the grainy image, she could see the intent look in his deep blue eyes.

  Rainie’s scattered thoughts slowed. Her hand settled at the hollow of her throat. And she studied Quincy, nearly eight months since she’d last seen him and six months since even the phone calls had stopped.

  His eyes still crinkled in the corners. His forehead still carried deep, furrowed lines. He had the hard, lean features of a man who spent too much time dealing with death, and damn if she hadn’t liked that about him. Same impeccably tailored suit. Same hard-to-read face. There was no one quite like SupSpAg Quincy.

  He pressed the ringer for a third time. He wasn’t going away. Once he made up his mind about something, Quincy rarely let it go. Except her . . .

  Rainie shook her head in disgust. She didn’t want to think that way. They’d tried, they’d failed. Shit happened. Whatever Quincy wanted now, she doubted it was personal. She buzzed him in.

  Eight floors later, he knocked at her front door. She’d had time for deodorant, but nothing in the world could save her hair. She swung open the door, balanced one hand on her denim-clad hip, and said, “Hey.”

  “Hello, Rainie.”

  She waited. The pause drew out, and to her satisfaction, Quincy broke first.

  “I was beginning to worry that you were out on a case,” he said.

  “Yeah well, even the good guys can’t be working all the time.”

  Quincy raised a brow. His dry tone made her positively nostalgic as he said, “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  She smiled in spite of herself. Then she swung the door open a bit wider, and truly let him in.

  Quincy didn’t speak right away. He walked around her loft casually, but Rainie wasn’t fooled. She’d blown the majority of her savings on the loft just four months ago and she knew the kind of impression it made. The eleven-foot ceilings of a converted warehouse space. The open, sunny layout with nothing but a kitchen counter and eight giant support columns to carve out four simple spaces: kitchen, bedroom, family room, and study. The huge expanse of windows, filling the entire outer wall with original 1925 paned glass.

  The woman who had owned the condo before Rainie had finished the entranceway with warm red brick and painted the living space with rustic shades of adobe and tan. The result was the shabby chic look Rainie had read about in magazines, but knew better than to try on her own.

  The loft had nearly bankrupted her, but the minute Rainie had seen it, she couldn’t have gone without it. It was fashionable, it was upscale, it was beautiful. And maybe if the new and improved Lorraine Conner lived in this kind of place, she could be that kind of person.

  “It’s nice,” Quincy said finally.

  Rainie scrutinized his face. He seemed sincere. She grunted a reply.

  “I didn’t know you did sponge painting,” Quincy commented.

  “Don’t. The previous owner.”

  “Ahh, she did a nice job. New hairdo?”

  “I cut off the length and sold it to buy the loft, of course.”

  “You always were clever. Not organized, as I can tell by looking at the desk, but clever.”

  “Why are you here?”

  Quincy paused, then smiled grudgingly. “I see you still know how to cut to the chase.”

  “And you still know how to dodge a question.”

  “Touché.”

  She arched a brow, signaling that, too, wasn’t an answer. Then she propped up her hip on the edge of her desk, and knowing Quincy as well as she did, she waited.

  Supervisory Special Agent Pierce Quincy had started his career as an FBI profiler, back in the days when that division was called the Investigative Support Unit and he was known as one of the best of the best. Six years ago, after a particularly brutal case, he’d moved to the Behavioral Science Unit, where he focused on researching future homicidal practices and teaching classes at Quantico. Rainie had met him a year ago, in her hometown of Bakersville, Oregon, when a mass murder had ravaged her quaint community and garnered Quincy’s attention. As the primary officer, she had walked that crime scene with him, having met him just an hour before and already impressed by how impassive he could keep his face, even when looking at the chalk outlines of little girls.

  She hadn’t had his composure in the beginning. She had earned hers the hard way, over the following days of the investigation, when things in her town had gone from bad to worse, and she’d realized just how much she had to fear. Quincy had started as her ally. He’d become her anchor. By the end of the case, there’d been the hint of more.

  Then Rainie had lost her job with the sheriff’s department. Then the DA had charged her with man one for a fourteen-year-old homicide, and she’d spent four months waiting for her day in court. Eight months ago, without warning or explanation, the charges against her were dropped. It was over.

  Rainie’s lawyer had the impression that someone might have intervened on her behalf. Someone with clout. Rainie had never brought it up, but she’d always suspected that person was Quincy. And far from drawing them together, it was one more thing cluttering the space between.

  He was Supervisory Special Agent Pierce Quincy, the man who’d brought down Jim Beckett, the man who’d discovered Henry Hawkins, the man who probably did know what had happened to Jimmy Hoffa.

  She was simply Lorraine Conner, and she still had a lot to do to get her life on track.

  Quincy said, “I have a job for you.”

  Rainie nearly snorted. “What? The Bureau’s no longer good enough for you?”

  He hesitated. “It’s . . . personal.”

  “The Bureau’s your life, Quincy. It’s all personal for you.”

  “But this more so than most. Could I have a glass of water?”

  Rainie furrowed her brow. Quincy with a personal mission. She was hopelessly intrigued.

  She went into the kitchen, fixed two glasses of water with plenty of ice, then joined him in the family room. Quincy had already taken a seat on her overstuffed blue-striped sofa. The couch was old and threadbare, one of the few remnants of her life in Bakersville. There, she’d lived in a tiny ranch-style house with a back deck surrounded by soaring pine trees and air filled with the mournful cries of hoot owls. No sounds of sirens or late-night partyers. Just endless evenings crammed full of memories—her mother drunk, her mother raising her fist. Her mother, missing most of her head.

  Not all of the recent changes in Rainie’s life were bad.

  Quincy took a long sip of water. Then he removed his jacket and carefully draped it over the arm of the sofa. His shoulder holster stood out darkly against his white dress shirt.

  “My daughter—we buried Mandy last month.”

  “Oh Quincy, I’m sorry,” Rainie responded instinctively, then fisted her hands before she did something awkward such as reaching out to him. She knew the story behind Mandy’s automobile accident. Last April, Quincy’s twenty-three-year-old daughter had collided head-on with a telephone pole in Virginia, causing permanent brain damage as well as shattering her face. At the hospital, she’d immediately been put on life support, though that had only been intended to sustain her organs long enough to gain permission for harvest. Unfortunately, Quincy’s ex-wife, Bethie, had confused life support with life, and refused to have the machines turned off. Quincy and Bethie had argued. Finally, Quincy had left the bedside vigil to return to work, a decision that had alienated his ex-wife even more.

  “Bethie finally gave permission,” Rainie supplied.

&nb
sp; Quincy nodded. “I didn’t think. . . . In my mind, Mandy has been dead for well over a year. I didn’t think it would be this hard.”

  “She was your daughter. It would be strange if it were easy.”

  “Rainie . . .” He appeared on the verge of saying something more, maybe caught up in this moment when they seemed like old friends again. Then the moment passed. He shook his head. He said, “I want to hire you.”

  “Why?”

  “I want you to look into my daughter’s accident. I want you to make sure that it was an accident.” Rainie was too flabbergasted to speak. Quincy read her doubt and rushed on firmly: “Some things have come up. I want you to investigate them.”

  “I thought she was drunk,” Rainie said, still trying to get her bearings. “Drunk, hit a man, a dog, and a telephone pole. End of story.”

  “She was drunk. The hospital confirmed that she had a blood alcohol level of twice the legal limit, but it’s how she came to be drunk that has me concerned. I met a few of her friends at the funeral, and one of them, Mary Olsen, claims that Amanda spent most of the evening at Mary’s house, playing cards and drinking Diet Coke. Now, I hadn’t spoken with Mandy in a bit. You . . . you know I haven’t had the closest relationship with her. But apparently, Amanda had joined AA six months before her accident and was doing very well. Her friends were very proud of her.”

  In spite of herself, Rainie frowned. “Did something happen during the card game? Get her upset, make her drive straight to a bar?”

  “Not according to Mary Olsen. And Amanda didn’t leave until nearly two-thirty in the morning, after the bars were closed.”

  “Was she alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe she drove home and got drunk.”

  “And then got back into her car to drive where?”

  Rainie chewed her bottom lip. “Okay, maybe she had liquor stashed in her car and started drinking the minute she left the party.”

  “No containers were found in her vehicle or in her apartment. Plus, the liquor stores would all be closed, so she couldn’t have purchased it that night.”

  “Maybe she’d bought it before arriving at her friend’s, then she threw away the empty containers on her way home. You know, to cover her tracks.”

  “Amanda crashed fifteen miles from her apartment, on some back road that bears no direct relationship to Mary Olsen’s house or hers.”

  “As if she was just out driving . . .”

  “Drunk, at five-thirty in the morning, with no obvious supply of alcohol,” Quincy finished for her. “Rainie, I’m concerned.”

  Rainie didn’t answer right away. She was still turning the facts over in her mind, trying to make the pieces fit. “She could have gone to someone else’s house after leaving Mary’s.”

  “It’s possible. Mary said Amanda had met a man a few months before. None of Amanda’s friends had met him yet, but he was supposedly a very nice man, very supportive. My daughter . . . Amanda told Mary that she thought she might be in love.”

  “But you never met this guy?”

  “No.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “What about at the funeral? Surely he attended the funeral?”

  “He didn’t attend the funeral. No one knew his name or how to contact him.”

  Rainie gave Quincy a look. “If he’s that great, he would’ve found you by now. Surely Mandy mentioned her father, and given the amount of press you’ve received on various cases . . .”

  “I’ve thought of that.”

  “But no sign of Mr. Wonderful.”

  “No.”

  Rainie finally got it. “You don’t think this was an accident, do you? You think it is Mr. Wonderful’s fault. He got your little girl drunk, then let her drive home.”

  “I don’t know what he did,” Quincy replied quietly, “but somehow, Amanda got access to alcohol between two-thirty and five-thirty in the morning, and it cost her her life. She was troubled. She had a history of drinking. . . . Yes, I would like to hear his side of things.”

  “Quincy, this isn’t a case. This is one of the five stages of grief. You know—denial.”

  Rainie tried to utter the words gently, but they came out bald, and almost immediately, Quincy was pissed off. His lips thinned. His eyes grew darker, his features harsher. For the most part, Quincy was an academic, prone to approaching the world as a puzzle to be analyzed and solved. But he was also a hunter; Rainie had seen that side of him, too. Once—their final evening together—she had fingered the scars on his chest.

  “I want to know what happened the last night of my daughter’s life,” Quincy uttered firmly, precisely. “I’m asking you to look into it. I’m willing to pay your fees. Now, will you take the case or not?”

  “Oh for God’s sake.” Rainie bolted out of her chair. She paced the room a few times so he wouldn’t see how mad he’d just made her, then said sourly, “You know I’ll help you, and you know I won’t take your damn money.”

  “It’s a case, Rainie. A simple case, and you don’t owe me anything.”

  “Bullshit! It’s another bread crumb you’re tossing my way and we both know it. You’re an FBI agent. You have access to your own crime lab; you have one hundred times the number of contacts I do.”

  “All of whom will want to know why I’m asking questions. All of whom will pry into my family’s life and will sit in judgment of my concerns, even if they are too polite to accuse me of denial.”

  “I’m only saying—”

  “I know I’m in denial! I’m her father, for God’s sake. Of course I’m in denial. But I’m also a trained investigator, just like you, Rainie, and something about this stinks. Look me in the eye and tell me it doesn’t stink.”

  Rainie stopped. She mutinously looked him in the eye. Then she wished she hadn’t, because his jaw was tight and his hands were clenched into fists, and dammit she liked him when he was like this. The rest of the world could have composed, professional Pierce Quincy. She wanted this man. At least she had.

  “Did you ask the DA to drop the charges against me?” she demanded.

  “What?”

  “Did you ask the DA to drop the charges against me?”

  “No.” He shook his head in bewilderment. “Rainie, I’m the one who told you to go through with the trial, that it was probably the best way to put the past behind you. Why would I then interfere?”

  “Fine, I’ll take your case.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll take your case! Four hundred dollars a day, plus expenses. And I don’t know beans about Virginia or motor vehicle accident investigation, so no accusing me later of not having enough experience. I’m telling you now, I’m inexperienced, and it’s still going to cost you four hundred dollars a day.”

  “There you go with that charm again.”

  “I’m a fast learner. We both know I’m a fast learner.” She said that more savagely than she’d intended. Quincy’s face nearly softened, then he caught himself.

  “Deal,” he said crisply. He picked up his jacket, drew out a manila envelope and dropped it on her glass coffee table. “There’s the accident report. It includes the name of the investigating officer. I’m sure you’ll want to start with him.”

  “Jesus, Quincy, you shouldn’t be reading that.”

  “She’s my daughter, Rainie; it’s the only thing I can do for her anymore. Now, come on, I’m buying.”

  “Buying what?”

  “Dinner. It’s too damn hot in here, Rainie, and you really need to put on some clothes.”

  “Just for that, I’m wearing the tank top to dinner. And as long as you’re buying, we’re going to Oba’s.”

  2

  Pearl District, Portland

  One night out on the town, and it was easy to slip into old roles. Quincy sweeping into town and taking her out to an extravagant restaurant. Eating great food, tropical shrimp ceviche, rare ahi tuna, butternut squash enchiladas. Quincy drank two world-famous marionberry daiquiris, served in
chilled martini glasses. Rainie stuck to water, because in a place like Oba’s she was too embarrassed to conduct her little ritual of ordering—but not drinking—a Bud Light.

  They talked a little. They talked a lot. God it was good to see him again.

  “So how is the investigative business?” Quincy asked halfway through dessert, when they had exhausted small talk and settled in.

  “Good. Just got my license. Number five hundred and twenty-one, that’s me.”

  “Doing private work?”

  “Some. I got in with a few defense attorneys; they’re the ones who convinced me to get licensed. Now I can do more work for them—background checks on witnesses, crime-scene reconstruction, police report analysis. Still a lot of sitting at the desk, but it beats chasing down the cheating husband or wife.”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  Rainie laughed. “Sounds dull! I spend my time logged on to the Oregon Judicial Information Network. On a really exciting day, I might access my Oregon State Police account to peruse criminal history. It takes intelligence, but we’re not talking adrenaline rush.”

  “I read lots of reports, too,” Quincy said, sounding mildly defensive.

  “You fly places. You talk to people. You get there while the blood’s still fresh.”

  “You miss it that much, Rainie?”

  She avoided his gaze to keep from answering, wished she did have a bottle of Bud Light, and switched topics. “How’s Kimberly?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Rainie arched a brow. “I thought she was the daughter who liked you.”

  Quincy grimaced. “Tact, Rainie. Tact.”

  “I strive to be consistent.”

  “Kimberly needs some space. I think her sister’s accident hit her harder than the rest of us. She’s angry, and I don’t think she’s comfortable with that yet.”

  “Angry with Amanda, or angry with you and Bethie?”

  “To be honest, I’m not sure.”

  Rainie nodded. “I always wanted a sister. I figured that must be something special, to have a genetic ally in the world. Someone to play with. Someone to fight with. Someone who had your parents, too, so she could tell you if your mom really was nuts, or if it was all in your head. But it doesn’t sound like Mandy has been much of an ally for Kimberly. Instead, she’s been the major source of family stress.”