Always a Thief - Kay Hooper [81]
Quinn didn't move or speak. Familiar with the sound of danger, he heard it in Jared's voice. And though he was an inch taller than his brother, a fraction wider across the shoulders, and arguably more powerful, there was no one in the world that he was less inclined to take on than Jared.
Especially when he knew himself to be in the wrong.
“I want the truth, Alex.”
“All right,” Quinn said quietly. “I would have told you anyway. Maybe not tonight, but . . . soon.”
Jared drew a breath and let it out slowly. “Tell me.”
So Quinn told him.
Almost everything.
Still balancing on that high wire, Quinn's second meeting of the night took place in a private home far from the museum, and as he'd discussed with Morgan, he didn't give Nightshade the opportunity to ask awkward questions.
“What the hell do you mean by shadowing me?” he demanded, stripping off his mask.
“Shadowing you? What are you talking about?”
“I'm talking about your little stunt on that fire escape last night. What would have happened if Morgan hadn't got in your way, you want to tell me that? Was the chloroform meant for me, or do you make it a habit to carry the stuff around? Or was it Morgan you were after?”
His host moved slowly to a chair by the fireplace and sat down. “Alex, I didn't go out last night. At all.”
Quinn recognized the truth when he heard it. Part of him was relieved—and part of him went even colder. He sat down across from his host and spoke slowly, even though his mind was working at top speed. “And you didn't kill that woman the police are calling Jane Doe. So we have another player.”
“It appears so. What was Morgan doing on a fire escape?”
“Looking for me. For Alex.”
“And she expected to find you on a rooftop?”
“I didn't say I was on the roof. I'd told her I was meeting a realtor late to look at a building I was considering as an investment. I never meant to be specific about which building, but I must have been. Apparently, she decided to surprise me with a visit. Either that, or . . .”
“Or she suspected you might be meeting someone else?”
“I wouldn't have pegged her as the jealous type,” Quinn mused, then shrugged. “In any case, being Morgan, when she found the front doors locked she tried the fire escape.” Quinn felt fairly safe in creating a plausible tale, and it was certainly better than the truth.
“And someone used chloroform on her. An interesting choice, to not simply kill her. Something you'd be more likely to do than I.”
Gambling as he often did, Quinn said, “It occurred to me that you might have tried to grab Morgan to have an extra lever against me.”
“Alex, I'm surprised at you. Such a lack of trust.”
Ignoring that comment, Quinn added, “Still a possibility if we do have another player in the game. But whoever it was couldn't have known Morgan would be there. Unless he followed her.”
“Or followed you.”
“He didn't follow me.”
Nightshade accepted that. “Where is Morgan now?”
“Safe. Being watched. As she'll continue to be watched until this is over.”
Smiling faintly, Nightshade said, “Is that a warning, Alex?”
“If you like.” Quinn held his host's gaze steadily. “No one is going to hurt Morgan. No one is going to use her against me.”
“Noted.” Nightshade shrugged. “At the moment, I'm far more interested in who this new player is and whether he's a threat to our plans. It sounds at the very least as if he has your number, that he knows Morgan is your weakness.”
Quinn could have argued with the choice of words, but instead said only, “The murder of Jane Doe points straight at the museum. They even found the murder weapon in the basement, rather . . . creatively placed.”
“So whoever it is got inside the museum without tripping any alarms.”
“And spent a considerable amount of time in there. Weeks ago. Before the new security went on-line. Since then, no one has breached the system.”
“You're sure of that?”
“Positive.”
“And you have no idea