Quinn - Iris Johansen [88]
“More than a little.”
She shrugged. “Whatever. At any rate, you should have thought instead of reacted. Eve was terribly upset about Joe, so she had some excuse. But you should have known you weren’t capable of killing Bonnie.”
His lips twisted in a one-sided smile. “According to you, Catherine?”
She was suddenly up and kneeling before him. “Dammit, yes. According to me.” Her hands closed on his shoulders, and she shook him. “I’m the only one with any sense around here. You were trying to throw yourself off a cliff, and Eve and Joe were going to hunt you down and kill you. Do you know how that would have made them feel when they found out Black was wrong? Guilt and more guilt. And that damn search for Bonnie would have started again.” Her breasts were rising and falling with the force of her breathing. “And I would have been right in the middle of all that angst. No way. I’ve done enough things in my life that earned me my portion of guilt without you bringing me more. Now stop it, and let’s clear this up.”
His eyes were narrowed on her expression. “You really don’t think I did it, do you?”
“At last, a breakthrough.” Her hands dropped from his shoulders. “How many times do I have to say it? Black was wrong. He may have believed you killed Bonnie, but that doesn’t make it true.” She sat back on her heels. “Dammit, you’d think that you wanted it to be true.”
“God, no.” His voice was hoarse. “I’ve been living in a nightmare.”
The pain in his expression was terrible to see. She wanted to reach out and touch him, comfort him. Don’t do it. She was already too close to him.
“You deserved it. All you had to do was take the situation apart and look at the separate pieces.”
He started to smile, then shook his head. “You know I still don’t believe you. I want to. But I’m afraid that I’ll find out that I was right, and you’re wrong.”
“Then you wouldn’t be any worse off, would you?”
This time the smile actually came into being. “Oh, I would be worse off. It’s a terrible thing to lose hope.” He reached out and gently touched her cheek. “But it would be worth it to have a chance to go down the road you’re leading me.”
She could feel her skin flush beneath his fingers, and her chest tightened. No, she mustn’t feel like this. It got in the way. She moved her head, and his hand dropped away from her face. “Nice words. Now shouldn’t we get down to business? I completely blew it with Eve tonight. I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t show up here and try to track me down. We need to be gone before that happens.”
“And where are we going?”
“If Black didn’t kill Bonnie, and you didn’t kill Bonnie, then we have to find out who did.”
“Logical.” He was thinking. She could almost see the wheels turning. “Okay. If Black didn’t kill Bonnie and was certain that I did, it was because Queen and Jacobs had told him I had done it. Queen must have even paid Black to shoulder the blame, so that I would search for him all those years. Why?”
“Eve said that she thought that Queen was afraid that if you found out that you’d killed your daughter during one of your blackouts, you’d have a complete breakdown. He wouldn’t want you to be put away in a mental institution, where he couldn’t control you. Doctors ask