The Next Accident - Lisa Gardner [111]
He had called Everett about his father. No news yet, and Quincy knew better than most what that meant. Each hour that passed without finding Abraham decreased the probability of ever seeing him alive. It had been thirty-six hours now. One moment, Abraham had been sleeping peacefully in his antiseptic-smelling bed. The next he was gone, checked out by a stranger posing as his son, not that Abraham would know the difference. A janitor reported seeing Quincy’s father being led to a little red sports car, probably the same Audi TT the UNSUB had used to pick up Bethie.
No sign of the car since. No sign of Abraham. No big break in the case to ease the pain steadily building in Quincy’s chest. His father’s kidnapping was the ultimate failure, worse somehow than Amanda’s and Elizabeth’s murders, because they had been independent adults. His father, on the other hand, had been vulnerable and utterly helpless. Once a proud man who had single-handedly raised his son, now a dependent. Quincy should’ve done more to keep him safe.
The realization left him in a strange place. At once bottomed out, yet fiercely enraged. Empty of all emotion, yet desperate to feel alive. Defeated. Determined. Unbelievably angry. Unbearably sad. The academic searching for a reason. The man, knowing there was no such thing.
Why is my father gone? Because he is. Isolation is not protection. No amount of distance numbs the pain.
And then Quincy had a strange memory, a moment he hadn’t thought about in years. Little Kimmy coming home from her fourth ballet lesson, walking into the living room where the family was gathered, and with her feet planted and her hands balled on her hips, announcing in her loudest voice, “Fuck ballet!”
Quincy remembered Bethie’s stunned gasp, Mandy’s awed expression, and his own desperate attempt to fight a smile. Fuck ballet. Such attitude. Such confidence. Such fearlessness. He had felt so proud.
Had he ever told his father that story? Abraham would’ve liked that. He wouldn’t have said anything, but he would’ve smiled. And he also would’ve been proud. Each generation takes the next step forward. From a stoic swamp Yankee to a reserved federal agent to a brash aspiring criminologist, who obviously knew her own mind.
Isolation was not protection. He had lost his father, but maybe, just maybe, he was getting an opportunity to rediscover Kimberly.
“I’m going to grab some clothes,” Rainie called from the walk-in closet. “If the phone rings, let me answer it.”
“I am not here,” Quincy promised her.
“Do you think Kimberly needs anything?”
He smiled faintly. “I think you would know that better than me.”
“That’s not true. You’re not a total idiot savant.”
“Coming from you, I take that as a compliment.”
Rainie exited the closet. He could tell she was happy to be home because there was an extra bounce in her step, a spark of energy that had previously been missing. She’d changed from her T-shirt into a blue chambray button-down. As she walked toward the kitchen, he found himself studying how the soft, well-worn cotton flowed over the curve of her hips.
She is beautiful, he thought, and this time around, the realization stunned him. She was not just good-looking or attractive or sexy. She was beautiful. Beautiful in jeans and a cotton shirt. Beautiful in the way she burst past two homicide detectives at a Philadelphia crime scene simply because she knew that he needed her. Beautiful in the way she stood up to his fellow FBI agents even though she felt uncomfortable and outclassed. Beautiful in the way she was still beside him, when God knows that his life was disintegrating quickly and it would be so much easier to walk away.
She’d told him once that she didn’t know anything about relationships or commitment. She was the most loyal, trustworthy person he knew.
“Rainie,” he said quietly, “I messed up this morning.”