“If you didn’t have to work-”
“I love my work. This place.” With a wave of one hand, she took in the Octagon Room, with its fireplace and oil portrait, its brass candlesticks, its worn wood floors. “I come to work, and I feel as if I’ve stepped back in time to my grandmother’s day. She used to work here, too, you know. Some days, I swear I can hear her talking to me. It’s very comforting.”
Quinn looked up at her great-great-grandfather’s dour face. “I’m not sure I’d want to hear him talking to me.”
Thelma smiled. “He died before my time here, but in the early days, there were many people who remembered him. They said he wasn’t at all a crazy adrenaline junkie. He was thoughtful, very intelligent. He had a purpose. He knew what he was here on earth to do, and he accepted the risks involved as part of the challenge.” Her plain, frank eyes zeroed in on Quinn. “He didn’t shrink from his duties and responsibilities, whether he’d had them foisted upon him or took them on by choice.”
“Thelma…”
Quinn breathed out, setting the champagne bottle on a stack of cast-off files on her desk. She knew what the longtime receptionist-and adventurer-was trying to say, the point she was driving home in her own not particularly subtle way.
“Quinn, you know what you have to do.”
“I can’t say for sure that Steve was here to search my office. I can’t say for sure he tried to access my laptop files.” She watched the sweat from the champagne drip onto a dry, ancient file. “I don’t want to make trouble for him.”
“I saw him. I don’t know him, of course, but I’d say he’s already in trouble. It’s not your job to save him from any mess he’s gotten himself into. You can’t help him by running from what you know.” She finished off the last of her champagne. “That’s another quality your great-great-grandfather had. He understood and respected his limits.”
“Risk-takers think they have no limits.”
Thelma snorted. “No, Quinn, grandiose idiots think they have no limits. You Harlowes are neither grandiose nor idiots.”
“Just occasionally very unlucky,” Quinn said dryly, getting to her feet.
She hadn’t left anything out in the open in her office that provided any critical information-no names or numbers of her sources, none of her conclusions, especially about Huck. Nowhere had she typed or written a single word about her suspicions about who he was. If Steve had searched her office, he would only have seen cryptic notes, jotted questions to herself.
But there were enough, she thought, for even the most cursory search to confirm that she’d spent some time researching Oliver Crawford and Breakwater Security.
“I’ll call T.J. Kowalski on my way to Yorkville,” she said.
Thelma smiled knowingly. “You’re afraid if you call him from here, you won’t get to Yorkville. He’ll stuff you into a hotel somewhere. I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into this time, Quinn, but I can guess-” She tilted her empty flute up at the portrait. “I can guess your Harlowe genes are coming out in you.”
“Special Agent Kowalski has his own ideas about what I should and shouldn’t be doing.”
“And you have yours,” Thelma said, as if Quinn had just won her point for her about Harlowe genes.
Quinn ignored any reference to her crazy ancestors. “Thelma-I owe Alicia. My grandfather says I’m a catalyst. I make things happen.”
“Spoken like a true Harlowe.”
“I’m not about to do anything reckless. I want to make answers happen. I want to know why Alicia died. Why she came to me for help, talking about ospreys. Who was in the car that picked her up. Where they went.”
“Understandable, but is any of that the responsibility of a friend?” Thelma’s voice had gone quiet. “Be aware of who you are and why you’re doing what you’re doing. Don’t delude yourself.”
Quinn gave her a cheerfully stubborn look. “You’re just telling me I’ve gone Harlowe because you don’t want me going to that open house.”
Thelma didn’t relent. “I don’t trust Gerard Lattimore. Or Oliver Crawford. You’ll be all alone tomorrow.”
Not alone, Quinn thought. Huck Boone/McCabe would be there.
But if he were here now, she had no doubt he’d be siding with Thelma. “It’ll be fine, Thelma.” Quinn picked up the champagne bottle and refilled her friend’s glass. “Besides, I have to go now-I already know what I’m wearing.”
Quinn had lied to Thelma. She had no idea what to wear to Oliver Crawford’s open house. Choosing an outfit was the least of her concerns, but it gave her something inconsequential to focus on. What dress, what shoes, whether to go dramatic or natural with her makeup were all better than dwelling on undercover marshals and whatever Steve Eisenhardt was up to.
She decided on a simple champagne-colored silk dress with a 1930s shawl, strappy shoes and hot-pink lipstick.