The woman was moving upstairs.
He waited, ready to spring to the stairs if there was further commotion, but soon her movements slowed and then ceased. A dream or nightmare. Nothing more. He refocused on the dark liquid rising in the pot and poured a steaming cup when the coffeemaker had finished its work. The smell that filled the room was so redolent of the mornings at home, his throat closed when he tried to take a sip of coffee. His father sitting at his desk going over paperwork, Graham and Foster bickering at one another in the kitchen, Mallory reading the paper before she began her cleaning for the day, and Teresa, standing at the eastern windows of the solarium watching the ocean.
“You didn’t wake me.”
Quinn flinched as if coming out of a dream and slopped some coffee over the rim of his cup. Alice stood in the doorway, her hair curled at the ends from sleep, face puffy but somehow alluring.
“No. I couldn’t have slept.” She looked down at the floor, tracing a design in the linoleum with one toe. “Do you want some coffee?” he asked.
“God yes.”
She sat at the table, and he brought a cup to her, the steam rising in white tendrils. The rain abandoned its pattering and began to pound the roof. Thunder grumbled somewhere to the west. The woods around the house blurred behind silver sheets of water.
“I don’t want him getting attached to you,” Alice said.
“I know.”
“But it’s not right to deny him someone to care about.”
“He’s amazing. I’ve never met anyone like him.”
“I see a lot of parallels between you two.”
His eyes widened. “You do?”
“Yes. You both deal with things that you never asked for and people judge you before they know you.” She fingered the handle of her cup. “Myself included.”
“I understand why you’d be hesitant, I mean,” he gestured at his face. “Believe me.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s not it, I—”
Her words were cut off by a succession of thumps and then a hard bang from overhead. They both raised their heads. A trail of dust filtered down to the floor in a thin line.
“Something’s wrong,” Alice said, standing up.
They hurried down the hallway, and Quinn threw a glance into the sitting room. Ty slept on beneath the blanket. They mounted the steps and were halfway up them when there was another bang and the tinkling of glass. Quinn doubled his pace and fumbled for an excruciating second with the lock before shoving the door inward.
Rain dribbled off the broken glass hanging from the window. The bedframe was flipped on its side and a full-length mirror was in pieces on the floor. The sleeping bag and blankets were a tangled mess.
The woman was gone.
“What the hell?” Alice said, coming in behind him. She crossed to the window and looked down. “She’s gone.”
Quinn knelt beside the bedding and inhaled. The stink was low, ventilated by the fresh air and rain, but there. The blankets were wet, the floor around them slick with fluid. His heart began to hammer. He raised his eyes to meet Alice’s.
“What?” she said.
Glass broke downstairs.
Ty screamed.
Chapter 17
The Hollow Hope
Ty’s scream fell and then rose again, a klaxon of terror.
Alice shouted something, but he was already moving, vaulting over the railing, air shrieking past him as he landed ten stairs down, tripping and falling the rest of the way. Quinn rolled to his feet, his ankle and shoulder burning but he barely noticed. He jerked the XDM from its holster and pelted down the hallway before bursting into the sitting room.