She stuttered to finish, to find words that didn’t indict herself. I had opened my mouth to do it for her when Quin cut in.
“I think I do need to insist,” he said evenly. “That, uh, your mother? That she gonow.” He raised a hand in surrender when I turned on him. “You can certainly fight later, after we all survive this.”
Fine.
Marisa allowed Quin to hand her into position. But she wasn’t done having her say. “I didn’t do you harm,” she said. “I didn’tmeanto. I didn’t do you any good, either. Or myself. But I… I nevermeantyou harm, Dahlia.”
Oona came up behind me, backing me up. Marisa had her nice leather boots through the opening. “I loved you,” Marisa said. “I do. Love you. That’s what I wanted to say.”
She was stuck. That hindquarters she’d passed down to me was wedged in the narrow bit. I watched as she wriggled and kicked and Quin tried to avoid touching any indelicate spot as he stuffed her down.
Finally gravity did its work and Marisa broke through with a little scream. Quin put his head through to check on her, and Shanny called up, confirming she’d landed and was fine.
“Next,” Quin said to Oona.
Oona climbed up into the sink. “Alex will know what really happened, Dahlia. He’ll clear it up. When… when.”
But that was a prediction she couldn’t bear to make.
“You’re coming, right?” she said, hesitating as she put her Doc Martens through the opening. Her hairy sweater plucked at the plaster. “He’ll never forgive me…”
“Get as many of the group up into daylight after Pascal,” I said. “Everybody work together. No matter what happens, Oona, get them out.”
Quin eased Oona down into Shanny’s care, then turned to me.
“I can’t,” I said.
“You have to.”
“What about you and Lump—Jim?”
“I have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Quin said.
“Are you anythingbuttricks up a sleeve?” I gestured toward the torn sleeve of his jacket. The white cuff of his shirt was soaked, red, bright. Fresh. “That’s… a lot of blood.”
“I’ll be okay,” he said.
“That is seriously not a scratch.” I stretched for his arm. He reared back, twisting away and grimacing in pain, sucking in a breath. I had a hand on his back, high on his shoulder.
He’d gone still, watchful.
My hand was flat on him, an intimacy. I felt the same shift in the air around us as in the office that afternoon. The same closeness, the same mingled breath.
And then through his jacket, I felt… a harness?
“I can explain,” he said.
“Is that? Is that aholster?” I said. “Are you carrying agun?”
53
“I can explain,” Quin said again.
I jerked my hand back. “You’ve been carrying a gun this whole time?”
“Did you think a third drawn weapon would have made that standoff at the bar any better?” Quin said. “I’m a federal agent.”
In the next room, Lumpy Jim grunted. “Should have come in handier than it has,” he said.
