A crushing weight was pressing down on his ribs and it was becoming hard to breathe. He needed to get out of there, get away from Shane. He needed to think. He couldn’t be wrong about this. Gerald Spring was a bad man. He beat and tormented his wife, threatened to keep her from her kids.
Spinning toward the desk, he grabbed his phone and keys. “I have to get out of here. Promised my mom I’d stop by to see her,” he mumbled.
“Quinn…”
“Read the emails,” he continued without even looking at Shane. He couldn’t look at him. Not without falling apart. Not without begging him to stand up and do the right thing for Brenda Spring. She deserved more than to have this horrible secret stay hidden. She deserved justice.
He made it as far as the door before Shane’s voice stopped him. “You can’t tell your boss about what you’ve read. You swore that you would keep everything about this case confidential.”
Quinn’s fist tightened around the doorknob and he clenched his teeth. One last dig. Shane didn’t trust him. That was fine. He had one too.
“Don’t bother trying to delete the emails if you find them too damaging for your client. I’ve already uploaded them to the cloud. I was afraid the hacker or someone else might sneak in and tamper with them.”
“Quinn—”
He didn’t wait to hear the rest. He hurried out of the office, slamming the door behind him. He had to think. How the hell could he have been so wrong about Shane?Chapter FourteenCity lights blurred past his window as Quinn sped down Interstate 75. He’d been driving for hours, first along the 275 loop around the city before he decided to head north. Rush hour traffic out of downtown was starting to pick up, and he needed to get off the road before it became too clogged with commuters. He drew close to his apartment but couldn’t bring himself to stop. He wasn’t in the mood for his roommates, and he was so goddamn sick of not feeling like he belonged there. Or anywhere, for that matter.
Billboards lined the road, advertising for the USS Nightmare, the haunted riverboat on the Ohio River, and a few other popular haunted houses around the city. Just the other night, he’d briefly contemplated asking Shane if he wanted to go to a haunted corn maze up north that weekend. It had seemed like something that he’d get a kick out of, and Quinn had always wanted to try it. Now it seemed stupid.
He missed being able to talk to his mother. She’d been his only confidant for most of his life. She’d supported him through everything, including his arrest in high school. Relating to people had never been his thing, and the way he meshed with Shane was so completely out of his realm of experience, he’d let himself relax. And trust him.
Idiot!
But the longer he wove through the city streets, the more he realized he’d been the one to fuck up. Almost without thought, he pulled into Ward’s parking lot, pain shooting through his fingers as he pried them off the steering wheel. He shut off the engine and leaned back against the headrest with his eyes closed.
Shane had been doing his job. Now that Quinn had calmed down, he realized the man had been trying to tell him that he didn’t plan to let the mayor get away with harming his wife—he just had to go about it legally. Fuck, this was all hitting way too close to home for him, and he didn’t want to think about this shit.
Shane could lose his business if he went about this the wrong way. And Quinn had blown the whole thing out of proportion.
He scrubbed his hands over his face then jumped when someone banged on his window. He frowned at Royce.
The man opened the door and leaned down to stare into Quinn’s face. “You look like you need a drink. Come on. I’ll buy.”
“I won’t be good company.” His stomach picked that moment to growl loudly.
Royce released one of his rare, real grins and it transformed his features so much, Quinn blinked at him. “Friends don’t always expect a good time. Sometimes, they just offer an ear. And you need some food, so don’t argue.”
He couldn’t discuss the case, so he wasn’t sure how much he’d need an ear. But a drink did sound good. “Get in. You can buy me dinner, too.”
Royce circled the car and climbed into the passenger seat.
“Just so you know,” Quinn said with the first spark of humor he’d felt in hours. “Even if you’re paying, I’m not putting out.”
“Well, there go my plans to wine and dine you, squirt.”
He chuckled and pulled back out into the early evening traffic. “That is the dumbest nickname. You do realize I’m taller than you, right?”