The Next Accident Read Free Page A

then smiled grudgingly. "I see you still know how to cut to the chase."
    "And you still know how to dodge a question."
    "Touche."
    She arched a brow, signaling that, too, wasn't an answer. Then she propped up her hip on the edge of her desk, and knowing Quincy as well as she did, she waited.
    Supervisory Special Agent Pierce Quincy had started his career as an FBI profiler, back in the days when that division was called the Investigative Support Unit and he was known as one of the best of the best. Six years ago, after a particularly brutal case, he'd moved to the Behavioral Science Unit, where he focused on researching future homicidal practices and teaching classes at Quantico. Rainie had met him a year ago, in her hometown of Bakersville, Oregon, when a mass murder had ravaged her quaint community and garnered Quincy 's attention. As the primary officer, she had walked that crime scene with him, having met him just an hour before and already impressed by how impassive he could keep his face, even when looking at the chalk outlines of little girls.
    She hadn't had his composure in the beginning. She had earned hers the hard way, over the following days of the investigation, when things in her town had gone from bad to worse, and she'd realized just how much she had to fear. Quincy had started as her ally. He'd become her anchor. By the end of the case, there'd been the hint of more.
    Then Rainie had lost her job with the sheriffs department. Then the DA had charged her with man one for a fourteen-year-old homicide, and she'd spent four months waiting for her day in court. Eight months ago, without warning or explanation, the charges against her were dropped. It was over.
    Rainie's lawyer had the impression that someone might have intervened on her behalf. Someone with clout. Rainie had never brought it up, but she'd always suspected that person was Quincy. And far from drawing them together, it was one more thing cluttering the space between.
    He was Supervisory Special Agent Pierce Quincy, the man who'd brought down Jim Beckett, the man who'd discovered Henry Hawkins, the man who probably did know what had happened to Jimmy Hoffa.
    She was simply Lorraine Conner, and she still had a lot to do to get her life on track.
    Quincy said, "I have a job for you."
    Rainie nearly snorted. "What? The Bureau's no longer good enough for you?"
    He hesitated. "It's… personal."
    "The Bureau's your life, Quincy. It's
all
personal for you."
    "But this more so than most. Could I have a glass of water?"
    Rainie furrowed her brow. Quincy with a personal mission. She was hopelessly intrigued.
    She went into the kitchen, fixed two glasses of water with plenty of ice, then joined him in the family room. Quincy had already taken a seat on her overstuffed blue-striped sofa. The couch was old and threadbare, one of the few remnants of her life in Bakersville. There, she'd lived in a tiny ranch-style house with a back deck surrounded by soaring pine trees and air filled with the mournful cries of hoot owls. No sounds of sirens or late-night partyers. Just endless evenings crammed full of memories – her mother drunk, her mother raising her fist. Her mother, missing most of her head.
    Not all of the recent changes in Rainie's life were bad.
    Quincy took a long sip of water. Then he removed his jacket and carefully draped it over the arm of the sofa. His shoulder holster stood out darkly against his white dress shirt.
    "My daughter – we buried Mandy last month." "Oh Quincy, I'm sorry," Rainie responded instinctively, then fisted her hands before she did something awkward such as reaching out to him. She knew the story behind Mandy's automobile accident. Last April, Quincy 's twenty-three-year-old daughter had collided head-on with a telephone pole in Virginia, causing permanent brain damage as well as shattering her face. At the hospital, she'd immediately been put on life support, though that had only been intended to sustain her organs long