First Time, Forever. Cara Colter
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hours, because my system was full of drugs already. For the next couple of days I went through withdrawal—not as bad as if I’d been a longtime user, but bad enough.”
“What had you been on? Did the doctors tell you?”
“They rattled off some pharmaceutical names at me, but as far as I was concerned they could have been talking another language. I didn’t know what they were. But since I walked out of the hospital I swear I haven’t taken so much as an aspirin, Quinn. Whoever I used to be, the person I am now doesn’t take drugs.”
Unwaveringly, her eyes met his, and finally he gave a curt nod. “I believe you. If you were a junkie you’d be out trying to score, not sitting here talking to me.”
“And if I were an addict, then no one could help me but myself. But drugs aren’t my problem, and I don’t think I can handle this on my own anymore.” She felt the prickle of tears behind her eyelids, and forced them to remain where they were. “The night before the police were supposed to come and talk to me, I just walked out of the hospital. Olga had arranged for me to be hired on by the same firm she worked for, with a crew that cleaned an office building downtown, and at first everything was fine. Olga’s niece Carla was a nurse at the same hospital, and Olga persuaded her to help me get a small apartment in the rooming-house where she lived. I had a home, I had a job, and the new life I’d wanted was beginning to become a reality. Then he left the first sign for me to find.”
“What do you mean, the first sign?” Quinn frowned.
“Just that.” She clasped her hands tightly together on the table. “I was teamed up with another woman and we cleaned the same area each night. Everyone worked in teams of two or three, and the area that Martine and I cleaned was a secretarial pool. On my third night there, we walked in and all the computers were on. All the monitors displayed a single line of type, sized large enough so that I could see it from the doorway, and they all said the same thing—I Know Who You Are.”
“That was it?” Across from her he raised his eyebrows. “For God’s sake, woman, it was probably a prank directed at someone who worked there.”
“I told myself that.” Stung, she glared at him. “My first reaction was that it was meant for me, because it seemed to fit my situation, but then I realized just how ridiculous that was. Martine and I cleaned the office, finished the rest of our area, and went back to the company depot with the rest of the workers like usual. I always took the same bus home every night and got off at a stop only a few steps away from my place. Except when I got off at my stop that night I saw that the bus shelter had been papered over with flyers. They were bright yellow, and in big black letters was—was—”
This time she couldn’t control the shaking. Her head bent, she didn’t see the waitress pause by their table, but when Quinn pushed the full glass across to her she looked up.
“Drink.” His tone brooked no argument, but she shook her head at him anyway.
“I don’t—”
“I said drink.” His mouth was set in a grim line. “It’ll help.”
Reluctantly she raised the glass to her lips, opening her mouth just enough for a trickle of the amber liquid to pass down her throat. But even that miniscule amount was enough to distract her, at least temporarily.
“It’s awful,” she sputtered.
“It’s not awful, you heathen, it’s good Irish whiskey. Look at your hand now—steady as a damn rock.”
She had stopped shaking, Jane saw. But she was only at the beginning, and there was much more to come. If she took a drink each time the tremors started she’d have to be carried out by the time she finished telling him everything.
Quinn took up where she’d left off. “The flyers had the same message as what was on the computer monitors?”
Jane nodded. “It was raining a little, and at first I didn’t look up. When I did the bus was just pulling away, and it felt like those garish yellow posters were screaming at me, each one saying the same thing. I was sure that whoever had put them there was somewhere close by, watching me, and I ran as fast as I could. I didn’t stop until I was inside my apartment.” She grimaced. “Not very brave of me, was it?”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it. That’d be enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies.” He pronounced his e’s to sound more like a’s, and despite herself she smiled faintly at hearing such a quaint turn of phrase coming from a man as tough and hard-bitten as McGuire. Her smile faded as she continued.
“That was nine weeks ago. Since then the messages have come every few days, and always in a different way.”
“Like how?” He reached for his drink, forgotten at her elbow, and took a thoughtful sip.
“Like being whitewashed on the inside of the window of an abandoned store that I pass on Sundays. Like being written on a scrap of paper and tucked into the serviette I took from a dispenser in the coffee shop I frequent before work—I still can’t figure out how he managed that one.”
“He knows your routine. He probably knows which table you usually choose to sit at, and the approximate time you’d show up, if you were going to be there at all that night. If you’d checked, you probably would have found the first half-dozen or so serviettes had been tampered with, just to make sure one of them got to you.” Quinn rubbed his jaw. “Of course, whoever’s doing this could be a woman. What else?”
“More of the same until this week. It’s getting worse—that’s why I eventually went to the police.” She looked away, her gaze fixed on nothing. “Three nights ago Martine and I were taking bags of garbage to the service elevator. I was coming down the corridor and I could see Martine at the elevator, throwing her bags in. Then it looked as if she fell forward into the elevator, and the doors closed.”
Her eyes closed briefly and then opened again. “Serge, our supervisor, and another man took the regular elevator down to the basement, because that was where the service elevator was preset to go when the cleaning staff was working. I stayed where I was, waiting for them to come back. I thought Martine had had a fainting spell or something, and I was out of my mind with worry for her. Then I saw the indicator light above the service elevator show that it was beginning to climb again, and I assumed that Serge and Julio had found her and were bringing her up in it. But when the doors opened, Martine was in there alone, and she was screaming.”
Nothing, not whiskey, not the fact that she was in a crowded room with people all around her, not even Quinn McGuire’s reassuringly broad-shouldered presence across from her could stop the shaking now. The coldness of remembered terror seeped through her.
“She was hysterical. Someone had pulled her into the elevator and then the lights had gone off and the doors had closed. She’d felt a knife at her throat, and her attacker warned her to keep quiet or he’d kill her. Just before they reached the basement, he whispered in her ear that he had a message he wanted her to pass on—to me.”
“The same message you’d been getting all along?” Quinn sounded grim.
“I Know Who You Are,” Jane agreed dully. “But this time there was an addition. The message Martine gave me was two sentences.”
“What was the second one?”
Her stricken gaze met his. “And I Know What You Did.”
He drew in a sharp breath. “How the hell could the police ignore you after that, dammit? What did they say when they came?”
“They weren’t called. The incident wasn’t reported.” At his incredulous expression she leaned forward, her words coming out in a rush. “I told you—the people I worked with weren’t about to draw attention to themselves. I’m pretty sure Martine was an illegal immigrant, and when I told her I was going to call the police, she said she would deny everything. The rest of the crew backed her up. They all liked me, but not enough to risk being deported. And not enough to continue working with me, either,”