First Family (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 4)

“Thank you, baby. God, I love you so much.”

He looked up at the ceiling. “Thank you, sweet Jesus.”

The door to the room had opened. Quarry turned. It was Cameron with two coffees. He nearly leapt the width of the room and grabbed her so violently that she spilled both cups. He dragged her to the side of the bed.

“Our little girl’s awake, Cam, she’s back.”

Cameron Quarry’s eyes had gotten so big and her smile so wide that Quarry hadn’t known how her face had contained them. When she looked down at the bed, though, the eyes grew small and the smile had vanished.

Quarry had looked down too. Tippi’s eyes were closed. Her smile was gone. She would never wake up again. He would never hear her voice again.

It was because of the smile he’d gotten, the last one from his daughter he would ever receive, that Quarry had read Austen’s work to her all these years. It was a tribute to the author for what she had given him, he felt. A few precious last moments with his daughter.

The quartet of words Tippi had said that day were forever seared in Quarry’s mind, but he did not act on them then, because they did not clearly point to one person. And, more maddening, even though the doctor had been called and Quarry had told him about Tippi awakening, it was clear that the physician didn’t believe him.

“If she did wake up,” said the doctor, “it was only an anomaly.”

It was all Quarry could do not to break his teeth too.

No, he didn’t act on those words, and he wasn’t exactly sure why. But after Cameron died, he didn’t have anything holding him back. And that’s when he’d begun his long journey to the truth. To the point where now justice might be closer for him and Tippi than it ever had been.

As he flew along he thought that there was only one thing more terrible than dying alone, and that was dying unfinished.

He would not die unfinished.

CHAPTER 59

I’M SORRY.”

Michelle was sitting fully dressed on the edge of the bed in the guest room. Sean was just waking up, the towel still around his middle, the pillow wet from his damp hair.

He turned to look at her, working a kink out of his shoulder. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. You’ve been through hell and back. Anybody would’ve broken down.”

“You wouldn’t have.”

He sat up and stuck the pillow behind him. “You might be surprised.” He looked out the window. It was growing dark. He glanced at Michelle in surprise. “What time is it?”

“Nearly seven in the evening.”

“I’ve been asleep all this time? Why didn’t you wake me?”

“I haven’t been awake that long myself.” She looked down. “Sean, did I say anything? I mean, while I was sort of out of it?”

He rubbed her arm. “Michelle, you can’t be perfect all the time. You bottle stuff up until you blow. You’ve got to stop doing that.”

She rose and looked out the window. “And speaking of which, we’ve blown a whole day.” She whirled around. “What if something came in on Willa?”

She obviously didn’t want to dwell on what had happened here.

Sensing this, Sean reached over to the nightstand for his phone. He scrolled through messages and e-mails. “Nothing. We’re in a holding pattern until some of the leads we ran down click. Unless you can think of something else.”

She sat back on the bed and shook her head. “It doesn’t help matters that Tuck and Jane Cox have been basically lying to us from day one.”

“No, that didn’t help. But we’re here now and maybe we can get something done on your mom’s case. Like tracking down Doug Regan.”

“Okay.”

The house phone rang. It was her brother Bobby.