Her Private Avenger

“She’s missing, Quinn.”

A flicker of alarm. Ignore it, keep walking.

Almost at the doorway. One more step and he’d be out of here. Free of Edward Kerr. Free of Morgan. Free of the torna do of memories that assaulted him the moment he’d heard her name.

“She tried to kill herself last week.”

That last revelation made him freeze. Before he could stop it, the image of Morgan’s gorgeous face swept into the forefront of his brain. Her wavy blond hair, always haphazardly falling onto her regal forehead. Those perceptive blue eyes that tilted upward just enough to make her look exotic. The stubborn slant of her chin, the delicate earlobes she refused to pierce. Then he heard her voice in his head, her sassy no-nonsense tone, spoken in a throaty pitch that made her sound as if she walked around with a perpetual cold.

And he remembered her fire, her determination, her will.

Slowly, he turned to face the father of the woman he’d once desperately loved.

“Bull,” he said flatly. “She would never try to take her own life.”

“I’m telling the truth.” Kerr’s eyes became shuttered, but there was genuine conviction in his voice.

Then again, Kerr had always been a convincing liar. He’d manipulated the press for years, making them fall hook, line and sinker for his my-poor-mentally-ill-daughter spiel.

But Morgan wasn’t crazy. Never had been. In fact, she was the strongest woman Quinn had ever met. She valued herself—her life—too damn much to throw it all away by … by what? He was even afraid to ask.

“She drove her car off a bridge,” Kerr elaborated as if reading his mind.

His head jerked up. “Pardon me?” Once again he found himself meeting the other man’s expressionless eyes.

“I know, it sounded unbelievable to me when the police called after they’d pulled her car out of the river. Apparently she was intoxicated. There are half a dozen witnesses who confirm she had several drinks before leaving the pub and get ting into her car. Her brother was there, too. He said she was quite upset.”

“Upset about what?”

“Layla Simms’s body was discovered last week.”

Quinn immediately recognized the name. Layla Simms was the young woman who’d gone missing nearly a decade ago, Morgan’s best friend from high school.

“Where was the body found?” Quinn asked.

“Autumn.” The older man sighed. “That poor family. I’d heard Wendy and Mort Simms never gave up hope that their daughter was alive. This must have been quite a shock for them.”

Quinn absorbed the information. Autumn was Morgan’s hometown, which the Kerr family practically owned before Edward was elected into the United States Senate and moved away for bigger and better things. The Kerrs relocated to D.C. a few years after the Simms girl’s disappearance, Quinn recalled. But Morgan had always been convinced Layla had been killed and that her body lay somewhere in the idyllic town they’d grown up in. She went back there at least twice a year to rustle a few trees and see if any answers fell out, but they never did. Quinn once asked her why she kept going back, kept searching for something she might never find, and she’d always replied with, “She’s there, Quinn. I know it.”

Well, apparently Morgan had been right.

He felt a startling sense of pride that Morgan had known the truth all along, but he quickly tamped it down and tried to focus on the other startling aspects of this conversation.

“Morgan went back there when she heard the body was found?” he asked curtly.

Kerr made an exasperated sound. “You know my daughter, so stubborn about this old case. She went to the memorial service, then stayed to investigate.”

The condescension in the senator’s tone made Quinn’s gut tighten. “We both know she’s a damn good journalist,” he said. “She’s perfectly capable of solving that case.”

Why was he defending her, damn it? Quinn quickly reined in the response, pasted an aloof expression on his face and add ed, “So did she come up with any leads?”

“We’re getting off track,” Edward said, suddenly looking frazzled. “This isn’t about the Simms girl. This is about Morgan attempting suicide.”

Suicide was the last word he’d ever expect to associate with Morgan. Had she changed so much in the two years since he’d walked out on her? With that question came a stab of guilt.

She betrayed you.

He held on to that thought, forcibly pushing the guilt out of his body. Whatever Morgan’s state of mind these past couple of years, he was not at fault. He’d had good reason to walk away from her. Damn good reason.

“She was under psychiatric observation at a private clinic outside the city,” Kerr continued. “And last night—”

“You had her committed?”

“—she escaped,” the other man finished, paying no attention to Quinn’s incredulous interruption.

“Escaped? For God’s sake, don’t tell me you were keeping her under restraint.”

“It was for her own good,” Kerr snapped. “She’s a danger to herself. I’d never be able to live with myself if something happened to my only daughter.”

Quinn snorted. “Right, because Morgan’s best interests have always been your first priority.”

“I’ve always tried to protect her,” Kerr shot back. “Especially from herself. You know what she’s like, constantly landing into trouble. The tabloid photos, the arrest…my PR team worked around the clock trying to repair her image.”

“She was a teenager who just lost her mother. Of course she acted out. What’d you expect her to do, sit at home and knit?”

The senator’s blue eyes flashed. “I expected her to act responsibly.”

Lord, why was he still here? Looking at Kerr’s irritating face, listening to him spew the usual bull about his troublemaker daughter, Quinn was tempted to march right out the door. But one thing was stopping him.

“Where is she now?” he asked gruffly.

“I don’t know,” Kerr said, “but I need you to find her. I don’t trust anyone else with the task.”

His lips curled in a sneer. “Funny, you never trusted me before.”

Kerr uncharacteristically slammed one hand against the desk. “This has nothing to do with the past, damn it. You have to find her.”

“I’ll think about it.” He sounded like a callous bastard and he knew it. Yet he couldn’t ignore the anger and bitterness yanking at his gut. He’d lost the woman he loved because of this man.

“I understand your anger and reluctance.” Kerr swallowed. “But you simply have to find her, Adam.”

Adam. Shit. Now there was a name he hadn’t heard in years.

“You can pretend all you want,” the other man added, “but we both know you still care for her. And you might be a bastard, but you’d never walk away knowing Morgan might be in danger.”

Quinn swore under his breath. He loathed this man. Loathed Kerr’s manipulation and arrogance and those guilt cards he liked to throw out whenever it suited him.

But the son of a bitch was right.