Quinn had seen many a good person allow fear to completely destroy them, particularly a threat that never seemed to go away but just hung over them. It was a slow decline, until, all of a sudden, nothing was left to fight with, and they were just scared all the time. As Quinn considered this Dracon guy they had seen today, that fit. But it was too early to bring it up and to see if it would match the rest of the scenario.
Ryland returned to their vehicle a few minutes later. “He’s definitely dead,” he said, as he entered the SUV. “He likely died on impact. That was a hell of a fall.”
“Consider the phone call,” Quinn said.
“That takes a lot of ego,” he muttered.
Quinn nodded. “These guys see this as their Big Moment. I’m not sure how their egos are gonna handle the fact that they have not succeeded with this big job of taking Bullard down.”
“So now where do we go from here?” Ryland asked Quinn.
“I’d like to go home,” Izzie said clearly, though her head was down.
“That can be arranged.” Quinn looked over at Ryland and subtly nodded toward Izzie.
Ryland immediately got it. “Do you have anybody you can stay with?”
“No.”
“You sure? Friends? Other family?”
“I don’t have any family,” she said. “Bullard was it. My father doesn’t want to deal with me. Been that way forever.”
At that, they winced. “Well, you want to come back to the compound with us?”
“What? So you can worry about me? No,” she said.
“Well, Fallon is there, and Linny, at least for a little while,” Ryland added.
For a moment Izzie looked briefly interested, then she shrugged. “I haven’t seen him in years.”
“You haven’t seen us in years either,” Quinn said. “That doesn’t mean that we aren’t still your family, that we don’t have an impact on your life.”
“You already have,” she said. “Today’s not a day I’ll forget easily.”
“Of course not,” Quinn said. And he drove quietly, not sure if he should say anything else about it.
“How will you find the guy you talked to?” she asked suddenly. “And who left behind a trail of bodies?” she muttered.
“Well, Fallon’s tracking the call,” Quinn said. “Whoever’s behind trying to kill Bullard are guys known for not leaving anybody behind.”
“And that sucks too,” she whispered. She wrapped her arms around herself and settled deeper into her seat. “And I am one of them?”
“I don’t think you should be alone right now,” Quinn said bluntly. “We can’t be sure what their next step is. Or if they consider you a loose thread. They paid Dracon to hold you at one time, and, other than leverage over Bullard, I still don’t know why.”
“Doesn’t matter what you think,” she snapped. “Are you forcing me to go with you again?”
“Great,” he said. “Keep it up.”
“And then what?” she challenged.
At that, Ryland started to chuckle. “Well, I’m really glad you got your spirit and your vinegar back, Izzie,” he said, “because you’ll need it.”
She just glared at him too. “I want to talk to Bullard,” she said, “but obviously that won’t happen.”
“No, not soon enough,” Quinn said. “We all want to talk to Bullard. He is our friend too.”
She nodded. “If he’s even alive.”
“I know he is. I feel it in my gut,” Quinn said. He pulled up outside her current apartment building.
She stared at him. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t,” he said, “but Ryland here had Ice check for an updated apartment, and Fallon back at the compound was also working on it.”
“Great,” she said, “even when I want to disappear, I can’t.”
“Sometimes it’s not a good idea to disappear,” Quinn said. “If we don’t know where you are, we can’t be sure that you’re safe. You just become another pawn for these guys.”
“I already was once,” she said. “I’m not of any interest to them now.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Quinn said, “because the game appears to be still on.”
“And that makes no sense. They already took out Bullard.” She glanced at the two men. “Maybe.”
“I think it does make sense, until somebody finds out news on Bullard, one way or the other,” Quinn said. “Until these guys know Bullard’s dead for sure, I’m not certain this will ever be over.”
She gave a brief hard laugh. “What if he’s never found?”
“I don’t think they thought of that, when they blew up the plane over an ocean,” he muttered. “There’s almost always a way to find the debris. But not always the bodies that go down with it.”
“Didn’t you find the debris either?” she asked, looking to both of them.
“Yeah, we found some of it,” Ryland said, “when I was rescued with Garret.”
“So then everybody’s thinking there’s a good chance Bullard’s alive too?”
“But every day that we have no word, that hope gets a little thinner,” Ryland said.
“Of course,” she muttered and took a deep breath. “I’ll be fine. This isn’t actually my apartment building. I’m across the street there.” And she pointed to the other side of the street.
“Well, let’s get you up to the right one,” he said, parking and shutting off the engine.
“You don’t have to come with me,” she said. “I’m not a baby.”
“You’re not a baby, but you just had a traumatic experience, and I won’t let you walk up there alone,” Quinn stated firmly.
She didn’t say a word to him, but she looked over at Ryland and asked, “Doesn’t it get a little hard to live with that king-of-the-world complex?”
Ryland laughed and said, “It’s for your own good.”
“Everybody says that,” she said, “even when I don’t want anything to do with it.”
“Of course not,” Ryland said, “but, if nothing else, remember that we care and that we’d like to ensure that you’re safe, especially while all this is going on.”
“Sure,” she said, and she hopped out behind Ryland.
“I’ll check out the neighborhood,” Ryland said, leaving them.
Quinn was already here waiting for her. She ignored him, as she headed toward the front doors. “This is at least better than the last apartment.”
“Yes,” Quinn said, looking around, “somewhat better. Any kind of ugliness here?”
“Not that I’ve noticed,” she muttered. “So far it’s been a pretty nice neighborhood.”
“Good,” he said. “I’d hate to think it was a really grungy one again.”
“Not the last time I checked,” she said.
He followed her up to her apartment, delighted to see that the building itself had security, and it was a much higher-end neighborhood than the one where they had found her last address. He wondered at the transition from a man who would woo somebody like her to the man who had been thrown out the window and what happened mentally that she ended up with somebody like him.