Never Surrender Read online

  She had picked up the bucket and the mop to shove them back, when the mop toppled, and Maggie heard the clink in the same moment she caught the mop. Please, please, be it. She stuck her hand in the bucket, and there it was—the missing thumb drive. With a thankful sigh, she grabbed it, shoved it into her pocket, and stuffed everything back in the cupboard. Hoping she had a few seconds to spare, she bolted into her dressing room, grabbed some sheet music, and sucked in a couple of deep breaths.

  She heard a noise outside her door and stepped back out into the hall prepared to face George. No one was there.

  “I’m ready to go,” she called softly, moving toward the main area of the club. “George?” Her eyes strained to search the darkness. The main door was open. Hadn’t George closed it? Her five minutes were up, and she expected to hear the thundering of feet as she eased closer to the exit.

  A noise. From behind the bar. Was that moaning? No. Damned imagination. When she heard it again, she turned and crept toward it.

  “George? Are you all right?” Silence. Maggie wiped her sweaty palms down the side of her coat. The cabaret area wasn’t that large, but in the darkness with everything in silhouette, it had a menacing demeanor.

  Her steps echoed like stampeding elephants in her head as she eased toward the moaning. She spied a blur in her peripheral and threw herself to the side, managing to dodge a blow. A harsh curse hissed near her ear. She stumbled over the low tables and shoved chairs behind her, hoping to slow her pursuer.

  Gulping a lungful of stale air, Maggie bolted for freedom. The sound of feet hitting parquetry behind her spurred her on. But it was the whisper of breath at her back, and a hand grasping her shoulder that gave her the incentive to gasp another breath and pick up her pace.

  Maggie flew out the door and down the steps and was almost a full block away before someone tugging on her arm minimally slowed her pace. She wheeled around and raised her fists, ready to fight.

  “Back up, Maggie. It’s me.” Quinn held his hands up in mock surrender.

  Her rapid heartbeat eased somewhat, and her breathing settled. Feeling calmer she dropped her hands to her sides.

  “What’s going on?” He gathered her into his arms and pulled her close. His strength penetrated the thickness of her coat.

  “There was someone chasing me.” She pushed away from him and gripped her trembling hands together. “We have to go back.”

  “Why?”

  “Old George. Shit, that’s who the creep was after.” Maggie looked into Quinn’s eyes as guilt flooded her. More guilt for God’s sake. “I heard him moaning from behind the bar,” she explained at Quinn’s quizzical look. “He could be hurt.” She tilted her chin and met Quinn’s piercing gaze, daring him to argue.

  He nodded, and they strode toward the De’lisle.

  They were about a hundred meters from the club when an explosion ripped through the night, and they dropped to the ground for cover. Maggie couldn’t move. She lay trapped beneath a massive weight. Quinn lay on top of her. Protecting her. Dammit, would he never give up? In other circumstances, she might enjoy the feel of his strong body against hers, but not while she was struggling to drag air deep into her lungs. As the weight moved slightly, and she turned her head to the side to meet Quinn’s gaze.

  His lips moved, but she had no idea what he was saying past the ringing in her ears. She shook her head, and either he had the same problem, or he understood. He pushed off her and stood, looking around to scope for hidden danger before hauling her up.

  Quinn tugged on her arm, and she lurched after him toward the alley across the road. In the shadows, she slumped to the ground. The ringing in her ears eased a few decibels. Quinn looked down at her, his mouth moved, and she could hear sound, but she couldn’t decipher anything he was saying, so she just shook her head again. He slid down the wall, wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and dragged her close.

  Maggie leaned her head against his chest, reveled in his heat, and drew comfort from Quinn’s uneven breaths against her hair. She closed her eyes and settled deeply into his strong embrace. After a few minutes, when her ears stopped ringing, she pulled away from the warm haven that was Quinn.

  “Are you okay?” His voice sounded distant.

  “Just grateful we weren’t closer, or the damage would have been a hell of a lot worse than a couple of scratches.” She pushed herself to her feet, stumbled slightly, and using the wall for support, staggered to the street and looked toward the burning building.

  “What in hell are you involved in?” Quinn demanded.

  Before she could reply, something else crashed into her mind. “Oh my God, George.” Maggie tried taking off, but her unsteady legs wouldn’t allow her.

  Quinn latched on to her arm and turned her to face him as the wail of sirens cut through the air. “You can’t do anything for him. We need to get out of here.”

  “I can’t do nothing,” she cried.

  “If you stay here and the cops take you in, that’s exactly what you’ll be doing. We get out of here, you’re still in the game. Then you nail the bastards responsible for this. Your choice.”

  She glanced back at the flames and smoke spiraling into the air and reluctantly nodded. “Okay.” But the flames dancing into the night snagged her, mesmerized her.

  “Let’s go,” Quinn insisted.

  When Maggie made no attempt to move, Quinn cupped her elbow and pulled her along the footpath away from the direction of the sirens, staying in the shadows of the streetlights.

  Chapter Five

  Somewhere between night and day, the predawn cast a foggy cloak to keep the world in its dark clutches. The glow from the fire hung well behind them, and the streetlights barely shone as they walked side by side, separated by silence. The events of the last few hours replayed in his head like a horror flick.

  Quinn rolled his shoulders to ease some of the soreness from his earlier contact with the ground.

  He looked down at Maggie walking quietly beside him, noticed the oozing scratches on her knees. “Those cuts need to be seen to.”

  Maggie shook her head. “I’m fine.”

  She clenched her hands, but Quinn saw them tremble.

  “Everyone responsible is going to pay,” Maggie muttered and glanced at Quinn. “I’m sorry I involved you.” She hesitated. “But I needed your expertise, your slant. I’m grateful you’re still around.” Her voice broke.

  The quiet between them grew uncomfortable.

  “Talk to me, Quinn. What’s wrong?”

  Besides you screwing your boss? Buildings blowing up? “Just thinking.” What else could he say? Hey, Maggie, are you bent? Have you been feeding false information to Roberts?

  “About?”

  “Your last meeting with Roberts.”

  “Why?”

  “Because somehow it’s connected to whatever you’ve been caught up in. What was he like?”

  “Like he always is.” She tilted her head to the side. “No. Actually he was a bit weird. Sort of distant.” She grimaced. “Until I told him about the girls. Then he looked a bit like he was going to throw up.”

  “Go on,” Quinn insisted.

  “Maybe he didn’t expect me to get witnesses. Then he seemed to lose interest as if he’d thought of something else and couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. I didn’t think about it at the time, but maybe he thought he’d be in trouble, because I was supposed to be back in last month.”

  He glanced at her, but she seemed to be concentrating on where she was putting her feet.

  “Roberts dangled the if-you-get-witnesses carrot so I’d stay on. Then Conrad announced he was moving to Brisbane and invited me to join him. It all seemed to be fitting together unbelievably well until Roberts didn’t turn up to interview the girls.”

  “Tell me about your time undercover.” All except about screwing Conrad. Please, God, I don’t want to hear how he was in bed.

  She nodded. “Okay, it’s not a great secret. Any half-baked cop could
work it out. It was a special assignment between the Queensland, New South Wales, and Victorian cops. I was made a constable in both the New South Wales and Victorian Police Service. I worked in Sydney for a few months as part of the cabaret. Conrad and his partners ran several clubs, so I was transferred between each as a fill-in singer.” Her lips lifted in a ghost of a smile. “Mum would turn in her grave if she knew how I was using all those singing lesson.” She sighed. “Anyway, I’d gather what intel I could and pass it on to the inspector.”

  “They used you to get to Conrad.”

  “They used the information I gathered to raid his clubs and slow his business down.

  “Whatever. Tell me more about Roberts.”

  “Why? Is it relevant to you helping?”

  He shoved his hands through his hair. “Not really. I just want to know the background.” He gave her a quick glance. “Okay?”

  “Fine. From when I transferred, he was my support. I trusted him, knew he’d never let me down if things turned hairy. And he never did.”

  “Remember when that used to be my job?” Quinn asked in a soft voice. He caught her as she stumbled.

  “Yes, I do,” she said as softly as he had.

  When they were partners, they’d depended on each other. For everything.

  She sighed and tried to smother a yawn. “This case has gone to crap since I came back here. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It will after you’ve had some sleep.”

  “I don’t need to sleep. I need to find Angel.”

  “You will. But you need to rest first. And those cuts need to be looked at. There could be shrapnel in them.”

  She turned her head toward him. “What part of ‘I need to find Angel’ didn’t you get?”

  He held her gaze for a second. “Is she street smart?”

  “I can’t say for sure.” Maggie shook her head.

  “How did Angel end up in that club?”

  “They were part of a dance troupe that had won a major competition. Their prize: to perform on national television. They were snatched when they snuck away from their chaperones to get autographs from some of their favorite dance celebrities. Just before moving back here, Conrad’s operation changed from not only using slave traders but grabbing young girls on holiday.”

  Quinn paced beside her, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. “Do you think she could be a plant working for Conrad?”

  Maggie stopped, and Quinn careened into her back.

  “Sorry.” He grabbed her shoulders to steady her. The urge to pull her back into his embrace, to again feel her heat seep into him, tempted him, but he resisted. He released her and stepped back.

  “I’m okay,” she insisted. “Your question threw me. I never even gave it a thought.”

  “It could be worth considering.”

  “Possibly.” She yawned. “Right now we just need to find her.”

  “So what’s next?”

  “I’ll go out on the streets, ask around. I’m sure my contacts will know what’s going down.”

  “Not a good idea,” he stated firmly.

  “Why?”

  “If Conrad can arrange a contract to blow up a building, then he has power in low places. Your people—if my assumption’s correct, and they’re street kids—will be scared witless.

  “But—”

  He held up is hand. “I’ve been called in to a meeting at HQ later this morning. While I’m there, I’ll check out Roberts’s office and see if I can get into his computer. If there’s anything, I’ll find it.”

  “And if there isn’t?”

  “We’ll go to his house.”

  “You think they’ll give you a search warrant?”

  “I won’t ask.”

  Maggie turned and stared at him. “Quinn, you don’t break rules.”

  “If I didn’t break rules, Maggie, I wouldn’t be here with you, would I?”

  “I don’t like it.”

  He didn’t reply, just stared at her for a few moments. He took a breath and said, “Maggie, you’re a mess. Your makeup’s running, your eyes are slits, and your clothes are bloody and stink of smoke.”

  She stared at him. “Thanks for that, rude prick.”

  He arched his brow. “Calling it as I see it. It’s nearly five. It’s time to get some rest.”

  “There’s too much to do.”

  “I know.” He looked deeply into her eyes. “But at the moment, you’re not good for anything. If I wasn’t hanging on to you, this wind would flatten you. To get through this, you have to be sparking. And, baby, you’re all sparked out.”

  Her eyes flashed, she opened and shut her mouth, then she looked away. “I hate it when you’re right.” She took a breath, tipped her chin, and met his gaze. “I would hate myself if anything happened to Angel because I screwed up when I’m so exhausted I can’t think straight.”

  “We will find her, Maggie.”

  “I know, I just pray she’s okay.”

  Quinn nodded then looked around. They were almost at the City Centre. He’d been concentrating so hard on Maggie, he hadn’t realized how far they’d walked. “Car park’s this way.” He gripped Maggie’s arm and led her up the street.

  Maggie looked around. “HQ’s not too far from here. We can go now.” The idea of actually doing something pushed the tiredness out of her eyes.

  Quinn asked, “Do you have your badge, your ID?”

  She shook her head.

  “Trust me, the trained security guards won’t let you inside Cop Capital. They’re not the old guy from the De’lisle.”

  When he mentioned George, Maggie’s body sagged. “I should have stayed ’til I found him.”

  Good one, Keller. Learn to keep your big mouth shut. “It’s not your fault. If you had stayed, you’d have been in the club when it exploded. Then who would care enough to find Angel?”

  Maggie looked up into his face, tears welling in her eyes.

  Quinn wanted to kick himself. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “There’s only one problem.”

  He raised his brows. “What?”

  “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

  “You can crash at my place.” Before she could argue, he finished. “You’ll be safe there.”

  “Do you still live in the same house?”

  He nodded. “Is that a problem?” Flashes of them twined together, naked, on his huge bed, had him hard in a heartbeat.

  “No.” She shook her head. “No.”

  “Good. Let’s go home.”

  Gold-fringed, heavy, pewter clouds of dawn hovered as Quinn unlocked the front door. Maggie trailed in behind him, took off her coat, and threw it over the back of a chair.

  “Get comfortable; I’ll make you a tea and get something to clean those cuts.”

  “Thanks.”

  He watched as she kicked off her shoes and curled up into the leather couch, and then he strode into the kitchen. He switched on the kettle, grabbed the tea bags, and called out, “Black, no sugar. Right?”

  “You remembered.”

  “Yeah.” Not much about you I haven’t. Quinn grabbed the first aid kit and a basin from under the counter as he waited for the kettle to boil. When its shrilling filled the room, he poured the water into the mugs and carried them back to the living room.

  Maggie scrambled up to sitting when he entered and grabbed a steaming mug from him. “Thanks.” She wrapped her fingers around the warm ceramic.

  “I’ll be a minute.” He went back to the kitchen.

  Quinn, balancing a basin and a medicine kit, walked into the living room and stopped before her. Somehow he managed to place the items on the coffee table without sloshing the water onto the floor and settled on the couch beside her.

  He grabbed a cloth from the basin and wrung it out. “Let me look at your leg.”

  Maggie sipped her tea and wriggled around so her back was against the arm of the couch, stretched out her legs, and draped them over his thighs.
r />   The feel of her flesh set his body on high alert. He sucked in a breath. Just clean her scratches.

  Quinn looked at her tired eyes, which watched every move he made. “This might sting a bit.” He wiped the grime and dried blood from her knees and dropped the cloth back into the basin before grabbing gauze pads and a bottle of antiseptic.

  He dabbed the moistened gauze against the oozing scrape and picked up the tweezers. “I have to check for glass shards or gravel that might cause infection. It’ll hurt. Sorry.”

  Maggie gritted her teeth as he probed her wound. “Shit,” she muttered.

  “Nearly finished. How are you holding up?”

  She blew out a breath. “Just hurry up and finish.”

  Pain had darkened her eyes to almost black. To take his mind off causing her pain, Quinn tortured himself by acknowledging how the heat from her legs resting against his thighs burrowed into his blood. His body responded to her heat. He worked quicker to save them both discomfort, so engrossed in digging out the last bit of gravel from her wound he didn’t see her move toward him, but he felt the kiss she placed on the corner of his mouth.

  Quinn turned slowly and met her gaze, reached out, and stroked his finger along her jaw. “If you hadn’t run out of that building as if the devil chased you, you could be dead.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “That thought makes me sick.”

  She sighed and covered her hand with his.

  “Finished. I think I got all the crap out. It will heal quickly. You should feel better in the morning.” His fingers slowly trailed a path from her ankle to her knee.

  Maggie’s breath hitched.

  He lifted her leg, stood, and placed it back on the couch. “I’ll get you some Tylenol for the pain.”

  When he came back into the room, she had curled up with a cushion and was snoring softly. He pulled a throw quilt from the back of the couch and covered her with it before softly creeping from the room, arming the security system on his way out.

  Chapter Six

  Maggie’s eyes flew open. What woke me? Her heart raced. A tight band around her chest constricted her ability to grab a breath. With trembling fingers, she peeled off the light blanket and dropped it onto the small table beside the sofa, almost knocking over the cooled cup of tea. How long have I been out?