Quinn sat in front of RFD’s headquarters with her chest full of butterflies. More accurately, they might be giant moths, or even possibly an entire colony of full-grown bats.

Not that it mattered. Even if she was harboring every last species of Wild Kingdom under her shirt, neither Dallas Garrity nor Captain Bridges was going to let her bail on this damned appointment.

“You okay?” Detective Maxwell asked from the spot where he sat beside her in the driver’s seat of his unmarked police car. He’d been at the helm of the cloak and dagger mission to get her from her apartment to her appointment with Garrity, slipping into her building disguised as a delivery man and sneaking her out through the complex’s parking garage. The precautions were for Quinn’s safety, she knew. But God, she’d be one happy-as-hell camper when she didn’t have to stealth her way out of her own freaking house for fear of being watched, followed, or worse.

Breathe, girl. Breathe. “A little jittery, but I’ll be alright,” she said. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to humor me by giving me the case update again to help kill some of these nerves?”

The rough, gruff detective had never struck her as a particularly chatty guy. But thankfully, he took one for the team, nodding in the affirmative even though Hollister had given both her and Luke a thorough rundown less than two hours ago during their morning check-in.

“All of last night’s patrols were quiet,” Maxwell said. “No one fitting Ice’s description has been spotted anywhere near your apartment, or Luke’s. Seventeen finished A-shift without incident, and Luke’s family’s house is secure for when they return later today. There’s no sign of increased or overt threat to any of you.”

The good news bolstered Quinn’s calm, but she also knew that was exactly why he’d led with it. The rest wasn’t as promising. “Has Cherise turned up yet?”

The corners of Maxwell’s mouth hinted at a frown. “No, but we’re still looking as carefully as we can without tipping Ice off. It’s not unusual for junkies to disappear for a day or two from time to time, though. It’s possible she just went on a bender and she’s crashed out somewhere.”

A fact Quinn knew all too well from being called to resuscitate those who had crossed the limit of what their bodies could handle. God, she hoped the intelligence unit found the woman soon, and not just for the selfish reason that it might lead them closer to Ice. “And Dixon?”

“Still not talking,” Maxwell said through his teeth. Isabella and Hollister had grabbed the guy off a street corner not long after they’d gone looking for him yesterday. But for as easy as he’d been to find, he was proving just as difficult to crack, having apparently spoken only the words “fuck” and “you” at various intervals before being thrown into city lockup for the night.

The detective continued. “We’ll take another run at him today, though, after he’s been formally charged for the robbery/assault. He’s likely to change his tune once we tell him our crime scene unit found his prints in the kitchen at Three Brothers, the stolen bank bag in the bottom of his closet, and traces of Carmen’s blood on the pair of jeans next to it. With her testimony, plus the surveillance video Capelli dug up that puts him a block from the place at the time of the incident? Even Dixon’s attorney will be advising him to cooperate.”

“So for now it’s just sit and wait?” God, they were quickly becoming Quinn’s least favorite words in the English language.

“For you,” Maxwell said, giving up the closest thing he had to a smile. “But Garza and I are onto a couple of really solid leads with the Vipers’ rival gang. We’re getting closer to figuring out what Ice is up to, and once we do, there won’t be anywhere that asshole can hide. Don’t worry. We’ll get him.”

Quinn nodded and managed to smile back. They might not have Ice in custody, but they were closer than they had been. The intelligence unit had been smart and careful from Day One. She had to believe they’d break this case, because it was that or lose her marbles.

“Thanks, Shawn. I really appreciate it.”

“Believe me, Copeland. Nailing this guy for kidnapping you two will be my freaking pleasure.”

His dark eyes glinted with enough intensity to remind Quinn never to piss him off (ever), and she turned her energy toward tackling the next mountain in front of her. “Well, I guess we’d better go in before Garrity comes out to get me.”

“Lead the way,” Maxwell said. “I’ve got your back, and I’ll be here to take you home when you’re done.”

Getting out of the unmarked Dodge Charger, Quinn scanned the busy city street in front of her. Maxwell did the same, of course, and he was the one with all the firepower, but staying alert never hurt a girl.

She blew out a sigh before making her way up to the building’s double doors, then through the lobby and over the well-polished linoleum until she reached the glass and wood door marked Dallas Garrity, Licensed Psychological Associate. Her chest thumped its displeasure at the prospect of being back under the department microscope, but she managed a polite enough smile for the receptionist, then another for Dallas himself as he led her back to his office.

“I’m glad to see you again,” he said, letting her choose her seat (same as last time) before choosing his own across from her (not shockingly, also the same as last time). “I heard you had a busy day on shift yesterday. Do you want to talk about it?”

Unease prowled through her rib cage. “It sounds like you already heard what happened.”

“I saw the report from your captain,” Dallas said, but the agreement was as much as Quinn was going to get. “What I’d really like is to hear your version of events. As long as you’re willing to share it.”

She sat back in her comfortably cushioned chair. If she wanted to get out of another session, she was going to have to throw him a bone, and the truth was, he really did seem nice enough. Now that Quinn looked at him closely, she supposed Addison wasn’t entirely wrong. Dallas was kind of good-looking in an objective way, with that slightly tousled blond hair and that cleft in his chin that was just defined enough to make him handsome without throwing him over the top into GQ-ville. Plus, the look on his face right now was genuine, as if he really did want to hear what she had to say. She might not want to go skipping down memory lane all tra-la-la, but would it really be that bad to tell him about yesterday’s call?

Quinn lifted one shoulder, although the move felt just a touch stiff. “Seventeen was called to the scene of a restaurant fire that turned out to be a robbery/assault.”

“How did you feel about being back on ambo?”

“Pretty good,” she answered honestly. “I mean, there’s always a little adrenaline when that all-call goes off, you know? But otherwise, I was happy to be back at work, and definitely happy to be helping someone.”

Dallas smiled, his pen pausing over the legal pad on his knee. “I remember the adrenaline.”

Ah, right, he’d been a firefighter. Judging by the eight by ten photo of him and his squad-mates that hung on the wall below his diplomas, it hadn’t been too terribly long ago, either.

His smile faded a bit. “So once you got to the scene of the restaurant fire, what happened then?”

“Oh. Ah, Luke and I took care of the woman who had been attacked.”

Quinn’s gut jabbed at the memory of Carmen’s injuries and the fact that the man who had engineered that assault had been the same man who’d promised to murder everyone Quinn loved.

Easy. Breathe. “She was pretty banged up,” Quinn said, clearing her throat. “But she’ll be okay.”

Dallas nodded slowly. “That’s not what made the call tough for you, though,” he led, and Quinn’s breath grew suddenly heavy and thick.

“No.” She tried to wait out the silence he gave her to keep going, but God, he was really fucking patient. “Um, Ice was…there. In the crowd, watching. I saw him.”

“Ice is the man who threatened you when you were kidnapped.”

Dallas delivered the words as carefully as anyone could, yet still, they stuck into Quinn like a thousand razor-sharp needles. Talking with Luke about the kidnapping was one thing—he’d been there. He understood. But looking all vulnerable and weak in front of Dallas, when he potentially held her job in his hands? That fell square under the heading of danger, Will Robinson!

Quinn’s heart—traitorous thing—beat even faster in her chest. “Why did you refuse to clear me unless I came back to talk to you again?”

Dallas’s pause marked his surprise at her question even though his expression didn’t. “I thought you might have some more things you needed to say about your kidnapping.”

“I was there when it happened. Honestly, what’s the point of rehashing all the details?” Quinn asked. It wasn’t as if she could change any of them, from last week or from yesterday, and she damn sure couldn’t make them less frightening whenever her memories snuck up on her.

You know this feeling you have right now? This fear of dying?

“That’s a legitimate question,” Dallas said, the words finding a path past the anxiety beginning to build behind her breastbone. “The short answer is that some assault victims find it cathartic to talk about their attacks. It allows them to move forward and begin to heal.”

I want you to remember this feeling…remember it…remember…I know who you are, Quinn Copeland…

Her pulse rattled at her throat, defying her brain’s command to slow down. “Not me. Remembering won’t help.”

Dallas’s sand-colored brows went up, and really, why did his smile have to be so kind? “To be fair, you haven’t tried it.”

“Sometimes, I feel like I’m crazy,” Quinn blurted. Realizing just a beat too late that that was probably the last thing she wanted to say to the department-appointed psychologist in charge of keeping her cleared for work, she added, “I mean, not in the clinical sense. I’m functional, and I want to go to work and be with my friends. I just…it’s like a boomerang. Most of the time I feel like I’m fine. Like, really fine.”

“That’s good.”

Dallas seemed to mean it, and since Quinn couldn’t stop talking now without him writing something potentially damning on that legal pad of his, she continued.

“But other times, like when I’m trying to fall asleep at night or if I’m by myself, the memories come back and I get so scared. I remember everything that happened and how I felt so helpless, and I can’t control the fear. It gets so big, I can’t move or breathe.”

“Panic attacks can be a very normal side effect of post-traumatic stress, Quinn. They don’t mean you’re weak or helpless,” Dallas said.

She frowned. “Well, they suck.”

Dallas laughed, and at least that was a decent sign that he didn’t think she’d lost it entirely. “That they do. But there are ways of pinpointing specific triggers so you can try to head them off at the pass, and there are also methods of dealing with them if your anxiety starts to become overwhelming on a regular basis.”

“Right. I know how to breathe into a paper bag and stuff like that,” she said. Not that it really worked when you were remembering in vivid detail the way a psycho gang leader had promised to murder you slowly.

Dallas surprised her by shaking his head. “While medical options are valuable in a lot of cases, the methods I’m talking about here are a bit different.”

“Okay,” Quinn said, turning the word into enough of a question that he answered it.

“Let’s try this. Is there anything that calms you? A word or a place or a memory that makes you feel safe?”

“Yes. Luke—” She clamped down on her lip. But her relationship with Luke wasn’t against the rules, and what’s more, being around him really did calm her. “Sometimes, when I get shaky, Luke will put his hand on my back and remind me to breathe. That makes me feel safe.”

If the personal reveal shocked him, Dallas didn’t show it. “Good,” he said. “Let’s start with that.”

They talked for a while about when she felt most scared, and Quinn was surprised at how well a few of the tricks Dallas suggested actually worked to at least ease her fear a little. Others didn’t, but when he promised her that was okay, she believed him. Not having to hide how scared she was felt kind of comforting—not vulnerable like she’d thought it would—and by the time her session was almost up, she was glad (albeit grudgingly) he’d made her come back.

Well, right up until he said, “I’ve noticed you don’t talk about your kidnapping in specific terms”, anyway.

“Haven’t we been talking about it in specific terms for like, the last forty-five minutes?” Quinn asked, although her hackles had kicked right back into a defensive position.

“Yes and no.” Dallas smiled that funny little smile that made Quinn like him despite the fact that she’d had to sit in his office twice in the span of seven days. “What I mean is, you’ve made some really nice progress today in recognizing what triggers your anxiety. But you’re very vague when you talk about what happened to you. You never use the words ‘kidnapping’ or ‘assault’. I’m not faulting you for that,” he added. “But it’s something I’ve noticed. And at some point, you’re going to have to address everything that happened to you if you really want to heal.”

“I don’t…” The words stuck in Quinn’s throat, her inhale jamming right along with them, and damn it. Damn it! “I don’t know if I can do that today.” Or tomorrow. The day after that? Not looking so hot, either.

“I’d be surprised if you could,” Dallas said, flipping his legal pad closed to look at her. “Coping with mental trauma takes time. But I want you to know that in here, you’re not weak, and you’re not helpless. In fact, I think today you were pretty damned strong.”

Quinn paused. “So if I, ah, came back next week, maybe we could keep talking so I can start getting my head around my”—Easy. Breathe—“kidnapping? As long as that’s okay.”

He looked as shocked at her words as she’d been to say them. But Quinn couldn’t deny feeling at least a little more grounded at having talked to him about being scared, and God, even though she knew it wouldn’t happen overnight, she really did want to start getting back to normal, for real.

“I think that’s a great idea,” Dallas said. “In the meantime, do me a favor and stay safe out there, okay?”

Quinn nodded and promised, “I will.”

* * *

Ice had just about had it with sloppy work from careless idiots who couldn’t find their asses with both hands and an anatomy textbook.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he sat back in the private booth in the VIP room of The Tunnel. At least the nightclub was Viper territory through and through, out of the reach of both the police department and the Scarlet Reapers—a little fact that made it easier for him not just to show his face in public, but to have a business conversation without having to worry over locked doors and secure phone lines.

Ice took a deep breath and worked up the patience he was going to damn well need in order to handle this shit. “What do you mean, Dixon’s agreed to a deal with the DA?”

Adam, who had been with the Vipers long enough to know Ice regarded loyalty above all, adjusted his baseball hat and kept his voice low even though the thumping bassline of the music coming through the club’s speakers was more than adequate cover for their conversation. No one in here would dare betray Ice, but they didn’t need to know his business, either.

“That’s what my brother told me,” Adam replied. “Said it happened a coupl’a hours ago. He knows someone with the same parole officer as Dixon. Dude asked the PO if he could get in on Dixon’s work release placement since he heard he was going back to the clink for busting up that pizza place, but the guy said nope, Dixon cut a deal. No jail time.”

Ice took a swallow of the Grey Goose in front of him, barely feeling the burn of the liquor as it went down. The fucking idiot must have sung like an opera soloist to sleaze his way out of any jail time at all, considering the charges he’d been looking at. Of course, Ice really shouldn’t be surprised at this point. Dixon had been dumb enough to rob the place when Ice had specifically told him to go only for the intel and the beat down on that ex-hooker informant, just like he’d been dumb enough to get caught even though Ice had told him to lay low.

While the robbery had been unplanned—at least, by Ice—the fire had been part of the strategy. No way was he going to pass up the chance to rattle that weak-ass paramedic and send the intelligence unit a message that their informant wasn’t safe from him. Showing up at the scene himself had been a risk, he’d known, but one worth taking. He’d been able to smell the sharp tang of the blonde’s fear from fifty yards away, and by the time she’d been able to go squealing to her cop friends, he’d been long gone.

Unfortunately, time had been a factor after the break-in at Three Brothers. He’d had to choose between Cherise and Dixon. Ice had known she was the weaker link, far more likely to believe the cops’ fairy tales about shit like immunity and being able to keep her safe than Dixon, so he’d made the strategically smarter move. The bad news was, Dixon—the disloyal son of a bitch—had turned out to be as loose-lipped as Cherise would’ve been had the cops gotten to her first.

The good news was, the only way the cops would get near her now was with a body bag. It’d been a shame he’d had to pump her full of heroin laced with enough fentanyl to drop a linebacker. Her mouth hadn’t been half-bad, even if he hadn’t been convinced she’d keep it shut when things really mattered. He might not be able to murder those two paramedics—yet—but no one would bat an eye at Cherise turning up as a poor, sad statistic. Shit, she’d even injected the first dose herself, and Ice had been certain to dump her in prime Scarlet Reapers territory once her body had been cold. No one could tie the Vipers to her death. No one could even prove Ice had ever had contact with her. The whole thing had been flawless.

Of course, Dixon had gone and shit on his carefully laid plans anyway, the fucking traitor. Ice had been willing to wait out killing those two paramedics until after the deal with Sorenson went down in five days—he’d had to be. But now there would be heat on him when he needed to be invisible, and that, he couldn’t abide. It was time to give the RPD something else, something far bigger and nastier, to worry about other than digging into his business.

He’d have to be extremely careful. No more loose ends. No more maybes.

He needed an expert, one with a foolproof plan to keep the intelligence unit off his trail, the Vipers’ assets safe, and his business alive and kicking.

“Get Rusty on the phone,” Ice said, and Adam’s eyes went appropriately wide in the flashing lights of the club.

“You want the firebug? Man, that guy is off his fucking rocker.”

Ice smiled. There was such a fine line between dedication and insanity. Rusty was brilliant. The pyromania was just a nasty side effect. But since the man’s other specialty was what Ice needed right now, he’d deal with whatever he needed to in order to reach his goal, and reach it fast.

“Tell him I need him here in an hour for a job that’ll get his hands dirty and make a whole lot of noise.”