had no doubt that it was. Three dead men in the Kalahari proved that. “You could come to the house. You know what kind of security I have there. There’s a panic room and armed guards.”
“And my parents?” He’d always admired Elise for her ability to gently stand up to him. “It’s Christmas Eve, Quinn.”
He was already nodding, accepting her answer, knowing it had been too much to ask. “Of course. I understand. I was just hoping I wouldn’t have to upset Fiona’s routine any more than it already has been.”
The vibrating pulse against his chest ended all conversation, blanked out all thought except for one more visual confirmation that Fiona was safe. Then he let the protective anger he felt purge any distraction from his system as he pulled his phone from inside the pocket of his suit jacket.
“Quinn?” Michael prompted, equally on guard.
He nodded, reading the message he’d been promised. “It’s the text.”
“What does it say?” Elise asked.
Quinn read the skewed nursery rhyme, filling in the abbreviations as he said the words out loud. “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, how does your money grow? With silver bells and 2.5 million shells into 0009357:348821173309. Midnight tonight. Or there’ll be another present for your daughter.”
“What the hell?” was Michael’s reaction.
“It’s a riddle,” Elise needlessly pointed out.
“I get it,” Quinn assured them. “Mary was my mother. I have a memorial trust in her name. Whoever this coward is wants me to transfer two and a half million dollars into this account by midnight. Or…” He glanced over at Fiona’s laugh. He couldn’t imagine a world where someone had silenced that glorious sound. “I’ll transfer the money.”
“I don’t recommend that.” Michael took the phone from him, calling his tech guru Trip on the radio to get him up here to trace what Quinn was certain would be an untraceable number.
“What choice do I have, Michael? How can I fight the enemy when I don’t know who he is? And until we do find out where the threat is coming from, there’s no way to stop him from coming at me again.” He turned to his assistant. “Elise, contact my bank. Don’t let them close before I get there.”
“Yes, sir.” She hurried to her office to do his bidding.
Michael copied down the message. “What if you hadn’t understood the rhyme?”
“I don’t think this bastard is stupid. And he knows I’m not.”
Michael pointed toward the letter wrapped in the evidence bag. “This message says to make something right before New Year’s Eve. That’s a week away. It can’t be this simple, and he’s gone to too much trouble to have it all be over this soon.”
“Agreed.” Quinn propped his hands on his hips. “As long as I can keep Fiona out of this, I want to string this guy along until I can get my hands around his neck.”
Any further conversation stopped as the grate over Quinn’s desk swung open and Miranda Murdock lowered herself down through the opening to plop her combat-style boots on top of his desk. She’d stripped off her Kevlar and rifle and was brushing dust from her black uniform and snaggled hair. And she didn’t seem to see anything odd about making such an entrance.
“I think I found the way in, sir,” she reported to Michael, jumping down beside him. “Barring the whole ‘just walking through the front door’ scenario. Of course, the intruder would still have to alter the camera recording—and turn the sensors off for the few seconds it would take to get in and out.” She paused in her report, her sharp eyes turning to the side and widening enough that Quinn turned to see what had caught her attention.
Fiona. Standing in the middle of his office, her doll dangling to the floor beside her, looking up at the tall blonde woman as if a dusty angel had just descended from heaven.
Miranda’s lips twitched before settling into a smile. “Hey.”
The tiny frown that creased Fiona’s forehead gave her an expression that was more concerned than afraid, or even curious. “You falled.”
The SWAT officer looked up at the open grate, still swinging slightly from the ceiling where Fiona was looking. “Um, no. I crawled. And climbed. And…jumped.” She plucked a clump of cobweb from her hair, glancing toward Quinn and her commanding officer with a questioning plea before pointing a finger at his daughter. “But, you shouldn’t try that. It’s too high. I’m, you know, taller. And a grown-up.”
But the explanation had taken too long and Fiona had moved on to her real concern. Quinn’s hands curled into fists at his sides as Fiona walked right up to Miranda and held up her doll. “Petwa falled.”
“Oh. Um, well…” She snapped her fingers. “That’s exactly why you shouldn’t crawl through ceilings.”
Fiona stared.
Quinn gradually relaxed his protective stance. Not everyone got small children, nor knew how to communicate with them—and he suspected Miranda Murdock was on that list. But he could see she was doing all she could to allay Fiona’s worries.
“Not that your dolly—Petra, is it?—would do that. She needs to stay close to you. On the ground.” Seemingly as flummoxed by his daughter’s fascination as she’d been with Louis’s idle flirtation, she looked to her captain for help. “Sir?”
Michael nodded a dismissal. “Prove to me that you can get back out through that heating duct, and I’ll have Trip check the sensors there to see if they’ve been triggered by anyone else in the last twenty-four hours.”
That, apparently, she could do. Needing no more encouragement, the twenty-something female officer climbed up on the desk and pulled herself back up into the ventilation duct in a skilled combination of pull-up champ and gymnast.
“She’s…different, isn’t she?” Quinn observed.
“Like I said, Murdock is gung ho. She’ll get the job done.”
“Michael.” Quinn usually found his instincts about people to be unerringly accurate. “I have another favor to ask of you. Just how much faith do you have in Miranda Murdock?”
Michael’s blue eyes narrowed. Perhaps he’d just had a similar brainstorm. “You’ve supplied my team with nothing but the best equipment since we first started working together. Your vest design saved my life from a bullet once. I figure I owe you.”
“Then I have a proposition for you.” Quinn scooped Fiona into his arms, drawing her attention away from the dusty blonde angel and the grate that had closed over their heads. “We do.”
Chapter Two
Miranda stilled her breathing, calmed the twitchy urge to blink and squeezed the trigger of her Glock 9 mil, landing five shots, center mass, through the paper target’s chest. Then just for good measure, and because the accuracy score of her shooting range trials was one thing she could control, she angled the gun and put a hole through the paper target’s head.
“You shouldn’t be alone at Christmas,” Dr. Kate Kilpatrick advised. The police psychologist was always full of advice during their sessions. “If your brother is still over in Afghanistan—”
“He is.”
“—then maybe you could volunteer at one of the city mission shelters, visit a shut-in in your neighborhood or invite a friend over for lunch.”
And just which of her friends would be available on Christmas Day? Certainly none of the men on her team. They all had families—wives, children, in-laws. They’d be real gung ho about giving up holiday family time to keep the “odd man out” on their team from being alone on Christmas Day. Lonely was one thing. Pity was another.
Miranda pulled