Woman on the Edge(66)

Tessa’s eyes glaze over, and she waves the gun violently. It hits Quinn’s temple.

Adrenaline surges through me, unlike anything I have ever felt before.

“No!” I yell, and I fly at Tessa and grab the baby as the deafening crack of a gunshot rings out in the room.

Donna screams, and Ben slams Tessa to the ground. The gun lands beside her. She reaches for it, but Ben kicks it out of the way.

The carpet swims up to meet me, but I don’t go down. Not with Quinn.

“I’ve got you, baby. You’re safe.” I wrap my arms around her, feel her face against my palpitating heart.

Ben holds Tessa down as footsteps bang up the stairs. I swivel my head to the door and see Martinez charge into the room with a team of cops. I look to Donna, who’s crumpled on the floor, blood spilling onto the cream carpet. There’s a bullet hole in her leg.

“Everyone down! Now!” Martinez yells.

I sink to the floor with Quinn underneath me, screaming but safe. Ben hits the floor, and Tessa scrambles to get up, but Martinez puts a knee into her back. “Don’t move an inch.” She gestures to officers at the door, who cuff Tessa’s hands behind her back.

“It’s Tessa, Tessa alone!” Ben says. “She shot Donna. She needs an ambulance.”

“Okay,” Martinez barks. She relays the message into the radio attached to her shoulder. Police or emergency response people—it’s hard to tell—rush into the room and head right to Donna’s side.

Martinez looks from Ben to me. She steps forward and helps me gather Quinn in my arms and stand. I feel her hand on my wrist.

“It’s okay, Morgan. We know everything. I’m sorry.”

I try to speak, but I can’t. All I can do is rock Quinn and soothe her.

“Greg gave up Tessa to cut a deal for himself,” Martinez says. “He confessed to having an affair with her. They planned to destroy Nicole, and they wanted to take control of Breathe.”

I can’t believe this. How could a father do this? And how could a best friend? They conspired together to bring down the woman they both claimed to have loved. I feel sick and horrified and so sad for Nicole, this struggling mother who became my friend online. She was right all along. The people closest to her weren’t to be trusted.

Tessa’s face is red with rage as the officers lead her out and down the stairs.

I’m so weak that my arms feel like leaded weights. Quinn’s cries are easing off. I’m clammy and shaky and can’t stop my body from trembling. I’m so cold.

As we all exit the house, Ben stops and looks at a rack of keys on the wall. “My keys aren’t here.” He points to the empty peg. “Nicole had a copy of my house keys. Tessa must have taken them and put that doll in the bassinet.”

“She must have found a way into my apartment, too,” I say through chattering teeth.

Martinez turns. “We think she jimmied the lock to your fire exit. You really need better security in that building.”

Once we’re all outside, two paramedics rush toward Donna with a stretcher, lifting her onto it. Ben pulls me into him. We stand as a unit, protective around Quinn.

Tessa is escorted into the back of a police car, and as Donna is whisked away in the ambulance, another pulls up to the curb. Ben and I climb in and we sit together on a stretcher while the paramedic checks on Quinn, who seems afraid but otherwise unharmed. “Here you go,” he says, handing me Quinn while he disinfects and bandages Ben’s hand. Martinez crouches across from me.

“Did Greg tell you if Tessa was on that platform the day Nicole died?” I ask her. I want to know the truth.

“I didn’t get to ask,” Martinez says. “Greg confessed to me that he and Tessa had a plan to be together. But he didn’t know how far Tessa would go. He was worried for Quinn. I was about to ask him if she was on the platform on Nicole’s last day alive, but I didn’t get a chance. After confessing to me, Greg died of acute respiratory distress.”

I taste salt as tears leak out of my eyes and into my mouth. So much senseless loss. Ben envelops me into a hug that doesn’t need words. But Quinn is safe with us, where she belongs.

Martinez observes me. “You interfered with an investigation. You put yourself in danger.”

My anger and resentment rise to the surface. “I—”

“But you saved Quinn, Ben, and yourself. I’m not saying what you did was smart, but it was brave.” A small smile appears on her face. “Someday, you’re going to be a really good mother.”

A hard lump forms in my throat, and I nod. “Yes, someday I will.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX NICOLE




Before

Nicole dressed Quinn in a clean onesie and wrapped her in a plush, yellow blanket her own mother had made for Nicole when she was a baby. She used to sleep with it after her parents died. She wanted to make sure her baby girl would have something special made by her grandmother’s hands. Quinn’s feet stuck out at the end. As Nicole slid little white socks over her daughter’s tiny toes, she swallowed back tears.

Goodbyes were never easy.

Morgan would know never to put a blanket in her baby’s crib. She would never harm Quinn the way Nicole harmed Amanda. Donna kept the AC so jacked up because she’d read somewhere that babies should sleep in cool environments, but it had been so chilly in Amanda’s nursery that day.