Page 59 of His Forgotten Colton Fiancee
That look...cold as ice...
Smoke.
Quinn froze. An enormous buzzing seared her ears, as if the air compressed and the world went dark. The green teabottle spilled from her hand, crashing onto the patio.
In the distance a locomotive wailed, the eerie blast of horn echoing across the rolling plains. It sounded like a cry.
A scream for help from a woman.
“I remember...” Quinn gasped.
A man’s face, a flash of dark hair, but that expression. Cruel, ruthless. She vowed she’d never forget it.
And she had not. Because it cameback to her like a jolt of electricity.
People crowded around her, asking questions, but their voices became a jumbled buzz of sound. West. She needed West. Where was he? Frantic, she whipped her head around, the people pressing closer, suffocating her...
Quinn fumbled for her cell phone. Fingers shaking, she pressed the speed dial for his number, the number he’d urged her to call if shegot scared.
West spotted her. His expression dropped. He raced to her side. “Back off. Everyone get back,” he commanded in his strong, authoritative voice.
The crush of people eased a little and she could breathe. West gently gripped her shoulders.
“Quinn, honey, what is it?”
“That man, that man... I know. I remember.” Throat dry, she could barely form the words. “I remember whathappened right before the bomb went off.”
West went still. Then he scanned the crowd. “Is he here?”
She looked around. The dark-haired man with the hard eyes had drawn closer, but his chin was all wrong and his hairline receding, unlike the man she’d seen before the explosion. He looked the ruthless type, but seeing him close made her realize the resemblance had been in his expression.
“No. I just...remembered.”
“Quinn, this is imperative. Write down all the details you remember about the man, what you saw.”
West guided her to a nearby picnic table. Valeria raced into the house, returned with a yellow legal pad and pen. Hand trembling, she penned the snatches of memory coming to her like a blinking light. That profile, the jeering smile that had looked as if he enjoyedinflicting pain, the cheap business suit.
Cheap because the cuffs came halfway down his hand. Ill fitted, not tailored as the one Noel Larson had worn. His hair inky black.
When she finished, her stomach knotted in tension. Finn Colton, sitting across from her, studied the list.
“We need to sit you down with the sketch artist. Because if this is what I suspect, you’ve just rememberedthe last person in Tia’s office,” Finn told her.
She looked at West, her rock of stability right now. “The last person? The one who set off the bomb?”
His jaw tensed beneath the slight beard stubble. “Yes. Tia’s killer.”
