Page 96 of Beneath the Surface

And every single one had felt like it wasn’t quite enough. Like the air in this cabin was too thin. Too stale. Like she was slowly suffocating.

“Nathan checked in this morning,” Dax was saying, his voice carrying from the kitchen. “Clara and her kids are settled at the safe house. Torres says no suspicious activity.”

Quinn closed her eyes.

She could see Clara in her mind—that frightened woman who’d spent eleven years running. Eleven years looking over her shoulder. Eleven years of not being herself, not using her real name, not living a real life.

And now Clara was in another safe house. Under another agent’s watch. Still not free. Still hiding.

Was that Quinn’s future? Years of hiding? Years of safe houses and assumed names and counting knots in wood paneling?

“Wheeler’s ankle monitor shows he’s been at his house for the past forty-eight hours,” Dax continued. He’d moved on to putting away the canned goods now—she could hear the soft thunk of cans being arranged in the cabinet. “Hasn’t left except for meetings with his lawyer. We’re monitoring his phone records, his finances. If he so much as breathes wrong, we’ll know.”

Breathes wrong.

Quinn wanted to laugh. Wanted to scream.

Wheeler was out there breathing. Living. Moving through the world. And she was here, counting his breaths for him through electronic monitoring reports.

The refrigerator closed. Dax was done organizing.

“Oh, and the DA’s office called,” he said, his tone shifting. Getting careful. “Trial date got pushed back. Feldman filed a motion for continuance. Judge granted sixty days.”

Something snapped inside Quinn’s chest.

Not broke. Snapped. Like a cord pulled too tight for too long, finally giving way.

She turned around.

Dax was standing in the kitchen, one hand still on the counter, and the look on his face told her he knew. Knew this was bad news. Knew she wouldn’t take it well.

But he’d told her anyway. Because it was his job to tell her. His responsibility to keep her informed about the case that was slowly consuming her life.

“Sixty days,” Quinn said.

Her voice didn’t sound like her own. It was flat. Empty. Like something had hollowed her out and this was just the shell speaking.

Dax’s hand fell away from the counter. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I know you were hoping—”

“Sixty days.” Quinn stood up from the couch, and her legs were stiff. She’d been sitting in that same spot for how long? Two hours? Three? She’d lost track.

She’d lost track of time.

That’s what this place did. Made time meaningless. Made everything meaningless except the slow tick of the clock and the rotation of meals and the check-check-check of locks and windows.

“So instead of four months until trial,” Quinn continued, her voice still flat, still not her own, “it’s now six months. Minimum.”

“Quinn—”

“You expect me to stay here for six more months?”

And now her voice was coming back. Rising. Getting louder. “Half a year in this cabin? Half a year of staring at these walls?”

She gestured around wildly, and her hand knocked against the coffee table. Pain flared in her knuckles, but she barely felt it.

“Half a year of counting trees and memorizing wood grain and tracking the angle of sunlight and losing my goddamn mind?”

Dax’s expression shifted. That careful neutrality sliding into place like a mask. The cop face. The one that said he thought she was being unreasonable.