officers, each gripping an elbow as they’d escorted her from the building, the eyes of students and colleagues glued to her.
“So help me, Quinn, if this is you back to your childish antics again, I won’t stand for it. There are still plenty of witnesses who remember your outburst this summer.”
Yeah, a whole department full of colleagues had been there to witness her demise. “But none of them know the real reason behind it, do they, Peter? They don’t know what you did. How’s Nancy’s ring?”
Her insides churned at the memory. But she’d learned the hard way that letting her feelings loose did nothing but cost her. It definitely didn’t get back the money Peter had taken.
“That was a joint account.”
“That was the sabbatical money I’d been saving for my entire career,” she snarled low into the phone. If she had access to that money, she wouldn’t be in the position she was in right now.
“You were making childish and borderline illegal decisions. Me taking that money was saving you from yourself.”
There was no arguing with him. He refused to accept that she wasn’t guilty of the things he—and then the department—had accused her of and had insisted on casing himself in the role of benevolent savior.
“Goodbye, Peter.”
“Don’t force me to press charges!” Even Peter’s yell didn’t contain much passion. “I have witnesses from your breakdown a few months ago. The police want to question you first about the break-in.”
Which meant he had thrown her under the bus when they’d asked who would do something like this.
Just like he had this past summer with the other events.
“I’m in Wyoming visiting my brother. I’ve been here for two weeks. So good luck catching the real culprit.”
She disconnected the call before he could say anything further. It felt good putting him on the receiving end of silence for once.
Quinn got through the rest of her shift by not focusing on anything but getting the orders right and making tips. She didn’t need to think about anything else.
Not Peter. Not Baby. Not her mounting bills. Just surviving.
That was going to be hard enough.
The lunch crowd was dying down, but Quinn still had about an hour left in her shift before she needed to leave to pick up a rental car when Lexi called her back to the kitchen.
“Time for you to go. Mac and I have it from here.”
“Are you sure? I’m not really in too much of a hurry. All I have to do is rent a car to get to my other job.”
Lexi waved a hand at her in a shooing motion. “Yeah, about that. I think you better head out to the parking lot. Someone’s waiting for you out there.”
Shit. This had to mean Riley was back in town and had heard she was here.
She grimaced and untied her apron. Might as well face the music now. “Okay, thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She rehearsed her speech in her head as she walked, trying to figure out the very least amount she could get away with telling her brother. He had his own problems to deal with, and she didn’t want to add to them.
But when she got out to the parking lot, it wasn’t Riley waiting for her. It was Baby, standing in front of her car.
She never thought she would say this, but he looked awful. His face was bruised like he was the one who’d been in a car accident. His eyes were sunken and shadowed like he hadn’t slept in days.
She took a step toward him. “Are you okay? What happened?”
He gave her a half smile. “Yeah. Had a little accident. My brother unexpectedly needed me to carve out a new area for a swimming pool in his yard.”
That was some sort of joke, right? Nobody in Wyoming dug a swimming pool at the beginning of November. This was some reference she didn’t understand because she was too old and too stuck in her ivory tower.
“Oh...” That seemed like the best thing to say so she didn’t sound like a complete idiot.
She glanced around. “How did you get my car? I was going to call today about having it towed. I wasn’t sure if you’d want to work on it. After...well, everything.”
“I missed our date—”
“It wasn’t a date,” she muttered.
He continued without acknowledging her statement. “Small town. I heard you had an accident and figured out where it happened when I saw the skid marks on the road from Pike’s Peak. It didn’t take much to find