Cold Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page B

or sell it.”
    “Christ, that’s sad,” Quinn said, relieved at the same time. “So it’s going to be a tough sell to get her to part with the land.”
    “It was a tough sell.” Kylie was beaming. “Turns out she’s a tennis fan. When I told her what I wanted to do with the tennis center, she caved. Pun intended.”
    Quinn had given her his best fake smile and a warm hug. “Congratulations.”
    How ironic that the start of something new and good for her, the tennis center, had flicked the spotlight back on on the darkest part of her life.
    A knock at his office door brought his head up. “Yes?”
    Detective Sam Hawkins walked in, looking as serious as a tornado warning.
    Quinn, his heart racing, could already sense the howling wind whipping into a destructive frenzy. “What can I do for you, Detective?”
    Sam fixed him with a cold, dark stare. “We need to talk.”

6
    KYLIE NAILED NOTHING BUT AIR AS SHE SWUNG her racket at the ball.
    “Keep your eye on the ball!”
    She looked across the net at the lanky, dark-haired fourteen-year-old on the other end of the court and laughed. “That’s my line.”
    T.J. Ritchie shook his head in mock disgust. “Not when you’re missing shots I could have gotten with my eyes closed.”
    She gave an apologetic shrug as she slipped a ball out of the pocket of her shorts. They were ninety minutes into a sixty-minute lesson under the hot sun. But she didn’t mind. He was, by far, the most promising kid she worked with. Wiry and well on his way to six feet tall, T.J. had an easy grace that made him unbelievably swift on his feet, a winner at the net or running the baseline. The more time she could get with him, the better.
    Besides, she sensed something troubling him today. He’d been slamming the ball back at her harder than ever.
    “I’m a little off,” she said. Maybe he’d respond that he was, too, opening the door to a conversation.
    “No shit?”
    She fell out of her serving stance and cast him a chastising glance. “Watch your mouth, kid.”
    He bounced from one foot to the other, racket grasped in both hands before him, ready to return her serve and grinning like a fool. “What are you going to do about it? Kick my ass?”
    “Uh, yeah. Ever occur to you that I’ve been taking it easy on you because you’re a kid?” She enjoyed their trash talk, having discovered early on that she could tweak his form by firing him up. Her dad had often done the same to her.
    T.J. rolled his eyes. “So, just now, when you whiffed on that ball, that was your way of taking it easy on me, huh?”
    “You were looking winded.”
    “Yeah, right. More like you were winded.”
    She loved how easy and relaxed he was with her. “You are so not ready for what I’ve got.”
    “Yeah? Show me.”
    She tossed the ball up, but instead of firing it across the net, she caught it and arched her brows at him. “Sure you’re ready? ’Cause I’ve been holding back.”
    “I can handle whatever you’ve got.”
    “That’s what you think.”
    “I think you’re trying to psych me out.”
    “Ah, so you have been listening.”
    “Half of the game is mental. Blah, blah, blah. Are you going to serve or what?”
    “Blah, blah, blah? That’s what my age-old wisdom is to you?”
    “Emphasis on the ‘age-old’ part.”
    She hammered the ball past him before he’d finished laughing at his own joke.
    “Hey! I wasn’t ready.”
    She slipped another ball out of her pocket. “You’re not going to cry, are you?”
    He dropped into his ready posture, eyes slits. Competitive to a fault. “Let’s see you do it again when I’m not distracted by your yapping.”
    He sounded just like Chase, and for a moment, she let herself miss the days they’d spent together on the court, training for the next big match. He’d made drills fun. Teasing and flirting and, with perspiration gleaming on his arms and too-long hair flopping on his forehead with every shot, he’d looked . . . so . . . so . .