Page 23 of Pressure Point (Lantern Beach Blackout: Detonation #2)

CHAPTER

TWENTY-THREE

A soft knock at her door interrupted Quinn’s escape planning. She quickly slid the paper with her sketched layout under a magazine and called out, “Come in.”

Police Chief Chambers stepped inside, her blonde hair pulled back into a bun. She wore civilian clothes instead of her uniform—dark jeans and a beige button-down that made her look more approachable than authoritative.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” Cassidy said as she stood in the doorway. “I wanted to check in and see how you’re holding up after everything that’s happened.”

“Please, come in.” Quinn gestured toward the small sitting area near the window. “I could use the company, honestly.”

Cassidy shut the door and settled across from her at a narrow dinette table. Her manner was relaxed, but Quinn noticed how the police chief positioned herself with a clear view of both the door and Quinn’s hands. Professional habits, probably.

Or professional caution. Ty had probably updated her on the situation, and now she was doing her due diligence.

“Have you remembered anything more?” Cassidy studied her—but not with distrust. More like concern. “Sometimes trauma can shake loose buried memories.”

The question hit closer to home than Quinn wanted to admit.

The memories that had returned made her sick to think about. She’d told Atlas, and she hadn’t made him promise not to share. She could only assume Cassidy knew.

Maybe it didn’t matter. Not when Quinn still didn’t understand what those supposed memories meant or whose side she’d been on.

“No.” She kept her voice steady. “Still nothing concrete. Just . . . feelings, I guess. Like déjà vu but without the actual memories to go with it.”

Cassidy nodded sympathetically. “That must be incredibly frustrating.”

“It is.” Quinn picked at the edge of the magazine, keeping her escape plan hidden beneath it. “Have you heard anything?”

“The pilot is awake, but he’s not talking. He used to be Air Force until he retired two years ago.”

“That’s too bad.”

“We had—well, I should say Ty had—some of his friends analyze the Russian you spoke that Atlas recorded, trying to pick up on any particular dialect.”

She sat up straighter. “And?”

Cassidy frowned and shook her head. “We got nothing from it, unfortunately.”

Her shoulders sagged with disappointment. “What about missing person reports? Did you find any fitting my description? Has anyone asked about me?”

“Nothing yet,” Cassidy admitted. “We’ve expanded the search to neighboring states, but so far, no one’s reported anyone matching your description as missing.”

The words should have been disappointing. Instead, they brought an odd sense of relief.

If no one was looking for her, maybe that meant no one would be hurt by her disappearance.

“I ran your fingerprints through the system,” Cassidy continued, her tone carefully neutral. “Nothing came up. No matches in any database—criminal or otherwise. I ran them through a second time, just to be sure. Still nothing, which means you most likely don’t work for the government.”

Quinn felt her eyebrows rise. “Is that surprising?”

“A little,” Cassidy said with a slight shrug. “Most adults have their prints somewhere in the system—employment background checks, professional licensing, military service. Even volunteer work sometimes requires fingerprinting.”

“Is there any reason the government might hide my identity?” she asked, remembering her skills and the Russian she could mysteriously speak.

“I suppose if it was a top-secret assignment.” Cassidy shrugged again.

Her words made sense, but Quinn wanted something more. “What about facial recognition?”

“Ran your photo as well. Still nothing. And your tox screen came back clean.” Cassidy leaned forward slightly, her expression growing more serious. “I have to ask—does that seem suspicious to you?”

The question hung in the air between them.

Quinn considered her answer carefully. “I don’t know what’s normal. But if you’re asking whether it worries me . . . yes. It does.”

Cassidy was quiet a moment, studying Quinn’s face. “I’m also concerned about your injuries. The defensive wounds, the rope burns on your wrists. Combined with no identification and no digital footprint . . .”

“You think I might have been involved in something illegal.” Quinn completed the thought that Cassidy was too polite to voice directly.

“I think you might have been a victim of something illegal,” Cassidy corrected. “But I also think there’s more to your story.”

Tears pricked Quinn’s eyes—tears of frustration and fear and a bone-deep exhaustion that went beyond physical tiredness. “I have no idea who I am. And honestly? That scares me more than not knowing where I came from.”

Cassidy tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“What if I’m not a good person?” The words tumbled out before she could stop them. “What if there’s a reason no one’s looking for me? What if I did something terrible, and forgetting is just . . . convenient?”

Though she’d already talked to Atlas about this, she wanted another perspective in case Atlas was placating her.

Cassidy reached across the small table and gently touched Quinn’s hand. “Hey. Whatever happened to you, whatever brought you here—you’re not responsible for the gaps in your memory. From what I’ve seen, you seem like someone who cares about doing the right thing.”

“But how can you know that when I don’t even know it myself?” She wished she felt as certain.

“Because I’ve been watching you,” Cassidy said simply. “The way you worry about being a burden, the way you try to help even when you’re confused and scared. Those aren’t the reactions of someone without a conscience.”

The kindness in Cassidy’s voice almost broke Quinn’s resolve. But the memory fragments lurking in the shadows of her mind told a different story—one of cold calculation and professional violence.

“Thank you,” Quinn said softly. “For believing in me when I can’t believe in myself.”

Cassidy offered a gentle nod before rising to leave. “I’ll be in touch.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

After Cassidy left, Quinn returned to her escape planning with renewed determination. The police chief’s faith in her only made the decision harder but also more necessary.

Because if Cassidy was wrong—if Quinn really was the kind of person those dark memories suggested—then the kindest thing Quinn could do was disappear before anyone discovered the truth.

Atlas balanced the dinner tray in one hand while he knocked softly on Quinn’s door. The meeting with Colton and Ty had left him with conflicting directives—earn her trust but stay vigilant. Get close to her, but remember she might be the enemy.

Simple enough, he thought wryly.

“Come in,” Quinn’s voice called from inside.

Atlas found her sitting by the window, staring out at the darkening sky. She’d changed into spare clothes Raven had brought—dark jeans and a teal T-shirt that made her eyes look even bluer.

But it was her posture that caught his attention. It was too straight, too alert. She looked like someone preparing for action.

“Thought you might be hungry.” He set the tray on the small table near her chair. “I managed to salvage some of Maria’s famous chicken and rice for you before the cafeteria closed.”

“That’s very thoughtful. Thank you.” Quinn’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You didn’t have to go to the trouble.”

Atlas studied her face as she moved to the table. The tension around her eyes, the way her gaze kept flicking to the window, the careful control in her movements.

She was planning something.

The realization hit him like ice water. Quinn was sitting here making polite conversation while her mind was clearly elsewhere, working through some kind of strategy.

Just like Noreen used to do.

The memory surfaced unbidden.

It was three months after Noreen’s rescue that he’d discovered her betrayal. He remembered how she’d been sitting across from him at dinner in their favorite restaurant and had seemed distracted. She kept checking her phone, claiming she was worried about a sick relative.

Atlas had offered to fly out with her to provide support.

Only later did he realize she’d been coordinating her extraction with enemy handlers. She’d gotten the information she needed, and she was done with him.

The confrontation had happened two days later, when Atlas had walked into Noreen’s hotel room to find her packing a suitcase with cold efficiency. No frantic rushing, no emotional breakdown—just the methodical preparation of someone completing a long-term assignment.

“Going to see your sick relative?” Atlas had asked, though something in his gut already knew the truth.

Noreen had looked up at him with eyes that were suddenly foreign, calculating. The warmth he’d fallen in love with had vanished like a mask being removed.

“There is no sick relative, Atlas,” she’d said with casual cruelty. “There never was.”

The words had hit him like a physical blow. But it was her tone that destroyed him—not angry or defensive, just matter-of-fact. As if their entire relationship had been nothing more than a tedious job she was finally finishing.

“Eight months,” Atlas had whispered. “Everything we shared, everything we built together?—”

“Was exactly what I was paid to do.” Noreen had zipped the suitcase closed with a sound like a coffin lid slamming shut. “You were a remarkably easy mark, actually. All that protective instinct, all that need to save people—it made you so eager to trust, so desperate to believe in love.”

She’d moved toward the door but paused to deliver one final cut: “The intelligence you gave me led to some very successful operations. Your psychological profiles, your team’s tactical preferences, those security protocols you helped me ‘revise’—all of it was invaluable.

So thank you, Atlas. You were an excellent unwitting asset. ”

That was when Atlas had seen the truth in her eyes—not just betrayal, but genuine amusement. She’d enjoyed manipulating him. Had found satisfaction in watching him fall deeper in love while she systematically destroyed everything he’d sworn to protect.

“Why?” The question had torn from his throat like a confession.

Noreen had smiled then, cold and satisfied. “Because I’m very good at my job. And you, Atlas Manning, were the easiest target I’ve ever had.”

She’d walked out without looking back, leaving Atlas alone with the wreckage of everything he’d believed about love, trust, and his own judgment.

He’d reported what had happened. But Noreen had never been found.

To this day, she was still out there somewhere.

The way she’d looked at him that night—apologetic, almost sad—was exactly how Quinn looked at him now.

The only good thing that had come out of that entire situation was that he’d hit rock bottom—and, in the process, he’d grown a close friendship with one of his colleagues who’d introduced him to church.

After that, his life had changed from one that was empty and without purpose to one with a renewed passion. It had taken him some time to forgive himself, but he eventually had.

“Have a nice visit with Cassidy?” he started.

“She seems like a good woman.”

“She is. Everything okay?” Atlas kept his voice casual as he settled into the chair across from her. “You seem . . . tense.”

Quinn picked at her food, taking small bites that suggested she was eating out of politeness rather than hunger. “Just processing everything that’s happened. It’s been an overwhelming couple of days.”

Truth but not the whole truth. Atlas heard it in her tone.

“The memories that are coming back—are they helping at all?” he asked. “Giving you any sense of who you might have worked for?”

“Some.” Quinn set down her fork and met his gaze directly. “Atlas, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“When you were CIA, did you ever have to do things . . . things that kept you awake at night?”

The directness of her question caught him off guard. “Why do you ask?”

“Because every time I get a flash of . . . whatever these flashes are, I wonder if the guilt I’m feeling is normal or if it means I was someone who enjoyed the violence.” Her voice grew quiet with vulnerability. “I need to know if good people can do terrible things and still be good people.”

Something twisted in Atlas’s chest.

Either Quinn was genuinely wrestling with moral questions about her past, or she was playing him with surgical precision.

“Good people can be forced into impossible situations,” he said carefully. “Sometimes there are no clean choices, only necessary ones.”

Quinn nodded, but her attention seemed to drift back to the window. In the reflection, Atlas caught the way her eyes tracked the perimeter lighting, noted the guard rotations.

She was trying to figure out an escape plan, he realized.

“I should let you get some rest.” Atlas stood, watching for her reaction. “We have a big day tomorrow. We’re going to see if we can recover any of your memories.”

Something flickered across Quinn’s expression—too quick to interpret but definitely a reaction.

“That sounds like a good plan,” she said. “Maybe we’ll finally get some answers.”

Atlas paused at the door, his hand on the knob. “Quinn? You know you’re safe here, right? Whatever you’re remembering, whatever you’re worried about—you don’t have to face it alone.”

Her smile was soft and genuinely grateful. “Thank you, Atlas. For everything.”

As he closed the door behind him, Atlas felt his gut clench with certainty. Quinn was going to run.

The question was whether he should let her.