Hatched

Chapter Twenty-Three

July 1st, 2021

1130 hours

The incessant hum of the chopper blades overtook Robyn's hearing to the point she had to lean into Quinn to hear him. This frustrated her, because as debonair as he seemed, he was still a cocky, overbearing piece of government work that irritated her beyond belief.

"What aren't you telling me?" she yelled, unsure if he was able to hear her.

"Whatever do you mean?" Quinn replied, glancing at her from the corners of his silvery eyes.

"You haven't been completely truthful with your information." She replied, though it must have been loud enough, because he grimaced and rubbed his ear.

"Kindly refrain from shouting at me. I have every intention of answering your questions, if you'd allow me." The dark, reproachful glare he sent her way effectively shut her up.

"What is it you want to know?" He continued, much to her surprise.

"Why are you even here?" she yelled, though softer then before. "Your arrival never made any sense to me."

"I suppose I should start at the beginning." Quinn sighed, bringing his steady hand to his hair and ruffling it, face screwed up in thought. She noted he did this often, whether to dispel tension or to jog his memory, she wasn't sure. "A cold case came across my desk some years ago. I don't remember the date."

Robyn scoffed "You forgot something? Really now?"

"It wasn't that I forgot," he scowled, bringing his hand to rest in his lap "it's that the profile I formed, after that initial investigation, lead me to a most horrible conclusion, which in turn, resulted in the most horrific profile I've ever seen, which inevitably caused me to suffer from tunnel vision."

"And what was that?" Robyn probed, edging even closer to him. He blanched and scooted away slightly.

"I concluded there was a serial killer prowling the Texas shores, more specifically, the Galveston coast." He offered, for which she was grateful: so far, he'd only shared what he deemed necessary and nothing more, so to see him open up meant something in his opinion of her had changed over the course of the investigation.

"Every few years, we'd get reports of mutilated corpses washing ashore, and it seemed as though this was a dumping ground, or perhaps a place where the perpetrator came to hunt."

"You'd been tracking a serial killer?" Robyn's eyes narrowed, squinting as she studied him.

"That's what I assumed." Quinn sighed, running his hand through his hair again. "I have come to the conclusion I was terribly wrong."

"How so?" Robyn asked, chills running down her spine. Quinn noticed her shiver and immediately removed his jacket, holding it out to her in offering.

"Here, you must be chilled to the bone."

She gaped at him, completely floored by his offer, reluctantly accepting it and snuggling into its warm depths. "Thank you." She replied sheepishly: it was an unspoken peace offering, one she wasn't sure she wanted to accept, but the angst and turmoil she saw raging in his eyes made her take it.

"Obviously, as we have discovered, it wasn't a person but a thing." He hissed through his teeth: he was clearly agitated, though she couldn't fathom why. Perhaps he was upset that for once he had been wrong.

"So, you were wrong about what was killing those folks. Why are you upset with yourself, though? " she eased out, anticipating that he would shut down that line of inquiry.