Loving Quinn Novel by North Rose

(Quinn)

How do I describe the feelings coursing through me as I wait for my head of security to pull up the footage from the hallway outside Annora’s office? Fear was the first feeling I had when she called me. I raced to her office as fast as I could and was grateful that I was already at the hospital when she called.

up to the administrative floor where The minute I stepped into her office, I felt so much anger at what had been done. Not only did someone come the public is not allowed, but they broke into a private office. This is considered vandalism at a minimum. As the owner of the hospital, I will press charges.

When I saw Annora’s face, I wanted to punch someone. There was anger on her face, but her eyes were sad. That sadness made me want to just hold her close to make it go away. That can’t happen until we find out who did it.

However, the feeling that stands out above the anger and need to comfort het, is the feeling that I called her. I am the one that brought Dionne into her life. If this is somehow tied to that miserable bitch, then it is my fault that it happened. Dionne wouldn’t be harassing Annora if I wasn’t in the picture

I am the problem here. I stuck my **k in crazy and now I can’t seem to get away from it. Even though Annora tells me that she is sticking with me no matter what because she loves me, part of me knows she would be much better off if I just faded back into an old memory. Will I do that?

Not in this lifetime.

Not after twelve years without her. Call me selfish for not wanting to give her or Grace up without a fight. Whoever is behind this incident today will face my full wrath within the confines of the law.

Until the law fails.

“Are we ready?” Anson asks once my head of security gives me a nod

“Play the footage from both ends of the hallway on two screens, Cole.”

Cole presses play on the keyboard and the two large screen flick to life.

The sound of the elevator doors opening is heard, then we watch as a man in our cleaning staff’s uniform steps out of the elevator. He is pushing a supply cart. His baseball cap is pulled down low and he is looking down as if he is trying to avoid the cameras. He makes his way to each office along the corridor, reading each name on the door as he makes his way further down the hallway.

The uniform he is wearing is the one we use for all nur janitorial staff. The cart is full of supplies, so it looks like he belongs. There is a small Identification badge clipped to the bottom of his shirt. Whoever he is either works for the hospital or did his research to fit in.

“Cole, pull up the cleaning schedule for that floor and then pull up who is on schedule to be up there today.”

He does what I ask him as I watch the screen. The man continues to walk down the hallway until he gets to Annora’s door. After reading the name on the door, he j**es the handle. When he finds it locked, he pulls out a slim metal bar, then forces the door open.

“Sir, no one is scheduled for that floor until evening hours. It is always that way. Also, there is another issue. The guard on duty to monitor the executive floors stepped out on break without informing his relief partner. That guard never came back.”

“What is his name?” Anson asks.

“Martin Kimble.

“I will

get an officer to go check his home,” Morris said.

“So, if there is no one scheduled to be up there during the day, then who is that?” I ask, “Can you zoom in on the name tag on his shirt when he was

near the elevator?”

Cole rewinds the film, then zooms in. The picture is grainy, but I can make on a name, Martin Kimble. That is a dead end in terms of identification At least from the video,

“The crime toch dusted the door and the room for fingerprints. We will find Martin Kimble and see what he knows. Let’s hope we get this figured out quickly. Is there anyone that we are not aware of from the last time we spoke that may have problems with Dr. Winters?” Morris says as he

his

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opens

“The first person who comes to mind is Dionne Masters. However, her grudges with me, but I wouldn’t count her out as a suspect. There is no doubt in my mind that she is very angry right now.”

They both give me a questioning look, so 1 give them a brief explanation about what happened in court before we left for vacation. Both detectives nod their heads, take notes in their notebooks, then they look back up at me want to rush them out of the room, but I stay calm instead.

“I suggest taking some steps to prevent. Anson starts to say before i interrupt him.

“To prevent something like this from happening again in the hospital or to my fiance? I can assure you that I will take steps to tighten security here at the hospital. As for my dance, that is something she and I will address later tonight.”

Anson nods his head, then he and Morris take their leave after promising me that they will be in contact with us as soon as they have any information. I tum to Cole and share a look with him before I leave the room, When I am out in the hallway, I call Gayle to set up a meeting with all the heads of every department in the hospital. I put an emphasis on the head of HR and security.

After I hang up the phone, a thought pops into my head, so I turn back to talk to Cole. He is pulling up video of the executive elevators as I walk back if He had the same thought as I did.

“Did you think of the guards stationed on the elevators like I did?” I ask him as I walk over to him.

“Yeah. I am honestly surprised I didn’t think of it when the cops were here and that they didn’t ask, either.”

“Can you pull up all floors that have executive elevator access and display them on the monitors at once?”

“You got it, bass.”

I watch as he does as I ask. “I called Gayle to schedule a meeting with all the department heads. We can discuss security protocols and ways to tighten all weaknesses. Even though this is the first major instance we have had so far, I want it to be the last.”

Cole nods his head then taps one last key. “I want to see how that man got past the guards. I have a feeling that they saw the cart and didn’t bother to Identify him. If that is the case, then I will need to hire three new guards rather than one.”

As we watched all the monitors, we saw the intruder approaching the executive elevator in the emergency room. As Cole suspected, both guards nodded and then stepped to the side to let him pass. Neither looked at his face nor asked to see his hadge. This was someone else’s doing for sure, but it was successful because two men failed to do their job properly.

“Please call both of those men into your office now, I will call the detectives and let them know what we just saw and ask if they want to question the two guards.”

“Will do, boss.”

Twenty minutes later, I am sitting in a chair in Cole’s office. Anson and Morris are sitting at the large table along with the two guards that failed to do the full duties of their jobs today. One looks confused about why he is here, while the other keeps looking at the detectives nervously.

His wither nervous because he has never been questioned by the police or be is guilty of being a part of what happened. Since all the staff employed here have had criminal background checks run on them as part of their employment screening, I have a feeling that it is the former rather than the latter.

“Do you both know why you are in here?” Cole asks quietly.

Ian, the confused guard, shakes his head. Gary, the nervous-looking guard, squares his shoulders and shakes his head. His eyes cut away from Cole to Anson and Morris, then back to Cole. If that isn’t enough of a sign of guilt, then I don’t know what is. However, I have learned to wait until I have all the facts.

Even if someone has guilt written all over their face.

“Today, the two of you were seen on camera, not checking the identity of one of the custodial staff who was getting on the executive elevator.” Cole says with anger in his voice.

lan flushes red as he realizes the mistake he made, “I am sorry. We saw the cat and that he had a badge, so we let him go. I should have checked.”

“Why are we in trouble with the cops for simply breaking security protocol?” Gary asks. His nerves have turned into anger now.

Anson shifts in his seat to face Gary. Morris gives Gary his version of the hairy eyeball’ stare. That s**ty eye stare that I have seen many times in my career from my superior officers.

“Had you two done your jobs correctly today, you would have noticed what we did. You both would have been able to stop what happened,” Cole told

them

lan blanches then looks at the two detectives. “Wait, what happened?” The look of concern and worry on his face makes me believe he had nothing to do with it. I also believe he was just following his partner’s example.

“The man you cleared broke into one of our doctors offices, then tore it apart. By not following protocol, a crime was committed.” I speak up for the first time. As I say this, I watch Gary’s face.

The way his eyes shift away from mine to look around the room says enough. I feel that the way he looks at anything other than the other men in the room speaks volumes. I can tell by the way Anson and Morris come to attention in their seats that they noticed it, too. Gary knows something.

“Did Martin Kimble tell you to let the man through today?” Morris asks

Gary’s eyes bulge and his face pales at the mention of Kimble. “Someone approached us with a job when we were at a bar a few nights ago. The guy told us that it would pay well and there would be a bonus at the end if we didn’t ask questions. All we had to do was let him up onto one of the

“Did you get his name?” Anson asks.

Gary shakes his head. “He just called himself L, like the letter. We received tom grand up front, tan had no part in this.”

Well, isn’t that nice of him to say that? I already figured that out and intend to let him keep his job. He will need some retraining, but he won’t be fired today.

“We will need you to come to the police station with us for more questioning. Do you think you could work with a sketch artist to describe the man who hired you?” Morris asks as he stands up.

“No one got hurt today, did they? I should have said no to the job. I needed money, and it was easy.”

“We will discuss that at the station. Come on.” Morris motions for Gary to stand up so he can handcuff hi

“We will get back to you when we have something solid to build on. Good thinking. I’m annoyed at myself for not thinking about it. Hope the rest of your day is smooth.” Anson says, then follows his partner and Gary out of the room,

I turn to look at Cole, then glance at lan. “Because you had no knowledge of what happened, I will not fire you. However, tomorrow morning, you will Jeport directly to Cole for retraining. I want the two of you to go over every detail of your job so that you know it by heart.”

lan looks relieved. “Thank you, sir. I just followed Cary’s lead and I shouldn’t have. It will never happen again, I like this job

Cole will give you other duties for the remainder of your shift today. Now, I have tons of work to do. Cole, I will have Gayle email you about the meeting time for tomorrow.”

He nods his head in agreement, so I nod back before leaving the room. I pull my phone out of my pocket as I walk down the hallway. Since I will be working from home for the rest of the day, I call Aaron to let him know what happened.

My net call is to Annora to tell her that I am on my way home. She asks me to pick up Chinese food on my way home. After I end the call, I make my way to the emergency room to find Gayle. She assures me that the meeting is set for tomorrow and that she has emailed everyone I asked.

i will see you tomorrow,”

“Thank you, Gayle. I will see

“Mr. Grayson, please give Dr. Winters may sincere regards. We will do everything we can to make sure the hospital is a safe place for everyone while they are here.”

“I will make sure si

sure she knows. Have a good night, Gayle, and if you need me for anything 1 will have my phone on.”

“Good night, Mr. Grayson.”

The drive home seemed much longer than it was, I think it was a combination of the stress of the day and my worry about Annora. She was very shaken by the break-in. I can’t say that I blame her. If someone broke into my office and destroyed everything, I would be angry, hurt, and defeated.

Defeated because I worked hand for that space.

Annora worked hard to get where she is in her career. She told me every hurdle she overcame, and I am proud of her. My fiancé is not only beautiful, kind, and loving, but she is also smart, determined, and stronger than she looks

I just hope that we can weather this next storm together, just like we responsible for this will not break us.

that last one. We are stronger together than we are apart. Whoever is

I got you, Annie.