“Of course.”
“Then give me a second.” The speaker went silent as she put him on hold.
“I guess we’re not priority anymore,” Nate said.
Quinn grunted.
After nearly a minute, Orlando returned. “Sorry.”
“Everything all right there?” Quinn asked.
“Yeah, just had to talk to someone. Did Boyer know where Daeng is?”
“Not exactly, but he pointed us in the right direction.”
He gave her a quick rundown of his discussion with Boyer. “I’m hoping that you can track down where these McCrillis facilities are located, then Nate and I will do drive-bys and see if the tracker on the woman’s car is still working.” The trackers, unfortunately, only had an effective range of four miles. After that, the signal became spotty before dropping off to nothing.
“I should have enough time to do that.”
That wasn’t quite the answer he expected. “You have other plans?”
“I do, actually.”
As she spoke, Quinn heard what sounded like an announcement over an intercom system in the background. “Where are you?”
“Reagan Airport.”
He exchanged a look with Nate. “Okay. Why?”
“I think we found where Eli left the information he had for Abraham.”
“That’s great news. Where?”
“Tampa,” she said.
“You’re kidding me.”
“I wish I were.” She told him about Eli’s stroll in the hour before he was abducted, and of the conversation she had with a woman at a place called DeeDee’s Comics. “I called around and was able to get us on a charter heading there in a half hour.”
“You might not be the only one looking for it down there,” Quinn said. “I can send Nate with you.”
He wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of Orlando and Abraham going down there alone. If she had been at full strength, then, sure, he wouldn’t have worried so much, but her injuries still limited her abilities and she was still tiring easily. And Abraham? Well, he was in relatively good shape for a man of sixty-seven, but he was still sixty-seven.
“You’d never get him here on time,” she said. “But don’t worry. I can handle it.”
“I’d feel better if you had some backup. I don’t need you trying to be a hero.”
“Not a role I’m interested in, either. I’ve already pulled up a few names of people who are available, all right? If I think anything’s wrong, I’ll call someone in. That work for you, Dad?”
“Yeah, that works for me.”
“Now if you want me to find these McCrillis locations for you before I leave, I gotta get off the phone.”
“Right. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He disconnected the call.
“For the record,” Nate said, “she doesn’t call you Daddy when you’re alone, does she? Because that would be—”
“Shut it.”
“I mean, I guess everyone is into their own thing. I just never pictured the two of you doing the—”
“I will kill you if you do not shut up now. I don’t care how long we’ve known each other. I don’t care if you are dating my sister. I will kill you and dump you in the deepest part of the ocean. Understood?”
“I’m, uh, not sure if I should answer. You made it pretty clear I should say nothing, but then you asked a question. Conflicting signals.”
Quinn glared at him.
Nate held up a hand in surrender before using it to pull an imaginary zipper across his mouth.
Five minutes later, Quinn’s phone pinged several times with incoming texts. A different address was in each of the first three messages, and in the last, a note from Orlando:
Heading onto plane now.
Takeoff sched. 15 mins.
Should be back online not
long after that if you need me.
The closest McCrillis facility was only ten miles away, right there in Maryland.
The captive’s name was Daeng, information he sounded almost eager to give up when Gloria started asking him questions again, this time post-injection. He was apparently from Thailand, though he spoke English like he’d been in the States his whole life. When asked about this, he told her about his teen years living in Los Angeles and going to Hollywood High.
With the subject sufficiently primed, she turned to the questions that really mattered.
“Who do you work for?” she asked.
“Work for?” he said, his head bobbing loosely on his neck, a half smile on his face. “Who do any of us work for?”
“Answer my question.”
“I work for myself.”
“Doing what?”
He tried to shrug, but his shoulder moved independently of each other, creating more of a wavelike motion. “Many, many things. Whatever needs to be done.” He looked at her. “Do you need something done?”
“I do. I need you to tell me who was paying you to follow the Maserati.”
“Maserati. Beautiful car, but too showy for me.”
“Who was paying you?”
He blinked. “As far as I know, no one was paying me for that.”
“Then why were you following it?”
“To see where it went.”
“Why?”
His eyes narrowed in confusion. “I told you why. To see where it went.”
“But you stopped following before it got to where it was going.”
“No longer necessary.”
Gloria could feel her frustration level rising. “Mr. Daeng, who—”
“Just Daeng.”
“Fine. Daeng, who told you to follow the Maserati?”
He seemed to struggle with himself for a moment before he said, “Quinn.”
The name meant nothing to her, but at least it was a name.
“Why did he want you to follow it?”
“To find out where it went.”
She grabbed his face and tilted it up. “I want to know why.”
A grin still on his lips, he said, “Already told you.
She shoved his head back and knocked it against the chair. But even this didn’t seem to faze him. While the dose she’d given him had indeed made him more compliant, it was clear this wasn’t the first time the man had been drugged, and he was able to exert some directional control over his responses.
“This Quinn. Who is he?”
“He’s my friend.”
“Okay, he’s your friend, so tell me about him.”
Daeng’s head lolled to the side. “He likes to swim.”
“Why would he ask you to follow the man in the Maserati?”
“Because he was busy following you.”
The woman stared at him. “What did you say?”
His eyes closed. When they fluttered open again, his smile was gone and the color was draining from his face. “I think…I’m going…”
Whatever the man ate last raced out his mouth and onto the floor beside his chair. Gloria leaped back but still ended up with a few droplets on her shoes.
Daeng’s head rolled forward, his chin collapsing against his chest. She grabbed his hair and tilted his head back. His eyes were closed and his facial muscles slack.
She slapped him and shouted, “Wake up!” But all she received was a groan. A second slap didn’t even garner that much.
He was out.
Her experience with other guests told her he would be useless for at least twenty minutes, perhaps more.
She stormed out of the room. Unfortunately for King, he was the only one downstairs with her. Nolan and Andres were patrolling the business park above. “Get a bucket and some towels and clean up that mess,” she ordered. She then grabbed the walkie-talkie off the observation-room counter and pressed the button. “Nolan, do you read?”
“This is Nolan,” Nolan answered.
“There’s something I need you to check.”