There was just the slightest of pauses before Wills spoke again. “Well, I’m just glad somebody got it. What did you find?”
“Hold on.” Quinn held out his hand. “Wallet.”
Keeping his eyes on the road, Nate dug the wallet out of his pocket and handed it over. Quinn flipped it open and found a driver’s license tucked behind a clear plastic cover.
“According to this his name is William Burke. B-U-R-K-E. Address in Manhattan.”
“Burke?” Wills questioned to himself.
Quinn looked through the rest of the wallet. “He’s got a credit card and an ATM card. Wait, here’s something interesting.”
“What is it?”
“Several business cards. They all have the same name, but the companies are different. Comcast Cable, Faye Construction, Triple A. There’s one here that says he’s with the FBI. They all have the same address. Some place in Manhattan.” Quinn paused. “No chance William Burke is this guy’s real name.” Quinn looked at the guy’s picture again. “Something else.”
“What?”
“Hold on.” Quinn held the driver’s license out on the dashboard so Nate could see it. “This is the dead guy, right?”
Nate glanced quickly at the picture. “Yeah. That’s him.”
Quinn put the phone back to his ear. “I’ll check this guy’s ID against the pictures I took in L.A., but I’m pretty sure he was behind the wheel of the car at the warehouse the other night, too.”
Wills said nothing for a moment, then, “The client isn’t going to like this.”
That wasn’t Quinn’s problem. Even if the job was canceled, Quinn had already been paid, and per his standard arrangement, the money would stay with him.
“Given all that’s been going on,” Wills said, “I want to meet with you in person. Today. Well, tomorrow for you. It’s not even midnight there yet, is it?”
“Not quite yet,” Quinn said.
“I’ll fly over. Not Portland, but maybe Boston.”
“New York,” Quinn said. “The Grand Hyatt. There’s a bar beyond the elevators on the main floor. Text me what time you’ll be there.”
“Bar at the Grand Hyatt,” Wills said. “Okay. I should be over there in time for lunch. And Quinn. Thanks again. You haven’t disappointed me yet.”
“You say ‘yet’ like you’re expecting me to.”
“Actually, I’m not.”
“Good.” Quinn disconnected the call.
He was about to slip the phone back into his pocket when he remembered he needed to call Orlando.
She answered after only one ring. “Finally done?” she asked.
“That’s one way of phrasing it,” Quinn said. He filled her in on what had happened.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said.
“Wish I was.”
“You know you took a chance with the ID.”
“Not a big one,” he said.
“Bigger than you should have.”
“I made Nate do it.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” she said.
Quinn smiled. “So what’s up?”
When she spoke again, all the playfulness that had been in her voice was gone. “Somebody tripped one of my flags.”
Orlando knew her way around computers better than most people knew how to walk. One of the things she had done was set up electronic tripwires throughout cyberspace that would notify her when someone looked at whatever it was she’d flagged.
“Okay,” he said. “Is this something we need to worry about?”
“It got me to check some of the other related flags I’d set up,” she went on, ignoring his question. “There are at least five that should have sent me a message, but didn’t. Someone bypassed them.”
Quinn started to feel uneasy. “What does that mean?”
“It means someone’s been poking around where they shouldn’t. It’s been going on for over a week. The only reason I found out is that there was a dual flag set up this time. They got around the first, but missed the second.”
“What exactly are we talking about?”
“You, Quinn,” she said. “Someone’s been trying to find out all they can about you.”
Chapter 12
The past.
It was something Quinn had tried to cover up and, in many ways, tried to convince himself had never happened in the first place, convince himself he’d been born Jonathan Quinn.
The awkwardness with his father — his stepfather — his estrangement from his sister, and then, of course, his brother.
From early on, Harold Oliver had shown no more than an uneasy tolerance toward him. It had confused him. Especially so after his brother was born, and then his sister, neither of whom received the same disdain from their father as young Jake did. And now that his father was dead, it was too late to try and mend that wound.
Liz was still around, of course, but the wall that had grown between them when he’d left home had become as wide and as insurmountable as the Himalayas. Even if he did try to explain, she wouldn’t even listen.
And then there was Davey …
“I just want to see it,” Davey said. He was five, strapped in his child’s seat in the back, behind their father.
“No,” Jake told him. “You should have brought your own.”
“Just for a minute. Please, Jakey.”
He leaned over in front of their one-year-old sister, Liz, who was asleep in her car seat between the brothers. Jake flipped the page of the comic book, and turned so Davey couldn’t see.
“Mom, Jake’s not sharing!”
“It’s mine,” Jake pleaded. “I don’t have to share with him.”
“Jake, just let him look with you,” their mother said. “He doesn’t have to touch it.”
Jake looked pained. “Do I have to? He’s got plenty at home. He should have brought one of them.”
“I’ve looked at all those!” Davey said.
“Boys, you’re going to wake your sister. Just share, okay?”
“Fine,” Jake said, then turned just enough so that at the right angle his brother could see half a page.
“Mom!” Davey cried.
“What?” she asked, sounding weary.
“He’s not really doing it.”
“Jake, honey. I told you, you need to—”
“Right now,” Harold Oliver’s voice cut through from the driver’s seat. “Give it to him.”
“What?” Jake asked. “Why?”
Davey reached toward Jake, but Jake leaned away from him.
“Give your brother the comic,” his father ordered.
“But it’s mine.”
“I said give it to him!”
Jake glanced at his mother. She looked for a moment at her husband, then turned to her oldest son. The expression on her face told him all he needed to know. “Just do it,” she mouthed.
Jake narrowed his eyes, and grunted in frustration. “Whatever,” he said. He flapped out his hand and tossed the comic in Davey’s general direction.
But the comic hit the front seat instead and ricocheted into the side of Liz’s face.
Liz stared wailing as Davey grabbed for the book. She pushed at the comic, knocking it from Davey’s hands and onto the floor.
“Mom!” Davey screamed. “He did that on purpose!”
Liz’s cries grew louder.
“I did not!” Jake said.
More crying.
“Liz, honey, it’s okay,” their mother said, turning to the back seat.
“He threw it at me!”
“I was holding it out to you, not my fault you can’t catch.”
“Liz, sweetie, it’s okay,” their mother said. She slipped her shoulder strap off, leaned between the seats, then rubbed her daughter’s cheek as Liz continued to sob.
“I can’t reach it!” Davey wailed louder than Liz. He was stretched out as far as he could go, but the comic book was still beyond his grasp.