“Jake, please pick it up and hand it to your brother.”
“He’s the one who dropped it,” Jake said. “He should—”
“Enough!” Harold Oliver roared. Jake looked up. The side of their father’s face was red with anger.
“I’ll get it,” Davey said quietly. He unbuckled his car seat and leaned down to the floor.
“I tried to give it—” Jake muttered.
“I said enough!” Harold yelled. Only this time he turned and looked back.
The police later said that it could have been a rock in the road. But the more Jake thought about it, the more he suspected his father accidentally turned the steering wheel a few degrees to the left as he looked back at his kids.
Whatever the reason, the car changed direction just enough so that when Harold looked back, there was no chance of avoiding the deep drainage ditch that paralleled the opposite side of the highway. The best he could do was to keep the car from going straight in. It slammed down on the driver’s side before coming to rest against the slope of the ditch, flipped partially on its roof.
A broken leg, a broken clavicle, a gash on the side of a head.
And one dead son.
That was the tally.
The only one to come out of it basically unscathed was Jake. Bruises from the impact, a few cuts and abrasions, that was all. If only he’d been hurt worse …
Though his father had never openly placed the blame on him, Jake was sure that’s how he felt. Because, deep down, that’s how Jake felt, too.
They laid Davey to rest five days later, Harold on crutches and Jake’s mother with her left arm strapped across her chest. Liz sported a bald patch on the side of her head covered with a bandage. Beneath was the gash that would form a scar that would be with her the rest of her life.
The scar Jake bore — that Quinn bore — was invisible, but just as permanent.
Chapter 13
Petra and Mikhail found a Motel 6 outside of Lowell, Massachusetts. Petra dragged herself to her room, then tried to sleep, but it just wasn’t happening. At 4:30 a.m. she gave up.
Kolya, like Luka, was dead.
She had known at the start of their mission that death was always a possibility. But she had expected any bullet would have hit her, not one of her team members. But twice now, it had happened. At least, unlike with Luka, she wouldn’t have to tell Kolya’s family. They had all died when he’d been just a child. It was why Kolya had joined the search for the Ghost in the first place. If he had any family at all, she and Mikhail and the others in their group were it.
She tried to push him from her mind, but what filled the void was just as devastating. All of them, every person on her list, was dead. Chang, McKitrick, Thomas, Winters, the others before them. And now Moody.
His death was the hardest to take. They had found him alive. They had even talked to him. He knew people in the photograph. But the final step, identifying the two strikingly similar young men standing at opposite ends of the bar, had not been completed.
With Moody dead, the trail to the Ghost had disappeared. That was unless Stepka could pinpoint who the Ghost had hired to do the killings. If he failed, the Ghost would live up to his nickname and fade away. Forever lost, and forever unaccountable.
She knew she should wait for Stepka to get back to her, but doing so would make her crazy. She turned on her side and grabbed her phone.
“What?” Stepka said as he picked up.
“It’s Petra.”
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
“I want to know what you’ve learned.”
“I told you I’d call as soon as I had something,” he said.
“And when do you think that might be?”
“Twenty-four hours. Maybe forty-eight. Or it’s possible I won’t find out at all.”
“Twenty-four hours is too long,” she said, ignoring his other possibilities. “We can’t lose this opportunity. If you don’t figure out who’s been blocking our way, we’re done. We have no other options.”
“As I said before, I’m doing everything I can.”
“You must have something. At least a hint of information.”
Stepka remained silent for several seconds. “I’ve been able to narrow those potentially involved down to six groups.”
Petra straightened up. Six was a lot, but it was better than the dead end she was staring at.
“Who are they?”
“Petra, please. One more day and the information will be considerably more solid.”
“Mikhail and I are sitting here with nothing. No information. No idea where to go or who to talk to. If you don’t give me something, then the time we spend until you do will be completely wasted.”
“But what I have might be wrong. If so, your time would be wasted anyway.”
“But it’s a chance,” she said. “If you’re right, it may give us the edge we need. And if you’re wrong, we’re no worse off.”
There was a pause, then, “I don’t have individual names, yet. But there is a pattern.”
“What pattern?”
“Of the six potential groups, one operates out of Prague, and one out of Paris. But the other four all work out of London.”
She let the new information sink in. “And you’re sure it’s one of these groups?”
“I’m not sure about anything,” he said, irritated. “I told you I have nothing solid.”
“Thank you. This helps. Let me know as soon as you have something more.”
“It won’t be for a while, so go back to sleep.”
But she didn’t go back to sleep. Instead she called Mikhail in his room, waking him up.
“Take a shower and get dressed,” she said.
“We’re leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“London.”
The text from Wills said he’d arrive at the Grand Hyatt Hotel between twelve and twelve-thirty. So Quinn and Nate arrived a few minutes before eleven.
The hotel was at the corner of Forty-second Street and Lexington Avenue, midtown Manhattan, its black glass tower standing in stark contrast to the stone edifice of Grand Central Terminal next door.
Quinn and Nate entered through the revolving doors, staggering their entrance so that it didn’t seem like they were together. An escalator took them up to the large open lobby. There, Nate headed toward check-in, while Quinn turned right toward the elevators at the rear of the room.
Though there were many people in the lobby, the size of the room made it seem almost empty. Here and there couples and small groups clustered together, while others sat on the couches and chairs reading or talking or just passing the time.
Each person in the room received either an X or a check in Quinn’s mind. An X meant they could be ignored. A check meant follow-up might be required. By the time he reached the far end of the elevators, he had accumulated twenty-one Xs and two checks.
One of the checks was a woman standing alone off to the left. She was Caucasian, mid-thirties, and had dirty-blonde hair. She was dressed in a gray pantsuit and was holding a briefcase in her left hand. She also seemed to be trying very hard not to look at Quinn.
The second check was for a man seated on a chair near the elevators. He appeared to be around the same age as the woman, but was dressed more casually: dark green polo shirt and blue jeans. What earned him the extra attention was that he had a look that screamed operative. Good shape, hair not too long and not too short, and eyes that took in everything without seeming to do so.
Quinn moved into the seating area and leaned against one of the circular pillars that held up the second-floor atrium. From this position, he could see both the man and the woman. After a few moments, the man picked up a newspaper and started to read. The woman held her position, still not looking at Quinn.