The Collected Page 4

  It was Orlando who had suggested he try it when they were still in Thailand, mentioning how it would help improve his mobility.

  “Plus, you’re not getting any younger,” she’d added. “The less stress you put on your body, the longer it’ll last.”

  “Thanks,” he said sarcastically. He wasn’t even forty yet, but truth be told, he could see the birthday in the not-too-distant future.

  “Seriously, you’ve got to think about these things,” she told him. “I do.”

  “You do? For me or for you?”

  She gave him one of her patented blank stares. “Me? No. I’m not as old as you are.”

  While they were staying at the temple in Thailand, Quinn had taken a boat up the Chao Phraya River every day to a hotel that allowed him to use its pool. Upon returning to the States three weeks earlier, he’d joined a gym with a lap pool not too far from Orlando’s house.

  Enrolling there had been a strange step for him. The last time he’d belonged to a public gym was during his time as a rookie cop back in Phoenix. Since then, the only time he shared his workout space with people he didn’t know was at the occasional hotel while he was on a project. Going back to the same place nearly every day, seeing the same people on the treadmills and weight machines and in the pool made him feel exposed, like he was creating a habit that could be a problem later.

  In his business, habits could be dangerous, but the draw of the water was enough to keep him coming back. That, and the fact he wasn’t even sure he was in the business anymore.

  He reached the end of the length, executed another flip turn, and headed back for the second half of the lap.

  Forty-nine, forty-nine, forty-nine, he told himself, so he wouldn’t forget which one he was on, then let his mind return to what he’d been thinking about—the business and his place in it. It was the same topic he’d considered the day before, and the day before that, and the weeks before that.

  For years he’d been one of the best cleaners in the espionage world, the person in-the-know clients would go to when a body needed to disappear. Quinn was efficient, discreet, and reliable, with a highly developed ability to see details where others would see nothing. Using him on a job was as close as possible to a guarantee that there would be no blowback.

  A year ago, he’d occasionally wondered how long he’d be able to keep doing the job, but hadn’t given it any serious thought. A lot had happened since then, most notably his mother and sister being targeted because of the man he’d become. He’d been able to keep them from harm, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been severely shaken by the events, or ashamed of his own arrogance at thinking he’d built adequate barriers to keep them safe.

  The months in Thailand—despite the interruption of having to deal with an old job that had flared back to life, and getting shot in the process—had helped him work through those feelings, and learn how to live with them.

  That was all fine and good, and a necessary step, but what they hadn’t done was help him decide what was next. Should he leave the business completely? He had more than enough money to retire on and live the rest of his life with Orlando and her son Garrett without worry. Or should he jump back in? Do what he had been good at? What he knew he was still good at? Was he ready to just stop? And if he wasn’t, what about his family? Would they ever be in danger again?

  He knew it should be easy to walk away, but it wasn’t.

  It also wasn’t easy to stay.

  Another flip turn.

  Fifty, fifty, fifty.

  __________

  QUINN SHOWERED, TOWELED off, and headed over to his locker.

  As he was dressing, his phone vibrated once. He pulled it out and saw that someone had called while he was in the pool. The surprising part was who.

  Liz.

  His relationship with his sister was still a work in progress. There were years of damage yet to be undone, all of which were Quinn’s fault. Things were improving, but, until now, they had not reached the point where she would call him. It was always the other way around. The times when she did want to reach him, it was either via email, text, or she would call Orlando.

  He navigated to his voice mail and pressed the link to her message.

  “Call me as soon as you get this. I don’t know if I’m just overreacting, or there’s a problem, but—” A pause. “Just call me.”

  There was no missing the panic in her voice.

  Quinn hurriedly pulled on the rest of his clothes, and made his way to the exit. As soon as he stepped outside, he called his sister back.

  “Jake?” she said, answering before the first ring was complete.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “I, I don’t know. Um, uh…”

  “Slow down. Take a breath. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “It’s Nate. I think he might be missing.”

  Quinn paused on the sidewalk. “Why do you think that?”

  “I can’t find him.”

  He closed his eyes, and grimaced. Every since it became clear the relationship between Liz and Nate was more than a fling, he’d been worried something like this was going to happen. Nate’s work meant there would be times he wouldn’t be reachable. It was the nature of the job, and Quinn was sure there was no way Liz could fully understand that, and would at some point feel hurt because of it.

  “Liz, it’s probably nothing,” he said. “Sometimes projects take a bit longer than expected, that’s all. I’m sure he’ll call you as soon as he can.”

  “No. You don’t understand. He was supposed to meet me. He didn’t show up.”

  Quinn cocked his head, surprised. “Meet you? Where?”

  “Los Angeles. I flew in a couple hours ago.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’m in your house. He’s not here, Jake. I don’t think he’s been here for days.”

  “And you were supposed to meet him?”

  “Yes,” she said, annoyed. “We’ve been planning this for weeks. He’s the one who flew me out. He was supposed to pick me up at the airport, but he wasn’t there. So I came here, and he’s not here, either.”

  Quinn started heading toward Orlando’s again, walking quickly at first, then breaking into a run. “You tried calling him?”

  “Half a dozen times. Straight to voice mail. What’s going on? Where could he be?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him in a while. Look, Liz, sit tight, okay? It’s probably nothing. Let me see what I can find out, and I’ll call you back.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as I know something.”

  He could hear her breathing rapidly on the other end. “What could have happened? Do you think…do you think…”

  “I don’t think anything,” he said, knowing where her mind must be going. “Just relax, okay? I’ll call you soon. I promise.”

  He thought he heard her say something, but it was low and unintelligible, then she hung up.

  Without breaking stride, he called Orlando.

  “Hey,” she said. “You all—”

  “I just talked Liz.”

  Orlando’s light tone disappeared. “What’s going on?”

  “She was supposed to meet Nate in Los Angeles today.”

  “Yeah, I know. She emailed me a couple days ago. Said they might come up here next week.”

  She had failed to share that information with Quinn, but that wasn’t surprising. “He didn’t show up.”

  “What?”

  “He didn’t meet her at the airport and he’s not at home, either. She thinks he’s missing.”

  “He’s probably just stuck on a job.”

  “Probably, but…”

  They were both silent for a moment before Orlando said, “But he would have at least let her know.”

  “Yeah. Listen, I’ll be there in a few minutes, but can you—”

  “Make some calls? Not while I’m talking to you.”

  The line went dead.

  __________<
br />
  QUINN SPRINTED THE rest of the way back to Orlando’s place, and yanked open the front door. Mrs. Vu was standing at the entrance table, sorting the mail. She whirled around, gasping in shock as he entered.

  “Sorry,” Quinn said. “Where is she?”

  The old Vietnamese woman hesitated only a moment before pointing up the stairs. “In office.” As Quinn started across the foyer, she pointed at his feet. “Shoes. Shoes.”

  He ignored her, and ran to the stairs.

  “Shoes!” she called after him.

  He paused halfway up, just long enough to pull each shoe off, then continued to the second floor. Behind him he could hear Mrs. Vu scoff. She and her husband took care of the house and helped with Garrett. Undoubtedly, she was already heading for the vacuum, and would have the stairs spotless in a matter of minutes.

  Orlando’s office was located at the front of the house. Quinn skirted around the top of the banister, and raced over to the open door. She was sitting at her desk, her phone to her ear. Looking up, she raised a finger, telling him to hold on.

  “Uh-huh…Yeah, I understand…Thanks. I appreciate it.” She hung up, and said to Quinn, “Isaac Parker.”

  Parker was a middleman, a job broker who put together projects for clients who wanted to maintain distance from the actual work.

  “And?”

  “Nate’s not working for him.”

  “Have you reached anyone else?”

  “Two others. Simmons and Van Dorn. Was going to try Tan—” She paused. “What am I thinking? Daeng.”

  “What about Daeng?” Quinn asked.

  “Nate’s been using him a lot lately.”

  “He has? How do you know that?”

  “Someone had to keep an eye on things here when you were doing your soul searching.”

  “You were there with me.”

  “Yeah,” she said, lifting the corner of her laptop. “And there’s this little thing called the Internet. Perhaps you’re familiar with it.”

  He tried to keep from glaring at her as he pulled out his cell and selected Daeng’s number.

  Three rings, then a sleepy, “Hello?”

  “Daeng? It’s Quinn.”

  “Kind of early to be calling, don’t you think?”

  Quinn glanced at his watch. It was four-twenty in the afternoon. “Depends on where you are.”

  “Everything depends on where you are.” Daeng let out a long yawn. “It’s all right. I needed to get up anyway.”

  “Are you back in Bangkok?”

  “Yeah.”

  Quinn did a quick time calculation. It would be six twenty a.m. there. “Nate wouldn’t happen to be with you, would he?”

  “Nate? No. Why would he be here?”

  “Haven’t you two been working together?”

  “Yeah, but I had to come home to deal with something.”

  “So you’re not helping him on a job right now.”

  “No, I’m not. What’s going on?”

  Quinn filled him in. “It’s only been a few hours, so it’s possible he’s just tied up, but it’s not like him to let Liz arrive without getting word to her that he wouldn’t be there.”

  Daeng was silent.

  “Are you still there?” Quinn asked.

  “Yeah. I was just thinking.”

  When Daeng didn’t continue, Quinn said, “Thinking what?”

  Daeng hesitated, then said, “Not important.”

  Quinn let the silence hang for a moment. “When did you leave L.A.?”

  “Five days ago.”

  “Do you know if he was going to be working on a job while you were gone?”

  “Yeah. He had something lined up.”

  “Who hired him?”

  “He didn’t tell me. The gig came in after I booked my flight, so he knew I wouldn’t be helping him.”

  Which meant Nate’s ethics would keep him from sharing the information, a habit Quinn himself had drilled into his former apprentice.

  “Any idea who he got to replace you?”

  “He was making some calls, but not having any luck at the time. He did say the broker offered to set him up with someone if he couldn’t find anyone.”

  “He said a broker? Not a client direct hire.”

  “He said broker.”

  “Okay, that’s something. Can you think of anything else?”

  Daeng said nothing for several seconds. “No. That’s it as far as I can remember.”

  “Thanks. If you do come up with something, call me,” Quinn said. “Doesn’t matter what time.”

  “I will.”

  Quinn hung up, and looked at Orlando. “Not Daeng. But Nate did have a job set up through a broker. That’ll narrow things a bit.”

  She nodded without looking up from her laptop. After a moment, the printer whirled to life and spit out two sheets of paper. Once it was done, she closed her computer and stood up.

  “All right, we’d better hurry,” she said.

  She handed him one of the printed pieces of paper. As often happened, they were on the same wavelength again.

  In his hand was one of two tickets for a flight to Los Angeles.

  CHAPTER 7

  BANGKOK, THAILAND

  WHAT DAENG HADN’T told Quinn was that the thing he’d come home to deal with turned out to be nothing. The message he’d received from Ton a week earlier had concerned a Burmese refugee kid, one Daeng had personally helped get onto the right path. According to the note, the boy had been arrested by the Bangkok police for drug trafficking, an offense punishable by death.

  When Daeng couldn’t get ahold of Ton right away to get more details, he had caught a flight home the next day, knowing the arrest had to be some kind of mistake because there was no way the kid would get mixed up in something like that. And he was right. Only it wasn’t the police who’d made the mistake, it was Ton. The kid was not in jail and had no idea what Daeng was talking about when Daeng tracked him down.

  Relieved but frustrated, Daeng had called Ton to try to figure out where the miscommunication had occurred, but Ton was still not answering his phone. Daeng had then checked around and learned that the man had gone northeast to Issan to visit family. That didn’t explain why he wasn’t answering his mobile, though. As a member of Daeng’s loose organization of misfits, Ton was expected to have his phone on him at all times. Not about to travel out to the countryside himself, Daeng wasn’t going to do much about it until Ton called him back.

  Over the following few days, Daeng had become so preoccupied with checking in on his network of people and businesses, and making sure everything was still running smoothly, that he’d shoved all thoughts about Ton to the far reaches of his mind. He knew they’d get things cleared up soon enough.

  Maybe that had been a mistake.

  He headed into the bathroom with his mobile phone, turned on the speaker function, and tried Ton once more. As the line began to ring, he applied shaving cream to his face. Receiving no response, he punched DISCONNECT, finished his shave, and jumped in the shower.

  In less than five minutes, he was dressed and making another call as he walked through the house.

  This time the line was answered with a grunt.

  “Yai, wake up,” Daeng said.

  Another grunt.

  “Come on. I need you.”

  “Who is this?” Yai asked, his voice a slur.

  “Who do you think it is?”

  There was a rustle on the other end. “Daeng? Sorry. It’s kind of early, you know?”

  “Yeah, and I’m already up and dressed.”

  “Oh…um…what’s going on?”

  “When was the last time you talked to Ton?”

  “Ton?” Yai seemed confused for a moment. “Little Ton? Or Big Ton?”

  “Little.”

  “Uh, I don’t know.” Yai paused for a moment. “Well, he did tell me he was going away.”

  “When was this?

  “If you hold on, I can check the time on his text.�
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  “Wait, he told you by text? Not on the phone or in person?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When was the last time you actually talked to him?”

  Another few seconds of silence. “Maybe a week ago. It was a Friday, I think.”

  “Did he say anything about visiting his family then?”

  “No. Not that I remember. Why?”

  “Have you tried calling him since?”

  Daeng could almost hear Yai shake his head. “I didn’t have any reason to.”

  “What about a number for his family in Issan? Do you have one?”

  “He should have his mobile. Just call that.”

  “I have called his mobile. He’s not answering. But I need to talk to him now.”

  “Okay, okay. Um, let me think.” Yai fell silent for several seconds. “Dom might know. She’s been hanging out with him on and off for a while now.”

  “Get ahold of her. Tell her to call me.”

  “Sure, of course.” A pause. “You want me to do that now?”

  “Yes,” Daeng said. “Now.”

  While he waited for the girl to call him, he cut up a mango, and started to eat it. Two slices in, his phone rang, only it wasn’t Dom. It was Yai again.

  “She’s not answering,” Yai said.

  “You tried more than once?”

  “Yeah. Three times. Maybe she sleeps deeper than I do.”

  Maybe, Daeng thought. Then again…

  “You know where Ton lives, right?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Yai said.

  “Meet me there in twenty minutes.”

  “It’s going to take me a little more than—”

  Daeng hung up.

  __________

  TON LIVED IN the rooftop apartment of a building near Silom. Yai was waiting out front when Daeng’s taxi pulled to the curb.

  “You go up yet?” Daeng asked.

  Yai shook his head. “Just got here.”

  “Come on, then.”

  They went inside and took the scuffed-up elevator to the seventh floor. From there, they had to climb the stairs one more flight to Ton’s place—a four-room structure built right in the middle of the roof. It had a wide wooden patio at the front, and a jumbled storage area behind.