“It’s okay. Don’t force it.”
Wills coughed again, then looked at Quinn as if he was begging for help.
Another wet breath.
Then … nothing.
David Wills was dead. And if he knew the woman who’d killed him or who she worked for, he’d taken that information with him.
Quinn stood up, his gun still pointed at the Russian. Behind her he could see the other woman, the attacker, sprawled out on the grass, her dead eyes staring up at the sky.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“Who are you?” she countered.
In the distance, he could hear sirens heading in their direction.
The Russian lowered her gun and motioned behind her. “You were with her, weren’t you? She is probably one of Palavin’s dogs, and you work for Palavin, too.”
Palavin? That was the name Orlando had mentioned. He hesitated before he spoke. “I don’t work for anyone by that name. But if he’s responsible for David’s death, then maybe you’re the one who works for him.”
The look on her face was utter shock. “What? Of course not. I’m trying to find him. But you know him, don’t you? You must know where he is. Tell me! You have to tell me!”
He could hear the sirens getting louder. As much as he would have liked to place his gun against this woman’s head and find out what she knew, there was no time to pursue it now. He tucked Wills’s gun under his jacket and turned to leave.
“Wait. If you know where he is, please tell me,” the woman pleaded. “I need to know.”
He kept walking, but the woman didn’t give up.
“Leave me alone,” he said.
“Your name’s Quinn, right?” she asked. She glanced back over her shoulder to where Wills’s body lay. “I heard him call you that. I need your help, Quinn. I need to find Palavin.”
“I can’t help you.”
She started to point her gun at him. But he reached out and yanked it from her hand before she even knew what was happening, then shoved her to the ground.
“Get the hell away from me,” he told her.
“I can’t,” she said, pushing herself up and rushing to catch him. “You’re the only lead I have left.” They reached the section of bushes and trees that separated the park from the street. “I’m not leaving until you help me.”
Quinn stopped and turned to her. “I’m not your lead. I’m not anyone’s lead. I can’t help you. You need to get away from me right now, or I’ll—”
“Or you’ll kill me?” she asked, cutting him off. “Then go ahead and kill me.”
Who the hell is this woman?
He stared at her for a moment, then walked down the path toward the street.
The sirens were very near now, and all instincts told Quinn to run the other way. But he knew that the easiest escape route was often toward the police, not away. At least initially. If he could get past them before they’d set up a perimeter, then he’d be in the clear. Most of their focus would be in the direction Quinn had come from, not behind them.
But his biggest problem wasn’t the police. It was the Russian woman. She was still shadowing him, matching him step for step. Then, as he stepped out of the park and onto the street outside Embankment Station, he momentarily forgot about the police and the woman.
What had been a typical busy morning had turned into a madhouse. Instead of several dozen people, there were now several hundred. They were gathered in groups, some small and some large. The biggest of which was near the entrance to the station. At the other end of the street, two police cars and an ambulance were trying to make their way through the crowd, but traveling slowly to avoid hitting anyone. Policemen tried to direct a pathway for an ambulance to drive, pushing people out of its way.
Quinn headed toward the group at the station, tried to blend in. Without even looking, he knew the Russian had pulled in tight behind him.
The crowd had formed a large circle with an open area in the center. A couple of police officers on foot were running toward the gathering.
“Get back!” one of officers shouted, trying to clear a path.
“A little late, if you ask me,” a man near Quinn muttered.
“What happened?” Quinn asked.
“Someone got shot,” he said, nodding toward the clear area in the center of the crowd.
Quinn thanked the man, then worked his way to the front of the crowd.
There was a body on the ground, blood pooling around his torso. Quinn couldn’t see the man’s face, but he didn’t have to. He recognized the hair and the clothes.
It was the man who had been watching the station exit, the man who had been in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt in New York.
Wills’s man.
Quinn looked over his shoulder. The crowd had begun to separate him from the Russian woman. He stepped forward into the clear area and jumped over the dead man’s body.
“Hey!” an officer yelled as he emerged into the center of the circle. “You can’t do that.”
“Sorry,” Quinn said.
Behind him, he could hear the Russian woman fighting through the throng of gawkers. “Excuse me.… Please let me pass.”
Quinn was only feet from the entrance to Embankment Station.
The woman, having guessed his intent, had given up trying to follow him directly, and was heading back out of the crowd. The second she took her eyes off him, Quinn crouched down next to a rubbish can, out of sight. Using the receptacle as cover, he angled himself so that he could see the entrance to the Underground station.
A few seconds later, he watched the Russian rush inside. The moment she disappeared, he stood up and started moving clockwise around the crowd. As he did, he spotted a man getting into a cab just under the train bridge.
It was Mercer. No mistake.
Wills had said Mercer was working for him. So was he Wills’s second watcher? Quinn wondered. Perhaps he had been on the outer perimeter, then had come back to check on his colleague and found him dead in front of the station. If Quinn were in Mercer’s shoes, he would have gotten the hell out of there, too. In fact, he did need to get the hell out of there, right now.
As soon as he cleared the crowd, he headed up the cobbled street back toward Charing Cross. At the end of the block, he tucked himself in between two souvenir kiosks and checked to see if the Russian had followed him. She hadn’t.
Instead of using the Underground, he walked toward Piccadilly Circus. No matter what the weather or the time of day, there was always a crowd there. He could blend in and take the tube to anywhere from there. A few blocks away, his phone vibrated. He checked the caller ID, then pressed Accept.
“I’m in London,” Orlando said. “You got my email, right?”
“I got it.”
She paused. “Is something wrong?”
“Where’s the flat you rented?”
“Quinn, what’s wrong?”
“I’d rather tell you in person.”
“You’re here?”
“Yeah.”
She rattled off an address on Charlotte Street in Soho. “You know where that is?”
“I know the area,” he said. He was only a ten-minute walk away.
“Okay, then I’ll see you soon.”
“Not soon enough.”
“WILLS IS DEAD?” MIKHAIL SOUNDED LIKE HE almost expected it.
“Killed right in front of me,” Petra said into her phone. “I tried to stop the shooter, but she got him before I could.”
“Who was she?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. We need to concentrate on finding Quinn.” Petra had heard Wills speak the name into his phone. Then she had heard him rasp it again when the body snatcher, Quinn, had tried to comfort the dying man.
“Who is Quinn?”
“The body snatcher,” she said. “The one I saw in Los Angeles. He was there, too. When I spoke the Ghost’s name, I could tell he had heard it before. He knows, Mikhail. We just need to fi
nd him, and convince him to tell us.”
“But where would we look? If he wants to stay lost, he sounds like the kind of man who can do it. Today might have been our only chance.” He paused. “You had him, Petra.”
“I know,” she whispered.
Mikhail took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay. I should have done more.”
“No. You did what you could. I couldn’t have done any better. But the question is still, what do we do now?”
Neither of them said anything for several seconds.
“What about Stepka?” Mikhail said. “We have a name now. Maybe he can help.”
“I’ve already given him Quinn’s name and description,” she said. “I guess the only thing we can do is wait. Let’s meet back at the apartment.”
“Okay.” The defeat in Mikhail’s voice was palpable.
“We’re almost there,” she reassured him. “We know Quinn has information that will help. We’ll be able to see this through to the end.”
“Perhaps.” Mikhail didn’t sound as optimistic.
“We’re going to find the Ghost, Mikhail. We’re going make him pay for what he did.”
Petra kept scanning the crowds the entire way back to Bayswater. She knew she was hoping for the impossible, but if there was even the smallest of chances that she’d spot Quinn, she couldn’t afford to relax.
But he wasn’t on any of the trains, nor the platforms, nor the streets. The only thing she could hold on to was the fact that he was in the city.
Mikhail had not yet arrived when she got back to the apartment. So she checked in with Stepka.
“In the right circles, your new friend is something of a legend,” Stepka told her.
“How so?”
“First, we should make sure we’re talking about the same person. Do you have your computer?”
“Yes,” she said, glancing at the bag that held her laptop.
“I’ve sent you a picture.”
Petra switched her phone to speaker mode, retrieved her computer, and booted it up. She then opened the browser and logged on to her email. Stepka’s message was in her inbox. She opened the attached picture. It wasn’t a photograph, but a drawing. It looked very much, but not exactly, like Quinn.
“What is this?” she asked.
“A police sketch from New York City. The man in the drawing was wanted for a murder earlier this year.”
“They were looking for Quinn?”
“They stopped searching for him when another suspect turned up. The question is, is he the same man you’re looking for?”
She looked at the picture again. “It’s not quite right, but yes, this is him.”
“Okay, then this is what I’ve got,” he said.
She heard a key slip into the lock on the front door. “Hold on.” She waited for Mikhail to enter, then said, “Stepka dug up information about Quinn.” She pointed at the computer screen where the drawing was still up. While Mikhail took a look, she told Stepka to go on.
“The man’s name is Jonathan Quinn. He’s a freelance cleaner, not associated with a specific organization. His reputation is stellar. He gets the job done. My contacts could not recommend him higher. Says he has a bit of an ethical streak, so if he doesn’t think you’re on the up-and-up, he’ll refuse the job.”
“Then, why would he be working on the jobs in Los Angeles and Maine?”
“Every job has many angles. What’s ethical to one may not be ethical to another.”
“Or maybe he’s been lied to.”
“Also a possibility. But you should know my contact did say that Quinn is not one to mess with. He’s not above leaving a body for someone else to clean up.”
Petra let it all sink in for a moment. “Anything else?”
“That’s not enough?”
“No, it’s fine. Thank you.” She hung up the phone.
“We can print out copies of the sketch,” Mikhail said. “Then we can make the rounds and see if any of our people have seen him.”
“Good idea,” she said, nodding.
She felt like they were clinging to their last bit of hope. But at least it was hope.
CHARLOTTE STREET WAS IN ONE OF THOSE quaint London neighborhoods that made tourists wish they lived in the city. Its centerpiece was the Charlotte Street Hotel. Combining an older London façade with a contemporary, warm interior, the hotel was an upscale place that didn’t make you feel like you had to be wearing a tuxedo just to use the elevator. Quinn had been inside once before. Not as a guest. On a job. And though he had had little time to look around, what he saw of the place as he removed a body from an upstairs suite had impressed him.
Quinn spent thirty minutes walking the rest of the street, checking alternative routes in and out, and reacquainting himself with the neighborhood. Besides the hotel, Charlotte Street was lined with four- and five-story buildings with offices and flats on the upper floors, restaurants and shops on the ground level.
Cars were parked in most of the available spots, but actual traffic was light due to the way this part of Soho was laid out. Charlotte Street was a one-way road ending at Percy Street, where traffic that needed to continue south would have to go west first, then turn left on Rathbone Place. To make things even more confusing, the northern section of Rathbone took a jog to the west before heading north again and paralleling Charlotte. Quinn considered the complicated layout an asset; in his business, the more escape options, the better.
Once he was satisfied, he sat at a table outside a coffee shop a half block away. He’d ordered a cup of the house blend, black, but he had yet to take a sip when the cab carrying Orlando arrived.
As she got out, she subtly scanned the neighborhood, then pulled her bag out of the back seat and tipped the cabbie. The moment he drove off, she retrieved her cell phone. Quinn’s own phone was sitting on the table. He picked it up just as it started to ring.
“You here?” she asked.
“Just having a coffee down the street.”
“Caffè Nero?” As always, she had researched where she was going. Quinn guessed she probably knew the names of all the businesses in the area.
“Like you didn’t know that already.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She picked up her bag with her free hand. “Bring me a latte.”
The flat was on the second floor. The door was open a crack, so Quinn nudged it with his hip and stepped across the threshold. Orlando stood just inside, looking fresh despite the transatlantic flight. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was wearing a pair of glasses, rectangular in shape and framed in blood-red plastic.
She looked at him for a moment, then reached up and touched his face.
The warmth of her skin temporarily pushed away all thoughts of Wills’s death, of the Russian woman, of the danger facing both his sister and his mother. He leaned forward and kissed her with more love and tenderness than he’d ever felt for anyone else in his life.
She moved into him, her body pressing against his, letting him know she was there, that she loved him, too.
“Come inside,” she whispered. “Unless you want to give the neighbors a show.”
He smiled again, then stepped into the apartment, Orlando closing the door behind him.
“Is that my coffee?” she asked.
Quinn had almost forgotten he’d been holding the cup. But even as he’d been hugging her, he’d kept it upright, spilling nothing.
“Thanks,” she said as he handed it to her.
She raised it to her mouth, testing its temperature. When she seemed satisfied, she took a drink. As she did, Quinn plopped down on a chair in the living room and took a look around.
Besides the utilitarian armchair he was in, there was a well-worn couch, two cloth-covered cubes that served as either ottomans or coffee tables, and a shelving unit with a TV and various knickknacks spread around. As far as exits, other than the front door, there were two: a hallway to the le
ft, and a doorway leading to a small kitchen on the right.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Orlando asked.
He did another scan of the room.
She sat on the couch. “You’re stalling.”
“I’m not stalling. I’m trying to get my thoughts in order.”
“You’ve had thirty minutes to get them in order while you waited for me.”
“Wills is dead.”
Ever the pro, there was no change in her expression. “What happened?”
“Shot. This morning.”
“You know this for sure?”
“I was kneeling next to him when he died.” He told her about the assassin, Wills’s attempted last words, and finally the Russian.
“That’s not all,” he said.
“There’s more?”
“She mentioned the name Palavin,” he said. “She thought I knew where he was, and demanded I tell her.”
“Did she say why she was looking for him?”
Quinn shook his head. “I didn’t have a lot of time to press the point. But I don’t think she wanted to use the information to drop in for tea. She doesn’t like him. And by ‘not like’ I meant she seems to hate him.” He paused. “I know I told you to put him on the back burner, but maybe you should see what else you can find out about him.”
“Absolutely.”
“There was something else,” Quinn said. “Mercer was there, too. He was getting into a cab on the street near where Wills’s man had been shot.”
“Mercer? The guy from Maine?”
“According to Wills, Mercer was working directly for him. He’d also been on the Los Angeles gig. He must have been part of Wills’s protection.”
“Didn’t do a very good job,” she said.
“No, he didn’t.”
She mulled it over, then said, “What about the woman? You sure you lost her? No chance she followed you here?”
Quinn frowned. It was a question he’d often asked, usually of Nate. “No one followed me.”
“Let’s step back. Why were you meeting with Wills in the first place?”
There was so much she’d missed while she’d been getting Quinn’s mom settled, then flying to Europe. Quinn explained to her what had happened in Paris, and about the photo Julien had shown him that had to have been taken by Annabel Taplin.
The Silenced Page 18
