Off the Clock (jonathan quinn thriller)

by Brett Battles

  Less than ninety seconds later, he had disabled the phone service, and set up a loop that would make the security firm monitoring the house think that everything was fine. Now, if the alarm did go off, the only thing he’d have to worry about was Nick’s neighbors hearing it. But Quinn wasn’t planning on having it go off.

  Back on the ground, he donned his backpack again and headed over to the sliding glass door that led from the house to the backyard. It would be the easiest way in. While he knew there would be an alarm contact along the jamb where the door met the frame, there was nothing monitoring the glass itself.

  Using a suction holder in one hand and a glass cutter in the other, Quinn cut a large oval out of the door, set it carefully on the grass, and stepped inside.

  There was an alarm panel a few feet to the left of the door. All the indicator lights were glowing green, and displayed on the tiny screen at the top were the words: HOUSE SECURE. He’d deal with the alarm later. His immediate goal was to discover Nick’s location.

  He checked all the rooms on the first floor: kitchen, dining room, living room, two bathrooms, and a den. As expected, no one was in any of them. Upstairs he found four bedrooms, and a common bathroom. The asshole was in the master bedroom at the end of the hall, snoring away. Quinn was pleased to see he was alone.

  Quinn spotted a cell phone on the nightstand next to the bed. He silently walked over, and put it in his pocket. Carefully, he then pulled out the nightstand drawer. Lying on the bottom was a little plastic box that looked kind of like a thin garage door opener. This was the alarm system panic button. Quinn slipped it in his pocket with the phone.

  He thought it was probably a good bet the guy had a weapon stashed away somewhere close. His kind always did. It took Quinn less than a minute to find a Beretta in a box, under the nightstand on the opposite side of the bed. Instead of taking it, Quinn removed the bullets from the magazine and the chamber, made sure there were no other ones in the box, then put the pistol back.

  Quietly, he moved back into the hallway, and began a more thorough search of the house. The downstairs den proved to be the jackpot.

  Quinn had to admit that when he first saw the guy at the restaurant, and was told by Natt that Nick was a “bad man,” he’d assumed Nick lived in a one-bedroom apartment somewhere, probably in Hollywood, worked as a salesman at an electronics store or someplace similar, and spent his free time trolling the Internet or hassling women like Ice.

  The first crack in that theory had been when Nick drove off in the Mercedes. The second had been the house itself. By then, Quinn’s theory had evolved into Nick having a trust fund and living off the money of others. It turned out he was both right and wrong.

  Not a trust fund. A wife.

  Dr. Carol Meyers. She was apparently some kind of vascular specialist. There were plenty of diplomas and certificates of honor and the like hanging on the den’s walls. There were also pictures. Quinn assumed the woman in each was Dr. Meyers. Nick was in many of them, too, smiling beside her. The others in the shots were probably dignitaries. There was even one or two Quinn recognized.

  He sat down at the desk and woke up the computer, pleased to see there was no security screen he’d have to hack. He wasn’t the best computer wiz in the world, but simple civilian password protection? Easy.

  He opened the calendar first and noted that Dr. Meyers seemed to be on the road a lot. Before he got too far, he found a pad of paper in a drawer, ripped off the top sheet, and started jotting down pertinent dates, account numbers, the doctor’s cell phone number and email address, and anything else he thought might be of use.

  According to the calendar, Nick’s wife was nearing the end of a trip that had kept her away for two weeks. Which meant she’d been gone the night Ice found the doctor’s husband nude and in her small apartment kitchen, cooking her dinner. According to Natt, he didn’t touch Ice that night, telling her they still needed to get to know each other before they could be intimate. That was the word Natt used. She said she and Ice could only guess what it meant at first, and had to ask an American friend to confirm it. Since the night of Nick’s visit, Ice had stayed at Natt’s place, not once going back after she had left.

  Quinn didn’t ask Natt why her friend hadn’t called the police. He knew Ice was in the country on a student visa and was taking language classes down on Wilshire Boulevard. But a student visa meant she wasn’t supposed to be working. She was probably worried that if she called the police, they would find out somehow, kick her out of the country, and do nothing about her stalker.

  Whether that would have actually happened didn’t matter. It’s what Ice believed.

  Quinn heard footsteps in the upstairs hallway. He reached into his backpack, pulled out a black stocking cap, and pulled it over his head until the built-in mask covered his face. This was his hometown, after all, no sense in taking any chances of being identified. He then continued looking through the computer.

  In the Recently Viewed list of the machine’s photo software, he found several files that didn’t seem to link to anything on the hard drive. He leaned back and thought for a second, then gave the room another look. He identified eleven spots that would be decent-to-excellent hiding places. The five best he discounted as ones Nick would have never thought of, then began checking the other six.

  He found the small, portable drive in the fourth spot, tucked inside a folding chess set sitting on top of a bookcase. As he inserted the drive into the computer, he could hear the careful steps upstairs retreating to the bedroom. It wouldn’t be long now, he knew.

  The drive was password protected. Not a surprise. Fortunately, the software used was the weak, off-the-shelf variety. Something more robust might have been beyond Quinn’s abilities, but this he could hack into in his sleep.

  The drive’s directory opened as the steps returned and headed slowly down the stairs. There were two dozen folders, but only one — marked “Old Reports”—contained actual files. Forty-three to be exact. Quinn opened them all together, then the muscles across his cheeks tensed, and his eyes narrowed.

  Nick was the only one in the pictures. They appeared to be taken in bedrooms, no two the same. The bed, fully made, was always behind him, and he was always nude. None were taken in Nick and his wife’s house. From the way they were composed, Quinn guessed they were self-timed shots, taken before whoever lived in the home knew Nick was paying them a visit.

  So Ice wasn’t his first.

  Quinn thought it was a pretty good guess, though, that the others were women who’d balk at calling the police, too. Immigrants or others in compromising positions. He quickly accessed one of his anonymous servers over the Internet and began uploading the files.

  He was watching the status bar when Nick rushed through the door, his gun held out in front of him.

  “Don’t move!” Nick shouted.

  Quinn stared at him a moment, then returned his gaze to the computer. “You going to shoot me?”

  “What are you doing in my house?”

  “Checking a few things.”

  Quinn’s obvious distain seemed to confuse Nick. He hesitated, then said, “Get away from my computer.”

  Quinn held up a finger, still looking at the screen. “Hold on.”

  “Get away from my computer!”

  Quinn held his position. A few more seconds passed, then the computer dinged.

  “There. Done,” Quinn said as he smiled and leaned back. “What was it you wanted?”

  “What did you just do?”

  “Copy some files.”

  Nick’s face started to turn red. “What files?”

  “A few old reports.”

  “I’m calling the po—” He stopped in mid-sentence, the reality of what Quinn just said sinking in. “What old reports?”

  “Didn’t you say you were going to call the police?”

  “What old reports?”

  Quinn stood up.

  “Stay where you are!” Nick told him.

&n
bsp; Quinn moved around the desk, forcing Nick to back toward the door.

  “Stop!” Nick shouted as he wrapped both hands around the gun.

  “That’s good,” Quinn told him, not doing what he was told. “Get a steadier shot that way.”

  “Don’t think I won’t pull the trigger.”

  Quinn kept coming forward until he was just a few feet beyond Nick’s reach, then finally halted. “Then do it.”

  Nick looked at him, his eyes wide and scared, his nose flaring with each breath.

  “You’re brave enough to break into women’s homes and make yourself comfortable,” Quinn said. “Here, in your own place, pulling the trigger should be a snap.”

  Nick’s mouth dropped open. “Wha…wha…what did you say?”

  Quinn’s hands shot forward, grabbed the gun, and twisted it out of Nick’s grasp before the guy even knew what was going on. Two steps forward and Quinn was standing nearly chest to chest with Nick, the muzzle of the gun now pressed against Nick’s temple.

  “Should we see if I’m willing to take the shot?” Quinn asked.

  “No,” Nick said, trembling.

  “Good.”

  Quinn paused for a moment. He had been thinking a nice, intimidating chat would keep Nick from paying Ice a return visit. The pictures changed everything. These unclothed visits were obviously a pattern, something not easily broken no matter how much Nick might promise never to do it again. Something that, if it hadn’t happened yet, would one day cross into a potentially deadly area.

  Quinn pulled the gun away, flipped it around in his hand, then whacked it solidly against the side of Nick’s face.

  * * *

  “Hey! Hey! Help! I need help!”

  The asshole’s screams meant he’d finally regained consciousness.

  “Help!” Nick yelled again, repeating it over and over.

  Quinn waited for the last item to finish printing from the computer, then carried the small stack of papers through the house to the central bathroom.

  Nick was right where Quinn had left him — standing in the shower, his hands bound together with duct tape and secured over the top of the shower nozzle. Quinn had stripped him down to his underwear and wrapped his ankles together, too.

  As soon as Nick saw Quinn, he stopped yelling and squirmed against the wall as if he were trying to push himself through the tiles.

  “How you doing, Nicky?” Quinn said.

  “What do you want?” Nick asked, terror oozing out of every pore. “Money? I don’t have a lot of cash in the house, but you can have my ATM card. I’ll give you the code. Or take anything you want. Okay? I won’t call the police, I swear.”

  Quinn stared at him blankly for a moment. “Are you done?”

  “What do you want?”

  Quinn turned away from him and set the stack of papers on the sink counter, then one by one began taping them to the mirror. These were the ten best shots — if you could call them that — of Nick’s trophy photos. The eleventh printout was a photo of Nick and his wife.

  “Does Dr. Meyers know about your hobby?”

  The shock in the man’s eyes confirmed that she didn’t.

  “Well,” Quinn said, “she’s going to now.”

  “No,” Nick blurted out. “Please. I promise…I promise I won’t do it again.”

  “Save your breath. I know you won’t.”

  Nick looked confused. “Okay, um, then, uh, then there’s no problem, right? You’ll just let me go, and won’t tell my wife. Yes?”

  “Sure, Nick. That sounds like a great idea. Then in a couple weeks you’ll convince yourself that I was just here to scare you, and won’t be coming back. You’ll start up again right where you left off. The problem with that is, I would come back. And I would be as mad at myself for giving you a break as I would be at you. So, I figure, why not do now what I would have to do then?”

  “What do you mean, ‘have to do then’?”

  Quinn smiled sympathetically. “I’m not here to scare you. I’m here to take care of the problem.”

  He walked out of the room.

  “Wait!” Nick called out. “What does that mean?”

  Quinn didn’t answer.

  “Hey! What does that mean?”

  Back in the den, Quinn printed out the last item, then removed the thumb drive and slipped it into his pocket. In the kitchen, he helped himself to a bottle of water, and leaned against the counter, waiting.

  Forty-two minutes later, just a little over an hour after he’d made his calls, his phone buzzed with a text.

  2 minutes away

  He took another sip of the water, then headed for the front door. The first thing he’d done after Nick had fallen unconscious on the den floor was to completely disable the alarm. So opening the front door now was not an issue.

  He crossed the yard to the Mercedes and used Nick’s keys to unlock it. Inside he found a remote, pushed the button, then watched as the gate across the driveway swung open.

  Thirty-seconds later a van pulled in. There were no windows along the sides, only a large logo advertising a local plumber who didn’t exist.

  Steve Howard and Ivan Donahue climbed out of the front. Quinn had worked with both of them several times in the past. When he’d called to tell them he had a little off-the-clock work for them, neither had even hesitated to say they were in.

  They nodded their hellos, but everyone remained quiet until they were inside.

  “Hey! You can’t leave me like this!” Nick yelled from the back as Quinn closed the front door.

  “I take it that’s the package,” Howard said.

  Quinn nodded. “You have the stuff?”

  Howard pulled a plastic box from his pocket, and handed it to Quinn.

  “Come on. I’ll introduce you,” Quinn said. He led them to the bathroom. “Gentlemen, this is Nick Meyers.”

  “What the hell?” Nick said, his eyes growing as wide as they could go at the sight of the two new arrivals. “Jesus. Please, just let me go.”

  Howard and Donahue took a quick look, and both noticed the pictures on the bathroom mirror.

  “Whoa, dude,” Donahue said. “Not your best angle.”

  “I take it his visits to these places were not exactly welcome,” Howard said.

  “No, they weren’t,” Quinn confirmed. “And these aren’t all of them.”

  Howard looked back at Nick. “You’re a sick son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

  “What are you guys going to do to me?” Nick asked.

  “Go ahead and cut him down,” Quinn said to Howard. “I’ll be right back.”

  He returned to the den, grabbed a pen off the desk, and retrieved the final printout from the printer. When he got back to the bathroom, Nick was sitting on the closed toilet lid, his wrists and ankles still restrained.

  Quinn set the printout on the counter. “You’re going to sign this,” he told Nick, then held the pen out to him.

  “What is it?” Nick asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  Nick’s gaze flicked from Quinn to the other men and back, then he took the pen awkwardly in his hand. “I don’t know if I can write like this,” he said. “Maybe if you take this tape off.”

  “I think you’ll do just fine.”

  Donahue heaved Nick to his feet and helped him get to the counter. The printout was a letter to Nick’s wife.

  Carol,

  By now you’ve seen the pictures, so there is no need to explain why I left. You don’t have to worry about me coming back, either. I won’t. The only thing I’m taking with me is some clothes. I’m sorry. I’m very sick, and can no longer pretend that I am not. The last thing I want is to hurt you any further. You will never hear from me again. I promise you that.

  Nick read the letter, then looked at Quinn. “You’re going to show her the pictures?”

  “No,” Quinn said. “You are. I was never here. Now sign it.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m not going to—”
r />   Quinn pulled Nick’s gun out of his jacket pocket. “Sign it.”

  Looking like he was about to cry, Nick signed the letter.

  “Good,” Quinn said.

  He took a piece of tape from the dispenser he’d brought in for the pictures, and hung the letter on the mirror below the gallery of Nick’s exploits. He then removed the picture of Nick and his wife, folded it, and put it in his pocket. The doctor probably wouldn’t want a visual reminder of her mistake hanging there with the other shots.

  “Time to go,” Quinn said.

  “Go where? Where are you taking me?” Nick asked.

  “Away.”

  Quinn opened the box Howard had given him. Inside was a preloaded hypodermic.

  Nick seemed to be stunned into silence.

  “This is a little something we call IRBD,” Quinn said.

  “No. Please. I’ll do whatever—”

  “That’s short for ‘I’d Rather Be Dead,’ ” Quinn went on. “See, this is going to paralyze you for the next thirty-six hours. During that time, you’ll be aware of everything that’s going on, but unable to do anything about it. The unfortunate side effect is, you’ll permanently lose your voice.”

  “Oh God! Why?”

  “It’ll make traveling a little easier for you.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Someplace where others will deal with you.”

  Before Nick could say another word, Quinn plunged the needle into his arm. After that, it was only a few seconds before the drug took effect.

  * * *

  For the second night in a row, Quinn went to Taste of Siam for dinner. This time, when he came in, Natt eyed him warily from the bar.

  “Sawadee khrap,” he said to her as he sat down.

  “Sawadee ka,” she replied somewhat reluctantly.

  “Singha, please. And I’ll go for the pad kee mao tonight. Extra spicy.”

  “Okay, Khun Jonathan. Whatever you want.”

  As she retreated to the kitchen, Quinn looked around the restaurant. It was a little earlier in the evening than it had been the previous night, so there were fewer customers. The karaoke hadn’t started up, and he didn’t see Ice anywhere. For a few minutes he wondered if maybe she had the night off or had decided not to come in at all, worried that Nick might return. Then he heard the restroom door open at the back of the other half of the restaurant, and a few seconds later, she walked down the aisle to the karaoke machine.