by Lisa Unger
Lydia suppressed the urge to applaud. It was a masterful performance. He actually looked as though he might weep. Lydia didn’t know what Quinn’s agenda was or what he had to do with Tatiana’s disappearance, but she knew he couldn’t be trusted and she didn’t believe a word he said.
“Thank you for sharing that with us,” she said sweetly. “If we are to find Tatiana, your honesty will be very important. We’ll do our best to make sure that aspect of the case remains between us.”
“Do more than your best, Ms. Strong,” he said, a note of menace sneaking into his careful symphony. “It would destroy my wife.”
“Of course,” said Lydia, her favorite noncommittal response to commands she had no intention of obeying.
“There was something in your statement about the night of Tatiana’s disappearance that I wonder if you could clear up for us,” said Jeffrey.
“What’s that?”
“The surveillance camera was turned off. But you said that Tatiana didn’t know how to operate the equipment.”
“Yes,” he said enthusiastically. “That’s one of the things that makes me believe that Tatiana didn’t run off on her own.”
“Well, who does know how to operate it?”
“My wife and I.”
“So you activated the alarm when you left for the evening. And came home to find it deactivated?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re positive that Tatiana didn’t know how to turn it off.”
“Yes.”
“What about Valentina?”
“No. Valentina couldn’t even operate the DVD player. She was uncomfortable with technology.”
“How did she come to work for you?” asked Lydia.
“She was referred to me by a woman who administers the Albanian refugee grant that I established. My wife and Tatiana liked her, felt comfortable with her, so we hired her. She’s been like a part of our family. We’ll miss her very much,” he said without emotion, looking at his watch. Lydia sensed that they were about to come to the end of their interview.
“You must have paid her well,” Lydia said, pressing on.
“We paid her nearly fifty thousand dollars a year. She had a child to support. She was technically an employee of Quinn Enterprises.”
“That’s good money for a maid,” said Lydia. “But not enough to pay for the house she lived in.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that. She was the help; I didn’t inquire into her personal life.”
“Did you know her family?”
“Marianna, her daughter, watched Tatiana occasionally when Valentina couldn’t stay. I never really spoke with her, except to say hello.”
“What about Sasa Fitore, Valentina’s brother? Did you know him?” she asked, watching his eyes very carefully.
But they revealed nothing, and his smile didn’t waver a bit. “As I said, she was the help. We didn’t associate with her family.”
Nathan walked behind his desk, then sat and removed a large leather binder from a drawer in the center. He looked over at Lydia and Jeffrey, who had risen.
“I want to put the two of you on retainer to find my daughter. Name your price,” he said, uncapping a black fountain pen.
“We’re not the help, Mr. Quinn,” said Lydia with a cool smile before Jeffrey could speak. “We don’t want your money.”
“Nobody works for free, Ms. Strong,” he said, looking up from his checkbook with a smug smile and narrowed eyes. “What’s your angle?”
“Like I said, we’re just interested in finding Tatiana. You can be assured that we’ll use everything in our power to do that.”
“And then you’ll write about the case.”
“Maybe.”
“So you get paid later, then.” His smile widened in victory.
She shrugged. She’d never really thought of it that way.
“At the end of the day, we all want to get paid, Ms. Strong,” he said.
She could see that he was annoyed that their investigation couldn’t be bought and was trying to get a rise out of her. She didn’t respond, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a verbal battle, refusing to defend or explain herself to the likes of Nathan Quinn. She just gave him her best pitying smile.
“We’ll be in touch,” she said as they walked out the door. She did her best to swagger out with confidence, Jeffrey at her side. But she would have been more comfortable turning her back on a black bear.
“God forbid,” Jeffrey whispered after he had closed the door behind them, “we should make any money for this shit.”
Lydia glared at him as the sexy receptionist ran up the hall toward them, apparently unprepared for any movement in the office not choreographed by Nathan Quinn. She escorted them back to the waiting area, where the guards returned the cartridges for their guns and walked them to the elevator.
“You would take money from that psychopath?” she whispered after the doors closed and they were alone.
“No,” he admitted grudgingly.
As they walked beneath the mammoth globe, Lydia’s cell phone rang. She hurriedly dug it out of her bag.
“Hello? … When? … All right, we’re on our way.”
“What’s up?” Jeffrey asked.
“Stephen Parker’s dead.”
“Who’s that?”
She paused, dropping the phone back in her bag and turning her eyes to Jeffrey.
“The last private investigator on Nathan Quinn’s payroll.”
chapter fifteen
The inscription on Stephen Parker’s Presidential Rolex read: Yours until the end of time. According to the medical examiner, time had ended for Parker nearly four days ago. His ex-wife, who had given him the watch during their marriage, had called time about three years earlier. But when he didn’t show for their son’s fifth birthday party, she reported him missing.
“I just thought the guy was blowing me off. I should have looked into it.”
Detective Ignacio had been self-flagellating since he got an E-mail from his buddy in Homicide. Parker had been on the adult missing persons list for two days, but nobody there had connected his name with the Tatiana case; no one had brought it up to the detective. Why would they? Parker hadn’t been a big player in the case, as far as the detective was concerned. Until now.
“Nobody communicates in that fucking place,” said the detective, more annoyed at himself than anyone.
“So what happened?” Lydia asked for the third time since they’d sat down at an isolated table at the back of the Delano’s restaurant. The doors to the veranda stood open and the breeze billowed the gauzy white drapes that hung from the ceiling. Lydia could see their reflection in the etched mirror screen that stood behind the bar. Detective Ignacio looked as though he’d wilted a bit since they saw him last; his shirt was wrinkled and his tie loose. The jacket he wore had a tiny grease stain on the lapel. He looked more exhausted than the last time Lydia had seen him, and there was something off about his energy. He was edgy, fidgety; he was making Lydia nervous.
“Parker’s a single guy, works alone,” he said, drinking from a glass of ice water a waitress had placed on the table. “Looks like he’d been missing for about four days; that’s when he stopped picking up messages from his voice mail anyway. According to the Missing Persons Department—missing adults are handled in a division separate from that for missing children—his ex-wife came in a few days ago and filed a report. Said he missed his son’s birthday party and that as bad a husband as he had been, he was a great dad. Wouldn’t have missed it unless something was very wrong. He wasn’t at home, wasn’t at the office. The guys in Missing Persons took the report, went to his house, made a few calls. They didn’t exactly bend over backward. He’s an adult male, so it was a pretty low-priority case.”
“So where did they find his body?” asked Jeffrey.
“They didn’t find his body, exactly. They found his arm.”
Lydia grimaced and leaned back from the table. She removed h
er washed-silk navy blue Calvin Klein blazer and placed it over her lap. She was suddenly feeling overly warm.
“How did they know it was his arm?” asked Jeffrey.
“The watch. His wife had mentioned that he always wore this watch, when she went down to the morgue with the detective she had reported him missing to—you know, to make sure Parker wasn’t one of the John Does there.”
“I hate to ask,” said Lydia, “but where did they find his arm?”
“An alligator hunter found it in the belly of an eleven-foot male. Partially digested.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious.”
“Jesus,” she said.
“I thought alligators were endangered. Who hunts alligators?” asked Jeffrey.
“Hey, this is Florida. We’re lousy with alligators. There’s a season for hunting them. This was the first week this fall. Their skins bring in about twenty-five dollars a foot. So a couple of guys were hunting gators. They caught one, skinned it, got curious, opened its belly, and got a big surprise. We’re lucky they called the police.”
“No shit. That watch is worth about twelve grand,” commented Jeffrey.
Lydia felt a wave of nausea so severe that she sat up and nearly bolted for the rest room she’d noticed on her way in. But it passed as quickly as it came and she sat quietly, bracing herself for another bout. She felt slightly feverish, though her hands were cold and clammy.
“You all right, Lydia?” asked Jeffrey when he saw the color had drained from her face.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“You’re not going squeamish on me, are you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Lydia had been exposed to plenty of gruesome sights and recounted horrors in her life. She had never been made ill by any of them. The wave of nausea was purely physical, and she started to think about what she had eaten during the day. But aside from coffee and a croissant, she’d had nothing. Maybe I just need to eat something, she thought.
“So what happened to him, then?” asked Lydia, trying to ignore her stomach.
“It’s hard to say. But I’d guess someone killed him and dumped his body in the Everglades, and some alligators got an easy dinner.”
“Maybe it was an accident,” Jeffrey suggested, “an episode of Crocodile Hunter gone wrong.”
“His ex-wife said he wasn’t a hunter,” the detective answered, not picking up the joke and appearing distracted. “Besides, you probably wouldn’t be wearing a Presidential Rolex if you were hunting gators.”
“When did you first meet him?”
“Quinn hired him about seven days into the investigation. I was glad to have him, especially since everywhere I turned, there was a wall in my face. I figured if Quinn had hired him, maybe people wouldn’t be so quick to tell him where and where not to look. But he didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. And after about three weeks, when he got back from New York, he started to seem desperate. He came into my office one night late, closed the door, and asked me what I knew about Sasa Fitore. At that point, I didn’t even know about him. Some detective, right? He seemed scared that night, now that I think of it. But I was fucking tired and I had too much on my plate to worry about Parker’s issues. He left my office. And it was then that I started looking into Fitore’s record. He’s got a couple of charges—pimping, possession, crap like that. Never did any time, though. I swear it was an hour after I’d pulled his file when the feds showed up in my office. They told me to back off, not to mention Sasa Fitore to anyone in the context of my investigation or they’d have my job. Or worse, have me arrested on obstruction. Said if Sasa Fitore had anything to do with Tatiana, they’d figure it out in the course of their investigation and let me know. I walked away. What else could I do? I figured Stephen Parker had done the same.”
“Was Quinn his only client?”
“I’m trying to find out who else he was working for at the time.”
“I’m guessing that Nathan Quinn paid him enough that he didn’t have to take on any other jobs,” said Lydia, “and I don’t think Quinn is the type of client who likes to share.”
“You’re probably right.”
“It’s interesting how many people on Quinn’s payroll seem to be turning up dead lately,” said Jeffrey.
“See?” said Lydia.
“What?” asked Detective Ignacio.
Lydia recounted for him the details of their visit to Quinn Enterprises, including his offer to pay them for their investigation.
“So what did you walk out of there thinking?” asked the detective, jingling the ice in his class.
“That I wanted to get as far away from Nathan Quinn as fast as I could.”
The detective paused and looked at Lydia and Jeffrey. He looked some combination of disappointed and hopeful. “Does that mean you’re going to walk away from this?”
Lydia and Jeffrey looked at each other. An exchange of words between them wasn’t necessary. She knew he wanted to leave Miami and he knew that there was no way that was going to happen.
“No way,” said Lydia. “We’re going to find out what happened to Tatiana and we’re going to take Nathan Quinn down in the process.”
“Whoa,” Jeffrey and Detective Ignacio said simultaneously.
“We don’t know that Nathan Quinn has done anything wrong,” said Jeffrey, lowering his voice and looking around the restaurant.
“Give me a break. That guy is as dirty as they come.”
“You think he’s involved with his stepdaughter’s disappearance? How?” asked the detective, leaning closer to her.
“I didn’t say that. I don’t think he knows where Tatiana is. It’s why he wants her back so badly—rather, how he wants her back so badly—that puts me on edge. There’s desperation without emotion, a desire without love to the way he talks about her. Like a junkie looking for a fix. It’s ugly.… There’s something ugly about it. I don’t believe he knows where she is, but I bet he’s a big part of why she’s gone. Whether she ran away or was abducted. He’s definitely involved and he knows more than he shared with us, but I don’t think he knows where she is. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be riding everyone so hard.”
“Yeah,” said Manny. “Leave no stone unturned unless it involves his ‘business affairs.’ ”
His sarcasm hung in the air like cigarette smoke. “What did Stephen Parker find out about Sasa Fitore and how did it connect to Nathan Quinn?” Jeffrey asked, thinking aloud. Then he turned to the detective. “How did that conversation between the two of you end?”
“I don’t remember,” Detective Ignacio said softly.
“You don’t remember?” asked Lydia.
The detective didn’t say anything, just shook his head and looked down at the table.
“Lydia,” said the detective after a moment, “you need to be careful.”
“Careful about what?”
“It’s just that Nathan Quinn is connected to organizations that … you know, control things in the world. People like him can make life dangerous for people who piss them off.”
Lydia was lost. She wasn’t sure how the conversation had taken this turn.
“What are you talking about, Manny?”
“Listen. You guys were here for a couple of hours. They found you, followed you, and broke into your hotel room. Valentina is dead because they knew she was about to talk to you. Stephen Parker is dead. I was stopped by my superior officers from looking into Quinn’s business dealings. I mean,” he said with a shrug, glancing behind him, “think about it.”
“They? Who’s ‘they’? You sound like a conspiracy theorist,” said Lydia with an uncertain laugh. She regarded the man for a second, wondering why he suddenly seemed afraid that she and Jeffrey were about to drag him in deeper than he was willing to go. He’d been so eager for their help when they arrived. Had been concerned enough about the investigation that he let Lydia follow a lead he knew might be dangerous for all of them to pursue. He met her eyes, and she though
t for a second that she saw fear in them.
“I have a family, Lydia,” he said finally, softly, offering an excuse against an accusation that hadn’t been made.
Lydia looked at him coolly, cocked her head to the side, and smiled a little.
“Someone got to you, didn’t they, Manny?”
He looked away from her, shame softening his handsome features, his bottom lip trembling almost imperceptibly. He folded his hands and sighed.
“No, it’s not like that. It’s just that I have to focus on Tatiana. Just on finding her or what happened to her,” he said, stumbling over his words as if they didn’t fit comfortably in his mouth.
“There’s a piece missing from your puzzle, Detective. And without it, you’ll never have the full picture. You’ll never find Tatiana.”
He nodded and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’m afraid that’s a price I’m going to have to be willing to pay. I have a little girl, too.”
The detective stood up and straightened his tie, as if trying to hold on to his dignity in an unbearable situation. He looked beaten. Lydia opened her mouth to speak, but he held up his hand. She could see in his tired eyes that he had weighed his options and the consequences in his mind and made his decision.
“The FBI will be in touch with you by tomorrow, Lydia, regarding what you saw at the Fitore residence. I spoke with them today and have been told I’m to have no part in that investigation. Let me know what you decide to do.”
“What’s going on, Detective?” Jeffrey asked, moving to get up. “We can help you.”
“No, you can’t. Don’t overestimate your power to handle this. Take my advice and go back to New York. Forget you ever heard about Nathan Quinn and Sasa Fitore. And hope they forget they ever heard of you.”
He left them then, striding confidently from the restaurant, not looking behind him. He looked short and shabbily dressed in the context of the beautifully decorated room. For a second, neither of them spoke, just looked after the detective, mouths slightly open, brows knitted.
