[Quinn 01] - The Cleaner

from now in someplace like St Petersburg because someone ID'd you from the name you used with the chief of police. It's pretty much the same thing, isn't it?' Quinn raised his glass in a mock toast. 'Here's hoping that one never comes back to bite you in the ass.'

When Quinn bought his house, it had been a twelve-hundred-square-foot fixer-upper. By the time he'd finished his renovations, it was more than twice its original size, and little trace of the old structure remained.

The main floor was located at street level. It was a large, open space that stretched nearly the entire length of the house. Through a series of half-walls, bookcases, and furniture, it was divided up into a dining room, living room, study, and kitchen. Only the bathroom was truly private. The three bedrooms and office were all downstairs, below street level, following the slope of the hill.

The house had a warm feel to it, due in part to a large amount of exposed wood. Nate said it reminded him of a rustic farmhouse stuck on the side of a hill. That image cut a little too close to Quinn's farm-boy roots. He preferred equating it to a comfortable mountain cabin.

Quinn carried his drink across the room, then opened the curtains that were drawn across the entire back wall of the house.

'I never get over your view,' Nate said.

The rear of the house was mostly glass. And Nate was right, Quinn's view of the city was spectacular. Lights spread across the L.A. basin as far as the eye could see. Closest to them was the Sunset Strip. Beyond that, Century City, and a little more to the right in the distance was the dark void of the Pacific Ocean.

'This was a good trip for you,' Quinn said. 'If you're smart, you learned a lot.' Nate was about to take a drink, but stopped instead and lowered his glass. 'I'm smart.'

'Tell me how smart?'

'Never use your real name, first or last,' Nate said. 'Never talk if I've been told not to. Never visit the scene of an operation unless supervised.' He paused for a moment, then added, 'And never show any initiative unless you tell me I should.'

'You're right. You are smart. Someday you can show all the initiative you want. Someday, your life will depend on it. But now?'

'Both our lives depend on what you decided,' Nate said, repeating a maxim Quinn had been drilling into him since Nate's first day on the job.

Before Quinn could say anything further, his cell

phone rang. He glanced at his watch. It was nearly midnight. Quinn walked over to the end table and picked the phone up from where he'd left it.

'Hello?' he said.

'I need you in D. C It was Peter.

'You're working late.'

'Look, we've got a big operation gearing up and it looks like we could use your help. This is top priority.'

'Something to do with our friend in Colorado?'

'At this point, the details are not your concern. You'll be briefed when you arrive. I have you booked on a plane leaving at seven in the morning. I've e-mailed you the details.'

'I think we've missed a step here. I don't actually work for you. You need to ask me first. We call this the job offer.'

'Technically, you're still on the payroll.'

Quinn's eyes narrowed. Peter was referring to his two-week minimum on the Taggert job, of which Quinn had only really used two days. But there was an unwritten rule that the minimum applied only to the specific job he was hired for. Peter was stretching things.

Apparently taking Quinn's silence for acceptance, Peter said, 'I'll see you in the afternoon.' The line went dead.

'What's up?' Nate asked as Quinn put the phone back down.

Quinn told him the basics, the whole time thinking he definitely had to reconsider the workingfor-one-client thing.

'You're going, then?' Nate asked.

'Yeah.' Quinn drained his drink. 'I'm going.' He glanced over at Nate, who was smiling at Quinn's annoyance. 'And you're driving me to the airport.'

'Come on,' Nate said, his smile gone. 'I just want to go home and go to bed.' 'Sleep on the couch,' Quinn told him. 'We leave at five a.m.'

Quinn was deep in a world of nothingness when he felt a distant shaking. It was accompanied by a voice. 'Quinn. Wake up.'

Quinn pushed himself up, immediately awake. Nate was leaning down beside him, next to the bed. 'What?' Quinn asked.

'Your security alarm just went off,' Nate said, his voice an urgent whisper. 'I think someone's outside.'

Security alarm? Quinn should have heard it. He had an auxiliary panel right in his room.

Getting out of bed, he went to the panel on the wall. A red light was blinking. It was then he realized the throbbing he felt in his head wasn't throbbing at all. It was the low-level pulsing tone of the alarm. He hadn't slept well in Colorado, and the day of investigating and traveling had been a long one. Now that he was home, he'd fallen asleep so deeply the alarm hadn't even registered on him. Sloppy, Quinn, he thought. Really, really sloppy.