[Quinn 02] - The Deceived

M. Seeing a gap in the traffic, he raced into the street. A car heading west on the other side honked at him, but he ignored it as he ran to the far sidewalk.

When he reached it, he glanced over his shoulder back at Jenny’s street. He expected to see the car that had been following him, but it wasn’t there. Quinn moved into the darkened entrance of a closed gift shop and watched the corner.

It was a full half-minute before a Honda Accord appeared at the end of the street. The car was surprisingly empty. There was no team of men readying to take up the chase. There was only a single occu-pant—the driver.

The Honda sat at the curb for several minutes, passing up multiple opportunities to go. Quinn could see the driver looking back and forth as if expecting to find something.

Finally the car turned right onto M Street, and drove past Quinn’s position. Though it was on the opposite side of the street, the driver was now close enough for Quinn to make an ID.

Son of a bitch, he thought.

Tasha Laver.

CHAPTER

QUINN ROSE EARLY THE NEXT MORNING WITH THE

echo of his old mentor Durrie’s voice in his head.

“Things in our world are different, Johnny. You’ve got to worry about yourself, no one else.” It was a refrain Durrie had often preached. “There’s no room for anyone else. Others make things messy.”

Once again, his old mentor’s message was clear. It was the same sermon Quinn had been hearing in his head since he’d decided to find Jenny. Get the hell out of there and go home. It’s what Durrie would have done.

Except for one thing, Quinn thought. Durrie would have never come looking for Jenny in the first place.

Of course, that was because Quinn wasn’t like him. He never had been.

Quinn actually cared about other people. He felt responsibility. He felt loyalty. None of those were Durrie’s strong points. In fact, Durrie would have undoubtedly said those qualities were incompatible with being a cleaner.

When Quinn had been a cop in Phoenix, and had nearly gotten himself killed because he’d nosed around a murder investigation he wasn’t officially involved in, Durrie, seeing potential in the young kid’s abilities, had interceded. He had offered Quinn the chance at something more, a life that suited Quinn better than either of them had realized at the time.

Growing up, Quinn had been smarter than almost everyone else around him. But he was self-aware enough to know not to advertise the fact. Warroad, Minnesota, was a nice place, with good people, but they wouldn’t tolerate a know-it-all, especially one who felt trapped and stifled in the place they called home.

So he blended in, joking and playing and laughing with the other kids, being polite and helpful and respectful to the adults, while all the time improving his attention to detail, exercising his memory, and reading everything he could. Because he kept his real self private, he unintentionally learned the art of secrets, of play-acting, of fitting in.

In his early teens, he developed a love of puzzles and real-life mysteries, enhancing his personal education with books on crimes and investigational procedures. That’s when he decided he wanted to be in the police. Not a beat cop, but a detective.

Looking back, it wasn’t law enforcement he had been preparing himself for. It was a life in the secret world.

That’s what Durrie had seen in him, a cleaner in the making. All Quinn’s mentor had to do was finish the education.

He taught Quinn the intricacies of the job, pointing out obstacles and ways around them, helping him to improve certain skills that were lacking, and to hone those that were already developed. Then, when the apprenticeship was over, he did all he could to help Quinn get up and running on his own.

Of course, that was all before Durrie went off the deep end and his truer nature took hold, ultimately putting him at the wrong end of a bullet from Quinn’s own gun.

No. Durrie would have never come in search of Jenny.

But for Quinn, finding her was something he had to do.

For Markoff.

There was no choice.

The debt to someone who saved your life can never be repaid in full.

Not a Durrie rule. Durrie would have scoffed at such sentiment. Or, more likely, would have called you an asshole and never taken anything you said seriously again.

It was Orlando’s mentor, Abraham Delger, who had said it to Quinn. Unlike Quinn’s former boss, Delger wasn’t afraid to show a softer side now and then.

An old Chinese proverb said that the one who saved the life was responsible for the one who had been saved. Not a debt, per se, but an acknowledgment that if a person lived when they should have died, all that they did after was due to the actions of the one who stayed death’s hand.

But Quinn could never accept that way of thinking. Delger’s idea that the debt was owed by the person who