He leaned down and searched each pocket with his gloved hands. No wallet. No money. No receipts or papers that might have given a clue to where Markoff had been. Just a photo. It was folded and worn, and had been hidden in the collar of the dead man’s shirt. Quinn almost missed it because the paper had gone soft. But the image on it was still clear. A woman.
There was a red smear along the bottom. More blood. Markoff had evidently pulled it out at one point to try and look at it. But in the darkness, it was doubtful he would have seen her image.
“Shit,” Quinn said to himself.
He looked at it a moment longer, then unzipped the front of his coveralls and slipped the photo into his shirt pocket.
Nate doused the body with most of the remaining fuel. When he was done, he removed a small box of wooden matches. As he was about to strike one, Quinn reached out and stopped him.
“Let me.”
Nate glanced at his boss, surprised, then nodded and handed over the box.
Quinn removed one of the sticks, but didn’t strike it. Instead, he looked down at his old friend’s body lying in the hole. He felt like he should say something, anything. But he didn’t know what. Then, as he swiped the match against the side of the box, he said, without thinking, “I’m sorry.”
After they burned and buried the body, they removed their coveralls and gloves, adding them to the pile of plastic sheeting in a smaller hole thirty feet away. They used the rest of the fuel to set the pile on fire. Once that was complete, the only thing left to do was to drop the truck someplace where Albina’s people could get it.
“Who’s the woman?” Nate said as he drove them back toward the semi.
“What?” Quinn asked. He’d been lost in thought.
“The picture. Do you know the woman?”
Nate pointed toward Quinn’s hand. Held tightly between his thumb and his forefinger was the picture that had been in Markoff ’s collar. It surprised Quinn because he didn’t remember pulling it back out.
The woman in the picture was smiling into the camera, her light brown hair flowing to the side, caught in the wind. A hand was on her shoulder close to her neck, a spot only someone very close would touch. Markoff ’s hand. Though not in the picture, the Del Coronado Hotel in San Diego would have been just off to the right.
It had been a Saturday, just after lunch. Nearly a year earlier.
The woman’s name was Jenny Fuentes.
The person who’d taken the picture was Quinn.
CHAPTER
QUINN STOOD IN THE SHOWER, ARMS OUTSTRETCHED,
palms pressed against the wall holding him in place. For thirty minutes, he didn’t move. Instead, he let the water spray against his shoulders, splashing onto his head and running down his torso toward the tiled floor of the stall. He had hoped it would make him feel normal again, snap him out of the temporary spiral he felt himself sliding into.
He gave up near 1 a.m., knowing the anger and questions weren’t going to go away. He took his time toweling off, like someone whose every muscle ached from a day of intensive labor. But there was nothing wrong with his muscles. The work he and Nate had done hadn’t been overly strenuous. He’d handled more physical assignments with no problem. In his business, he had to keep himself lean and in good shape, like a distance runner ready to run a marathon at a moment’s notice.
It wasn’t even the image of Markoff ’s deformed corpse burning in a shallow grave that slowed Quinn down. Rather, it was the memory of Markoff himself, always with a quick smile and a disarming laugh. An insider who’d actually become a friend outside the realm of their secret world. A good friend.
“You’ve got to relax,” Markoff had kidded Quinn. “Enjoy things a little.”
“What do you think I’m doing?” Quinn had said. They were in the Bahamas that time, sprawled out on two lounge chairs by the pool at their hotel.
“You’re doing what you always do,” Markoff said. “Which is what exactly?” “It ain’t relaxing, that’s for sure.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m relaxed twenty-four/
seven. So screw yourself.” Quinn took a drink from his rum and Coke, then leaned back in the lounge chair.
His friend laughed. “What you do has nothing to do with being relaxed. You’re talking about patience. That, you’ve got more of than anyone I know.”
“They’re the same thing,” Quinn said. “Not even close. Being relaxed means you don’t care. Being patient
means you’re waiting.” “Right,” Quinn said. “Whatever you want to believe.” They were silent for a few moments. “Let me ask you something,” Markoff said. “Okay.” “There’re two girls off to my right. What are they wearing?” Quinn started to turn his head. “Don’t look,” Markoff said. “Fine. Bikinis, both of them. The blonde’s got a baby-blue one on,
while her friend went with black. So what?” “All right, and the guy at the bar behind us?” “The older one or the teenager?” “Just proved my point, I think,” Markoff said. “What?” “You’re always on, always waiting, always observing. That’s not re
laxed. That’s waiting for something to happen.”
Though Quinn didn’t want to admit it, Markoff had been dead-on. A person could never be relaxed if he was always waiting. And for Quinn, waiting was a constant state.
