Instead of following her, Quinn cut over to the other side of the building and made his way to the street, paralleling the path she would be taking on the far side.
He stopped at the corner, tight to the wall, and did a quick visual sweep. The areas in front of the warehouse and off to the right were deserted. The building next door, a dingy two-story monstrosity with more windows broken than intact, was dark and dead.
Quinn turned to the wall, then eased his head out just enough to clear the corner. In the distance, the lights of downtown glimmered against the night sky. Closer, but still about a hundred yards away, a solitary streetlamp provided the only illumination for blocks.
He searched for any sign of the woman, but all was still. He then focused on the far corner of the building and waited.
It wasn’t long before a shadow took a step away from the warehouse, paused, then took several more. He gave her a head start, then followed. She must have a car stashed somewhere. His goal now was to get a plate number. He stuck as close as possible to the empty buildings that lined the street, and kept a good fifty feet between himself and the woman as she walked along the curb.
About sixty feet shy of the feeble streetlight, she turned into a small warehouse parking lot. Quinn slowed, then dropped to a crouch and continued forward another twenty feet. There he used the bushes growing at the base of a useless chain-link fence as cover. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, accessed the camera, and switched to night vision mode.
Ahead he heard a car door open, then voices. One voice was muffled and indiscernible, while the other was clearer and female. The words they spoke weren’t from any of the several languages Quinn was either fluent in or familiar with. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have a pretty good idea what language they had used.
Russian. Or, at the very least, some derivative.
Quinn slid around the chain-link fence and shimmied in as close as he could get, then watched the woman climb into the car and pull the door closed. He took four pictures before they pulled away: one of the car, a close-up of the license plate, and one each of the young guy behind the wheel and the woman. The intruder.
Whoever she was, Quinn had never seen her before.
“I’M NOT A KILLER,” QUINN SAID.
He was walking toward Little Tokyo, a more populated part of downtown Los Angeles, where he’d be able to arrange for a taxi. Under his left arm he carried the folded-up coveralls he’d been wearing over his clothes at the warehouse. His first call had been to Nate to make sure everything was going as planned.
It was.
He’d then put in the call to David Wills.
“I know you’re not a killer, but aren’t you supposed to take care of loose ends?” Wills said, irritated. “Aren’t you supposed to make sure no one finds anything?”
“And she didn’t,” Quinn said. “We were finished by the time she entered the building.”
“Did she see you carry the body outside? Did she see the vehicle that took it away?”
Instead of answering, Quinn tried to change the focus. “Whoever she was, she had to have followed the ops team in. She waited for them to leave before nosing around.”
“So you’re saying she didn’t see you remove the body? Didn’t maybe take a picture of your vehicle’s license like you did of hers?”
“If she did, it’s not going to lead her anywhere.” As always, he and Nate had taken the proper precautions. “And in case you forgot, my standard procedure when something like this happens is to follow, identify, and report. It’s one of the conditions we discussed when we first started working together. Or don’t you recall that?”
“What if she was a police officer?”
“Even better reason not to shoot her,” Quinn said, then added, “She wasn’t police.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“Because the cops in L.A. don’t usually speak Russian.”
Silence. Then, “What do you mean?”
“I heard her say something to her partner.”
“In Russian?” The Englishman sounded troubled, but not surprised.
“If it wasn’t, it was pretty damn close. Does that mean something to you?”
“You’re sure she wasn’t waiting there the whole time?” Wills asked.
“Yes, David. I’m sure. I was the only one who knew about the location ahead of time. When I called your ops team, I was already there, and had done several area checks. We were clean at that point. The only possibility is that she followed the others. Unless you have some other theory.”
Wills said nothing.
“I don’t like the fact someone showed up on one of my jobs any more than you do,” Quinn said. “But I did everything according to my rules. I even got you pictures.” Around him traffic was starting to pick up. “Sorry you’re not happy, but that’s not my problem. Gotta go.”
“Wait,” Wills said. “Look, I apologize. You’re right. You did exactly what you should have. I’m just feeling a lot of pressure on this one. But that’s not an excuse.”
Quinn took a moment, letting his own agitation ebb. So far Wills had been a decent client, fair even. No sense in damaging a good relationship.
