[Quinn 04] - The Silenced

second was Orlando:

Have rerouted. Will arrive London in a.m.

Ck email 4 details.

This mean you’ve reconsidered the job 4 Wills?

Quinn had left her a message after Julien had shown him the photo, but he hadn’t told her yet that he would be there, too. Hopefully, she’d see that as a pleasant surprise.

That she hadn’t mentioned Quinn’s mother meant she’d been able to get everything set up. Add that one to the worry-less list, too.

Outside, the half-moon was still low on the horizon, but it provided enough light for Quinn to make out the countryside. There was a quiet to the land, a sense that tomorrow would be very much like today, and yesterday, and the day before that.

While he couldn’t pretend that even the simplest of lives had no complications, just for a second he longed for the sameness the people he was passing seemed to have, for the strength of continuity.

Of course he had had it once. When he was young. Only then he had chafed under the weight of small-town life. Back then he had longed for the anonymity that could only come when surrounded by millions of others. And truth be told, he knew that if he was to return to that quiet life now, he would once again go crazy. Maybe not at first, but in time.

“Where do you want to go most?” a seven-year-old Liz had asked her fifteen-year-old brother.

“Everywhere,” Jake replied.

“You have to pick just one. You made me pick one.”

He thought for a moment, then said, “Pangaea.”

It was a name he’d read in a geography book. The name of the continent formed when all the continents were still together.

“Pangaea?” Her face crinkled in thought. “Where’s that?”

“I’ll let you figure it out.”

“When you go there,” she said, suddenly serious, “you’ll always come home, right?”

Home to Liz meant Warroad, and the farm, and the way of life that was already crushing him. But home to Jake was going to be somewhere else entirely. Chicago, perhaps, or Miami. Or even New York or Los Angeles. Places that had possibilities. Places that could act as hubs from which to explore the rest of the world.

“Yes,” he said to her. Not lying, not really.

Beyond the window of the train, the farmland was slowly being replaced by city. Soon he’d arrive in London.

He closed his eyes for a moment. So many lies he’d ended up telling. And what had they got him? His sister in peril. His mother hosting a man who was trained to kill in her guest room. Everything he’d worked to hide, exposed.

He blinked, then looked out the window again.

He’d made a promise long ago to always protect his family from harm. And no matter what it took, that was one promise he could never allow himself to break.

Like many places in London, Belgrave Road had once been a residential street that had, at some point in the past, been converted for business use. In this case, what had previously been five-story homes sitting side by side had been turned into a dozen or more small hotels.

Quinn chose one of the larger establishments, a place called the Silvain Hotel. He liked the fact that it was located on a corner, and since it was four homes wide, there would be plenty of exits if he found himself in need of a quick escape.

“May I help you?” The man at the front desk was of Indian descent, but his accent was pure British. His colleague, a blonde woman with fair skin and an almost model-like angularity to her face, came off as either Nordic or Eastern European. She glanced up from her terminal, gave Quinn a quick smile, then returned to her work.

“I’m wondering if you have any rooms available?” Quinn asked.

“How long would you like to stay with us?”

“At least a week.”

The clerk smiled. Long-term guests were always good for business. “Let me check.”

While he did, Quinn scanned the lobby. There was a comfortable seating area, and beyond it a small bar with a lounge that disappeared around the corner.

“We have two rooms to choose from,” the desk clerk said to Quinn.

“Excellent.”

“May I please have your name, sir?”

“Of course. James Shelby.”

“And you’ll be with us for a week?”

“We’ll start with that.”

His room was two floors up. It had a double bed that took up over half the available floor space, and a small but serviceable bathroom. Along the back wall a single window looked across a narrow alley hemmed in on the other side by a brick apartment building. Quinn raised the window, then stuck his head out into the cold night air and looked down.

Not as bad as he thought. A three-floor drop might have been doable in a pinch, but there would have been too much chance of injury. Fortunately, the ground floor stuck out into the alley two stories below, making the drop more manageable.