get to me. They may be on the way to the farm right now.”
“What are you talking about? What people?”
“Mom, we can talk more later. Right now I need you to do whatever Steven asks. He has a couple of friends who will be there in a few minutes to help. They’re going to watch over you.”
“Jake, are you in some kind of trouble?”
“I won’t be if you do what I’ve asked.”
“Okay,” she said. “If that’s what you need me to do.”
“That’s what I need you to do.”
“Then fine, honey. I’ll do what Steven tells me to do.”
“Thank you, Mom,” Quinn said, relieved. “Please put him back on.”
“I love you, Jake.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
When Howard was back on the line, Quinn said, “Text me every hour, and call me if
“You got it.”
“Keep her safe, Steven.”
“I will.”
Quinn hung up. Orlando was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, her computer in her lap.
“I can get us on a flight to Paris leaving in an hour and a half,” she said. “That should give us plenty of time to get to the airport.” When Quinn didn’t respond right away, she looked up. “Yes or no?”
He took a deep breath, trying to quell his anger and frustration. He wanted to take out whoever was trying to harm his sister with his own hands. But he let the moment pass in silence, and tried to rein in his emotions. As much as he wanted to say yes, he knew it was more important for him to stay here and find the source of the problem than to go rushing off to Paris to act as a bodyguard. He shook his head. “Nate and Julien can handle it for now. The only way to really stop this is to get to the one calling the shots.”
“And who would that be?”
“The guy I just quit on.”
Not sixty minutes after Quinn said he was not going to finish the project, a move was being made on his family. In Quinn’s world, the obvious wasn’t always right, but there were times it just couldn’t be ignored.
Orlando turned her laptop so Quinn could see the screen. On it was a hybrid map/satellite image of a city street. A single glowing blue dot pulsed over a building.
“Your sister’s street in Paris,” Orlando explained.
The blue dot, then, would be Nate’s position. Orlando had implanted chips in both Quinn’s and Nate’s phones that would allow her to track them even if the SIM cards had been removed.
“They’re still in Liz’s building,” he said. “They need to be out of there already!”
He started to raise his phone, but Orlando reached out and put a hand over his. “Don’t.”
Quinn glared at her, fire in his eyes.
“If you call him now, he’s not going to answer. And even if he did, you’d only delay them more.”
It took every ounce of will he had to lower his hand.
Nate raced up the stairs to the landing of the first floor.
“Liz,” he said, raising his voice as loud as he dared. “Liz. Where are you?”
She wasn’t on the landing. He looked down the central corridor, but didn’t see her there either. He took two steps in to make sure there was no place she could hide. There wasn’t.
He returned to the landing, listened for a second to make sure Julien and the others hadn’t come in yet, then headed up the stairs, searching the second and third floors.
As he neared Liz’s floor, he heard the lobby door open far below. It wasn’t loud, but it was unmistakable. He increased his speed.
When he reached the fourth floor landing, he could hear breathing. Rapid, but low, like someone trying to keep from being heard. Then, as he stepped into the hallway, he saw her.
She was pressed against the door to her apartment, trying in vain to find the right key to the lock. Her purse was at her feet, her wallet half in, half out. Nate guessed she’d dropped the bag when she found her keys, no longer concerned about anything but getting into the false safety of her own apartment.
He ran over to her and grabbed her wrist just as the key began to turn.
“Let me go,” she said.
“Liz, we have to get out of here.”
“Let me go. I’ll be fine inside. I won’t let them in.”
“They’ll still get in.”
“I won’t let them!”
