It took him a second to realize what she meant. It was the conversation they’d been having in Boston before Peter had called. It had been less than twenty-four hours earlier, but with everything that had happened since, it could have been a month ago.
“Really?” he asked.
“I’m … thinking about getting rid of my place in Saigon,” she said. “We’ve been spending more and more time over here, it doesn’t make sense to keep it any longer.”
“But what about the relief agency?” he said. Orlando ran a small emergency organization call the Tri-Continent Relief Agency out of Ho Chi Minh City. It was a passion of hers, something she took very seriously.
“I’m not giving up the agency,” she said. “I’ll go back when I need to. But I’m going to open an office in San Francisco. It is the
Quinn began to smile.
“Don’t get too smug. It’s not because of you,” she said. “It’s Garrett.”
Garrett, her son, was six years old. The product of a love affair with the man who had been Quinn’s mentor. But that was over now. Permanently. Quinn liked the boy. He was smart and seemed to have a lot more traits from his mother than from his father.
She went on, “He’s been accepted to the French American International School in the city. He starts first grade in September. I… I think it will be easier for him over here.”
Quinn smiled. “It
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Yes, you do. You can’t stand being so far away.”
“You have a serious case of inflated sense of self-worth.” She tried to push away from him, but he wouldn’t let go.
“Call it whatever you want, I know the truth.”
After several moments, she settled back into his arms. They stayed that way for a while, then Orlando yawned, and repositioned herself so that her chest was against his.
“Of course I am.” Her voice was soft and heavy with sleep.
“What?” he asked.
“Moving to be closer to you. Of course I am. That’s why you were being ridiculous.” She paused. “Stating the obvious.”
She was asleep a moment later.
Quinn continued to watch her for twenty minutes as she breathed in and out, her shoulders rising one second, then falling the next.
How in God’s name had he gotten so lucky?
But he’d fallen asleep before he could come up with an answer.
CHAPTER
13
“THE LAST NAME’S DUPUIS,” PETER SAID. “A WOMAN, early thirties. First name unknown.”
Quinn had activated the speaker function on his phone so all three of them could hear. They were still in the car, the U.S.-Canadian border now ten minutes behind them, and Montreal about twenty ahead.
“That’s not a lot to go on,” Quinn said.
“It’s all I have,” Peter snapped.
“How’s Tasha?” Orlando asked.
Peter took a moment before he answered, and when he did, he sounded calmer. “Still unconscious. But she’s made it twenty-four hours so far, so they tell me that’s a good sign.”
“What are we supposed to do when we find this woman?” Quinn asked.
“That’s a big if, I think,” Peter said. “What I need you to do is find out as much as you can
“Does she live in Montreal?”
Peter paused again. “The name came from Primus. He sent the information to the DDNI when they were negotiating the follow-up meeting after Ireland. An act of good faith, he’d said. It was an attached document with a single line of information. ‘Dupuis. Female. Montreal. Unresolved.’ That was it.”
“Unresolved? What does that mean?” Orlando asked.
“I’m open to suggestions,” Peter said.
No one spoke for a moment.
“Montreal. That doesn’t necessarily mean she lives there,” Quinn said.
“Maybe she has family there. Or friends. I didn’t say it was going to be easy.”
“So why are we looking for her?” Quinn asked.
