CHAPTER
23
IT TOOK QUINN JUST OVER TEN MINUTES TO GET to the private hospital facility from the old Helms Bakery lot where he’d left Hardwick. It was in Westwood, only a few blocks from the UCLA campus and the famed UCLA Medical Center.
The building itself looked like any of half a dozen other typical medical office buildings in the area. Five stories and bland. Brick on the first floor and concrete the rest of the way up, the whole structure in need of a new coat of paint. There were silver letters across the front. THE LUNDGREN MEDICAL BUILDING.
Quinn circled the block and entered the parking garage behind the building. A sign with an arrow pointing toward a gate at the base of the up ramp read Public Parking, but Quinn bypassed it, instead heading for a different gate at the top of the down ramp. Unlike the public gate that was made of wood and pivoted upward when open, this one was a wire fence that closed off the entire entrance like a see-through curtain. The sign above it read Employees Only.
To the side was a box mounted on a pole at driver’s eye level, which housed a keypad and a speaker. Quinn punched in an access code he kept stored in his phone.
“Yes?” a voice said. Male, businesslike.
“Dr. Paul to see Dr. Yamata,” Quinn said, using the code phrase.
“What time is your appointment?”
“My patient’s already here.”
“Hold one moment, please.”
The delay lasted fifteen seconds while they no doubt compared his security camera image to the one they had on file, then the gate began to open.
“Please park in spot number seventy-two,” the voice said.
Spot 72 was on lower level three, the same level as the entrance to the facility. As Quinn got out of the stolen car, he saw his BMW parked nearby in spot number 67.
The door to the facility was not marked. Most who saw it wouldn’t have given it a second glance. It was painted the same off-white as the rest of the garage.
As Quinn approached it, he felt his cell phone vibrate twice, then stop. A message. He then remembered the call that he had ignored when he’d been with Hardwick. He pulled out his phone and listened to his message.
“Jake, it’s Liz. I thought you were going to visit Mom and Dad. I talked to Mom a few minutes ago, and she said you hadn’t been there yet. I’m not sure what’s keeping you so busy, but could you at least do me a favor and not tell Mom you’ll be coming then don’t show up?”
Quinn stood in the parking lot for a moment, his eyes closed and his hand rubbing his brow. He had never told his mother when he’d be coming, just that he would be coming soon. The events of the last couple of days had obviously delayed the trip. He should have called her. He made a promise to himself to do it as soon as he had a moment. Liz he wouldn’t bother with. She’d never understand anyway.
As he neared the door, he heard a faint click. He turned the knob and stepped into a long hallway that stretched from the garage to the lower level of the Lundgren Building.
A similar door and a similar click greeted him at the other end. Again, he wasted no time passing through it.
Not a hallway this time. A twelve-foot-square room. The off-white was gone, too, replaced by light green walls. If there had been chairs, it would have looked like a waiting room.
A man stood in front of a second door across the room. Broad shouldered, but about Quinn’s height. He was wearing a gray suit, jacket unbuttoned. Medical facility or not, the bulge under the man’s jacket was not a stethoscope.
“Mr. Quinn,” the man said.
“Yes.”
“You’re here about your team member.”
“Yes.”
The man turned and opened the door behind him. “This way please.”
The facility occupied the three basement levels of the Lundgren Building. It billed itself as a high-end plastic surgery operation. Very private, very discreet. All of which was true. They made plenty of money that way, for sure. But there was another side of the business, a secret side that very few of their employees knew about.
The facility was a medical sanctuary for those whose injuries were best not reported to the local authorities. No unnecessary questions asked, no damaging information given. There were only two conditions for using the facility: one, patients had to come with a recommendation from someone the facility had previously cleared, and two, because their services were anything but cheap, they had to have the ability to pay.
Quinn had long ago been cleared after a recommendation from Peter. In turn, he had later secured access for both Orlando and Nate just in case.
Quinn’s guide led him to an open elevator, then pressed the button marked B2.
“How is she?” Quinn asked.
“You’ll have to ask the doctor,” the man said.
The car stopped one level up, but the doors didn’t open.
The man looked up at a security camera mounted in the corner of the car. Quinn did the same. A second later there was a ding followed by the door sliding open.
