more headlines?”
“They were arrested?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know.” She spat it at me. “Don’t act like you don’t know.”
“Are they in prison?”
That made her more defensive, as if she’d thought I’d expected that. “No, they’re not, thank you. They’ve been just fine and they’ve stayed out of trouble, so they don’t need you making it worse.”
“Because if they’ve been in prison,” I said, “I’d hate to think that was my fault.”
Anne Quick gave me a suspicious appraisal. “What does
“If it was my fault, I mean. If something I did got them in trouble. I’m . . . well, I was hoping I could make it up to them.”
“And how would you do that?”
“I’m rich,” I said.
The hard little eyes seemed to brighten momentarily. Green-eyed monster, I thought. Not jealousy, but greed.
“You’re going to give my
“I didn’t want to insult them,” I said. “Didn’t want them to think it was charity. I was thinking of it as a gift.”
She needed a couple of seconds to chew on that. On the couch, Gareth had started flipping channels.
“I can’t imagine it’s easy taking care of Gareth like this,” I told her. “You must be working very hard.”
“All the time.”
“If you’d let me, maybe I could help you out with that, too.”
“I don’t want charity, either.”
“Of course not. But you and Gareth, you opened your home to me, and I owe you for that. I’d really like to make it up to you.”
“Would you, really? Or is it just that you think you can buy what you want?”
I gambled, then, pushing my chair back and getting to my feet. “I’m sorry to have insulted you this way, Mrs. Quick. I’ll go.”
She didn’t move and she didn’t speak, so I headed out of the kitchen, had gotten all the way to my hand on the doorknob before she called after me to stop. I heard her coming, hurrying to catch up to me.
“I apologize,” she said, and it looked like she was choking down rotten meat. “It’s just . . . it’s been very hard, you can imagine.”
“I understand.”
“If you’d be willing to help . . . ?”
“The medical bills,” I said. “Would you let me cover those?”
“You’d . . . you would do that?”
“I don’t want to see Gareth suffering,” I told her, and it was the honest-to-God truth. “I’ll have my attorney contact you, he’ll arrange to have the bills come to me.”
She didn’t speak for a few seconds, possibly because she couldn’t. She finally had to nod.
“And the boys,” I said. “Where can I find them?”
“They’re outside of Junction City, that’s near Eugene.”
“Do you have an address?”
“I’m sure I do around here somewhere.”
“If you can get that for me,” I said. “And if you don’t mind me using your phone, I’ll call my attorney, see if we can’t get this bill thing handled right now.”
Anne Quick, my new best friend, offered to dial for me.
CHAPTER 32
Junction City was about another fifty miles or so south of Salem, still heading along Interstate 5. I left Anne Quick talking to Chapel on the phone, and was back on the road before ten, with the Ford following as I went. Once again they weren’t trying to be hidden. They knew I saw them there, and they didn’t care.
The weather was holding, and the drive wasn’t too bad, except for the part passing Albany, when the stink of the paper mill fell over the road like a shadow of death. When Tailhook first started getting gigs outside of Portland and we’d drive down to perform in Eugene, we’d try to see who could hold their breath the longest going through the zone. Van always won.
Junction City is a big name for a little community, mostly farming, just northwest of Eugene, in the peppermint fields. I reached it just past eleven. It’s rural, with the slightest of downtowns, and the bare essential of amenities, and I stopped at a mom-and-pop convenience store on the side of the road. I parked on gravel and hopped out, feeling the bruise on my side tighten as I moved. Inside, I bought myself a bottle of Arrowhead and got directions from the middle-aged man behind the counter to the address Anne Quick had provided. He was wearing coveralls and a flannel, and he eyed me and my earrings with some suspicion before determining that I wasn’t here to undermine his way of life. I didn’t correct his assumption.
The Ford pulled up while I was getting the directions, and Marcus and Hoffman got out. Marcus made straight for me at the counter, then asked the man if there was a bathroom he could use. I almost laughed aloud.
“Don’t leave without me,” Marcus threw over his shoulder at me, then went to use the facilities.
Hoffman was stretching by the car when I came outside, arching her back with her arms extended over her head. When she stretched, I could see the gun in the holster on her waist. I unlocked my door and was about to get into the Jeep when she said, “Christopher Quick.”
I closed the door again, looking at her over the hood, waiting.
“Son of Anne and Gareth.” She dropped her arms, put the weight of her gaze on me. She still had her sunglasses on, hiding her eyes, but I felt it just the same. “Brother Brian. Both recent guests at OSP.”
“You gonna tell me what they went in for?”
“Aggravated assault and attempted rape, the both of them. Why are you talking to the Quicks?”
“You’re not supposed to be asking me questions,” I told her.
“Yeah, but here, out in these peppermint fields, you can’t really hide behind your counsel, can you? Why the Quicks?”
“I stayed with them for a few months when I was a kid. They were one of the foster families I was placed with.”
“Thought that was Beckerman.”
“The Beckermans were the last family I was placed with. Before the Beckermans, there were the Quicks. Before Quick, there was Larkin. And in the beginning, there was Bracca, Thomas and Diana.”
She took it in, then glanced in the direction of the store. Inside, Marcus was at the counter, picking out a piece of beef jerky.
“I was going to call you,” I said.
Hoffman turned her sunglasses back to me. “If I’d known you’d become a suspect again, it never would have happened.”
Marcus came out of the store, then, before I could respond. He handed a bottle of Arizona green tea to Hoffman, opened an RC cola for himself, then settled on the hood of his car, grinning at me.
“Lot of commuting just to dispose of a body,” he told me.
He so obviously didn’t believe that was what I was doing, I almost laughed.
“You tell us why you want to talk to the Quicks, we’ll do it for you,” Hoffman said. “We’re detectives, we could detect. We could determine you’re not a suspect, but instead the kind of person who wants to help us.”
“You don’t know I’m going to talk to the Quicks.”
“You’re not in Junction City to enjoy the air.” Marcus took a deep inhale. “God, I fucking
“At least it’s not Albany,” I said.
“You don’t want to talk to these guys without us there, Miss Bracca,” Hoffman said.
