Quickly, she flipped the stove’s dial off and turned on the overhead fan. With a set of tongs, she plucked the blackened sandwich from the pan and dropped it in the sink. Then, no longer hungry, she grabbed her phone and hurried to where her laptop waited on the other side of the breakfast bar.
Her work as a geologist made using Google Earth easy. After entering the coordinates, she drew the tower’s radius by hand. Then she took a screen shot of the results and used the map feature to identify the streets, buildings, landmarks. The tower was located on the top of Russian Hill and the radius extended east to Chinatown, south to the FBI’s main building downtown, west to Pacific Heights, and north to the marina district.
She sat back, eliminating the places Quinn wasn’t: his apartment, the federal building. What was inside this cone that could function as a prison cell? Thinking hard, she came up with several necessities: the location needed easy access and privacy. Did Preston Ford own any buildings within the search area?
She also realized that this radius only told her the last known location of Quinn’s phone, not Quinn. They could have shut off his phone at any point, then continued moving.
Quinn could be anywhere by now.
Cassidy pushed off her seat and shook out her trembling fingers. I’m never going to find him, she thought as the walls pressed on her.
Forcing herself back into the chair, she decided to at least search for properties or businesses owned by Preston Ford in her search area. This took her some time as Mr. Ford was involved in everything from fashion to youth soccer to real estate.
Tracking down the addresses of his various ventures was no easy task, but by the end, she had two within her radius: a casting agency near Chinatown, and a business park on Geary. As a jolt of adrenaline hit her bloodstream, she remembered the clinics, and quickly dug up the addresses. Inside her circle were two: one just east of the federal building downtown and the other on the edge of the Marina District to the north.
Would they have taken Quinn to one of the clinics? She squeezed her eyes shut and recalled the image of Quinn on the screen. Could he be in an exam room? Or the physician’s office? The setting certainly fit. The neighbors would be accustomed to people coming and going to strange noises.
Cassidy remembered Brad’s information about police involvement. So it followed that if an officer had brought Quinn to one of the clinics, that wouldn’t have looked out of the ordinary either—except that Quinn didn’t fit the demographic. He didn’t look homeless and wasn’t a teenager, or female. Keeping Quinn in such a place would be risky because clinics like that were busy. How would they get Quinn inside undetected? No, they needed someplace quiet—such as an abandoned building, an office closed for renovation. Someone like Preston Ford could have any number of locations. And if he was partnered with the police, he likely had access to their resources.
She was back at square one: Quinn could be anywhere.
With a shaky sigh she realized that she was left with only one option: hide the notebook until she was convinced Quinn was safe. The idea of walking into Preston Ford’s mansion empty-handed, however, made her feel sick.
Would he decide right then that she wasn’t worth the trouble? It could happen so quickly.
She slipped the notebook from her bag and smoothed its worn cover. Images of Pete scribbling away in a notebook flashed through her mind—at the kitchen table, in the ski lodge cafeteria, on the dashboard, at the bakery they walked to on Sundays, in bed in the middle of the night. Pete was always writing, thinking, questioning, dreaming.
And it had gotten him killed.
Was Quinn next?
She forced herself to shift her thinking. She had leverage: the notebook, and information about the case that Preston Ford valued. He would keep her and Quinn alive as long as he got what he wanted.
Where could she hide the notebook? The banks were closed, so a safety deposit box was out of the question. She imagined sealing it in an envelope then dropping it into a dumpster like they did on TV, then sharing the dumpster’s location. No, too risky.
She went through several more ideas—Quinn’s office at Drift, locked in his desk, or taped to the underside of the bar, or left here in Quinn’s apartment. But none of those fit. The last thing she wanted was Preston Ford’s guards turning Quinn’s apartment upside down or storming into Drift. She needed someplace removed from their lives, yet secure.
Then, she thought of Quinn’s crappy little car. The idea bloomed into a plan. She would drive Quinn’s car, Pete’s notebook locked in the trunk, and park it at some location near Preston Ford’s mansion. Only after she was sure Quinn was safe would she give Mr. Ford the keys.
After this, I’ll buy Quinn a new car.
After tucking the notebook into her bag, she dug Quinn’s car keys from the bowl on the edge of the counter and took one final look around the apartment. Would they be back here together in a matter of hours?
A surge of optimism raced through her as she stepped to the door, but a surprise waited her just outside.
Bruce stood, his face locked in a grimace. In his hands, he gripped the plastic evidence bag.
Twenty-Six
Her mistake came to her in a flash: by pausing to flip through the notebook, when the noise from the hall had surprised her, she forgot about the plastic sleeve. Why hadn’t she just put the notebook in her bag the minute she had it in her hands?
Bruce pushed his way inside the apartment, then wheeled on her. “Tell me this isn’t you. Tell me I have it wrong.”
Icy needles tumbled through her bloodstream.
Her non-answer seemed to confirm her guilt, and he tossed the bag
