There was a man there, yes. He was standing near the back of her car, at the end of the gap between her Saab and the car parked next to her. But he was no one she had seen before. He was taller than the man at her house, stockier, and a few years older, too. He was wearing a suit, like he was on his way to work. That was it, she realized. Someone just passing by, and stopping to see if she needed any help.
“Miss Dupuis?” he said.
The relief that had begun flooding through her turned to ice.
She looked behind her, hoping there was some way out, but there was only the concrete wall her car was parked against. The man was blocking her only exit.
“Please, Miss Dupuis. You need to come with me.” He had an accent. Australian, maybe.
Marion’s head whipped back and forth as she looked through the garage hoping to spot someone who could help her. But there was no one.
The man smiled at her. “I probably should tell you that the structure has been closed for a few minutes. An untimely gate malfunction. But don’t worry. It’ll be fixed soon.” He took a step closer. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s no one around but you and me.”
Marion began to shake in fear. Iris, sensing something was up, started to cry.
“Goah. Goah,” she said between sobs.
“Help!” Marion screamed. “Help me!”
Iris wailed, scared by the sudden outburst.
The smiling man walked toward Marion.
“Help!” she screamed again.
“That’s not very cooperative,” the man said as he stopped only a few feet in front of her.
Before she even knew what was happening, one of his hands grabbed the back of her head while the other placed something over her mouth.
She struggled for a moment, but with Iris in her arms there was little she could do. Then she began to lose focus, her mind becoming heavy. It seemed to take everything she had to keep her eyes from closing, and then that wasn’t even enough.
She tried to open her eyelids one last time, frantic to stay conscious. And for a few seconds they obeyed.
Iris was there, her tear-filled eyes staring into Marion’s.
“Goah,” she said, her lower lip jutting out the way it did when she was sad.
Marion’s eyelids closed. She had no strength left.
“The situation is secure,” the man Marion had first mistaken for a businessman said into his phone. To his colleagues he was known as Leo Tucker.
“What are their conditions?” Tucker’s boss, Mr. Rose, asked.
“The woman’s unconscious. The child seems fine, though she’s scared. Naturally, I guess. What do you want us to do?”
The original plan had been to just remove Marion Dupuis and the child she’d stolen out from under them. Kill them and dump them someplace where it would be years before they were found. But Tucker knew things had changed the minute they realized in Montreal that someone else was also interested in the two targets. At least Marion Dupuis had been predictable enough to take her sister’s car. The night Tucker and his men had arranged the “accident” at Marion’s family’s house, he had also put a tracking device in her sister’s car just in case. Preparation, that’s what it was all about.
Unfortunately, what they hadn’t been prepared for was someone else being there, too. Tucker would have been much happier if he knew who the man who’d followed Marion from her house had been, but whoever he was, he’d been able to lose Tucker’s men. A problem, but not one Tucker could personally see to. He’d have to use one of his contacts to see if they could find out anything.
“Where’s the plane?” Mr. Rose asked.
“Here. In Toronto.”
“Use it. Bring them here,” his boss said. “We need to find out what she knows about the others. We can use the girl as motivation. And if the child is still alive after, we’ll make her part of the program.”
“Consider us on our way.”
CHAPTER 18
Quinn didn’t even need to crack open his eyes to know where he was. He could sense it as his body began to wake. The feel of the sheets, the comfort of a known pillow, and the overall feeling that he belonged.
Home. He was in his house in the Hollywood Hills above the Los Angeles Basin. He smiled at the thought.
It had been almost three weeks since he’d last been here. First the job in Ireland, then the part job, part vacation in Boston, followed by all the fun in New York and Montreal. His work often kept him away for long periods of time, but for some reason it felt extra special this time to be back in his own bed.
When Peter told him the meeting was to take place in Los Angeles, Quinn almost didn’t believe him. He made sure he, Orlando, and Nate were on the next flight west.
He opened his eyes and looked at the only thing that was out of place in his room. Orlando lay on the bed next to him, facing away. It wasn’t that she’d never been here before, but those occurrences were few. Mainly he had either gone to see her in Vietnam or San Francisco, or they had met elsewhere. Hawaii, Bali once, Japan, and a very wonderful week in Switzerland.
But here she was now, her bare shoulder sticking out from under the sheet hinting at more bare skin below. Quinn moved over, spooning into her. He placed his arm over her side and rested his hand on her chest between and just above her breasts. She turned, moving into him, so that they could become as close as possible.
“Don’t even think about it,” she whispered as his hand began to drift south. “We don’t have time.”
“The meeting’s not until noon,” he said.
“That’s only five hours away. We’ve got a lot to do before then.”
“I can be quick.”
“Then you can do it alone.”
There was a second of silence, then they both began to laugh. She turned to him, her face inches away from his. He started to move in for a kiss, but she pulled back.
“Morning breath,” she said.
“I love your morning breath.”
She snorted. “That’s the worst lie I think I’ve ever heard.”
“I don’t care that you have morning breath. Better?”
She stared at him for a moment, then smiled. “Better enough.”
She moved forward, her lips on his lips, her body on his body.
By the time they left the bedroom, there were only four hours left until the meeting.
They arrived at LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, at 10:00 a.m., parking Quinn’s BMW on Sixth Street.
“We’ll start on Wilshire and do a perimeter search,” Quinn said to Orlando. “You go west and I’ll go east.”
“Okay,” she said.
“And me?” Nate asked from the back seat.
Quinn handed Nate the bag of items he’d picked up at a 7-Eleven on the way. Inside were a couple bottles of water, an energy bar, and a newspaper.
