main corridor. The lab of the underground facility was one level below, so Mr. Rose turned left toward the elevator.
“These people you saw in Montreal, do you think there is any chance they might have followed you here?” Mr. Rose asked.
Tucker felt a little like the woman. It wasn’t the first time Mr. Rose had asked him the question. It wasn’t even the second or the third.
“No way.”
“They concern me.”
“We searched her. Everything she had, everything she was wearing. We even ran her through the scanner. Nothing. No tracking device. No hidden radio transmitter. Nothing.”
Mr. Rose thought about this for a moment. “You’re sure?”
“One hundred percent.”
When they reached the elevator, Tucker pressed the down button to call for a car.
“And the child?” Mr. Rose asked.
“What about her?”
“You did the same with her? Check her clothes? Scanned her?”
This was a new question, but the answer was the same.
“Yes.”
The elevator door opened and Mr. Rose stepped inside. As Tucker stepped in to join him, Mr. Rose said, “I can’t have a loose end like this.”
“I understand.”
Tucker reached out and pushed the button marked R3, the lab level.
“Do you? Do you really understand?” Mr. Rose’s laser eyes kept Tucker from answering. “It’s a loose end. A distraction. We don’t want or need distractions at this point.” He paused. “There are people who want to stop me. Your job is to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“That woman,” Mr. Rose said, more to himself than to Tucker. “She could ruin everything. That… that
Tucker tried to contain his surprise. He’d never seen Mr. Rose react like that before.
“I think I’ll use the woman’s brat as the trigger.” As Mr. Rose said this, a smile grew on his face. “Yes, I think that will be an excellent idea.”
The elevator door opened, and Mr. Rose stepped out. Tucker knew to stay where he was.
“Find out who those people in Montreal are,” Mr. Rose said, looking back. “And make sure they won’t be a problem.”
“Yes, sir,” Tucker said.
Mr. Rose turned and walked away.
Alone in the elevator on the ride back up, Tucker wondered if the people in Montreal had let Marion Dupuis run so she could act as bait. It was something he would do.
But even if they had, they wouldn’t have been able to find her now. They would have lost her the minute Tucker’s plane left Toronto. Had they kept looking? Or had they just given up?
That’s what Tucker needed to find out.
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
