Slowly, he rose. This funeral was different. The man lying in the open casket at the front of the room wasn’t some casual acquaintance, and the grieving weren’t friends of the deceased he had never met.
The mourners here in the Lakeside Mortuary Chapel in Warroad, Minnesota, were people he’d known for a long time. And the man in the box? He was the person Quinn had called his father.
He took a step away from the pew and glanced back at his mother. Her red-rimmed eyes were firmly fixed on the casket several feet away, her face not quite accepting, but resigned now.
Two days before, as they’d sat in the mortuary office, her face had been covered in shock and disbelief. Because of this, Quinn had ended up answering many of the questions the funeral director had asked. After a while he had put a hand over hers. “Mom, would you rather we finish this later?”
Nothing for several seconds, then she looked at him. “I’m okay,” she said, failing at an attempted smile. “I don’t want to come back and do this again. Let’s finish it now.”
Quinn held her eyes for a moment, still unsure.
“Sweetheart, I’m fine. I’m just glad you’re here to help me.”
They had talked caskets and hymns and Bible passages and who would deliver a eulogy.
“I’d like both you and Liz to say something,” she’d told him.
He had been caught off guard by the request. Speak at his father’s funeral? What would he say that didn’t sound insincere or made up? It would be much better if his sister was the only speaker. He started to say as much, but the look in his mother’s eyes stopped him.
“Of course. If that’s what you want.”
And now here he was, slowly making his way to the podium, a piece of paper with some random scribbled notes in his pocket, but really having no idea what he was going to say.
“Just think of your mother,” Orlando had told him a few hours earlier as they were getting ready.
“I’ve been doing nothing
“You’ve been doing nothing but worrying about her, and, even more than that, worrying about screwing up in front of her.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re thinking too much,” she’d said, then kissed him on the cheek. “You’ll know what to say when the time comes.”
He’d pulled her into his arms and held on tight, needing the energy she was feeding him. So naturally, just as some of his tension was starting to ease, his phone had rung.
“Who is it?” Orlando had asked.
“David Wills.”
“Don’t answer it.”
He frowned. “You know I have to.”
Wills was a client who worked out of London. A week before Quinn’s father had died, he had put Quinn on standby for an upcoming project. With very few exceptions, if Quinn agreed to do a project, he’d do it.
He flipped the phone open. “Hello, David.”
“Quinn. How are you?”
“What can I do for you?”
“I’m calling about the project we discussed. We’re officially on,” Wills said, his British accent clipped and proper. “I need you to get on a flight tonight to—”
And there it was, one of those exceptions. “Let me stop you. I can’t do tonight.”
“Okay,” Wills said, not sounding particularly happy. “Then first thing tomorrow morning—”
“David, I’m sorry, but the next few days are out. If you need to find someone else, I completely understand.”
Orlando leaned through the bathroom door. “He’d
“Have you taken another job?” Wills asked.
“No, of course not. It’s just … a personal issue.”
“How personal?”
Quinn, annoyed, said, “Very.”
A few seconds of silence.
“Right, then, sorry. Didn’t mean to push. How long will you be tied up?”
“Could be up to five or six days.”
“Five or six days?” Wills said, surprised. “Hold on.” There was half a minute of silence, then Wills came back. “There is some flexibility with this project. I think I can arrange things so that the early operations are covered. Then you can take over and finish everything off.”
“ ‘Operations’ plural? How big is this?”
“It involves several related assignments,” Wills said.
“That could get expensive,” Quinn said.
Quinn was a cleaner, the guy you went to when you needed a body — or in Wills’s case, apparently, bodies — to disappear. His rate was simple: $30,000 a week, with a two-week minimum for each project. If someone had two jobs for him, and each took a day, it was still $120,000 total. He’d explained all that to Wills before the first job he’d done for the Englishman.
“I realize that, but I thought maybe we could work out a flat rate.”
“I don’t do flat rates.”
“Quinn,” the Englishman said quickly, “please, just hear me out first. Given your scheduling conflicts, I anticipate only needing your services on three separate operations. Four, tops. Time-wise, we’re talking no more than three weeks. What I’m proposing is a flat rate of one hundred and ninety thousand.”
Quinn paused. He didn’t like making exceptions to his rules, but given what he was dealing with at the moment, getting back to work would be a nice diversion.
“Make it two-ten and we have a deal.”
“Can I count on you being available to start by October first?”
That was a little over a week away. “Depending on where you need me, I should be able to do that.”
“Your first assignment will be in the States.”
“I’d say that’s doable.”
“Great,” Wills said. “Then we have a deal.”
As Quinn neared the podium he almost wished he’d told Wills he would fly out that night. It would have meant he and Orlando would’ve already been on the road to Minneapolis, a six-hour drive away. He could have avoided the whole ceremony. But the reality was he could never have done that.
He caught sight of his sister, Liz, sitting next to their mom. Predictably, she didn’t return his gaze.
When he and Orlando had arrived a couple of days before, he had thought that maybe their father’s death would spark a reconciliation between Liz and himself. Maybe not full on at first, but at least start things moving in the right direction.
But because of her school schedule in Paris and the long transatlantic flight, Liz hadn’t arrived in Warroad until right before the service. Quinn had been in the lobby greeting mourners when she came rushing in, still wearing jeans and a sweater.
“Liz,” he said, surprised.
“I’m not too late, am I?” She seemed to be all motion: fidgeting with the shoulder strap of her bag, one foot tapping, and her head swiveling side to side as she took in everything in the lobby except her brother.
“You’ve still got thirty minutes.”
She nodded, her face neutral. “Where’s Mom?”
“She’s in back with Reverend Hollis. She should be out in—”
Liz started walking toward the chapel doors. “She’s through here?”
“Liz, it’s probably not a good idea to interrupt them right now.”
“I don’t care what you think. I want to see Mom.”
“Liz, wait.”
But before he could say anything else, she had disappeared into the chapel.
The podium was right before him now. There was no backing out.
With a deep breath, he stepped behind it, then looked out at the room full of his parents’ friends and
