doing…” He fell silent, knowing no words would ever be adequate.
That was the moment Liz could have pounced, and rightly ripped him apart. But her face had softened, and she looked at Nate. “When he woke he asked about you and Orlando. He said you were the two people he respected most in the world.” She turned to her brother again. “He said you always try to do the right thing.”
Quinn didn’t know how to respond.
Silence filled the room for a while, then she said, “I don’t know how to feel. About you, I mean. I hated you for so long. I don’t think I hate you anymore, but I don’t know how I feel.” A long pause. “That’s the best I can do.”
“It’s more than I can ask,” he said.
As he started to turn away, she put a hand on his wrist. He looked at her, and she at him. Then she fell against his chest, wrapped her arms around him, and cried.
He knew it didn’t change what she had said. The ordeal she had just gone through had been intense, and the man she’d started to have feelings for was lying in the hospital bed beside her, a bullet wound in his chest.
Yet for those minutes he held her, it was like none of the mistakes he’d made mattered. “I love you, Liz,” he wanted to say, but knew it would be too much.
He always wished the dream would end there, but it didn’t. After they’d pulled apart, Liz had donned her coat of armor again.
“I’ll need time,” she said as he turned for the door. “Maybe forever.”
That was where the dream ended.
But as the hot Thai months moved on, the dream came less and less, until he’d stopped having it at all. But the previous night, after Christina sent word that a man would be arriving to see him, the dream had come to him again, more vivid than ever. When he woke before dawn, his usual thoughts of English lessons and working in fields were replaced with memories of violence and death.
From the description Christina gave him, he knew his visitor was Nate. Yet when he saw his former apprentice, he was surprised. There was something older about Nate, his edges sharper and more defined. There was a confidence, too. While Nate undoubtedly had more to learn, he was now a professional who could stand on his own.
What Quinn also saw was a window into the world he was not yet ready to return to, a world he was unsure he would ever be ready for again. His assumption had been that Nate was there to lure him back. Nearly nine months was a long time to be away, so the attempt would not be unreasonable, but that didn’t mean he had to agree to it. His plan had been to make it clear to Nate he wasn’t going anywhere.
Then Nate had yelled out Mila Voss’s name.
Mila Voss. Seen alive.
Dear God, what was she thinking?
Quinn could hear the call ringing on the other end as Nate handed him the phone. There was a click, and a familiar female voice said, “Yes?”
“Misty?” Quinn said, surprised.
A pause. “Quinn.” He heard a smile in her voice before her tone turned serious. “I heard your father passed away last year. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I understand Peter wants to talk to me.”
“Let me see if I can find him.”
He was on hold for nearly three minutes before Misty came back on.
“Sorry for the wait. Connecting you now.”
A double beep, then, “Jesus, Quinn. Where the hell are you?”
“Hello, Peter.”
“Are you going to answer my question?”
“No.”
“Haven’t changed, have you?”
Quinn let that one pass without comment, wanting to get this over with. “I’ve been told we have a ghost.”
“Would be nice if that were the case. Afraid this one’s very much flesh and bone.”
“Mila Voss.”
“So it appears.”
“Where was she seen?”
Peter briefed Quinn on the incident in Tanzania, and the discovery of a disguised Mila Voss hovering over a body on the sidewalk.
“Security detection software picked it up first, then matched it to a known photo. Ninety-nine-point-five- percent sure it was either her or her twin sister. But as far as we know, she doesn’t have a twin.”
“Who was the dead guy?”
“Not important.”
Quinn knew that probably wasn’t true, but he didn’t push. “I’d like to see the footage.”
“It’s already uploaded. I put it on one of the servers you and I have used in the past. ADR-3.”
“All right, I’ll check it.”
“Hold on,” Peter said, sensing that Quinn was about to hang up. “You’re not getting off that easy.”
Quinn waited.
“You were the one who was supposed to have disposed of her body,” Peter said.
“I was.”
“So what happened?”
“The body I was given, I got rid of.”
“Yeah, but was it dead when you made it disappear?”
“I don’t typically dispose of people who are alive.”
“And it was Mila?”
“You can read my report, Peter. It’s all in there.”
“I did read it. You were the one who ended up having to ID her. So, was it Mila?”
“I disposed of the body of a woman that was Mila’s height, had her hair, wearing the clothes she had last been seen in, and dropped off at the hospital by the driver who’d picked her up at the airport. It sure as hell looked like Mila to me.”
“So as far as you know, the body you got rid of was Mila’s.”
“Didn’t I just say that?”
“Then how the hell is she walking around alive?”
“I was relying on the assassin for information. If I recall correctly, he had a spotter following her from the airport. Why don’t you ask him if they fingered the wrong person?”
“Not a bad idea, except Kovacs was killed several months after that assignment. So that’s not an option.”
“Well, I’m not sure what else you want me to say, Peter.”
Peter let out a defeated breath. “If it really is her, this is a total fuckup.”
“The best I can do is look at the footage and tell you what I think. Other than that, I’m as much in the dark as you are.”
“Honestly, I’m looking for anything that will help at this point. If you find something, call me right back.”
Quinn hesitated. “There’s no computer where I am, so it could be a day or so before you hear from me.”
“The sooner the better,” Peter said, then hung up.
As Quinn handed the phone back to Nate, he tried not to think about how many lies he’d just told. What happened on this job in Las Vegas had gone against all his training, but he was the one who caused the job to go off the rails. He was the one who’d made the conscious decision to ignore the professional detachment he was usually so good at maintaining. He had hoped it would never come to this, but even then he’d known the secret of that night-that Mila Voss was still alive-would come to light one day.
That day had finally arrived.
Nate pocketed his cell. “Okay. I’ve done what I promised. I’ll leave you alone now and head back to Bangkok.” He held out his hand. “If you need me, you know how to reach me.”
