The Collected

“Bobbie?” Orlando asked.

“Bobbie Harbin. You remember her?”

“Hard to forget a five-foot-ten skinny blonde. What’s this about crawfish and karaoke?”

“A bad night.”

She gave him a skeptical half smile. “Define bad for me.”

He laughed. “Not as bad as you’re thinking.”

With a roll of her eyes, she returned her attention to her computer. “I’ve located Burke’s phone.”

Quinn pushed out of his seat and came around so he could look over her shoulder.

She had her cell-phone-tracking software up. In one window was a map pushed in close on two intersecting roads. In the middle, a small blue circle pulsated, indicating the phone’s location.

“Mexico?” Quinn asked.

“Yeah, but not Monterrey. Imuris.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s in Sonora. South of Arizona. I was able to pull a twenty-four-hour history. The phone hasn’t moved.”

“Dumped?”

“It’s an empty lot, so either that or he likes camping out.”

Quinn frowned, disappointed. “He could be anywhere now.”

“Or,” Orlando said, “he could have gone someplace he knows well.”

“And where would that be?”

“While the program was running down the phone’s location, and you were still chatting with your ex- girlfriend-”

“Never was my girlfriend.”

“Ex-lover, then.”

“Not that, either.”

“We’ll just call it a one night stand.”

“No we wo-”

“While you were still on the phone,” she said, “I did a little digging on Burke. The guy’s still new to the business. Takes whatever comes his way. It’s obvious no one’s taught him how to effectively cover up his information.”

“And?”

“Seems our Mr. Burke is from Tucson, Arizona. Which is only about one hundred and ten miles due north of Imuris.”

Quinn frowned. “He wouldn’t.”

“No. You wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. This guy, I’m not so sure.”

“Who do we know in the area?” he asked.

Orlando thought for a moment. “Doesn’t Kim Lakey work out of Tempe?”

Quinn and Orlando flew to Phoenix, where they waited for their connection to Tucson.

As they sat near the gate, Quinn kept expecting to see someone he knew. Of course, that was ridiculous. If he had seen anyone, he probably wouldn’t have even recognized the person. It had been a long time since he’d called this city home. He’d been a rookie cop then, thinking his career path was set. It wasn’t, though, thanks to Durrie, his mentor. Phoenix was where their paths first crossed, Durrie both saving his life and changing its path forever.

In an attempt to distract himself, Quinn pulled out his phone and called Liz. She didn’t answer. He left a message saying he and Orlando would probably be back in L.A. that evening, then he started scanning the other passengers again.

It wasn’t until they were finally back in the air that he was able to relax a little. There were just too many ghosts in Phoenix, of things and events and the actual dead. Sitting there for the short layover had been more than enough to reconfirm that it was a place he needed to avoid as much as possible.

They met Kim Lakey on the west side of Tucson, in the parking lot of the Waffle House off Star Pass Boulevard.

“Good to see you guys,” she said as she climbed into the back of their car, setting the gray canvas backpack she’d been carrying on the seat beside her.

They exchanged handshakes. Though Kim looked large compared to Orlando, she was only five foot three and a hundred and ten pounds. In their world, she was a jack-someone who was good at a whole range of things, and easy to slot into pretty much any support position that might be needed.

From the backpack, she pulled out the weapons they’d requested, handed them up front, then said, “Shall we go for a drive?”

Kim had been able to get to Tucson and do some hunting around before their flight had arrived in Phoenix. She confirmed that Burke had a townhome in the area, and that someone was inside.

The guy’s place was located among a sea of tan, pueblo-style townhomes in a complex west of the city. If it weren’t for the numbers next to the doors, it would have been nearly impossible to tell one unit from the next.

“Park there,” Kim said, pointing at an open spot with the word VISITOR painted over the asphalt.

Once out of the car, she led them along a wide path through several of the buildings, slowing when they reached the point where the pathway ended at another road.

“On the right,” she said. “Four down on the other side.”

Quinn glanced over. Like all the other places, there was nothing remarkable about Burke’s townhome. The only thing slightly different was that curtains had been pulled across all the windows.

“How did you establish someone was inside?” he asked.

“Saw them peeking around the curtains a couple times. Couldn’t see the face, though.”

They walked across the street to where the path continued, taking them out of sight of Burke’s place, and stopped again.

“Well?” Orlando asked.

“He knows things didn’t go as planned in Monterrey,” Quinn said, “so he’ll obviously be running scared. If it is him inside, I doubt he’ll just open the door if we knock.”

“How many ways in and out?” Orlando asked Kim.

“Two doors, the front and a sliding glass one in back. Since he’s between two other places, he only has windows on the front and back on both floors. Unless he barricades himself inside, it’d be an easy flush.”

Quinn thought about it for a moment, then nodded. The simplest plans were often the best. “You play instigator,” he told Kim. “We’ll play rear guard.”

It would have been better if Quinn and Orlando could have climbed over Burke’s fence and hidden on his porch, but, with the sun still out and the person inside undoubtedly on edge-and potentially armed-they thought it best to play it safe.

What they did instead was position themselves on the pathway that ran along the back wall enclosing Burke’s small patio area. Once they were set, Quinn called Kim. “We’re ready. Give him something to think about.”

There was a delay of several seconds, and then they heard the distant pounding as Kim knocked, hard and decisive, on the front door. She paused for five seconds before pounding again. When she knocked a third time, Quinn heard the sliding glass door on the other side of the wall ease open.

He tensed, ready to act.

A footstep on concrete, then a thud, like something had been bumped into. And breathing, rapid, almost panting.

Whoever was on Burke’s patio was scared out of their mind.

This time, instead of knocking, Kim rang the doorbell twice in a row.

Quinn heard a quick intake of breath, and then the person on the other side ran from the house to the fence. Hands wrapped around the top, and there was a whack against the other side as a foot or a knee slammed into it. A loud grunt of exertion, and the person’s head and shoulders popped over the top.