Becoming Quinn (12 page)

Berit’s choices had been to either run toward the main building or away from it. Part of her had screamed the latter wasn’t a choice at all. She should run
toward
the building. Help was there. Witnesses. Escape. But the other part knew she’d left the passenger door to the BMW open, and it would have taken seconds she didn’t have to move it out of her way. So she had gone the other way, toward the back of the lot, and away from any potential help.

The sketchy plan she had in her mind was to get to the next aisle, then race down one of the crossing aisles back to the building. But the man was quicker than she expected, and was only a few feet behind her. On an open straightaway, he’d have the clear advantage.

Yelling for help wasn’t an option, either. She’d never be heard over the sounds of the concrete plant. So she ran across to the cars parked in the next row, but instead of going straight through to the aisle beyond it, she twisted to the left, and turned down the narrow space where the two rows of cars were backed up to each other.

She heard the man smack into one of the cars as he followed her, his footsteps falling a bit further back. Ahead, two cars were backed so close together that their bumpers were touching. Not missing a stride, Berit jumped as she reached them, placing her hands on one of the trunks and using it as a pommel horse. This gained her another ten feet. A few more like that and she thought she could make her move back to the main building.

Opportunity came when the man let out a grunt as he clipped a spare tire mounted on the back of a Jeep and stumbled. She allowed herself a quick glance back, and realized this might be the best chance she had.

She turned down the next gap between cars, and knew in her gut she was going to make it. Her gut, though, hadn’t accounted for the bullet that slammed into her shoulder. She hadn’t even heard the shot, just a weird spit a half second before she was hit.

The bullet felt like someone had hit her with a boulder. Her body involuntarily pivoted to the right, whacking her against the car beside her. She tried to push herself up, but only managed to roll over then slide to the ground.

She wanted more than anything to just sit there, but she knew she had to keep moving, so she fell all the way onto her back and wiggled under the car. The pain in her shoulder was unreal, but it was either put up with it or feel nothing ever again. There was no question in her mind about that. Jamming her mouth closed as tightly as she could so no moans could escape, she continued toward the other side. She knew it would only be a temporary measure, but she hoped something—anything—would break in her favor.

She could hear him. He was three cars away, then two.

She stopped moving, and kept her breathing as quiet as possible.  She heard him reach the spot where she had fallen when she was shot.

She wasn’t scared. She had never been scared. Startled, yes, and unnerved for a moment or two, but not scared. The overwhelming emotion she felt was anger—at the man for what he was trying to do to her, at herself for not coming more prepared.

After several frozen moments, the man moved again, coming down the gap. When he was just about parallel with her head, he stopped, pivoted slowly back around, and headed out. He then walked down the gap on the other side of the car before moving on.

She couldn’t believe it. She’d been given a break. For a few seconds, even the pain from her wound wasn’t enough to cut through her sense of relief.

She carefully turned her head to the left, glancing past the gap she’d fallen in and under the other cars. The man’s feet were nowhere to be seen. She turned her head the other way, and the smile that had unconsciously grown on her face vanished.

“I’ve got to hand it to you. You don’t give up easily.” The man was crouched in the gap, his head lowered so he could see her. “I’d really been hoping we could have played a bit more, but as disappointed as it makes me feel, it’s probably for the best.”

She once more considered yelling, but if she couldn’t have been heard above the machinery when she’d been running, there was no way in hell she would be heard from underneath a car.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“The last person you’re ever going to see.” His hand extended under the car. In it was the gun. It had an extra long barrel.
A sound suppressor
, she realized. That explained why she hadn’t heard the shot.

She started to squirm toward the other side.

“You’ll never make it,” he said. “It might take me a couple shots to get it right, though, so you’ll be in a lot of pain.”

She moved another foot, then stopped. He was right. Instead of looking at him, she closed her eyes. No way was she going to give him that satisfaction. Pushing everything else out of her mind, she thought about her parents.

How supportive they’d been no matter what she wanted to do. Her dad, whose first name graced the middle of hers. Her mom, whose kindness Berit wished she’d inherited more of. How sad she had been when they died.

But now she was no longer sad. In a matter of moments she would be with—

•    •    •

Durrie’s phone rang. Larson’s number. “What?” he said.

“I need you to do a little bit of that work you’re so good at,” Larson told him.

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you think I’m talking about?”

Durrie was silent for a moment as the realization of what Larson said hit him. “You bastard! What the hell were you thinking?”

“Are you done?” Larson asked calmly.

Again Durrie paused. “Where is she?”

17

“What?” Peter’s tone matched exactly how Durrie was feeling. “Who the hell authorized that?”

“
Self
-authorization,” Durrie said into his phone. He was in his car, parked in a supermarket lot, away from the other vehicles.

“Did you tell him he could do that?”

“Negative. He operated
outside
my specific instructions. He was told to only follow and observe. If anything came up, he was supposed to call in.”

“Well, he didn’t, did he? It’s still your responsibility.”

Durrie checked his rising anger. “
I
warned you not to send him back here. You can’t saddle me with this.”

“Go to hell, Durrie! You’re the on-scene agent in charge.”

Durrie said nothing. He
was
the on-scene in charge, but that didn’t mitigate Peter’s role in Larson’s actions.

On the other end of the line, Peter took a deep breath, then blew it out through his teeth. “Where is he?”

“I sent him to go get cleaned up and cooled off.”

“He was agitated?” Peter asked, surprised. Emotion had little place in the world they played in.

“He was…” Durrie paused, thinking of the right phrase. “Pleased with himself.”

“Dammit, what a mess. Give me a moment.”

There was a click as Durrie was put on hold.

Peter’s response about Larson was telling. Usually one of the most efficient men in the business, the head of the Office had apparently been unaware of Larson’s penchant for enjoying his job a little too much.

That’s what you got when you never really met the people you hired and had to rely on reports from trusted operatives—operatives who, like it or not, formed bonds with the people working under them. Some people, like Durrie, wouldn’t let that interfere with the job, and would report everything pertinent, good or bad. Others glossed over things they didn’t consider a problem. The people who usually employed Larson as their trigger man fell into the latter category, Timmons among them.

A little sadistic behavior here and there—what harm did that do?

One unnecessarily dead cop, that’s what.

Like so many other things in this world, Durrie had seen it coming. Any of the organizations he worked for would do well to hire him to lead them. Of course, he’d never take one of those jobs. He was more than content with his little slice of the pie, and happy to let lesser men handle the big picture. He was satisfied with knowing he was always right.

Peter came back on the line, his tone more controlled. “We need this situation contained. A dead cop has a way of spiraling out of control. I’m counting on you to take care of it.”

“It’s not going to be a problem,” Durrie said, meaning it. “I’ll set things up so that, worst case, we can tie the woman into what’s going on with Officer Oliver.”

He could sense Peter hesitate, and knew the head of the Office was thinking this was a tricky strategy that could easily flare up into a larger issue if not handled properly. Durrie, however, had no doubts. He was the one dealing with it, so it
would
be handled properly.

“It’s not going to be a problem,” he repeated.

“The connection gets made only if there’s no other choice.”

“Of course.”

“All right. Do it.”

It was an unnecessary order. Durrie was already planning to do it.

“About Oliver,” Durrie said. “What’s the status?”

Earlier, Durrie had received a call from Detective Kearns, telling him that Oliver had been called in to talk to the commander. Durrie had relayed this information to Peter, but had been unable to follow up on it because the situation with Larson and the woman had blown up not long after.

“Oliver’s been suspended,” Peter said.

“The information he presented?”

“Ignored.”

Good
. That hole was plugged. Still…

“Were you able to find out what he’d learned?” Durrie asked.

“I was.” A hint of anger had returned to Peter’s voice. “It seems, in addition to the matchbook, Officer Oliver had a printout from a security camera that showed both Timmons and Larson together.”

Durrie was dumbstruck. How had a rookie cop picked out two seasoned professionals from what must have been hundreds of people in the footage, and connected them to the termination at the barn?
How? How? How?

“That’s not all,” Peter said. “Oliver traced the two men to a coffee shop near the operation site.”

Durrie knew in his bones that’s what the cop and his friend had been doing at the coffee shop, but he’d been unable to accept the reality of it until now.

“One more thing,” Peter said.

More? How could there be more?
This was already too much.

“He had other photos from the operation site. Marks in the sand where someone had been hiding behind an empty tank of some kind…”

The hairs on Durrie’s arm began to stand on end. That’s where
he
had been.

“…and one of a mark closer to the barn that looked like it had been made by a wire lying on the ground.” Peter paused. “Are you there?”

Durrie was, but he had no idea what to say. This kid had almost single-handedly exposed the entire operation.

“I’ll take care of the girl,” he finally said. “What do you want done with Oliver?”

“One dead cop we can work with. Two becomes an epidemic. So we’ll take his future day by day. Tomorrow is going to be even worse for him than this afternoon was. It’s possible you may not have to do anything. Then again…”

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Durrie said.

“I know you will.”

Before Peter could hang up, Durrie asked, “And Larson?”

“He stays with you.”

“Come on, Peter. He’s poison.”

“He stays with you. Use him, don’t use him, I don’t care. But know where he is at all times.”

The implication was clear. No matter what happened, there was a good chance this was going to be Larson’s last job.

The real question was, would it be Durrie’s, too?

•    •    •

Jake barely remembered driving to his apartment. He barely remembered opening the door, or dropping down on the couch. The sun going down—he had no memory of it at all.

Suspended.

That was not the notation he’d been hoping to add to his file. He’d be lucky if he ever got out of a patrol car now. He’d been a fool from the beginning. He should have known they wouldn’t listen to him, a rookie cop sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.

Of course, the brass would have been hard-pressed to believe him even if he’d been on the force for ten years. It was the men at the hotel. No matter how he worked it, there was no way to explain why he’d picked them out of everyone else, other than to say, “I just knew.”

Since he’d left Minnesota, Jake had become fascinated by the puzzles created by a crime. Getting the chance to solve them, like he had tried to do with the Goodman Ranch Road murder, was what had drawn him to law enforcement. If that wasn’t in his future, then he needed to look elsewhere. He’d have to see how things went, and if it looked like his career had already topped out here, he’d find a police force somewhere else that would give him a fresh start.

The thing he was having the biggest difficulty with was that he knew he was right. Forget how he came to finger the men at the hotel. They
had
been involved somehow. Yes, he was the one who found them, but who cared? No one else would have even looked in that direction. But because it was Jake and not Detective Hubbard or Young, the men were going to get away.

Perhaps another piece of evidence would have helped sway his superiors. Perhaps if he could have shown them—

He sat up.

Berit
.

His apartment had turned dark while he’d been sitting there, so he fumbled around on his coffee table, searching for his phone until he found it.

There were no new calls, just the two from Berit and her message. He played it again, listening to the whole message this time.

“You’re not going to believe this. I found the BMW. At least I think I did. It got towed into an impound yard yesterday. Same description, same license plate number. Look, I’m going to go check and see if it’s the same one. I’ll call you once I’m there.”

Jake looked at his phone log again. That was hours ago. Why hadn’t she called back?

He accessed her number and called her.

Four rings. Five, then, “Leave a number after the beep, and I’ll call you back.”