The Buried (10 page)

Lies, of course, but ones that Quinn could work with. “And what was he into?”

“If you’re asking about him, you already know the answer, man. Come on. I need help!”

Quinn moved the gun to the man’s other shoulder.

“No! No!” Platt yelled.

“What was he into?”

“Girls, all right?”

“For himself?”

Platt shook his head. “Orders would come in.”

“And how would the girls get to him?”

“Some kind of…ne-ne-network he set up,” he said, his strength diminishing. “I don’t…know the details.”

Another lie. “And your job?”

“I just…I just helped him get them in and out.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes,” he pleaded, as if doing only that wasn’t already reprehensible.

“And when they were in their cells?”

“What? I never, um, dealt with them in their cells.”

Quinn was tempted to shoot him again, but knew that would put an end to their talk.

“How did the orders come in? By body type or…?”

“Yeah. Type. Skin color. Weight. Eyes. That kind of thing.”

“Always that way? Never by, say, name?”

“Name? Um, um, no.”

“I’m really tired of being lied to, Roger.”

“I’m not ly—”

Quinn shoved his gun against the man’s wounded shoulder. “Sometimes there were women requested specifically by name, weren’t there?”

Platt cried out.

Quinn pressed again. “Answer the question.”

“Yes! Every once in a while, he would get a name.”

Quinn pulled his gun back. “Did these requests come from the same clients who wanted the other girls?”

“No. Someone different.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know who! I swear.”

“Who?”

“Different times, different people.”

“What about the last time?”

Platt stared at him but said nothing.

“Danielle Chad. She was one of the special requests, wasn’t she?”

“I’ve never…heard that name—”

“Don’t. She was a request?”

Another swallow, this one followed by a weak yes.

“By who?”

Platt clenched his teeth as another wave of pain washed over him.

“You know who, don’t you?”

A small nod. “Sam…sometimes refers to her as…as The Wolf. That’s all I know.”

The name meant nothing to Quinn.

“How long did Edmondson have the girl?”

“We picked her up three…wait, no, four days ago.”

“From whom?”

Platt didn’t know the contact’s name, and could only tell Quinn where the pickup had occurred.

“When were you supposed to give her to this Wolf?”

“We hadn’t set a drop-off yet.”

Quinn ground his weapon into the wound again. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not! Sam hadn’t told The Wolf we had the girl yet.”

“Why not?”

“He, um, he wanted to get something from her first.”

“What?”

“A…uh, uh…location.”

“What location?”

“Hell if I know. That’s what he called it. I swear, he never told me. Oh, God, please call an ambulance.”

“Did he get the location from her?”

“Not as far as I know. He would have set up a drop-off if he had.”

“How did he contact The Wolf?”

“I have no idea. The business side was all Sam.”

Quinn thought for a moment, making sure he’d asked everything, and then said, “Thank you. I appreciate your time.”

He pulled his gun back and took a step away.

“Wait,” Platt said, his voice drifting. “I need…a doctor.”

“I have bad news for you. A doctor’s not going to do you any good.”

“You can’t let me die! You need to do something!”

The man continued to plead as Quinn left the room.

Before leaving, he removed Platt’s trophy albums from the closet and set them on the floor of the entryway, opened to particularly damning pages. He then unlocked the front door so that when the police showed up after he called them, they’d have no problem getting in.

CHAPTER
12

SOUTHERN OREGON

“I
’M GOING TO
suck at this,” Quinn said.

Orlando smiled. “Hardly.”

“Yes, I am. It’s not like I had a great role model.”

“If you even come close to sucking, I promise I’ll kill you. Does that help?”

“You should. Look what a mess
I
am. I don’t want to do that to our kid.”

She grabbed his face with both hands. “You’re not going to be anything like your stepfather. You’re going to be a great dad.” She touched his chest. “You have a good heart. And you’re one of the smartest people I know.”

His features softened a bit. “Not as smart as you.”

“That goes without saying,” she said. “Our baby is going to be lucky to have you as a father.”

“How can you know that?” he asked.

“I can, and I do.”

He laid his head in her lap, his ear against her belly. “I think I hear something.”

“Just my lunch.”

“No, really. I think the baby’s moving.”

Orlando’s eyes snapped open. For a few seconds she didn’t know where she was, but then the drone of an engine brought everything back. She was in Mr. Vo’s RV, lying on one of the dining table bench seats.

She assumed a bump in the road had caused the jolt that woke her, but as she struggled to sit up, she felt a tightening of muscles in her lower abdomen.

A contraction?
Hey, I know I said you could come at any time, but let’s put a hold on that for a little while, okay?

She took a couple deep breaths. Up front, she could see that Garrett had moved into the passenger seat next to Mr. Vo, and that Mrs. Vo was lounging on the built-in recliner near the side door. None of them had noticed Orlando was awake.

With each breath the cramp lost strength. To distract herself, she thought about the dream. She’d been having a conversation with Quinn about…she couldn’t remember. The baby, most likely. It was always the baby these days.

When she’d been a teenager, she couldn’t even fathom the idea of having a kid, much less two. Garrett was turning out all right, though, despite everything. And at least this second child would have the advantage of having two parents around.

The pain finally gone, she decided it had been a false contraction. She’d had them with Garrett, too.

She maneuvered off the seat—something that was much harder to do than it should have been—and headed up front, her hands on the walls to steady herself.

When she passed Mrs. Vo, she saw that the woman was asleep, so she took extra care not to disturb her. Up front, she held on to a side panel and attempted to kneel, but her balance was off. Her right arm flailed out and snagged the back of Garrett’s chair.

Her son turned quickly. “Mom?”

He reached out to grab her but his seat belt held him back. By the time he got it unbuckled, she’d managed to lower herself ungracefully to the floor without any permanent damage.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Sorry, sorry,” Mr. Vo said, looking at her through the rearview mirror. “I not see you come.”

“It’s okay. I’m fine.”

Looking unsure, Garrett let go of her arm.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Oregon,” he told her.

“Cross border forty minute ago,” Mr. Vo said.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Twelve-twenty,” he told her.

“Twelve-twenty-two,” Garrett corrected him. He was at that age when time was an exact thing. None of this “rounding off” stuff. Give or take the two minutes, she’d been asleep for over four hours, far longer than she’d planned.

“Looks like you guys have everything under control,” she said as she pushed herself up.

She reached into her pocket, pulled out her phone, and called Quinn. The call went straight to voice mail.

“Checking in,” she said after the tone. “Call when you have time.”

She called Daeng next.

“
Sawadee, khrap
,” he said, greeting her in his native Thai.

“
Sawadee, ka
,” she replied in kind. “Where are you?”

“Eugene, Oregon.”

“I thought you were flying to Portland.”

“I did, and then I drove here. You’re about two hours south of me, near a place called Grants Pass.”

“Oh, you’re tracking me, are you?”

“I’m merely using the software you provided,” he said. “Shall we meet in the middle? Say, Roseburg?”

TACOMA

N
ATE PICKED QUINN
up in a parking lot just off the interstate, south of the airport.

After Quinn shared what he’d learned, Nate asked, “The Wolf? Any idea who she is?”

“I’ve been thinking about it. I think there was someone years ago who used that name. I don’t remember the context. At most it was something I heard in passing. Next time we talk to Orlando, we’ll see if she remembers.”

“So what now?”

“Now we leave town.”

Nate hesitated. “You know, there
is
one other thing we can check before we get out of here.”

Quinn looked at him.

“The safe house Helen set up for us,” Nate explained. “If someone went there looking for us, wouldn’t it confirm her disappearance is tied to our mission?”

Though Quinn was already convinced the connection existed, it would be better to have proof. But was checking worth the risk?

He mulled it over and consulted the map. “I-90’s up that way. We can at least do a drive-by, and then take the interstate east when we’re done.”

Looking pleased with himself, Nate shifted into drive and headed for the freeway.

__________

D
ANI HEARD VOICES,
close, but the words were lost to her, the drug still clouding her ability to understand. She tried to part her eyelids, but each felt as if it were sealed in place.

Her thoughts seemed to drift this way and that, until she couldn’t even remember what she was trying to figure out.

A continuous hum, either heard or imagined, underlined everything. That, and the voices—
right, the voices—
were the only sounds.

She fought through the fog. The voices, she realized, belonged to the two men. Nate, the younger one had been called. And…and…Quinn? That was it, right?

She felt oddly relieved that they hadn’t handed her off yet. She wasn’t sure why, but she had a sense that the longer she could stay with them, the better her chance of protecting the secret.

Her thoughts began to scramble again and slowly scatter.

The voices faded.

And there was only the hum.

Then that faded, too.

__________

T
HE BELLEVUE SAFE
house was much larger than the one in Tacoma.

As they drove slowly past the place, Quinn noted that it looked exactly as it should have—deserted.

Maybe no one had been here at all
, he thought.

“Pull over,” he told Nate as they neared the end of the block.

When they were stopped, Quinn retrieved two sets of comm gear from one of the duffels and tossed one packet to Nate.

“If you can’t reach me for any reason,” he said, “get out of here right away.”

“Got it.”

His senses on alert, Quinn headed down the sidewalk, but made it all the way to the safe house’s driveway without any warnings flashing in his head.

He paused there and pulled out his phone, looking as if he’d received a text.

Quiet. Not the tense quiet of men lying in wait. Just…quiet.

Deciding it was safe enough for a closer look, he headed up the driveway, ready to grab his weapon at the first sign of trouble. He took in the roofline and the bushes and the windows and the door, but spotted no unexpected movements anywhere.

An attached garage sat at the end of the driveway. Quinn headed for the small section of fence between it and the edge of the property, and hopped over. No longer in view of anyone on the street, he pulled out his SIG and made his way into the backyard.

Trees lined the rear half of the property, with a large grass area taking up much of the rest of the space. As for the house, a sliding glass door at the back was closed, vertical blinds pulled across it. Shades were also drawn across the rest of the windows.

Quinn returned his attention to the yard, giving it a longer look this time. The grass ended three feet from the fence, leaving a strip of land covered in dark bark chips acting as buffer between the two.

Sticking to the grass, he moved along the strip and studied the chips. About a third of the way down the side opposite the garage, he stopped. Several chips had been disturbed in a way unlike anywhere else. A few were broken. Someone had come through this way, but it could as easily have been a week ago as an hour.

He found the proof he was looking for several feet farther down, in a spot where the chips petered out, leaving a three-inch patch of soft soil. On the dirt was the partial print of a boot. Quinn had examined thousands of prints since becoming a cleaner, so it wasn’t difficult to determine this one was no more than twelve hours old.

With this in mind, he studied the grass again. Though the blades were already in the process of returning to their normal state, he could now pick out several points where they had recently been bent down.

He keyed his mic. “Nate.”

“Go for Nate.”

“You were right.”

__________

R
ICKY ORBITS NEVER
checked luggage onto a plane. Waiting at baggage claim was his definition of hell. Besides, the most important items he usually needed would never pass inspection. So when he landed at Sea-Tac International at 12:10 p.m., he walked straight out to the parking area where the car he’d ordered was waiting for him, complete with a loaded suitcase in the trunk filled with the rest of his requests.

The client had provided him with the address where the girl had original been found, and a list of possible locations she’d been taken to afterward. Orbits had sent out some feelers before he boarded the plane at O’Hare, and had received several responses by the time he landed. Most had no information other than what was on the news. Seems the girl wasn’t the only one being kept at the Columbia City address. Why she was more important than the others, he didn’t know, nor did he care.