Brett Battles - The Collected

The image moved down again until it was just a couple inches above the carpet. Howard’s finger moved back into the frame and rubbed across the surface. As it did, several tiny white spears, no more than an eighth of an inch long, jumped up and down. Howard pressed his finger against one of them, adhering it to the glove, and turned his hand so the spear was visible on the camera.

“Plastic,” he said.

Both Quinn and Orlando had seen similar fragments before. Sometimes when plastic ties where used for handcuffs, the tips of the ridges could shear off, leaving behind spears just like the one Howard was holding.

Howard rose back to his feet, this time turning the camera around so he was looking into the lens. “I figure they surprised him in his bed, hauled him out here, and cuffed him. If it was me, I would have drugged him, too, so he didn’t cause any problems on the way out.”

The fact that they’d even found Peter, let alone broken into his place, was shocking. Peter was secretive even in the least threatening of situations. Quinn knew he had security in place that was at least on par with what Quinn himself employed, probably even better. Of course, even the best systems weren’t perfect, and Quinn’s methods hadn’t always kept people out, either.

“Fingerprints?” Orlando asked.

“Checked the door when I first came in,” Howard said. “It was clean. Spot-checked a few other places, too. Same thing. Could make another pass if you want, but I have a feeling I’m not going to find any.”

Both Quinn and Orlando knew he was right.

“No. Not necessary,” Quinn said. “Is that it?”

“So far. I want to do another look around, then check the building’s common area and out front.”

“Okay. Report back when you’re done. Let me talk to Misty.”

The image whipped around the room as Howard carried the phone over to Peter’s former assistant and handed it to her. Though Quinn had talked to her hundreds of times on the phone, he’d met her in person only twice. The last time had been several years earlier. But it wasn’t those intervening years that made her otherwise youthful face look aged this morning.

“Are you okay?” Quinn said.

“What do you think happened?” she asked as if she hadn’t heard him.

“No way to know yet.”

“You’ll find out, though, right?”

“Yes.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

His words seemed to relax her, if only a bit. “If you need me to do anything, you just say the word. I can take some emergency leave. I have plenty of vacation time.”

“Actually, there is something you can help with.”

“What is it?”

“I need you to figure out the last time anyone saw him. Steve can help you. You can ask around there at his building, maybe talk to some of his friends.”

“He doesn’t really have a lot of friends.”

“There’s got to be some people he talks to now and then. Wherever they had him working, maybe.”

She nodded.

“Whatever you do, though, be very careful. We don’t know what this is, and I don’t want you walking into anything that’ll get you in trouble.”

“Don’t worry about me. Just find Peter.”

He gave her a reassuring smile. “Check in with me later.”

“I will.”

Quinn hung up.

“What the hell is going on?” Orlando said. “Nate and Peter?”

“Maybe what’s happening to them isn’t related,” Daeng suggested.

Quinn and Orlando looked at him, their skepticism etched on their faces.

Daeng held up his hands defensively. “Or maybe it is.”

Quinn knew Daeng had a point. They couldn’t just assume the two disappearances were connected. The incidents had occurred sixteen hundred miles apart, in different countries, and Nate’s main association with Peter was through Quinn. He’d seldom ever talked to Peter directly.

Then again, if those who’d done the taking thought Nate was Quinn…

“Maybe we should see if anyone else is missing,” he said.

Their search was handicapped right from the start.

While Quinn and Orlando knew a fairly substantial number of people in the business, there were still plenty of others they’d never met. And pinpointing the current whereabouts of the ones they did know was not the easiest thing to do. It wasn’t like there was some central switchboard operatives reported to, giving updates of their status. Usually if someone was suddenly unreachable, it was assumed they were on a gig.

When they finally took a break at noon, the list of potential missing contained over twenty people.

“We’re not getting anywhere,” Quinn said. “Most of them have got to be out on jobs.” He frowned. “I think we might be wasting our time.”

“No,” Orlando said. “We’re not.” She glanced down the list of names. “Look, you’re right. Most of these people probably are working. But this one…” Her finger stopped two thirds of the way down the list. “Alex Berkeley.”

“What about him?”

“He works with a partner most of the time. Tom Benson. You know him, right?”

“Sure. I’ve worked with both of them.”

“I talked to Tom. He said Alex had been hired on something that was supposed to last a week, tops, a surveillance thing that apparently didn’t need both of them. He was supposed to be back a few days ago, but Tom hasn’t heard from him. He’s getting a bit annoyed because they have something scheduled for early next week.”

“His project probably got extended.”

“Probably,” she admitted. “But you’d think Alex would have let Tom know.”

“Maybe,” Quinn said, unwilling to make the full leap just yet.

Orlando circled Berkeley’s name and studied the list again.

“Hold on,” she said. “I have an idea.”

She pushed back from the dining table and went into the kitchen. Drawers and cabinets began opening and closing.

“Where do you keep your Post-its?” she called out a moment later.

“Used to be some in the drawer by the sink,” he told her.

“Well, they’re not here now.”

“Try the pantry.”

As her steps crossed the kitchen, the front door opened and Daeng walked in, carrying several bags.

“Who’s hungry?” he said.

Quinn hadn’t even thought about eating, but the intensifying aroma that preceded Daeng into the dining room was hard to resist.

“I’ve got two spicy chicken banh mi , two barbecue pork, some spring rolls, and a couple containers of pho we can split.”

“I thought you were getting Thai?” Quinn said.

“I was, but I passed by a couple of those food trucks and wanted to check them out. One of them was Vietnamese food and looked too good to pass up.”

“I’ll take a spicy chicken,” Orlando said as she walked back into the dining area, carrying three different-colored pads of Post-its and a bottle of Sriracha hot sauce.

While Daeng handed out the lunch, she set the hot sauce on the table, wrote NATE on a light blue Post-it, and stuck it to the window. Next, she wrote PETER on one of the same color, and put his name right below Nate’s. On a yellow note, she wrote Berkeley, and started a new column on the window. Finally, she wrote out individual green ones for the other twenty-two names and gave them a third column.

She touched the glass above Nate’s name. “Assuming Nate and Peter are connected, these are our known missing,” she said. She moved her fingers to the yellow column. “Our possibles.” To the green. “And our pool of potentials. When we can rule someone out, we’ll start a fourth column.”

“And what color will that be?” Quinn asked, an eyebrow raised. “I don’t want to get confused.”

“You only have the three colors, so it’ll also be green, jerk.”