Brett Battles - The Silenced

Then what?

Before he could retrace his steps, he heard a drawer being yanked out, then slammed back into place. It had come from the left, toward the bedroom.

Quinn slipped his backpack off his shoulders and placed it on the floor in the entryway. He motioned for Nate to come inside and wait by the door. Once his apprentice was in position, Quinn crossed the living room, stepping carefully so as not to cause any of the floorboards beneath the carpet to creak. If it was Liz in the bedroom, he could sneak back out. If it wasn’t, he’d let his instincts take over.

At the hallway, he paused again. Like elsewhere in the apartment, the lights were off. Would his sister be moving around in the semidarkness?

The hallway was only five feet long. At the other end, an open door led into the bathroom. To the right, another door, also open, led to the bedroom.

From his position he could only see a narrow swath of the room, from the middle of the bed to the wall on the other side. It was dim, but not dark.

Another drawer yanked open.

Unconsciously, Quinn’s hand moved toward where his gun would have been if he’d had one. He stopped himself halfway there, annoyed.

He scanned the surrounding area for anything he could use as a weapon. A paperweight, a letter opener, or even an ashtray-though he would have given Liz hell about that later if he’d found one. But he saw nothing he could use.

In the bedroom, the drawer moved back into place, this time with less force. Then the floor creaked. Once, twice, a third time, each wooden groan moving closer to the doorway.

Quinn pressed himself against the wall just inside the living room.

Another creak. This time in the hallway, not the bedroom.

He tensed, ready to move, but instead of heading toward the living room, the unseen person entered the bathroom.

A sudden splash of illumination spilled into the hall as the bathroom light came on. Quinn could hear the person going through the cabinet and drawers. Then there was the thunk of porcelain, and a second later the sound of water hitting water. From a distance.

Definitely not Liz.

The intruder was male.

Quinn moved into the hallway, anger bubbling just below the surface of his skin at this intrusion on his sister’s life.

When he reached the bathroom, he peeked between the door and the jamb. Two feet on the other side was the back right shoulder of a large man in a dark coat. Quinn estimated the guy was at least six foot three. His hair was covered by the kind of stocking cap favored by the reggae set from the seventies and eighties-loose and baggy, falling against the nape of his neck. The man was staring at the wall above the toilet in the time-honored tradition of males around the world.

The torrent of water began to slow, then finally stop. After a last push to clean out the pipes, the man bent down to zip himself up.

Without another thought, Quinn slammed the door into the man’s back.

A pained grunt was followed by the sound of the porcelain lid to the toilet’s water tank being jarred loose.

Quinn slammed again, harder.

Another grunt.

As he was about to go for a third time, the door smashed back into him, sending him flying against the door frame. His left arm flailed out, looking for something solid to hold on to, but found only the light switch and inadvertently flipped it off, plunging the room into darkness.

The intruder roared as he tried to get around the door. But the cramped space and his massive size slowed his efforts. When he finally shoved past it, Quinn unleashed a right hook to his jaw.

“Merde!” the man yelled.

Quinn hit him again, this time in the soft spot just below the ribs. The intruder doubled over, and Quinn grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him out into the hall.

The man stumbled for a few feet, then fell to his knees. Quinn jumped on his back, pushing him all the way to the ground, then began releasing punch after punch to the man’s kidneys and ribs.

Suddenly someone grabbed his arm. It was Nate.

“We can’t get any info out of him if you kill him,” Nate said.

Quinn held his position for a moment longer, breathing hard, then shoved the man between the shoulder blades and stood up.

“Search him,” he said, his teeth clenched.

“Laissez-moi!” the intruder yelled as Nate patted him down.

“Gun,” Nate said, his hand at the small of the man’s back.

He removed the Glock pistol from the man’s waistband and handed it to Quinn, then continued his search. There was a knife in the guy’s boot, but that was it.

“ID?” Quinn asked.

“No wallet,” Nate said.

“Qui etes-vous?” Quinn demanded, asking the man’s identity.

“Allez vous faire foutre.”

Quinn didn’t believe for a second his name was Go To Hell. “Qui etes-vous?”

“J’habite ici.” I live here.

“Bullshit,” Quinn said, then shoved the barrel of the Glock into the base of the guy’s head.

“Take it easy,” the intruder said in heavily accented English.

“One chance or I pull the trigger. What are you doing here?”

“Hey, no problem. I’ll tell you. Okay? Someone asked me to look around this apartment,” the man said. “So I look around. No reason to shoot me.”

Quinn leaned back, moving the gun from the man’s neck.

“Keep your hands where I can see them and turn over,” he said. “Slowly.”

Nate released the man’s shoulders, then got to his feet.

As instructed, the man turned over and lay on his back.

The intruder had a dark beard, long and full, sticking a good five inches out from his face. Above the growth, his eyes were bright blue, and looked as surprised as Quinn felt.

“Julien?” Quinn said.

“Quinn?” the man asked.

“So who is she?” Julien de Coster asked.

They were sitting around one of the outside tables at the cafe below Liz’s apartment building. Quinn had situated himself so that he could keep an eye on the entrance, but be shielded by Nate and Julien in case his sister suddenly showed up.

“The relative of a client,” Quinn said. Telling Nate the truth was one thing, broadcasting it to the rest of the world was something else entirely. “He was concerned she might be in danger. Since I was in the area, he asked me to check on her.”

Julien sipped a coffee and narrowed his eyes. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

“Of course there’s more,” Quinn said. “But you know there are things I can’t tell you.”

“I understand,” Julien said, holding up a hand. “Not my business.”

“Julien, I’ve always trusted you. You know that. But come on, you were in her apartment. I think it’s safe to say we’re working opposite sides on this thing.”

“If I’m on the other side from you, then I am obviously not where I should be.”

Quinn said nothing.

Julien took another sip. “You can consider me off the job. But that doesn’t mean someone won’t come back and take my place.”

“I’m not trying to keep you from working,” Quinn said.

Julien scoffed. “It was a throwaway job, anyway. Don’t worry about it.”

Quinn put his hand around his cup, but didn’t raise it. “If that’s the case, would you be interested in telling me what you were supposed to be doing?”

“I don’t know,” Julien said. “Backing out of the job is already not going to help my reputation, but you want me to sell out my employer? What is so important?”

“The girl’s an innocent. Her only crime is being related to someone in our world. She doesn’t deserve to be put in danger, and I’m here to make sure she isn’t.”

Julien smiled. “You are clever, my friend.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a four-by-six photograph, then laid it on the table so Quinn could see it. “She has your eyes, you know. And your chin, too.”