"No on all three."
"Homeland Security?"
A bark of a laugh. "No, thank G.o.d."
"Postal Inspector? Fish and Wildlife?"
He gave me a look.
"Hey, I"m running out of options. I know there are a bunch of military law enforcement agencies, and those would be federal, but I"m going to guess no to all of them."
"You"d be guessing correctly."
I leaned back in the pa.s.senger seat, racking my brain. In Canada, we had a handful of federal law agencies. In the U.S., there were dozens.
"USMS," Quinn said.
"What?"
He sighed. "Even when I give the acronym, it doesn"t help. What did Jack say my specialty was?"
I thought back. "Oh, right. Finding people." A pause. "Border patrol? Coast Guard?"
A deeper sigh. "No respect, I tell you. The oldest federal law agency in the country, and we always get forgotten. Or, worse, discounted as glorified bounty hunters."
"Marshals. USMS United States Marshal Service."
"It was the "glorified bounty hunters" that did it, wasn"t it?"
"Sorry."
He fixed me with a mock glare. "I"ll have you know the marshals do a lot more than apprehend fugitives. We"re not only the oldest law agency, we"re the most versatile. Just check our Web site. Says so right there."
I smiled. "I stand corrected. But fugitive apprehension is is what you were doing in Canada, right?" what you were doing in Canada, right?"
"Montreal, yes. I got a lead about someone your RCMP is also interested in. Toronto was a training seminar."
"What were they teaching?"
"I was teaching." He caught my look. "What, I don"t strike you as instructor material?" was teaching." He caught my look. "What, I don"t strike you as instructor material?"
I glanced over at him and considered it. "Actually, yes. I can see it. But not full time."
"Agreed. They"ve been pushing me to do more, but I"m digging in my heels. I might have the personality for teaching curious, outgoing, reasonably patient. But I love field "
He stopped and lowered his head to peer out the windshield. Jack had paused, pizzas in hand, at the front of the car. I rolled down the window.
"We"re decent," I said.
"Just checking," he said as he walked around. "Windows looked steamy."
"Just talking. We"re good at that, in case you haven"t noticed."
His grunt said he had. I got out, took the pizzas from him, and crawled into the back with them, letting him drive.
We returned to the hotel, where Quinn started checking the files on his laptop. We didn"t sit around in anxious silence, though. Maybe it was the lingering buzz from the break-in, or maybe we were just giddy from the late hour. Whatever the reason, Quinn and I were both in talkative moods, tossing anecdotes back and forth, mostly related to break-ins outrageous or incompetent thief stories we"d heard on the job.
There was a lot of one-upmanship and laughing as we downed the beer and pizza, and I wouldn"t have blamed Jack if he walked out and found a quiet, sane place to wait, but while he didn"t contribute to our stories, he seemed content to listen, eat, and drink.
Nowhere in those files did we find a receipt for the sale of one blue-eyed, blond-haired baby girl from Ontario. Nor was there a ledger file with fifty grand paid to Ronald Fenniger for "services rendered" and a hundred grand from the Keyeses for "goods received." A paper trail would have been nice, but unlikely.
We had the employee files, both on paper and on disk, and they"d open a new avenue of investigation. Was anyone in financial straits? Or enjoying a sudden surge in wealth? Did anyone have a criminal record? Or complaints lodged against them regarding adoption practices?
We had the client files, too. The Keyeses" one was interesting. They"d been on the waiting list for about six months, after a prolonged background study where a few red flags had arisen. She"d spent time in rehab for prescription drug addiction. He had two kids from a prior marriage, and a history of defaulting on child support payments.
The problems, though, seemed to have been worked out. Leslie had been clean for three years and the addiction had been to painkillers after a serious auto accident. Ken blamed his child support problems on a "miscom-munication" with his wife, who"d even written him a letter of recommendation, a.s.suring the agency he"d repaid her. So they"d been placed on the waiting list, but from the notes, I suspected they"d have been waiting awhile. Then, two months ago, the Keyeses had withdrawn, their bills paid in full. A note on their file said they were pursuing other options.
If we could find more files with a similar pattern problems with the intake process, proven financial means, and a recent departure from the agency"s prospective parent list we might find the other babies.
Chapter Forty-one.
When we reached the end of the files, our energy drained fast. We only had the one room renting a second hadn"t crossed anyone"s mind until it was too late to bother.
Even as we slowed, no one actually mentioned going to bed. We just started winding down and settling in. Quinn checked his business e-mail while I tidied. Jack stretched on the bed, and got messages from his voice mail while I used the washroom brushing my teeth, washing up, putting on my nightshirt but leaving my jeans in place. When I came out, Jack had his eyes closed, still on top of the covers, and Quinn was at the desk answering e-mail. I crawled into bed, shedding my jeans once I was under the covers. I was asleep before the lights went out.
I woke a few hours later to the soft whistle of deep breathing. I looked over to see that Quinn had crawled into bed with me. He was being circ.u.mspect, lying a foot away, and he was dressed at least in a T-shirt.
I watched him sleep, the streetlight between the curtains casting a pale mask over his eyes.
This afternoon, when he"d come to the hotel, I"d decided I was going to take the plunge. Stop p.i.s.sing around with "should I or shouldn"t I," stop waiting for the stars to align and the firecrackers to pop and the tiny violins to start playing. So what if Quinn didn"t make my heart pitter-patter? He could make other parts of me pitter-patter, and that was more than I could say for any guy who"d shown an interest in me in a very long time.
I"d made my decision. I started following through. I"d liked liked following through. Even now, thinking of that kiss brought a blast of delicious heat. Yet the moment he"d misinterpreted my discomfort over being caught as reluctance, and offered to give me more time, I"d ducked out the chicken door. following through. Even now, thinking of that kiss brought a blast of delicious heat. Yet the moment he"d misinterpreted my discomfort over being caught as reluctance, and offered to give me more time, I"d ducked out the chicken door.
If I had any lingering romantic notions about Jack, I had to get rid of them fast or eventually I"d do something to totally embarra.s.s myself, and send Jack away for good.
I was ready for romance. I was definitely ready for s.e.x. I wanted Quinn as more than a friend. I wanted to keep Jack as a friend. The answer to all this was lying right beside me, and d.a.m.ned if I was going to dither and fret another six months.
Tomorrow I was telling Quinn that as much as I appreciated his patience, I didn"t need it. I was ready.
The next time I woke was from a dream in which I was on a game show, about to win a trip to Egypt, if only I could remember the name of the guy in the Inferno whose contrapa.s.so punishment was eternally eating the brain of the coconspirator who"d betrayed him. The show"s buzzer kept malfunctioning, going off before my time was up, and I was about to complain when I realized the buzzing sounded like Jack"s predictably ba.n.a.l ring tone.
I pulled myself from the dream as he was slipping out the door, phone to his ear. A moment later, he returned.
"Everything okay?" I whispered.
"Yeah. Go back to sleep."
I did.
I woke again as the daylight streaming through that crack between the curtains. .h.i.t my eyes. As I shifted, Quinn"s eyes opened. He reached over and pushed a strand of hair off my face, tucking it behind my ear, his fingertips gliding over my cheek.
"Good morning," I said.
His lips curved in a drowsy, s.e.xy smile. He started to say something, then a sharp rap at the door had me jumping back so fast I pulled the covers with me.
"Got it," Jack grunted.
I looked past Quinn to see Jack sliding out of bed. He stood, rolled his shoulders, then stepped over, peered into the peephole, and let out a profanity.
"What the f.u.c.k is this?" he said as he opened the door.
"Just repaying your unG.o.dly early visit from yesterday." Evelyn"s voice preceded her. "Is Dee bunking down ?"
She stepped in and noticed me, sitting on the edge of the bed. Then she saw Quinn rising on his elbows, and c.o.c.ked her eyebrows, gaze traveling from us to Jack.
"Well, that"s one solution," she said.
"The cheapest one," I said, stifling a yawn. "But, no, I"m not making the guys squeeze into one room to save money. We were up late and never got around to renting another."
Quinn got up, and I saw he was wearing only his boxers and T-shirt. He stretched, then grabbed his pants.
"Sorry," he said. "We"re a little casual around here."
"Oh, don"t rush on my account."
I glanced over to see Evelyn admiring the view as much as I"d been, and taking far fewer pains to hide it.
I fished my jeans from under the bed. "Coed sleeping arrangements are always tricky."
"Not if you do it right. Of course, if you do it right, there"s no need to worry about clothes."
I shot her a look.
She sighed. "Youth really is wasted on the young."
"How"d you find us?" Quinn asked as he sat back on the bed.
"I can find anyone."
"Called last night," Jack said. "Wanted the hotel number. Said she had to fax something."
"I needed to talk to Dee."
"The phone works."
"And I had business in Detroit, so I decided to make a trip of it."
"What business?"
"None of yours."
Jack snorted, not buying it, but when he opened his mouth to call her on it, I shot him a look that asked him not to.
I said, "If it"s about what we started to discuss yesterday, let"s let the guys get showered and shaved while we go grab coffee and talk. I"m interested in hearing "
"Oh, I"m sure you are." She flashed a smile that set my teeth on edge. "We"ll get to that. Eventually. Probably."
I turned to Quinn. "Up for a jog, then? I"ve missed the last couple of mornings, so I"m heading out. You"re welcome to join me."
He grinned. "Love to." He crossed the room and opened his suitcase. "Even brought sweatpants. I"ve been trying to get out a few times a week. I"m not up to your five miles yet, but I don"t get your quiet country lanes. Or your clean air."
I tossed the grin back. "So that"s your excuse?"
"Absolutely."
I took my duffel and headed for the bathroom, then stopped, leaned out and looked at Evelyn. "Catch up later, then?"
Her lips tightened. I smiled and closed the door.
For the first half of the run, I said little, feet pounding the pavement hard, knocking thoughts of Evelyn from my mind, letting myself get caught up in Quinn"s chatter instead, commenting just enough so he knew I was paying attention.
Having now finally pa.s.sed that first-date exchange of information "What"s your job? Ever married? Any kids?" seemed to open the floodgates for Quinn. He talked about his family. They seemed close. Enviably close, and I was happy for him.
Mostly, though, he talked about his job, including a couple of cases he was currently working. While he avoided identifying details, he still gave me more than he should have. I knew that was intentional. It was his way of saying he trusted me, and he knew I didn"t quite trust him yet, so here was a bow-wrapped package of confidential information, proof he had no plans to flip on me.
By the halfway mark, Quinn"s chatter had banished Evelyn from my mind, and I began to share my own story, starting slow, with my family and my dad, and how I grew up, then moving into what I knew he really wanted to hear: how I shot Wayne Franco and what happened afterward.
For the first time in seven years, I told my story to someone who understood. Really understood. I"d had people say, "I see how that could happen." I"d had some cop friends who said it and meant it. I"d had plenty of people who tut-tutted at the media for ruining my life. I had people who were outraged at it and fired off letters on my behalf. But the one thing I never had was the one thing I needed most, and Quinn gave it to me.
He understood what it meant to me to lose my job. Others said it was a shame, but I"d only been an officer for a few years, and I got a good buyout, so no harm done, really. Quinn understood that, for me, the end of my career was more devastating than all the front-page photos in the world. I"d grown up to be a cop, and now I wasn"t, and I don"t think I"d ever stop feeling the loss, ever stop grieving.
The more we talked, the more I realized that Evelyn had been right. You couldn"t find a better match for me if you tried. And if I screwed this up, I"d never forgive myself.
When we were a block from the hotel, I stopped at the mouth of an alley. Quinn got a few more strides in before realizing I wasn"t beside him and circling back.
"You okay?" he asked. "Did you ?"
I wrapped my fist in his sweaty shirt front and walked backward into the alley.
His eyes danced. "I meant what I said. No need to rush. I"ll give you all the time "
"I"ve had more than enough," I said, pulled him to me, and kissed him.