The Silenced - Страница 2

Доступ к книге ограничен фрагменом по требованию правообладателя.

He frowned. “You know I have to.”

Wills was a client who worked out of London. A week before Quinn’s father had died, he had put Quinn on standby for an upcoming project. With very few exceptions, if Quinn agreed to do a project, he’d do it.

He flipped the phone open. “Hello, David.”

“Quinn. How are you?”

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m calling about the project we discussed. We’re officially on,” Wills said, his British accent clipped and proper. “I need you to get on a flight tonight to—”

And there it was, one of those exceptions. “Let me stop you. I can’t do tonight.”

“Okay,” Wills said, not sounding particularly happy. “Then first thing tomorrow morning—”

“David, I’m sorry, but the next few days are out. If you need to find someone else, I completely understand.”

Orlando leaned through the bathroom door. “He’d better understand.”

“Have you taken another job?” Wills asked.

“No, of course not. It’s just … a personal issue.”

“How personal?”

Quinn, annoyed, said, “Very.”

A few seconds of silence.

“Right, then, sorry. Didn’t mean to push. How long will you be tied up?”

“Could be up to five or six days.”

“Five or six days?” Wills said, surprised. “Hold on.” There was half a minute of silence, then Wills came back. “There is some flexibility with this project. I think I can arrange things so that the early operations are covered. Then you can take over and finish everything off.”

“ ‘Operations’ plural? How big is this?”

“It involves several related assignments,” Wills said.

“That could get expensive,” Quinn said.

Quinn was a cleaner, the guy you went to when you needed a body — or in Wills’s case, apparently, bodies — to disappear. His rate was simple: $30,000 a week, with a two-week minimum for each project. If someone had two jobs for him, and each took a day, it was still $120,000 total. He’d explained all that to Wills before the first job he’d done for the Englishman.

“I realize that, but I thought maybe we could work out a flat rate.”

“I don’t do flat rates.”

“Quinn,” the Englishman said quickly, “please, just hear me out first. Given your scheduling conflicts, I anticipate only needing your services on three separate operations. Four, tops. Time-wise, we’re talking no more than three weeks. What I’m proposing is a flat rate of one hundred and ninety thousand.”

Quinn paused. He didn’t like making exceptions to his rules, but given what he was dealing with at the moment, getting back to work would be a nice diversion.

“Make it two-ten and we have a deal.”

“Can I count on you being available to start by October first?”

That was a little over a week away. “Depending on where you need me, I should be able to do that.”

“Your first assignment will be in the States.”

“I’d say that’s doable.”

“Great,” Wills said. “Then we have a deal.”

As Quinn neared the podium he almost wished he’d told Wills he would fly out that night. It would have meant he and Orlando would’ve already been on the road to Minneapolis, a six-hour drive away. He could have avoided the whole ceremony. But the reality was he could never have done that.

He caught sight of his sister, Liz, sitting next to their mom. Predictably, she didn’t return his gaze.

When he and Orlando had arrived a couple of days before, he had thought that maybe their father’s death would spark a reconciliation between Liz and himself. Maybe not full on at first, but at least start things moving in the right direction.

But because of her school schedule in Paris and the long transatlantic flight, Liz hadn’t arrived in Warroad until right before the service. Quinn had been in the lobby greeting mourners when she came rushing in, still wearing jeans and a sweater.

“Liz,” he said, surprised.

“I’m not too late, am I?” She seemed to be all motion: fidgeting with the shoulder strap of her bag, one foot tapping, and her head swiveling side to side as she took in everything in the lobby except her brother.

“You’ve still got thirty minutes.”

She nodded, her face neutral. “Where’s Mom?”

“She’s in back with Reverend Hollis. She should be out in—”

Liz started walking toward the chapel doors. “She’s through here?”

“Liz, it’s probably not a good idea to interrupt them right now.”

“I don’t care what you think. I want to see Mom.”

“Liz, wait.”

But before he could say anything else, she had disappeared into the chapel.

The podium was right before him now. There was no backing out.

With a deep breath, he stepped behind it, then looked out at the room full of his parents’ friends and relatives. Everyone watched him, waiting.

Everyone except Liz. Her eyes were riveted on the flower display behind the casket, her jaw tense. Quinn couldn’t feel mad at her. He knew, like his mother, she was hurting. She’d lost her father. If anyone in the room had ever understood Harold Oliver well, it would have been Liz.

Quinn pulled the notes he’d written out of his pocket and set them on the podium. After another deep breath, he smiled at his mom, then looked again at the people gathered before him.

“What I remember most about my father … what I …”

He stopped and glanced at his notes, but there was nothing there that could help him.

I remember his coldness. I remember his distance.

He had written down things he thought people would want to hear. Lies about a relationship with his father he had never experienced. Feelings he had never had.

I remember his anger. I remember his inability to love. Me, anyway.

If he tried to say any of the things he’d prepared, everyone would see right through him.

He glanced up at his mom again. She was looking back, her eyes soft, streaks of tears on her cheeks. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, that the right words just weren’t coming. But then, as he looked at her, he realized there was something he could say, something that wouldn’t be false.

“What I remember most about my father is the way he loved my mother,” he said. “You could tell in the way he looked at her, and the way he always waited to eat until she was at the table. And the way he waited for her, and didn’t give up hope before they were married.” He told stories of life on the farm, of family trips, of Fourth of July picnics all from the perspective of the relationship between his father and his mother.

“He loved her,” Quinn finished. “And that was enough.”

Chapter 3

No one who came to the Olivers’ farm that afternoon arrived empty-handed. There were casseroles and sandwiches and baked chicken and pans of Jell-O and cakes and pies and cookies and almost anything you would want to drink.

Quinn guessed that at least twice as many people had jammed into his mother’s house as had come to the chapel. When it got to the point where he couldn’t turn around without bumping into someone, he caught Orlando’s eye and motioned to the back door.

The yard was considerably less crowded than inside the house, but it was something equally annoying to Quinn.

Cold.

He shivered as they walked down the steps. Anything below sixty degrees just felt wrong, and the current temperature was definitely well south of that mark. If this had been Los Angeles, the day would have been considered full-on winter. But here in northern Minnesota, it was merely typical fall. And, as if to emphasize that point, several of the dozen or so people who had also opted for the outside weren’t even wearing jackets.

Quinn shivered again, then pointed at a couple of empty chairs. After he and Orlando were seated, he began picking at his food, but nothing looked appetizing. After only a few minutes, Orlando set her equally untouched plate on the ground and said, “I should check on Garrett.”

She had left her son at home in San Francisco under the watchful care of Mr. and Mrs. Vo. Orlando and Quinn had agreed that this was not the time for Garrett to be introduced to Quinn’s family. Perhaps the following summer.

Before she could retrieve her phone, though, several women approached them.

“Jake, that was just lovely — what you said about your father,” one of the women said.

“Thank you,” Quinn replied. He remembered her as the mother of someone he’d gone to school with, but her name escaped him.

“Yes,” one of the other women said.

“Absolutely lovely,” the last told him.

“Thank you.”

“I can’t believe how grown up you are now. And who is this beautiful woman you’re with?” the first asked.

Quinn could feel Orlando tense beside him. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “This is my girlfriend, Claire.”

The first woman smiled. “Nice to meet you, Claire. I’m Mrs. Patterson.”

“How nice you could come with Jake,” the third said. “I’m Mrs. Moore.”

“Claire? I wouldn’t have expected that name,” the second one said.

Quinn frowned, annoyed, but Orlando immediately put a calming hand on his thigh and said, “My father was part Irish.” It wasn’t a lie. Her father was half-Irish, but her father had also been half-Thai, and her mother one hundred percent Korean. When someone looked at Orlando, her Irish ancestry was the last thing she saw.