Becoming Quinn

12

Jake got to work an hour and a half before his shift, and spent the time looking through mug shots in the various databases the department had access to. But none of the pictures matched the faces of the men from the hotel—and the coffee shop.

He finally gave up and headed out to find Haywood and get ready for another night on patrol.

“Jake!”

He looked back. Berit was at the other end of the corridor, heading in his direction, so he met her halfway.

“I had an idea about your friends from the hotel,” she said, keeping her voice low.

“What?”

“Their car.”

“They didn’t have a car,” he said, reminding her of what he’d found out from the doorman at the Lawrence.

“We don’t know that for sure. But I might know a way of finding out.”

Looking skeptical, he said, “How?”

“I started thinking about the security footage we were looking at today. Then I remembered — the route they would have taken goes right through a few road expansion surveys. The company hired to do the assessment uses a combination of automated car counting and video. Cameras have been up for months.”

“Where are they?”

She listed off several streets, then said, “I called a friend of mine who works at the planning department. That’s how I found out where some of the cameras are set up and who’s running them.”

He thought for a moment. “This is great. If they drove by one, we can at least tell what kind of car they were in.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“When can we look?”

“My friend’s trying to hook us up. I’ll let you know when I hear back from her.”

“Hey, Snowbird! We taking it half-speed today?”

Jake looked back and saw Haywood standing in the corridor, just outside the locker room.

“I’m coming,” Jake told him. He looked back at Berit. “Thanks.”

“Hope it works.”

“Me, too.”

The first part of patrol was taken up with a traffic stop, a call for a possible domestic disturbance that turned out to be a couple of college drama students practicing lines for a play, and the inevitable stop at Di’s Diner for a little Haywood-Maria bonding time. They spent the rest of the shift dealing with an attempted robbery that left a night clerk at a discount motel with a nice bruise on the side of his face, and two suspects known to the clerk making a run for it with nothing more than what they’d had when they arrived.

Jake took preliminary witness statements from motel guests who’d overheard the confrontation, while Haywood concentrated on the clerk. When the detectives arrived, Jake was relegated to his now familiar role of crowd control expert.

When he finally headed out to his Civic at the end of the night, he found Berit half-asleep in her Charger in the next space over.

She stirred when she saw him, and rolled down her window. “What took you guys so long?”

“Attempted robbery. They needed my expertise on scene.”

“Making sure people stayed on the other side of the tape?” she asked, smirking.

“When you’ve got a talent, you’ve got a talent. Why are you still here?”

She waved him closer.

“My friend called me back,” she whispered. “Got us an appointment tomorrow morning at 9:30.”

“Great. Where?”

“Let’s meet at Di’s at nine.”

“Uniforms?”

She frowned, but said, “Yeah, I guess that would help.” She paused. “Jake.”

“Yeah?”

“It doesn’t matter if we can’t prove anything. I think you need to tell what you know.”

He blew out a breath. “Yeah, I know. Tomorrow before my shift.”

“Good.” She looked relieved, as if she’d been expecting a fight. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

“Sleep well.”

As Jake pulled out of the secured parking lot a few minutes later, he had the oddest feeling that he was being watched. He glanced around. Though it was dark, there were plenty of streetlights illuminating the area, and, except for a couple of cars that were passing by right at that moment, he could see no one else.

Fatigue, he decided.

Nothing more than that.