By reason of insanity

106

Twenty-four hours.

After extensive discussions the previous night, Boyd Gates had faxed Quinn's written confession for the murder of Richard Hofstetter Jr. to Carla Duncan in Las Vegas. The fax had gone through a few minutes before 3 a.m. Eastern time. A few minutes later, at exactly midnight Pacific time, Carla Duncan had called and given Quinn twenty-four hours to turn himself in for questioning.

Carla had conceded the possibility that the confession could be entirely bogus, designed solely to entrap Marc Boland. Without more, she was not going to have Quinn arrested and extradited to Nevada. She probably considered him a minimal flight risk given the fact that Annie was in jail awaiting trial and relying on his legal services.

But Carla did insist that Quinn come in for questioning.

Twenty-four hours, not a minute longer. Quinn felt like Kiefer Sutherland in 24, except that this was real. And Quinn didn't have to save the entire world-just Annie and Sierra.

He landed at McCarren International Airport a few minutes after 2 p.m. on Tuesday, mindful that nearly fourteen hours had already passed. He met a trusted consultant at the airport, who rode with Quinn to the Signature Towers. The man was an electronics and audio geek, an expert who billed at five hundred an hour. Quinn would have paid him double.

"I can have what you need in a few hours," the man said.

Quinn called Richard Hofstetter Sr. and demanded an appointment at 6 p.m.

"Why should I agree to meet with you?" Hofstetter asked.

"Because you want the Oasis sale to go through," Quinn said.

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Hofstetter. "But maybe you'll inform me."

"See you at six," said Quinn.

He hung up with Hofstetter and made a phone call to Annie.

"It'll never work," she said after Quinn explained his plan.

"You got a better idea?" Quinn asked.

The Rogue's security guards escorted Quinn into Hofstetter's enormous office. Quinn was still wearing the suit coat and slacks from his courtroom appearance that morning in Virginia Beach, his white shirt open at the collar.

"I heard about the case," Hofstetter said. "Congratulations."

"Thanks."

"How's the eye?" Hofstetter asked, nodding toward Quinn's swollen cheek.

"Better than the ribs," Quinn said.

One of the security guards pulled out a metal wand to check Quinn for weapons and recording devices.

"Hold your hands straight out to your side," he said.

"I can't," Quinn said, giving the man a fake grimace. "Torn rotator cuff, remember?"

"You really ought to get that fixed," said Hofstetter.

They wanded Quinn and picked up a signal from his suit coat pocket. Quinn pulled out a digital recorder and held it in front of him.

"My, my," said Hofstetter. "I thought that was illegal in the state of Nevada. A man could lose his law license, you know."

Quinn smirked. "Secretly recording a conversation is illegal. Playing back a prior one is not."

Hofstetter placed his elbows on the desk and studied Quinn over the top of his fists. The man's square face was tan, contrasting with whiter skin in the shape of sunglasses around his eyes. His hairline was unnaturally even, the precise result of a multitude of hair plugs. The eyes held a death wish for Quinn-a mutual loathing, Quinn realized. "This better be good," Hofstetter said.

"It's for your ears only," Quinn countered. He could feel sweat forming underneath his T-shirt-there was no margin for error here.

Hofstetter nodded at his henchmen. They left the room, and Quinn breathed a little easier. He placed the digital recorder on the desk and turned it on.

For the next several minutes, Hofstetter listened to a telephone conversation between Quinn and Annie, recorded during Quinn's call to his sister a few hours earlier. Quinn told Annie about the existence of the Oasis Limited Partnership interest that had belonged to Richard Hofstetter Jr. and the importance of those voting rights in a battle to sell the Oasis casino. "This is why Claude Tanner suddenly came back into Sierra's life," Quinn explained. "And I think he did so at the urging of Richard Hofstetter Sr., who would benefit handsomely if Tanner voted to sell the casino to Hofstetter's business partners."

Hofstetter stared at the recorder without emotion as the exchange played out. Not even a flicker of surprise.

"You've got no proof of any of this," he said.

Quinn didn't answer. The tape could speak for him.

"I'm going to propose a three-way deal to your father-in-law when I meet with him tonight at six," Quinn said to Annie during the recorded call. "It's the only way I know to protect Sierra. I'll talk to Carla Duncan and get your plea agreement back on the table. You plead guilty and serve three years, then get permanent custody of Sierra afterward. In the meantime, I get temporary custody of Sierra. Tanner gets chaperoned visitation rights and gets appointed as trustee of all Sierra's assets, including the voting rights for the Oasis Limited Partnership. Hofstetter gets his casino; we get Sierra."

Quinn and Hofstetter listened a few more minutes as Annie asked various questions about the deal and its implications. After a long pause, she tearfully agreed that it made sense.

The two men continued to listen as Quinn gave Annie some additional instructions. "Before I started taping this call," Quinn's voice said, "I told you about a location that would contain a microcassette tape of the call. I'm going to make two tapes of this conversation. I'll take one to the meeting with Hofstetter and put the other in the location I mentioned to you. If you don't hear from me by 6:30, or if anything happens to me, tell Carla Duncan about the Oasis Limited Partnership, the location of the tape, and my meeting with Mr. Hofstetter tonight."

Quinn picked up his recorder, turned it off, and took his seat. "We can all win, Mr. Hofstetter, or we can all lose. If I walk out of here without a deal, I'll amend the estate filing to include the Oasis Limited Partnership interest. Annie will go to trial and, if she loses, Tanner gets custody of Sierra and voting rights for the Oasis asset. But I'll raise so much stink about the impropriety of him selling that casino to your business partners, and my suspicions that you put him up to it, that he'll never be able to pull the trigger. You lose. Annie loses. And Sierra loses.

"Or we can all win. You call off Tanner-he doesn't really care about Sierra anyway. You get your casino; Annie and I get custody of Sierra without interference."

Quinn looked at his watch. "It's 6:15, Mr. Hofstetter. You have fifteen minutes."