Dead Drop

Epilogue

An hour and a half after the first explosion, Quinn adjusted the grip of Mattie’s arms around his neck so she didn’t choke him to death. Ronnie wasn’t much better. Wrapped in wool blankets to combat the onset of shock from the ordeal, neither had let an inch of space come between them and Jericho since the police had swarmed the place and escorted everyone to the waiting medical triage facilities that had been erected in the parking lots. First responders now lined up like taxis outside the main gate. The most critically wounded were still being loaded into what looked like an endless number of ambulances from the five closest hospitals and police cars from every jurisdiction within an hour’s drive.

A medic insisted on wrapping Quinn’s wounded leg, threatening him with all kinds of horrible infections if he didn’t get it cleaned and checked. Ronnie promised she’d get him to a doctor as soon as the more seriously wounded were taken care of.

A commotion of strained voices from three tents down drew Quinn’s attention. Stepping away from the glare of portable construction lights, he could see Mukhtar seated on the tailgate of a pickup truck. Three men in suits stood in front of him, peppering him with questions. As Quinn moved closer he could see the boy was cuffed behind his back.

Garcia tensed at the sight and stepped away from Quinn, peeling off her blanket to reveal the tight yellow swimsuit — the chest and belly of which were smeared with dark blood. Quinn handed Mattie to her.

Mukhtar lit up, nodding brightly at Quinn. He tried to slide down from the truck but one of the men caught him and shoved him back.

“There’s been a mistake here,” Ronnie said over the top of Mattie’s head, addressing the men in suits. “He helped us. He doesn’t belong in handcuffs.”

The eldest of the three men gave her a condescending smile, spending just a little too much time studying the ups and downs of her swimsuit, to Quinn’s way of thinking.

“Mr. Brooks says he could be cooperating with the shooters,” the oldest agent said.

“Who’s Brooks?” Ronnie raised a dark brow.

“That’s me.” The man in the Blue Jays hat stepped up beside the truck and puffed out his chest. “You can’t tell me this haji son of a bitch isn’t a part of all this.”

Ronnie rolled her eyes and looked at Quinn. “That’s the guy I was telling you about.”

“A hot tamale?” Quinn said, bouncing the man’s head off the side of the truck. Brooks staggered, then slid to the pavement in a heap.

Two of the suits advanced on Quinn but he raised his hands. He stepped over beside Garcia and took Mattie back to show he wasn’t a threat to the suits.

“You just knocked that guy out,” one of the agents said.

“Sorry,” Quinn said. “Guess the stress of this got to me…”

One of the men stooped down to check on a muttering Brooks, who looked like his pride was hurt more than anything else.

Quinn looked at Mukhtar and then the senior agent. He assumed they were DHS or local detectives. If they’d been FBI they would have told him already.

“Look,” he said. “It’s easy to see why you’d think Mukhtar might be involved, especially with upstanding citizens like Brooks giving you your intel, but I’m the one who called you guys over the PA. This man helped save a lot of people in there — including my daughter.”

“It’s not as simple as that.” The older agent shrugged. “I think we—”

“It’s exactly as simple as that.” Quinn stepped in, nose to nose with the man. “I don’t know who you are, and frankly, I don’t care. I’ll give you a number to call, but I’m warning you, you’re going to wish you’d taken the cuffs off before you called it.”

Quinn’s boss — the man on the other end of the number he gave the agent — happened to be sitting in the Oval Office when he took the call. Mukhtar’s father had been waiting frantically in the outskirts of the parking lot. He was finally let through the outer perimeter and allowed to collect his son.

Ronnie Garcia exchanged numbers with the boy with the promise that she and Quinn would join his family for dinner in a few days. Mr. Tahir then wisely whisked his son away from the crowd, which was still jumpy about anyone with dark skin wearing a Buccaneer Beach Thrill Park uniform.

Exhausted to the point of falling over, Quinn held both Mattie and Garcia close as he staggered back to the triage tent where Jacques waited with his family. The ringing in Quinn’s ears made it difficult to hear everything that was being said, but he could tell Camille Thibodaux was busy alternately chastising Dan for running off on his own and showering him with hugs and kisses.

“A burglary, Chair Force?” Jacques said from where he sat in the folding chair next to Quinn, shaking his head. “I’m hearing estimates of a hundred and three dead and twice that number wounded… All this killing for a little dab of cash?”

Quinn shrugged. Mattie sat in his lap. Garcia sat in the chair beside him. He took a moment to give her shoulder a squeeze and sniff Mattie’s hair before he spoke. “A park as big as Buccaneer Beach could rake in a quarter million in receipts every day,” he said. “And that’s not counting the concessions.”

“Wouldn’t a lot of it be credit card receipts?” Ronnie asked, batting exhausted brown eyes at Quinn.

“Some of it would,” he said.

Thibodaux rubbed his jaw in thought, following the logic. “But if he rounds up a bunch of guns from his uncle’s safe and a bunch of radical yahoos take care of the shootin’ spree that covers his crime, this little sociopath had no upfront investment and no accountability. Even half the daily gross in cash would be free money.”

“Exactly,” Quinn said.

Thibodaux leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. “I guess they all got to die as martyrs,” he said.

Mattie lifted her head from Quinn’s chest. “What’s a martyr, Daddy?”

Thibodaux gave a low groan, his eyes still closed. “Martyr is another word for dumbass,” he sighed. “Go ahead and quote me if you want to, darlin’.”

Quinn hugged his daughter and chuckled. “We’d better not mention that definition to your mom,” he said.

Mattie pulled back, blinking huge blue eyes, her mother’s eyes. She sniffed, flashing a beautiful grin — the type of grin that made him want to buy her things.

“Sorry I scared you, Daddy,” she said. “But there was this guy with a gun, and you always told me I should run from a guy with a gun. Then Dan said we should run, too, so I did.”

“He was right,” Quinn said. “And so were you.”

“Did you see Dan made a bow and arrow out of a piece of plastic pipe?” Her beautiful eyes grew even bigger. “And it really worked.”

“I saw that,” Quinn said, squeezing her as if she might fly away. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”

Mattie went on talking without taking a breath. “Then the bad guys threw us into the swimming pool. And it was really deep, and we treaded water, but Dan said we should stay out of the shallow end because we might get trampled.”

“He did?” Quinn said, shooting a sideways grin at Ronnie.

“It was really, really scary, Dad.” Mattie gave an emphatic nod, her arms still around Quinn’s neck. “We thought they were going to shoot any minute, then Dan told me and my friend Sarah that we should swim close to the edge and run—”

Jacques looked at Quinn, smiling broadly, mouthing his words so Mattie couldn’t hear him. “Well, Chair Force,” he said. “Looks like she got over Shawn…”