The Discarded

CHAPTER 14

Taking Winger with him, Quinn returned to Baton Rouge, where he ditched the car he and Orlando had arrived in and procured a crew-cab pickup, complete with a cover over the back. After stopping at a Home Depot for supplies, they swung by the Love’s Truck Stop so Winger could pick up his sedan and then returned to the farm.

Abraham insisted on helping wrap Eli in the newly purchased plastic. After they were done, Quinn secured it with duct tape, and with Winger and Marguerite’s help, carried Eli to the truck and placed him in the bed.

“You two are officially released,” Orlando told the two freelancers after everything was closed up. “I’ll wire your payments to your accounts.”

“Not necessary,” Marguerite said. “We take care of our own, you know?”

“Yeah,” Winger agreed. “No charge.”

“That wasn’t our deal.”

“Keep it. We’ll just send it back,” Marguerite said. She looked at Abraham. “Think twice next time you try to run away from a pretty woman.”

Abraham could barely manage a smile. “Thank you for your help.”

“You all take care,” Winger said.

He and Marguerite walked over to his car and left.

“Let’s get going,” Quinn said. “It’s already going to be late by the time we get there.”

He climbed behind the wheel while the other two entered the passenger side, Orlando insisting her old mentor ride up front. No one said a word as they made their way through the parish roads back to the interstate.

After they’d been cruising along the highway for several minutes, Orlando said, “Why did they kill him, Abraham?”

Abraham stared out the window before saying, “Quinn’s probably right. He was trying to get away.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.” She waited, but he said nothing. “Why did you say it was your fault?”

“Because it is.”

Quinn could have felt the tension between them from a mile away.

“Need I remind you that we’re transporting a body for you across state lines?” Orlando said. “Perhaps it was none of our business at first, but now we are in this. Thick. So, what is going on?”

More silence. Quinn shot a quick glance at Abraham, thinking the old tech was going to stonewall again, but the look on the man’s face told a different story, one of pain and confusion and need.

“Seven years ago,” Abraham finally began, “I was hired for a job. My last one, though I didn’t realize it until the end.”

A pause.

“What was the job?” Orlando prodded him.

“I…I was to pick up a package in Osaka and take it to Amsterdam.”

“You were a courier?” Orlando said.

“There comes a point as you get older when the jobs you were once offered don’t come your way nearly as often. Sometimes you end up having to take something…less.”

Quinn heard not only sadness in the words but a loss of self-respect. It was so seldom anyone ever lasted in the business as long as Abraham had that it’d never occurred to Quinn what the older man had gone through at the end of his career.

This time Orlando waited out Abraham’s silence.

When he spoke again, he said, “I expected the package to be something I could put in my pocket, or at the very worst, in my bag. What I didn’t expect was a four-year-old girl.”

“A child?” Orlando asked.

“Tessa,” Abraham said. “That’s her name.”

Quinn said, “Maybe you should tell us about this mission.”

Abraham told them what he knew about Operation Overtake and the days he spent escorting Tessa from Japan to a team in Amsterdam.

“And you have no idea where they took her?” Orlando asked when he finished.

“My job was done. I wasn’t supposed to know.” He turned his head away, facing the side window. “I should have insisted on going with them. At least then it would have been easier for her.”

“You know they would’ve never let that happen,” Quinn said. “That’s not how these things work.”

“I know, but…I didn’t even try.”

“I still don’t understand how Eli Becker works into this,” Orlando said.

“Eli was a contact of mine, a friend.” He paused. “I just wanted to make sure Tessa was all right. Since Eli worked for the CIA, I thought there might be a chance he could get access to information about her that I never could. He came up dry, but I asked him if he could keep checking now and then for me, in case something surfaced. Every time I called him, he’d tell me the same thing — sorry, no news. I know he was annoyed with me, but he never shut me down. Just said he’d continue looking. The last time I called to check was a few days ago. Like usual, he had no news. But then he called me the day before yesterday. Said he found something, but didn’t want to tell me over the phone. Asked me to meet him at the Azure Waves Hotel in Tampa. When I got there, they told me he’d had a heart attack the night before and was at the hospital. Well, you basically know the rest. So you see, it is my fault this happened to him. If he hadn’t been looking into Tessa for me, no one would have come after him.”

“Who do you think these people are?” Quinn asked.

Abraham shook his head. “I’ve been trying to figure that out since I realized Eli had been taken. My best guess is that they’re connected to whoever has Tessa now. Maybe Eli was getting too close to the truth and they wanted to shut him down.”

While Quinn knew it wasn’t the only possibility, it was a good guess given what little they knew.

“You have no idea who Tessa is?” Orlando asked.

“No, but not from lack of trying. After leaving her like I did, it seemed as good a time as any to retire, so I ended up with a lot of time on my hands. For the first several months, I was on the Internet for hours, researching missing kids, looking for a death I might be able to connect to the murder of her mother, just trying to find anything that would hint at who she was or where she’d come from.” He grimaced. “I don’t search as much as I used to. Just a couple hours.”

“A couple hours what?” she asked.

He hesitated. “A day.”

Seven years on and Abraham was still looking for the girl every single day. Quinn didn’t know what to think about that. His own mentor, Durrie, had always stressed that one should never become personally involved in a job. Quinn couldn’t claim to have always lived up to that rule, but a job had never turned into an obsession for him like this one had for Abraham.

“So the only thing Eli told you was that he’d found something,” Quinn said.

“Yeah.”

“No hint what it was?” Orlando asked.

“Nothing.”

“Was he the kind of person who would have put together a backup plan in case something happened to him?” Quinn asked.

“He wasn’t a field op but he did work for the Agency, so…maybe.”

“I’m going to ask you a question,” Orlando said, “and I need you to answer honestly. Given what’s happened, are you giving up your search? Or do you still want to find out about Tessa?”

“I don’t think I can give up.”

“Even if it gets you killed?” Quinn asked.

Abraham shrugged. “Even then.”

“All right,” Orlando said. “Then one more question. Will you accept our help?”

The hum of the tires filled the silence that followed.

“Yes,” Abraham finally said. “Please.”

It was nearly one a.m. when Quinn pulled the truck into the empty strip mall parking lot on the edge of Dallas. He texted Nate:

We’re here

Eight minutes later, a van sporting an advertisement for a plumbing company entered the lot, Daeng behind the wheel. They followed the van into a less densely populated area with a few scattered businesses and homes on wide lots. Three miles in, the van turned off its lights so Quinn did the same. A little farther down, they turned onto a gravel driveway next to a sign that read:

Tacked to the bottom of this was a smaller sign.

The driveway went on for about half the length of a football field before ending in a large parking area. While no other vehicles were present, a corner of the lot was filled with building supplies and equipment.

Quinn pulled in right behind the van and killed the engine.

“Welcome to Texas,” Daeng said as Quinn climbed out.

After they shook hands, Daeng greeted Orlando with a hug and introduced himself to Abraham.

“Where’s Nate?” Quinn asked.

“Inside. Let’s get your body and I’ll show you the way.”

They retrieved Eli’s body and carried it down the stairs to the basement. Nate was standing waist deep in a channel that had been cut out of the concrete. On the floor next to the opening was a body wrapped very much like Eli was.

“This our extra guest?” Nate said.

“He’s not a guest,” Abraham snapped.

Nate looked surprised by the reaction. “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You should be careful what you say.”

“You’re right. No excuse.”

Abraham frowned but said nothing more.

“Where do you want him?” Quinn asked.

“Next to this one would be great.”

Quinn and Daeng gently set Eli down.

Quinn asked, “How’s this going to work?”

“You checking up on me, boss?” Nate asked.

“Only if you think I should.”

Nate smirked. “We bring them into the trench one at a time. Chem prep, then slide them under here…” He patted the floor next to where the bodies were lying. “And lower them into the hole. Fill everything back in and we’re done.”

“All right. You ready to go?”

“Just waiting for you.”

“Let’s start with Eli.”

Daeng jumped into the trench with Nate while Quinn scooted Abraham’s friend right to the edge. Once Eli was lying on the dirt in the channel, Nate cut slits into the plastic, exposing the body. He dumped liberal amounts of their dissolving chemical through each of the slits. When finished, he and Daeng maneuvered the body into its grave.

The other body went through the same process, and soon they were filling the hole with a mixture of the dirt they’d removed and a binding material that would hold it all in place for a long time, ensuring that no one would ever know anything had been added to the construction.

When everything was done, and the tools and two-by-four supports cleared away, Quinn held out his hand and helped first Daeng and then Nate hop out.

“About earlier,” Abraham said to Nate. “I may have…reacted poorly.”

“Not at all,” Nate said. “Working around the dead all the time sometimes makes me forget they were real people. It was a good reminder.”

An awkward silence fell between them.

“You guys are more than welcome to stay there all night,” Orlando announced, “but I’m beat. So, if you don’t mind, I’m going to have Daeng drive me somewhere where I can get some sleep.”