The Silenced (28 page)

“WE SHOULD HAVE HEARD FROM THEM BY
now,” Quinn said.

He and Orlando were at opposite ends of the street, watching Annabel Taplin’s apartment building. They had their comm gear on, so were in constant contact.

“You told him to get Liz out of town, so that’s what he’s doing,” Orlando said. “He’ll call in as soon as he can.”

“I know, I know.”

A large vapor cloud formed in front of his face as he let out a breath. The weather had taken a decidedly colder turn that morning, and even with a muffler wrapped around his neck and the collar of his jacket flipped up, Quinn was freezing.

“We should have just staked out her office again,” Quinn said. It was almost 8 a.m. and so far no sign of Annabel. Perhaps the building
had
been a ruse.

“Why don’t you go grab some coffee,” Orlando told him. “I can watch things here.”

“I’m fine. I’m just …”

“Annoying me?”

“Sorry. I’m fine.”

“Keep it up and I’m sending you home.”

Seven minutes later, movement in front of the building made him forget the fact he was losing feeling in his cheeks. “Is that her?”

Orlando was positioned closer. “It’s her.”

“Finally,” he said. “I’m heading for the station.”

They had made the assumption that Annabel would use the Russell Square Underground station like she had the night before. Quinn headed there first, while Orlando kept Annabel in sight in case she went somewhere else.

If Annabel stuck to her script and did a reverse of her trip home, she would go one stop to Holborn, then switch to the Central Line. So Quinn went straight to the platform and found a spot against the wall halfway down, blending into the rush-hour crowd.

He glanced up at the display screen hanging from the ceiling. The next train was due in three minutes, with another five minutes later. He then turned so he could see the platform entrance, and waited.

Annabel arrived just as the sound of the first train began rumbling through the tunnel. She walked through the crowd, passing within five feet of Quinn, before stopping, her eyes never straying in his direction.

Orlando showed up a few seconds later. She eased her way through the other commuters and into position directly behind Annabel. The train whooshed into the station with a sudden roar, and the waiting commuters acknowledged the arrival by pushing themselves closer together.

As the train slowed to a stop, there was a pause, then the doors slid open. As one, the crowd lurched forward. Annabel entered the car and grabbed ahold of one of the poles. She turned back toward the door just as Quinn entered.

He didn’t even try to hide.

The look on her face was at first blank, then confused, as if she recognized him but wasn’t sure from where. Then, almost as quickly, her eyes went wide.

Quinn raised a finger to his lips as he reached out with his other hand and grabbed the same pole she was holding on to.

Her eyes darted around. “You’re fine where you are,” Orlando whispered into her ear. She was beside Annabel, pressing up against her.

Annabel looked at her, then glanced down at where their bodies made contact. Quinn knew she was feeling the barrel of Orlando’s hairbrush against her ribs. An adequate substitute for a concealed gun under the circumstances, though ultimately less lethal.

“Hello, Annabel,” Quinn said.

“What do you want?”

“We’ll get to that when we’re alone.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“You’re not?” He gave Orlando a quick glance, and she shoved the barrel of her faux gun hard into Annabel’s ribs. “Next time I tell her to pull the trigger.”

“What?” Annabel said, a nervous smile on her lips. “You wouldn’t.”

He stared at her, his face completely blank. “Try me.”

Her smile faded quickly.

“I suggest you keep quiet and do exactly what we say,” Quinn told her. “Understood?”

Annabel started to speak, but Quinn shook his head and raised his finger back to his mouth. So she stopped, then nodded.

“Good,” he said. “My associate is going to stay right next to you like she’s your best friend. Okay?”

Another nod.

“See? Not so bad.”

As the train pulled in to Holborn, Annabel tensed.

“Hold tight,” Orlando said. “You won’t be getting off here today.”

“What do you want? I don’t know—” Annabel grimaced as Orlando jabbed her abdomen again.

Quinn leaned close, his mouth an inch from her ear. “Don’t test me.”

“Sorry,” she whispered.

They rode in silence all the way to Green Park. There, with Orlando tight to Annabel’s side, they navigated the warrens of the station until they reached the southbound platform for the Victoria Line.

“I could make a scene right now. There are cameras everywhere. You’d never be able to get away.”

“Perhaps,” Quinn said. “But you’d be on the ground bleeding out, so you’d never know if we did or we didn’t, would you?”

She bit her lower lip. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

“Who said anything about hurt?”

Orlando snickered. “Give me your phone.”

Annabel hesitated, then pulled a cell phone out of the pocket of her overcoat and handed it to Orlando. Unlike the cell she’d been carrying in New York, this was a sophisticated model that must have cost someone a bundle. Orlando turned it off and dropped it into the trash.

When the train arrived, Annabel boarded without protest. This time they rode only two stops, exiting at Pimlico, then rode the escalators up from deep below the city. As they did, Quinn’s phone vibrated, indicating a voicemail. He pulled it out, but had to wait until they reached the top before the signal strength was strong enough to check it.

“Quinn, it’s Nate. First, Liz is fine. Second, we’ll be in London at nine-thirty. I know you told me to use a less direct route, but something happened this morning and I felt the sooner we got there, the better. We’re on the Eurostar and have already passed through the Chunnel. And before you ask, yes, I got the papers Orlando arranged, so no one knows we’re on the train.” He paused. “Quinn, Julien’s dead. I’ll give you the details later. What I need to know now is what you want me to do once we arrive.”

The message ended.

“What’s wrong?” Orlando asked.

Quinn had stopped near the entrance to the station.

“Quinn?” she asked.

He glanced at Annabel, then turned to Orlando. “There’s been … a complication.”

Orlando looked concerned. “Did something happen to …?”

“They’re both fine.”

“Then, what?”

“Julien.”

She raised an eyebrow in question.

He knew he didn’t have to say anything. His expression was answer enough.

“Where are they?” she asked.

Quinn looked at his watch. It was just after nine. “They’ll be here in thirty. We’ll need to split up.”

She nodded. “Don’t worry. I can take care of our friend here.”

“I’ll be back soon.”

“Wait. You might want to show me where I’m supposed to take her first,” Orlando said.

“Right.” God, where was his head? “It’s not far.” He led them out of the station and down Lupus Street to the corner of Belgrave Road. “There. Two blocks up on the left. The Silvain Hotel.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the plastic keycard he’d been carrying for two days now, and handed it to her.

Quinn locked eyes with Annabel. “You’re going to go with my friend. Despite her size, she’s a hell of a lot meaner than I am. If you’re even thinking you might be able to make a break, you should reconsider. She’ll kill you without hesitating. Understand?”

“Yes.” Annabel’s voice was a dry croak.

“Good. She’s going to ask you some questions. Do yourself a favor and answer them. If you don’t, you’re going to have to deal with me.”

Annabel nodded.

“I won’t be long,” he told Orlando, then he ran back toward the Underground station.

IT WAS A SATURDAY AFTERNOON WHEN EVERYTHING
changed forever.

Quinn was seventeen, and for as long as he could remember he wanted to see more than the farms and the woods of northern Minnesota. He wanted to be someplace where there were people, lots and lots of people. There was a whole world out there, a world he could reach only through the books he read. And as interesting as reading about everywhere else was, it wasn’t enough. He wanted to experience it all with his own senses.

His closest friend was probably Liz, only nine at the time. Sure, there were a couple of kids he hung out with sometimes, but their dreams weren’t the same as his. They thought about taking over their parents’ farms, or hitting it rich at the Indian casino, or playing hockey all winter long. It wasn’t that he thought his dreams were better, just different.

Liz was the only one who would listen to him without giving him that funny, you’re-crazy look. He would tell her about Istanbul and Tokyo and Mecca and Prague. He would describe as best he could the mountains in Nepal, the caste system of India, the carnival celebrations in Rio de Janeiro, and the Grand Canyon in Arizona. He would show her the world atlas that he’d let no one else see, a cheap, cardboard-covered booklet with continental maps and ones of a few of the larger countries. On each he had marked in blue the places he wanted to go, circling in red those that were first priority.

Liz would listen intently, her face often reflecting his own excitement. But the place that she had fallen in love with just from his descriptions was Paris. That last summer before he left home, he read to her the whole of Victor Hugo’s
Les Misérables
. Liz had cried when Éponine was shot, then cried again when Jean Valjean died.

“I don’t ever want to see anyone I love die,” she had said. “Not Mom or Dad. Not you.”

“Everyone dies someday, Liz.”

“I don’t want to see it. I never want to see it.”

The end of one life and the start of another began with an argument Jake had with his father about something he could no longer remember. His relationship with his father was strained, often formal, and most times nonexistent. At least, that’s how the teenage Jake perceived it. Looking back … well, looking back, who knew? They didn’t fight often, but when they did, Jake would be so agitated it sometimes took days for him to calm down. One of the things he did to help was take a long hike in the woods. He was about to do just that when Liz had found him and reminded him about his promise to take her fishing.

So he did. And that had been the mistake.

They’d borrowed the boat from a friend in town, and gone out on the Lake of the Woods. It was a vast body of water, the kind where if you were in the middle, you’d lose sight of shore. On a map it was easy to find. It filled most of the little bump at the top of Minnesota that jutted into Canada.

The boat was a twelve-foot aluminum V-hull with a 9.9-horsepower outboard motor, more than enough power for the lightweight vessel.

Liz tried to engage him several times, but Jake just wasn’t interested in talking. So after a while she gave up, and the only sounds came from the lapping of the water against the hull, and the whiz of their reels as they cast out their lines.

But the argument from that morning was still heavy on Jake’s mind, and he had no patience for sitting in an aluminum tub. After an hour that seemed like a year, he said, “Reel it in. We’re done.”

“But … but we’ve just started,” Liz said.

“We’ve been here long enough.”

“You promised me!”

“Yeah,” he said. “And I kept it. We’re going home. I have things to do.”

He never snapped at her, but he had then. He knew it was wrong at the time, but he was just too worked up to worry about it.

He got his line in first, and stared at her until she secured hers, but he didn’t wait for her to put her pole down before he started the engine and turned the boat for the harbor. He quickly took the motor up to full speed, pushing the small, light boat at quite a clip across the lake.

Liz gripped the edge of the hull. “Slow down!”

But the speed helped release some of the tension that had been burning away at Jake since the fight, so he paid her no attention.

“Jake! Please! You’re scaring me.”

“We’re fine,” he started to say.

But he only got the first word out before Liz shrieked.

The next thing he knew, they were airborne, the boat twisting sideways as it first rose, then fell sharply back toward the lake. Jake, thrown free, hit the water hard, then skimmed across the top before going under.

When he poked his head back up, he was surprised by the silence. He swiveled his head around from side to side. The boat was capsized about twenty feet to his left. Floating behind it was the cooler Liz had brought along, Jake’s fishing pole, the empty fish bucket, and the bright orange life vest Jake had not been wearing.

“Liz!” he yelled.

He didn’t see her. He whipped around in a full three-sixty, but she wasn’t there.

“Liz!”

Unlike Jake, she had been wearing her life vest, so she should have been visible.

“Liz! Where are you?”

He swam toward the boat, worried she was trapped underneath. He dove down under the side of the hull, then came up inside the boat in a small pocket of air. No Liz.

Desperate, he swam out again and took another look around.

“Liz!”

There was something floating about fifty feet back in the direction they’d come. It was long, and low in the water.

“Oh, God. No.”

Jake put his head down and began swimming as fast as he could.

Please be all right. Please be all right
.

But the image that kept coming to him was that of his brother, Davey’s, lifeless body lying in the back of their car, and his father’s voice, “I said
enough
!”

Please be all right
.

He didn’t look up until he was only five feet away.

“Liz! Liz!”

He reached out and put a hand on the body. Only it wasn’t a body at all.

It was the trunk of a tree. This must have been what they had hit. If he had been going slower, he would have seen it and steered the boat around it. If he’d listened to his sister, they’d still be on their way to the marina now.

Jake threw an arm over the log, panting.
What have I done?

As the full weight of the crash began to descend on him, he realized how cold the water was. Perhaps that was a blessing. He would die out here, too, and not have to face his parents, his father.

“Jake!”

Jake’s head snapped up. The voice was distant, weak. He looked in the direction from which it had come, but saw nothing.

“Jake!”

The boat. It was somewhere over by the boat.

He pushed off the log and began swimming again, all thoughts of the cold temporarily forgotten. As he neared the upside-down vessel, he stopped for a moment and yelled, “Liz!”

“Jake!” The voice was beyond the boat, but much closer now.

He swam around the end.

“Jake! Over here.”

Another thirty feet beyond the boat was a rectangle of bright orange. A life vest. Liz.

When he reached her, she grabbed on to him, and they both went under for a moment. Jake pulled her loose, then told her, “Just hold on to my hand. I’ll pull you over to the boat.”

“I thought you were dead,” she said as they moved through the cold water.

“Of course I’m not dead.” He forced a smile. “I’d never do that to you.”

When they reached the boat, Jake tried to flip it back over, but was too weak, so he grabbed on and used it as a float. He tucked Liz up against his chest, his other arm around her.

“I’m scared,” she said, her voice shaking with cold.

“Don’t be scared. I’m here. I’ll never let anything hurt you again.”

She was silent for a moment. “Promise …”

“Promise. I’ll never let anything hurt you again.” Then he repeated it, and repeated it again, and again, and again.

He didn’t even hear the other boat approach, two fishermen who had seen the crash from a distance and had come to help.

Exposure kept them in the hospital, Jake for a day and Liz for two. By the time she got home, he was gone.

The day he’d come home from the hospital, Jake had found his father in the barn. He knew this moment was coming. He might have been able to avoid it for a little longer, but in reality he couldn’t do that. He had made his decision and needed to act now. His father looked up at him, then back at whatever it was he was working on without saying a word. Jake wished his father would just yell at him, show some kind of reaction, but ever since the accident, his father hadn’t even spoken to him.

“I’m sorry,” Jake said because he could suddenly think of nothing better to say. He took a step closer to the bench. “It was my fault.”

A grunt.

When Jake didn’t say anything else, his father finally set down the wrench he was holding and looked at his stepson. “What are you expecting from me?” he asked. “Forgiveness? You’re going to have to wait a hell of a long time.”

“No,” Jake said. “I don’t expect that. I … I just came to say …”

“What? That you didn’t mean to almost kill my daughter? That you didn’t mean to kill …” He turned back to the bench. “Just leave me alone. Just go.”

Jake didn’t move. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. I’m going.”

“Good.”

“No. I mean I’m leaving.”

His father looked at him again, but said nothing.

“I’m not coming back.”

The stare continued, then a nod. “I think maybe that would be for the best. Have you told your mother?”

“I’m going to leave her a note.”

His father grimaced, but he didn’t argue the point.

“I’ll … I’ll call Liz in a week or so,” Jake said, “and explain it to her.”

“Explain what to her, Jake?” His father shook his head. “I think it’s better if you just leave her alone. You’ve already taken a brother from her, and nearly drowned her. I think it’s best if you let her live her own life now. She doesn’t need you.”

Jake left the barn without another word, and did exactly that.