The Destroyed (6 page)

Without taking his eyes off what he was doing, Quinn said, “You shouldn’t have come, Nate.”

“I’m sure my showing up like this isn’t a surprise,” Nate said. “That woman, Christina—she must have told you.”

“And I told her to tell you to stay away.”

“Yeah. I got that message.”

“And yet you’re here.”

“I’m here.”

Quinn finally looked at him. “Okay, you’ve seen me. I’m alive. Now you can get back on your boat and go home.”

“I didn’t come here just to check if you were okay.”

“I don’t care why you came,” Quinn said. “Please, Nate, leave. I don’t want you here.”

“Look, I’ve only come because—”

“Aren’t you listening to me? I said, I don’t care!” Quinn closed his eyes and seemed to be trying to get himself back under control. When he opened them and spoke again, his tone was level and calm. “I have work to do. Please respect that.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Nate could see Daeng approaching.

“I’m not here out of disrespect,” Nate said. “In fact, it’s just the opposite.”

Quinn let out a breath and shook his head. He looked at his watch and glanced over at Daeng. “Please escort him back to his boat. I’m late, or I’d do it myself.”

“No problem,” Daeng said.

Quinn headed for the door. Nate started to follow, but Daeng stepped in his way.

“I’m not leaving until you hear what I have to say!” Nate called out as he grabbed Daeng’s shoulder and tried to shove the man to the side.

Daeng stood his ground. “Let him be.”

Across the room, Quinn had just reached the door and was stepping outside.

“Mila Voss!” Nate yelled.

Quinn froze.

“She’s why I’m here.”

In a near whisper, Quinn said, “Mila Voss is dead.”

“Then I guess someone needs to tell her that.”

Quinn looked back into the classroom, his eyes fixed on Nate. After a few seconds, he shifted his gaze to Daeng. “Get him something to eat. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

He resumed walking away.

“We should talk now,” Nate insisted.

“Relax, buddy,” Daeng said. “Be happy he’s not kicking you out. He’ll be back. You can talk to him then.”

Beyond the doorway, Quinn veered off to the right and out of sight.

As much as Nate hated to admit it, Daeng was right. At least now he knew Quinn would listen.

Daeng smiled, and slapped Nate on the shoulder. “You hungry?”

__________

D
AENG TOOK NATE
to another building, where they found a kitchen manned by two older women and a girl who was probably no more than ten. The two men were each served a plate with rice and stir-fried vegetables.

Nate had been sure he’d have only a few bites, but quickly realized he was hungrier than he thought, and finished his meal before Daeng was even halfway done with his.

“You want more?” the man asked.

“No. This was fine.”

For several seconds, the only sound was that of Daeng’s spoon scraping across his plate.

“Where did he go?” Nate asked.

At first it seemed as if Daeng hadn’t heard him, then the monk finished off the last of his vegetables and looked over. “You want to see?”

“Please.”

__________

T
HEY WALKED DOWN
a road that led away from the river and into a countryside dotted with small fields. Though evening was approaching, in several of the fields families tended their crops. There were no big farm machines here. It was mostly bent backs and handheld tools and the occasional ox pulling heavier equipment. Scattered among the fields, some close to the road and others much farther away, were small houses where the farmers lived and kept whatever livestock they might have.

After the two men had walked for about ten minutes, Daeng moved to the side of the road and stopped.

“There,” he said, pointing across the fields to the right.

For a few seconds, Nate wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be looking at. The fields were no different than those they’d passed. Then he saw two figures standing together a couple hundred yards away. Nate couldn’t make out any faces, but one looked to be a teenage boy, his brown skin darkened by his time spent under the sun. The other’s face Nate didn’t need to see. The hair, the clothes, the posture—Quinn.

Nate wasn’t sure what they were doing, but it had something to do with working the field.

“Two weeks ago, the man who owns that farm broke his leg in two places and injured his back in a motorcycle accident,” Daeng said. “The people here aren’t rich. He couldn’t afford to hire anyone to take care of his crops, not if he wanted to feed his family, too. So it fell to his son, but the boy is fourteen and can only do so much. Every day for the last week, as soon as your friend finishes teaching his English lessons at the temple, he comes out here and gives the boy a hand.”

They watched Quinn and the boy work.

“We should go back,” Daeng said. “Better if he doesn’t notice that we’re here.”

Nate nodded, though he was sure there was little chance Quinn hadn’t already seen them. Nate was an expert at picking up small details, but he was nowhere near as good as his mentor.

As they walked back to the temple, Nate asked, “Why isn’t your head shaved? Aren’t all monks supposed to do that?”

“I’m not a monk,” Daeng said.

Nate looked at him, confused.

Daeng smiled. “I
was
, but that was a long time ago. The other monks here allow me this honor when I visit.”

“So you’re kind of a pseudo monk.”

“I guess you could call it that.”

They walked quietly for a moment, the temple coming into view just ahead.

Nate said, “I’m guessing you’ve spent some time in the States.”

“Have I?”

“Your English. You speak it like a native, and your accent is Middle America.”

“Californian, actually.”

“Really?”

“Hollywood High.”

“You’re kidding.” Nate pointed at his chest. “Santa Monica High.”

“Samo? Beach brat, huh?”

Nate nodded. “When I could be. So you were born in the States?”

Daeng took in a long breath. “No.” He paused before adding, “Moved there when I was young. Came back here after high school.”

There was obviously more to the story, but Nate knew Daeng had shared all he wanted to for now.

As they reentered the temple grounds, Daeng said, “Feel free to have a look around, or you can wait in the classroom. If you need me, I’ll be in that center building over there.” He pointed at a group of small buildings beyond the stupa near the river, then gave Nate a
wai
and walked off.

With little else to do, Nate decided to do a little exploring.

He was standing just inside the temple, his eyes fixed on the golden Buddha that dominated the room, when he heard someone enter behind him.

“Peaceful around here, isn’t it?” Quinn said.

“It is,” Nate agreed. “I can understand the appeal.”

“Can you?”

“Of course I can.”

“And yet, you’re here to take it away from me.” Before Nate could respond, Quinn said, “This isn’t the place for us to talk.”

Without further comment, he turned and walked outside.

__________

T
HEY ENDED UP
back in the classroom. Quinn closed the door this time, and once they were both sitting at one of the student desks, he said, “Tell me.”

“Four days ago, I got a call—” Nate stopped himself. “
You
got the call. I returned it.”

“From who?”

“Peter.”

Quinn nodded as if he’d expected the answer.

“He wanted to talk to you, of course,” Nate said, “but I told him you were unavailable, and if he had something to discuss, he should tell me.”

“He must have liked that.”

Nate smirked. “Oh, yeah. It definitely put him in a good mood. He said he needed to talk to you and only you. He had questions about an old case.”

“Mila Voss.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t tell me that right away. Not until after I explained you were on a, um, sabbatical, and reaching you was not easy. That’s when he insisted I find you, and tell you he wants to know why Mila Voss is still alive.”

Quinn looked over at the wall, his expression unreadable.

“Since I didn’t know where you were, I contacted Orlando,” Nate said. Orlando was Quinn’s girlfriend and sometimes partner. “She was reluctant at first to say anything. When I told her what Peter wanted, she said almost the same thing you did—‘But Mila Voss is dead.’ Only when
she
said it, I could tell she thought it was true. You, not so much.”

Quinn hesitated, then said, “How is she?”

“Worried about you.”

“She said that?”

“She didn’t have to.”

Quinn fell silent for a second. “Where was Mila seen?”

“Peter didn’t say. Only that if I didn’t find you as soon as possible, things could get very uncomfortable very fast.”

Quinn’s head drooped, and Nate thought he heard him whisper something. A curse, perhaps.

“Who is she?” Nate asked. It was something he’d been wondering since he’d talked to Peter. He’d asked Orlando, too, but she wouldn’t tell him. She did finally say that Quinn was somewhere in Thailand, but she didn’t know where specifically. She only had the name of a woman in Bangkok—Christina—and a code phrase that would let the woman know it was all right for her to tell Nate where Quinn was staying.

Instead of answering Nate’s question, Quinn said, “Do you have your phone?”

“Of course.”

“Get Peter on the line.”

CHAPTER 6

M
OST MORNINGS WHEN
Quinn had woken during the past few months, his only thoughts were of the classes he would be teaching that day. He wished it was the same this particular morning.

The previous fall, his work as a cleaner had nearly caused the deaths of his mother and his sister. The safeguards he’d put in place, the firewalls he thought he’d built between himself and them, had all failed. If it weren’t for his quick action and that of some of his associates—most notably Nate acting as bodyguard for Quinn’s sister, Liz—his mother and sister would have died. Nate had been shot in the process, and nearly died himself.

The realization that his work could so affect the ones he loved shattered the illusion of the life he imagined he’d created. He became mentally paralyzed, unsure if he could ever return to the dangerous life he was so good at, especially if it meant the innocents he cared about could be harmed.

For two months he did nothing but hole up at his house in Los Angeles. He returned no calls, pursued no new jobs. The easy assignments he’d already committed to, he gave to Nate.

It was a visit from Orlando that finally shook him loose.

“You don’t have to do this anymore,” she told him. “But you also don’t have to make any decisions now. You have the luxury of time. Take as much as you want. I think you should go someplace unfamiliar, where you can clear your mind. If you want, I can suggest a few, and use some of my contacts to line something up.”

He thought about it overnight, and when he woke the next morning with her in his arms, he said, “I want.”

He wandered for a few weeks after that, first visiting his mother in Minnesota, then spending a week with his sister in Paris as they continued to try and rebuild a relationship that had been broken for so long. After that he headed to Thailand, where the mysterious Christina had sent him to Wat Doi Thong.

In the first few months at the temple, he’d continued to have the same dream every night—though dream was probably not the right term. It was more like a sleeping memory. A hospital room in London. Nate asleep on the bed, recovering from his wound. Liz sitting beside him, holding his hand, then turning to look at Quinn who had entered a few moments earlier.

“What?” she said in the dream, and in the memory.

He took a step forward. “How…how’s he doing?”

Liz held his gaze for a second. “He was awake for thirty minutes. The doctors said that’s a good sign.”

In the memory, they talked about Nate—a neutral topic, less painful. But in the dream they would skip ahead, and he would find himself standing beside his sister as she asked, “Who
are
you?”

The question hurt more than she could have possibly realized. His fault, not hers. He’d hidden his true life from his family. Hell, he’d barely talked to Liz since she was a kid. He’d thought it was the right thing to do. He’d thought it would be best for her. But now it seemed so pointless, years wasted, the bond they once had destroyed. He wished there was a way to return to the relationship they’d had before, but as good as he was at visualizing all the scenarios in his work, he couldn’t see the way back to that. “I…I just wanted to…I thought…I thought I was doing…” He fell silent, knowing no words would ever be adequate.

That was the moment Liz could have pounced, and rightly ripped him apart. But her face had softened, and she looked at Nate. “When he woke he asked about you and Orlando. He said you were the two people he respected most in the world.” She turned to her brother again. “He said you always try to do the right thing.”

Quinn didn’t know how to respond.

Silence filled the room for a while, then she said, “I don’t know how to feel. About you, I mean. I hated you for so long. I don’t think I hate you anymore, but I don’t know how I feel.” A long pause. “That’s the best I can do.”

“It’s more than I can ask,” he said.

As he started to turn away, she put a hand on his wrist. He looked at her, and she at him. Then she fell against his chest, wrapped her arms around him, and cried.

He knew it didn’t change what she had said. The ordeal she had just gone through had been intense, and the man she’d started to have feelings for was lying in the hospital bed beside her, a bullet wound in his chest.

Yet for those minutes he held her, it was like none of the mistakes he’d made mattered. “I love you, Liz,” he wanted to say, but knew it would be too much.

He always wished the dream would end there, but it didn’t. After they’d pulled apart, Liz had donned her coat of armor again.