The Discarded (8 page)

“If she’s going to tell you anyway, don’t bother,” Abraham grumbled.

Quinn exchanged a look with Orlando. Abraham didn’t usually get upset easily.

“Seriously,” Quinn said, “if it’s going to be a problem, then we can—”

“No, no, it’s fine.” Abraham paused and took a deep breath. “Really, it’s fine. I just…” He fell silent again.

“Abraham?” Orlando said.

Nothing for a moment, then, “I need a little help tracking a vehicle.”

“Please tell me you haven’t taken on a job,” she said.

“Of course not.”

“So you want me to track this car down for fun?”

“I want you to track it down because I need to know where it went.”

“Why?”

He didn’t answer.

“Okay,” she said. “I guess I could look it up. Do you have a plate number?”

“I could look up a plate number myself. What I need to figure out is what route it took last night.”

“Took, as in past tense?”

“Yes.”

Looking more confused than ever, she said, “I’m not sure how you’re expecting me to do that. If you’re thinking satellite footage, that’s going to be time consuming and possibly fruitless.”

“No, I don’t mean satellite footage,” Abraham said, his exasperation leaking through again. “The vehicle I’m interested in has a transponder.”

“Oh,” she said. “Sure, if it has a transponder, that’s different. Are we talking a big rig?”

“It is
not
a big rig.”

“Then what?”

“A vehicle I’m trying to find.”

Orlando glanced at Quinn, silently asking, “What the hell?” Since he was thinking the same thing, all he could do was shrug.

“Do you at least have the transponder ID?” she asked.

“Of course I do.” He read off a number. “Can you track it?”

“It would help if I knew where I’m supposed to be looking, and, if possible, a more precise time frame than just last night.”

“Tampa, Florida, eleven twenty p.m. onward.”

“Is that where you are? Tampa?”

No response.

She frowned. “Abraham, what’s going on?

“Nothing. This is a small matter, that’s all. Something for a friend.”

“So you
are
working a job.”

“A favor only. Listen, if you don’t want—”

“Relax,” she said. “Why don’t you let me look into this and call you back, okay?”

“You won’t be long, will you?” he asked. “I need to know right away.”

“I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

Orlando hung up and stared out the window, lost in thought.

Quinn was considering breaking the silence when a knock on the door did it for him.

Orlando made no indication she’d respond, so he said, “Yes?”

“May we come in?” Mr. Vu asked.

“Please.”

Mrs. Vu came first, carrying a tray holding two steaming bowls of pho, and her husband was right behind her with glasses of her homemade lemonade.

“Thank you,” Quinn told them as they set the meal on the desk.

“If you want more, let us know. We bring up,” Mrs. Vu said.

With that, the couple left and pulled the door closed behind them.

Whether it was the click of the lock or the aroma of the pho, Orlando finally pulled herself from her trance. Without a word, she woke up her computer and began working. Knowing it was best not to disturb her, Quinn started in on his soup. It was as delicious as ever. Mrs. Vu had even added the exact amount of Sriracha sauce he liked.

“Well, this is not what I expected,” she said several moments later. “Turns out Abraham’s mysterious vehicle is an ambulance.”

Being in mid-bite, Quinn could only respond with a grunt.

She opened another program and plugged in the transponder number. The computer took nearly fifteen seconds to gather the data and display it in list form. After studying the results, Orlando clicked on one of the addresses and a map opened. She nodded to herself, then performed the task again with a different address.

“Huh,” she said.

“What?” Quinn asked.

“Looks like this ambulance only went on one trip last night, starting at a place called the Azure Waves Hotel.”

“Where did it go?” he asked.

She motioned for him to be quiet, so he dipped his chopsticks back into the pho, this time coming up with a tasty-looking piece of beef.

Finally, Orlando leaned back. “Well, they didn’t stay in town.”

“Where did they go?” he asked between chews.

“Mississippi.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “That’s a long way from Tampa.”

“It is,” she agreed. “Looks like they stopped at a private home in a town called Moss Point.”

Quinn leaned over so he could see the map. There were only four states in the US he had never been to. Mississippi was one of them. According to the map, Moss Point was in the narrow tab of land that touched the Gulf of Mexico at the southern end of the state, only a few miles from Alabama.

Orlando switched from the overhead satellite shot to a street-level angle of the house in question. It was a brick one-story, with a gray roof and wide lawn. Nothing special about the place. Just an average house on an average street.

She opened another window and entered the address into a search engine.

“Oh,” she said in surprise. “Says here the house is currently on the market. And…it looks like it’s been for sale for nearly a year.” She clicked through the photos. “If these shots are accurate, then no one’s currently living there.”

“Are you sure it was the ambulance’s final destination?” Quinn asked. “Maybe they just made a stop there for some reason.”

“This is as far as they went.” She checked the screen again. “The vehicle sat there for thirty-four minutes, then headed back to Florida. Enough time to unload someone and stretch their legs.”

“Maybe the listing’s out of date,” he suggested. “Could be the place was recently purchased and someone who needed an ambulance to get there is moving in.”

She picked up her phone. “One way to know for sure.” She pulled up the real estate agencies information and dialed the number. “Yes, good afternoon. How y’all doin’?” she said, affecting a very passable Southern accent. “Thank you. I’m fine, too. The reason I’m calling is because my husband and I are moving to the area soon. We’ve been looking at different houses on the Internet—….Oh, sorry, yes, I’m Mary, Mary Hanson….Good to meet you, Debbie. See, we saw a place online that I believe you are the agent for.” Orlando gave the woman the address of the house the ambulance had visited, then listened for several seconds. “I see….Now that’s interesting….How large are the bedrooms?...Oh, is that right? Well, to be honest, I’m not sure that would work for us, then. Guess we’ll have to keep looking….I’ll check out what else you have to offer. We’ll be sure to stop by your office when we get to town….Yes, yes. Thank you again.” She hung up.

“I’d like it very much if you’d use that accent from now on,” Quinn said. “Will that be a problem?”

“Troll,” she scoffed, her voice back to normal. “The house is still for sale, but it’s under a short-term rental.”

“How short?”

“A week.”

“So an ambulance takes someone to a house that until a day ago was empty, and will be again in a few more days,” he said. “Why would they do that?”

Orlando stared at Quinn’s half-empty bowl of pho before twisting back to her computer and tapping on the keyboard again. He leaned in behind her so he could see what she was doing. She had the website to Azure Waves Hotel on the screen and was using it to work her way into the company’s system.

“There’s an incident report here,” she said. “One of the guests apparently had a heart attack last night. A guy by the name of Charles Young. Sound familiar?”

Quinn shook his head. “Sounds generic, if you ask me.”

Though she didn’t say it, he knew she was thinking the same thing.

“There was a woman with him when it happened,” she said, still looking at the screen. “Tina Dotson.”

That didn’t sound quite so generic, but he’d still never heard the name before.

“According to the report, she’s the one who called for the ambulance,” Orlando went on. “Get this—at eleven twenty p.m. It came from a place called Tobin Ambulance Services, which happens to own the vehicle the transponder number belongs to.”

“So instead of taking this Mr. Young to a hospital,” Quinn said, “they took a man who’d just had a heart attack to…Mississippi? I don’t think I like where this is going.”

Orlando frowned, her eyes staring once more out the window. “Neither do I.”

CHAPTER
9

MOSS POINT, MISSISSIPPI

T
HE MOMENT ELI
heard the doorknob turn he closed his eyes, hoping his captors would leave him alone if they thought he was asleep.

The slap to his face told him otherwise.

“Mr. Becker. Your attention, please.”

He recognized the voice as belonging to the woman who had called herself Tina, though he now doubted that was her real name. She’d followed him off the elevator at the Azure Waves Hotel when he was returning from his errand. She’d acted drunk at first, but once the doors had closed after the other riders got off, she had sobered up in a hurry and shoved a gun into his side, telling him to take her to his room.

Once inside, he’d felt the sting of a needle, and the next thing he knew, he was here—wherever here was—strapped to a gurney and wearing only his underwear.

The woman slapped him again. “Mr. Becker, I know you’re not asleep.”

As he reluctantly opened his eyes, she grabbed his chin and tilted his head up so she could lock her gaze onto his. “Are you listening?”

He nodded.

“Good,” she said. “Overtake. The name familiar?”

Eli tried, really tried, to keep his face blank, but his eyes couldn’t hide the truth.

“So that’s a yes,” she said. She let go of his chin and straightened up. “Here is what’s going to happen now. You will tell me everything you know about Overtake. After you do, you can go home. Nod again if you understand.”

As he nodded, he whispered, “I don’t really know anything.”

She smiled. “We both know that’s not true.”

“I swear, I don’t. I’ve heard the name, yes, but that’s all.”

She leaned forward again, not stopping until her face was a few inches from his. “You
will
tell me everything I want to know,” she said. “The more you cooperate, the less painful it will be for you. So, Overtake.”

She stared at him, waiting for a response. When he said nothing, she shrugged. “Very well,” she said, turning for the exit. “I’ll be right back. Just need to fetch one of my colleagues. We’ll see how long you can hold out once he starts in on you.”

His eyes stayed on the door as it closed.

He knew that no matter what he said, she would never let him go.

So say nothing
, Abraham’s voice whispered in Eli’s head.

If only it were that easy, he thought.

What does easy have to do with it?

He had no answer for that.

__________

TAMPA, FLORIDA

W
HILE WAITING FOR
Orlando to call back, Abraham returned to the Azure Waves Hotel and made his way up to room 721.

According to the hotel registry, Eli had booked the room for three nights, meaning it was possible it had not yet been cleaned and given to someone else. Abraham listened at the door and heard only the quiet of an empty room. Working not quite as quickly as he had before he retired, he disabled the lock and let himself in.

In the bathroom he found a used towel dumped on the floor, dry to the touch. It had been there since at least early that morning, long before any new guests would have been assigned the room. Therefore, Eli must have dropped it there the night before.

Abraham moved into the bedroom. The only evidence that anyone had been there was the rumpled cover on the bed. If his friend had come with any luggage, it was gone. About the only good news was that Abraham saw no signs of a struggle or any bloodstains.

His phone vibrated. He yanked it out and raised it to his ear. “Orlando?”

“You expecting someone else?” she asked.

“Were you able to figure out where it went?”

“I was.”

“Well?”

“Abraham, I’m going to ask you again. What’s going on?”

“I told you, it’s…a favor.”

“A favor,” she repeated, not sounding convinced.

His jaw tensed. “Are you going to give me the information or not?”

“I want to know what you’re getting yourself into. You’re too old to be messing around in anything dangerous.”

“What I’m up to is not your business. If you don’t want to help me, that’s fine. I’ll find someone else who will.”

“Abraham, you know you can tell me anything,” she said.

He tried to rein in his frustration. “I know that. And I realize you’re only trying to do what you think is best for me.” He paused, knowing this was getting him nowhere. “I apologize. I…I shouldn’t have involved you.”

Before she could say anything, he hung up.

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Dammit, dammit, dammit.”

A second later Orlando called again. He sent her to voice mail.

It didn’t matter that she
was
right and he was too old to be messing around. He had no choice. He had involved Eli in the search for information about Tessa and now Eli was in trouble because of that.

The phone vibrated again, and once more he rejected the call.

With his former apprentice no longer an option, who else could he ask? He stared across the room, thinking. The vast majority of his contacts weren’t working anymore. They were either dead or living out what time they had left in peace and quiet. Anyone still in the business would likely barely remember him.

There has to be someone.

His phone beeped. Not a call this time—a text.

Of course it was from Orlando. What was unexpected, though, was the content of the text—an address in Moss Point, Mississippi. As he was reading it, a second message came in.