Chapter One
Randall Quinn’s new ride was pretty sweet.
The BMW was fully loaded, including an in-dash navigation system, Bluetooth fucking everything, and a black leather and wood grain interior. She was comfortable and stylish, and her engine vibrated gently but powerfully, like a wild cat getting ready to pounce. Mrowr. Quinn tapped a button on the dashboard display and practically summoned up Zeppelin with the power of his fucking mind. Damn, the technology gods were good. He sped down the rural highway, Black Dog sinking straight into his psyche through the seven-speaker surround sound. Fuck yeah.
His new baby was paid for in full, and in cash. He’d finally laid by enough in savings that he could afford to spend with more freedom. He’d never gone in for such an extravagance before, but he’d been salivating over this baby at the dealership for a month and he’d eventually broken down and done it. She was a hot-red color—well, the dealership called it something stupid like Orange Metallic, but it was basically red—which, admittedly, didn’t fly under the radar the way she probably ought to, but Quinn didn’t care anymore. After over ten years in the biz, he’d fucking earned the right to show off.
He’d pulled in that stack of cash on a high-end hotel assignment he’d had a week ago. Swanky, several-thousand-dollar-a-night hotel suites were always a challenge, but this one was even more so than usual and had definitely warranted the boost in pay. The boys had made a royal mess of the place, so much so that Quinn figured they must have had some seriously specific and scary fucking orders. There’d been blood and fingerprints everywhere and Quinn had had to deal with stains in the carpet, on the wallpaper, and splattered across furniture. Even with a crew, the cleanup had been a pain in the ass and had taken almost two full days. He’d even had to replace the carpet and a fucking couch.
It was damn lucrative as far as such things went, to be sure, but Quinn had sat in a bar for a couple of hours alone afterward, and he and his bourbon had decided it was about time to call it quits. Quinn was coming up on thirty-nine and he was getting a little old for this shit. He’d kind of fallen into this line of work back in his twenties when he’d made his daily bread working for the coroner’s office and cleaned up crime scenes legally. It hadn’t been long before a particularly influential lover had shown him where the real money was, and Quinn had found himself literally seduced into a darker world by the fine art of cleanup to cover up.
“Aaaaaand, here we are.” This job wasn’t going to be as big a payday, but smaller gigs like this were simpler, and made up more of his bread and butter. He pulled into the motel parking lot, waving a hand across the display to mute the radio. So. Fucking. Cool. Slowly, Quinn drove along the length of the building until he found room three-twenty-nine. The location was perfect, way down at one end and on the first floor. Easy in, easy out. Seemed those muscle boys were finally learning. He turned around and headed back to the main entrance.
Quinn touched a button on the display and the sound of a ringing phone filled the interior.
“Found it?” a familiar voice answered—a fucking party in the sack.
“Hey, sweet cheeks.”
“Seriously, Randy? What did I tell you about work, man?”
Quinn laughed. Mikey had a lickable ass, but the rest of him didn’t interest Quinn much. “I’m here.”
“Got it. You’re on the clock.”
“Do I have resources?”
“Boss says he already cut the manager in. The boys told him you wouldn’t need a crew.”
“Did they, now? And what the hell do they know about it?” Seriously, you give someone a few too many steroids and put a gun in their hands, and they suddenly think they know everything. Those muscle boys were big and dangerous, no question, but they were dumber than a sack of hammers. Their combined IQ wouldn’t buy you a cup of coffee. Quinn, on the other hand, was an artist. What the boys did took brawn. His job was far more delicate. It required a keen mind and fastidious attention to detail. What could he say? It was hard to be humble.
“Make sure you talk to Davis. The room’s paid up for two days.”
“Perfect.” Unless those boys chopped their target into little pieces or pulled another Jackson Pollock, two days was more than enough time to set this derelict flophouse to rights. “I’ll check in again in an hour or so.”
“Later.” Mikey hung up.
Surveying the premises from the parking lot didn’t improve Quinn’s assessment one bit. This place was the very definition of shithole. The roof was warped, the siding moldy, and the main office wasn’t really an office at all—it was just a glass window with a fucking pass-through. Chances were good he was looking at bulletproof glass, too. Classy. He took note of the surveillance camera over the window as well.
Erring on the side of caution, Quinn left the car running and the driver’s side door open. He knocked on the thick glass, summoning a small man with greasy hair, dirty fingernails and a cigarette hanging from his mouth.
He squinted at Quinn. “Yeah?”
“I’m here for three-twenty-nine.”
The guy nodded. “Heard you was comin’. I’m Davis.” He slipped a key into the pass-through.
Quinn shook his head. “I’m not touching that. You let me in.”
Davis sighed. “I don’t want nothin’ to do with nothin’.”
“You wanna keep that paycheck?” Quinn asked, pulling his Beretta off his hip and holding it flat against the glass. “Or see what’s behind door number two?”
Davis sighed. “Right.” He took the key and disappeared back into the office, appearing again in the breezeway.
Quinn nodded and got back in his car. He’d be damned if he was going to let his baby out of his sight. He drove her down the length of the building again and parked outside room number three-twenty-nine, then pulled his kit off the front seat and got out of the car. “Don’t go anywhere, beautiful,” he said, polishing a fingerprint off the driver’s side door. Yep. Pretty sweet ride.
While he waited for Davis to catch up, he dropped his kit on the concrete slab outside the motel room door and took out a pair of latex gloves. After pulling them on with practiced ease, he tugged his gun from his belt again.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Davis called nervously, picking up his pace. He’d gotten the wrong idea, but Quinn was fine with that if it lit a fire under his ass. Davis put the key in and hastily unlocked the motel room door.
“Thank you,” Quinn said, tapping the gun against his thigh for effect. “Now. The surveillance camera—”
“Hasn’t worked in years. It’s not even hooked up to anything. I just keep it there so people think—”
“Fine. You can go now.”
Davis turned and hurried back into the office.
Quinn chuckled. This really was a great location. If Davis stayed nervously respectful, his motel could see some repeat business. Davis could even make enough money to put some lipstick on this pig.
The metal door to number three-twenty-nine looked as though it had been kicked in more than once in its lifetime. The jamb was bent, the doorknob sat at a bit of an angle and rust had eaten through the olive paint in several places. Quinn gave the knob a turn and it protested weakly, but then the door swung away from him.
He held his gun up near his face, sighting down the barrel as he scanned the room. Satisfied, he put the piece back in his belt and went inside, closing and locking the door behind him. The motel room was a pit. The bed was hollow, the drapes hung unevenly and were a hideous shit brown, and the carpet was industrial, worn with the traffic of many feet, and looked like vomit. He noted the older model TV, a tall lamp in one corner and a ragged-looking lounge chair underneath that. He squinted at what he supposed was meant to be art hanging on the wall over the bed. He sure saw a lot of fucking shit in this room.
What he did not see was a body.
With a shake of his head, he moved to the closet and pulled it open. Nada. He figured that the target must be in the bathroom, which was certainly considerate of the boys, as it was much easier to wash away the evidence in there. He stepped through the bathroom door and turned on the light.
“Mmr!”
Quinn’s eyes flew open wide. “What the fuck?”
“Mmrm rmm!”
Quinn sighed heavily. There was a body in here, all right. The guy was bare-chested, he had duct tape over his mouth and duct tape bound his hands and feet, as well. His arms and torso were covered in dark, purple bruises. One eye was swollen shut and his nose and mouth were bloody. The slight contusion around the target’s throat suggested that the boys had strangled him, or tried to, but the fact that he was moving further suggested they had missed their mark.
Yep. Missed it by a broad-ass fucking mile.
“What the actual fuck?” Quinn stood there, straddling the very much alive body’s legs, pulled out his cell phone and called Mikey.
Mikey answered cheerfully, “Hey, that was fast.”
“Mikey, you’re gonna to have to send those morons back here.”
“What?”
“They didn’t finish the fucking job.”
“What?”
“He’s not dead, Mikey.”
“What?” Mikey finally seemed to be getting it. “Wait. He’s not?”
The guy on the bathroom floor groaned.
“Nope. Not dead. Very much alive.” Quinn looked him over. “He looks fucking terrified, too.”
“Hang on.” Quinn heard Mikey cover the receiver and the muffled sounds of a conversation. “Boss says finish him off, he’ll pay you another quarter.”
“Listen.” Quinn shook his head. Really? It had been more than ten years. The Boss damn well knew his limits by now. He’d never murdered anyone and he sure as fuck wasn’t going to start today. “Kindly remind the Boss that my esteemed position relies on plausible deniability? No blood on my hands. It’s in my contract.”
After another short, muffled conversation, Mikey came back with, “Okay. So Boss says—”
Just then, something slid from the target’s hands and clattered to the tile floor. Quinn squinted at it. “What the?” He kicked it and the screen came to life. “Is that a cell phone?” Quinn looked back at the target. “I said is that a cell phone?” he shouted. “A fucking cell phone?”
The guy nodded.
“What did you do?” Quinn picked up the phone and looked through the recent calls.
“Randy? Randy, what’s going on?”
“This asshole called nine-one-one.”
“What?”
“Nine-one-one, Mikey. The cops.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“I gotta go.”
“Wait! Randy, wait!”
“What the fuck is it?”
“Boss says you have to take him with you.”
“Are you kidding me?” Like hell he did. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“Not kidding. Boss says you take him or…” Quinn didn’t like the hesitation in Mikey’s voice. “Or…”
The blood drained from Quinn’s face. “What is it, Mikey?”
There was a long pause, then Mikey replied, his voice sounding thin. “He says take him, Randy, or the boys will be after you next.”
“Fuckity fucking fuck.” Quinn sighed. “Oh, fuck me.”
“Get out of there, Randy.”
“Jesus Fucking Christ.” Quinn hung up the phone.
“Mmrmr!”
“Shut up!” Quinn tried not to panic. The cops would already be on their way, but this fleabag motel was in East Bumfuckville, so he probably had a couple of minutes. All the same, he wasn’t going to take any chances. “Okay,” he said, talking out loud to help himself think. “Okay, I can’t do shit about the blood right now, we’re just gonna have to split. First things first, though.” He lifted the heel of his boot and brought it down hard on the cell phone, shattering it. He stomped on it again, then once more before dropping it in the toilet and closing the lid. Best he could manage on short notice. He sure as fuck wasn’t taking it with him.
Next, Quinn leaned over and hauled the target to his feet. The guy screamed in pain and, now that he was up, Quinn got a better look at where the boys had laid into his side. The bruising was bad, but it didn’t seem anything close to fatal. “Why the fuck are you not dead? Fucking morons.”
“Mmrm!”
“Yeah, yeah. Shut up.” Quinn half carried, half dragged the guy out of the bathroom and through the motel room to the door. He stopped and yanked the bedspread off the bed before heading out to his car. “So you don’t bleed all over my trunk. She’s brand new. This is the last fucking thing I need today, you know that?”
He pulled out his key fob, popped the trunk open from inside the room, then poked his head out before hauling his charge out into the deserted parking lot. “Dragging a fucking body around in fucking daylight. Those moronic, hollow-headed, nitwit fuckwads are gonna answer to me for this one. And pay for the—”
Mother. Fucker.
His brand new spiffy automobile had a trunk the size of a goddamn picnic basket.
“Balls.” Quinn sat the target on the ground and opened the back door on the passenger side. Carefully, he folded and arranged the bedspread for maximum coverage. “You bleed on my Italian aniline leather seats and I might change my mind about killing you myself.”
To his credit, the guy just shook his head. “Mmrm.”
“Good boy.” Quinn grunted as he maneuvered the guy into his car, belted him in and closed the back door. He ran back for his kit, pulled his gloves off and tucked them inside, then slid back into the driver’s seat. “You know what?” Quinn reached over and yanked the duct tape off the guy’s mouth.
“Thanks.” The guy’s voice was hoarse and he spoke so softly that it was almost unintelligible, but Quinn got the idea.
“Shut up. I took the tape off because I don’t want you suffocating in the back of my car. But if you start running off at the mouth I’m going to have to put your lights out. You got me?”
“I got you. But—”
“I am not fucking kidding!” Quinn shouted. “Do you think I am fucking kidding?”
“No. No, you are clearly not fucking kidding.”
“Damn straight.”
Quinn started his car and, despite the urgency of his situation, he smiled. “Would you listen to that? She just purrs.” He hit the gas and she took off like a cheetah after a gazelle. “Sweet.”
He turned onto the main road and headed north, figuring the Boss would tell him where to take the guy. He pushed a button on the display and called Mikey again.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, we’re outta there. Where am I going?”
“Huh?”
“Where am I taking him?”
“Uh. Hang on.” More muffled voices. “So, Boss says he doesn’t have a spot.”
“He doesn’t have a spot?”
“Right.”
“Wait, I need a spot. Plus, the boys need to come finish what they started.”
“Boss says that’s gonna be a few days.”
The fuck? What the hell was happening? “A few days? Where do I go for a few days? I need a spot, Mikey.”
“Boss says your place.”
“Boss says my place,” Quinn deadpanned.
“That’s what he says, yeah.”
“Boss says my place.” An ambulance roared by them on the other side of the road, headed toward the motel, lights blazing and siren blaring. It was followed moments later by two police cars and a black SUV with dark windows. “Pinch me, please.”
“What?”
“You know, pinch me. So I can wake up from this nightmare.”
“Gotta go, Randy.”
“Wait.”
“Boss says we’ll call you soon.”
“But wait, I don’t—”
The line went dead. Quinn sighed. “Jesus. What a clusterfuck.”
“Listen, Randy,” came the raspy voice from the back seat.
“Who the fuck are you talking to?”
“I— Uh.”
“It’s Quinn to you, am I clear? Nobody calls me Randy.”
“Well, but he just—”
“He’s the Boss’ son. He can call me fucking Suzie-Q if he wants to. You? You call me Quinn. Or better yet, don’t call me anything—just do us both a big favor and die, huh? That would be much, much easier on both of us. Trust me on that.”
“Please. Listen to me. I can—”
“Shut it.”
His passenger sighed wearily and Quinn almost laughed. This was funny, right? Driving down through town to the access road, past the quarry and all the way out to his farm in the middle of the woods with a half-dead target bleeding all over his new upholstery? The guy might not even last a few days. Hell, with any luck he wouldn’t make it another hour. He looked pretty pale and Quinn wasn’t at all sure he would be upright if not for the seatbelt.
What the hell was he going to do with the guy? Lock him up in the garage until he expired or the boys showed up and finished him off?
Actually, yeah. That was exactly what he was going to do. What choice did he have?
The rest of the ride was pretty quiet because his passenger appeared to have conveniently passed out. By the time Quinn turned down the long driveway up to his farm it was dark, and it was getting cold. As he pulled up in front of his detached garage, he was happier than ever that he lived well off the beaten path. He left his headlights on, opened up the garage door, and went looking for some way to restrain his hostage. He’d disconnected and removed a six-foot cast-iron radiator from the back room of the house last summer, and it was still sitting against one wall. He figured he could secure the guy to that.
Quinn had just found a length of chain and a couple of old padlocks, when he heard a sharp cry, followed by a long moan. Quinn headed back out to the car to find that the target had somehow gotten the car door open and lay on his side in the dirt and leaves.
“Going somewhere?”
“Please.”
“Please, what? You’re already a dead man. The fact that you’re still breathing is just a temporary inconvenience.”
“Fuck you.”
Quinn grabbed the guy by one arm and dragged him into the garage, ignoring his prisoner’s sharp cries and grunts. He made quick and efficient work of wrapping the chain around the guy’s feet several times, then secured him to the foot of the radiator. “Let’s remember that I did not want to bring you here. I am not a fucking babysitter. Don’t try my patience.”
“Wait—”
“And I promise you that yelling will not do you one damn bit of good—my nearest neighbor is over a mile up the road. You will, however, annoy me, and as I’m sure you can imagine that is probably a bad call.” Quinn took a few minutes to clear the area around the radiator of anything that might have been in reach, then raised his hand and slipped it through the garage door handle. “It’s going to be a long couple of days.” He pulled the door closed, then moved to his car and shut the headlights off. He grabbed his kit off the front seat and headed up to the house.
Out of sight, out of mind. Quinn pulled a beer out of the fridge and fired up the charcoal grill out back. An hour later he was eating steak with some grilled asparagus and watching the end of the football game. The Patriots and the Steelers were important, he told himself. The dying man in his garage was just a distraction.
Another beer later the game was over, the Steelers had won and the Steelers had a quarterback in the doghouse. Quinn’s mind wandered back to the garage as he put his clean plate in the dish drainer. The guy really was a distraction. Quinn dried his hands and picked up his cell phone.
“Hey, Randy. It’s late.”
“I know, Mikey.”
“Everything okay?”
Quinn leaned on the counter. “You mean other than I have a guy chained up in my garage?”
“It won’t be for long. Just a few days—a week, tops.”
“A week?” What the fuck?
“Well, the boys… It’s hard to find good help.”
“I bet.” Quinn snorted. “So what happened with the cops?”
“Boss says it got handled.”
Wow, that was fast. Quinn wondered exactly how one ‘handled’ two cop cars and one ominous dark-windowed SUV, but decided it was smarter to stay out of it. “Who is this guy, Mikey?”
“I don’t have a clue, Randy. You know he never tells me that stuff.”
“Can you find out?”
“Why does it matter?”
“It doesn’t, I guess, I was just curious.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get too curious. That gets people killed.”
Mikey had an excellent point. “Truth.”
“Is that why you called me?”
“Well? I don’t know, Mikey, I always thought chaining someone up would be more sexy and less stressful.”
“Is he in bad shape?”
“Not really. He’s bruised and his face looks like hamburger, but, seriously, it’s like the boys got bored, went for a smoke and forgot to come back.”
“Hm. So you think he’s gonna make it?”
“Like it matters? I honestly have no idea. It’s fucking cold out.”
Mikey cleared his throat and his tone grew more formal. “Yes, thanks for checking in, Randy.”
“What’s up?”
“Oh, hey. Boss just walked in, he says he appreciates your patience.”
“Ah. Right. Well, tell him to hurry it up, I’m no good to him sitting here.”
“I’ll be sure and let him know. Get some rest, Randy.”
“Will do. Night, Mikey.”
The line went dead. Fuck. So much for company tonight. First his fucking day went to hell, and now his evening plans had just been flushed as well. Quinn figured it was time to cut his losses and go to bed. He headed outside to the woodshed, stopping on the way to give a listen. The garage was quiet as could be, so the guy was either dead or had decided to take Quinn’s advice and not piss him off. Either way was all good. He’d check on the guy in the morning.
After filling up his log carrier with firewood, Quinn hauled it back up to the house. He had a furnace, but oil heat was expensive and there was plenty of fuel on his property. Plus, chopping and hauling wood was a hell of a lot more satisfying than a gym membership. His shed was full to bursting.
He topped off the steamers he kept on the surface of his main stove, then banked the fire just to keep it from going out overnight. Not terribly efficient as far as fuel burn, but damn handy when it came to starting it up again on a cold morning. Then he took a few logs to stoke up the little potbelly stove in his bedroom. It was going to be a chilly night, and he’d probably wake up to a hard frost in the morning. Maybe tomorrow he’d start putting up the storm windows to cut the draft.
He built his fire, then stripped and took a long hot shower. By the time he was ready to settle into bed, his room was overly warm and he wasn’t going to need his blankets. Every year as the weather got colder he’d forget that he should start the fire in this room early so it could settle before bedtime. It always took him a week or so to get back into the routine. He stuck a log in front of his bedroom door to keep it open and let some of the heat out, and flopped into bed.