The Buried (21 page)

They were approximately four and a half miles east of the crime scene, hiding in a copse of trees in the large front yard of a farmhouse along the road. A few more miles and they would have made it to Prescott, but Nate had been hurting too much, and carrying all the gear wasn’t doing Quinn any good, either.

Another set of headlights appeared in the east at 4:12 a.m. As they neared the farm, the lights blinked twice. Quinn and Nate stepped out of their hiding place and Mr. Vo’s RV slowed to a stop.

The side door popped open and Daeng leaned out. “Are you the ones who requested a ride?”

Quinn handed him the duffels, then let Nate board first before climbing in himself.

“Good to see you,” Daeng said.

As they shook, Quinn said, “You, too.”

“So, where do you want to go?”

“East.”

“Consider it done.”

Daeng moved back into the driver’s seat and pulled them onto the road.

“You hurt, too?” Mrs. Vo asked Quinn. She and her husband had helped Nate into the chaise longue.

She scanned his face, looking for injuries.

“No, I’m all right.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What you do to Nate?”

“I didn’t do anything to him. He, um, fell down.”

Mr. Vo, in the process of cleaning the dry blood off Nate’s face, said, “Then he fall on pile of rocks, I think.”

“You need to eat?” The way Mrs. Vo asked Quinn the question, it sounded almost like an accusation.

“Only if there’s something handy,” he said.

“Everything handy. Is mobile home. I get you pork chop.” She looked him over. “Two, maybe.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Vo.”

She grunted and moved over to the kitchen.

Quinn made his way past her to the back where Orlando was sitting at the table. “Hey,” he said softly. He leaned down and kissed her.

“Sorry I didn’t get up,” she said.

“I didn’t expect you to.”

She sniffed the air around him. “You need a shower.”

“I missed you, too.” He put a hand on her belly. “How’s the little one?”

“Active,” she said. “Where’s Dani?”

He pulled out his phone and showed her.

“How long has she been stopped?” she asked.

“About twenty minutes.”

In the three-plus hours since he’d last seen Dani, her tracking chip had traveled the hundred and fifty miles to Spokane and then stopped—not just paused, but stopped dead.

“Maybe she’s asleep,” Orlando said.

“That’s what I was thinking. What I don’t understand is why she got someone to drive her that far. From what I could tell, her tracking chip made only one quick stop the whole time.”

“I’ll double-check the data.” Orlando opened the laptop version of the software. “Chip number?”

He gave it to her and sat down across the table. “Where’s Garrett?”

Orlando nodded toward the bed above the cab. “He knocked out a few hours ago. I don’t expect him to stir again until lunchtime.”

He scanned the rest of the interior. He’d never been in the RV before. “This place is…cozy.”

“I was thinking we could start taking it on jobs and using it as a mobile office.”

“You were?”

She looked at him over the top of her computer. “Don’t be stupid.”

She concentrated on her screen again. A minute later, she said, “You’re right. Whoever picked her up took her all the way to Spokane, with just one stop of two minutes and seventeen seconds.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I.” She paused. “What now?”

“Go to Spokane,” he said without hesitation.

“So we’re playing the white knight again.”

“Is that a problem?”

She squeezed his fingers. “When has that ever been the case?”

She started to lean forward to kiss him, but her belly kept her from getting very far, so she yanked on his arm and pulled him across to her.

CHAPTER
28

EASTERN WASHINGTON

D
ANI HADN’T REALIZED
something was wrong until they reached Waitsburg.

“You can leave me here,” she said. “Anywhere’s fine.”

“Here? Nah. You don’t want to get out here,” Ricky said.

He then raced straight through town, ignoring all traffic signs.

When she had tried to open the door and jump out, he grabbed her arm, pulled her back, and punched her in the jaw. That had knocked her out. How long, she wasn’t sure, but when she woke, they were rambling down a highway, the sky still dark.

“I suggest you not try that again or I’ll really hit you next time,” Ricky said.

Dani scooted as far away from him as she could, biding her time until an opportunity to escape presented itself.

One never came.

As they neared Spokane, he grabbed her again and pulled to the side of the road. This time, instead of punching her, he manhandled her into the back.

He flashed her a look at the gun in a holster under his arm. “Don’t try anything.”

He climbed out of the car and retrieved something from the trunk. After opening the passenger-side rear door, he slid in next to her and held out a bottle of water.

“Drink it.”

“I’m not thirsty,” she said.

He pulled out his gun and pointed it at her ribs. “Drink it.”

“You won’t kill me.”

He chuckled. “You know, you’re right.” He switched his aim to her thigh. “But I have no problem hurting you a little bit. Now drink.”

She reluctantly took the bottle from him. As she unscrewed the top, she realized the seal had already been broken.

“Go on,” he said.

She pretended to take a sip.

“That was very pretty. Now take a nice, big gulp, or in a few seconds I’ll put a new hole in your jeans.”

She did as he ordered.

“Now finish it,” he told her.

She downed the bottle.

The first wave of dizziness hit before she had even removed the bottle from her lips. Within moments, she was leaning back, barely able to keep her eyes open.

Ricky took the bottle from her and laid her down across the seat. “Don’t worry. You’ll only have a little bit of a headache when you wake up.”

The last thing she remembered was hearing him get out of the car and shut the door.

__________

O
RBITS HAD BEEN
doing a lot of thinking on the drive to Spokane.

It was possible the Californians were responsible for the roadblock, but he hadn’t seen any sign of them since Yakima so he wasn’t going to jump to that conclusion. Whoever it was had access to some pretty extensive resources. Considering that and what he had seen of the Californians’ operation, he couldn’t ignore the fact that a hell of a lot of money was being poured into capturing the girl. Which led him to one very annoying conclusion: Even with his fee doubled, he was being woefully underpaid.

He began to wonder how many others were looking for the girl.

There was his client, plus the Russians who’d tried to hire him, and the Californians at the very least. He was willing to bet there were more.

His dour mood brightened as the outline of a new business opportunity formed.

After drugging the girl, he found a quiet motel on the edge of Spokane. The room was ratty and nowhere near the standards he preferred, but it would do. Setting his alarm for three hours, he lay down and contemplated the windfall he was about to receive until he fell asleep.

__________

O
RBITS ROSE AGAIN
at 7:30, even more convinced he could pull off his idea.

He checked the girl and called Donnie.

“I need three things right away,” he said.

“Hold on.” Movement on the other end, the rustling of sheets and then paper. “I’m ready. Go ahead.”

“One, a secure location in or near Chicago. Clean, you understand? Nothing to tie it to any previous operation. Two, a four-man support team with their own gear. They can’t be afraid to get dirty if needed. And three, a private jet from Spokane to Chicago that can leave within the hour.”

“All that’s going to be expensive.”

Orbits knew the costs would be a drop in the bucket if everything went as planned. “I don’t care. Just do it. The plane first. You can work on the rest while I’m in the air.”

Donnie called back ten minutes later with flight information, and a half hour after that, Orbits and the girl arrived at the specified airport entrance.

As he’d hoped, no one questioned his story of a sick sister he was taking home to their parents’ house. It was all in how you sold your story, and boy, could he sell. He even doted on her during the flight, just because it amused him.

When they arrived in Chicago, Donnie had an ambulance waiting, driven by one of Orbits’s temporary team members.

They headed south from O’Hare airport, along the western edge of the city to an empty industrial building in Broadview. They passed through a gate in the fence that surrounded the property and drove straight into the building, courtesy of a large metal door rolled up.

The three other members of Orbits’s team were waiting inside. After instructing them to take the girl into the most secure room, Orbits found an empty office where he could have some privacy. He pulled out the piece of paper he’d used to work out the details of his plan and called Donnie again.

“I think you’re going to enjoy this,” he said before laying out his plan.

“Whoa,” Donnie whispered when Orbits finished.

“Whoa as in you can’t do it?” Orbits asked.

“No, as in that’s pretty crazy. I mean, good crazy, you know?”

“Then you
can
make it happen.”

“I’ll need an hour or two to work out the details, but I don’t foresee any problems. What’s the timeline?”

Orbits thought for a moment. He needed this to happen fast so that no one could waste time looking for him. He glanced at his watch. It was already 2:30 in the afternoon, Central time. Assuming Donnie would need all of the two hours…

“Start it at four thirty my time, with a two-hour time limit. But use Pacific time since that’s where everyone will think she is.”

__________

“D
AMMIT,” ORLANDO EXCLAIMED
.

Quinn twisted around in the front passenger seat, where he’d been keeping Daeng company. “What is it?”

“Come back here.”

“Garrett, you’ve got copilot duty,” Quinn said.

Smiling, Orlando’s son moved to the side to let Quinn out, and then took the passenger seat.

“Did she stop again?” Quinn asked. Twenty minutes earlier, Dani’s tracking chip had started to move once more.

From the look Orlando gave him, he knew it wouldn’t be good news. “She’s flying.”

“Flying? Are you sure?”

She turned the screen toward him. The blip representing Dani was now moving eastward, heedless of any roads and at a clip no car could match.

“Where is she going?” Quinn said under his breath.

Though he hadn’t expected an answer, Orlando said, “Their current course will take them anywhere from Minneapolis in the north to St. Louis in the south, and as far east as New York or possibly Boston.”

“She can’t be doing this on her own. Someone must have her.”

Orlando nodded. “There can’t be that many places in Spokane to rent a jet. I’ll make some calls.”

“While you’re at it, see if you can arrange one for me,” he said.

She frowned at him, and then opened the browser on her computer.

__________

O
UT OF THE
corner of her eye, Orlando watched Quinn
return to the front of the RV. She was angrier than she had a right to be, but she couldn’t help it.

He had asked her to arrange a plane for
him
, not them. He’d probably take Nate and Daeng but clearly intended to leave her behind. Was it the right call? Maybe, but she didn’t care about the right call. She needed to be where she was useful, and that was wherever he was.

The baby pushed against her stomach. “Quiet, you,” she whispered, taking the baby’s movement as traitorous support of its father’s viewpoint.

She’d been right about jet rental places. There was only a handful in the city. She worked her way through the list and found the winner at number four. Someone there told her a man had chartered a flight that morning to take his ill sister home. But when Orlando pressed for more details, the person had clammed up and not divulged the jet’s destination.

That wasn’t a big problem, though. She had the name of the company now, so it was easy to find a listing of tail numbers of all the company’s aircraft. Since flight plans were public record, all she had to do was plug in the different numbers until she found the right one.

Chicago.

She almost hollered out the info, but remembered she was annoyed with Quinn. She decided it could wait. She arranged for a jet from a rival company that could hold up to ten passengers, and then switched back to the tracking map. Though she feared the flight plan was false, Dani’s plane was still on course for the Windy City.

A
ding
signaled the arrival of an e-mail. It was from Gordon Evert, a fixer in San Diego she had known before either of them had entered the business.

Hey O,

You’re mixing with some nasty stuff if you’re interested in Tex Winston. Might have something for you.

G

“How did I know you’d try me right away?” Evert said when she called.

“How’s it going, Gordon?”

“You know, all sunshine and pretty ladies. When you coming home for a visit?”

Orlando had spent much of her youth in San Diego. It’s where her mentor, Abraham Delger, had recruited her. “Soon. Tell me about Tex Winston.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Ideally, where I can find him right now.”

“I believe I can help you with that.”