“Sure. I can show you where I was when Alicia found me. That’s why you want to go for coffee, isn’t it?” Without waiting for him to answer, she breezed down the shaded sidewalk. She looked back at him. “Coming?”
Something about her was off, Huck thought. Or not off so much as ramped up. As if, on some level, she’d been expecting him and had her own agenda for when he showed up on her doorstep.
He fell in beside her. “We don’t have to do coffee. We can take a walk.”
“Coffee’s fine.” She glanced over at him, her eyes still cool. “Who sent you here?”
“Ah. I can see you distrust my motives.”
“I don’t know what your motives are. I can speculate, but I’m not sure that would do any good. In my work, I try to avoid speculation.”
“There’s a difference between speculation and analysis?”
“Big difference.”
“Travis Lubec sent me. He’s a senior security-”
“He’s Oliver Crawford’s chief bodyguard. He might have a fancier title, but that’s what he is. Yes, I know his name.” She picked up her pace. “He was a key player in the rescue of his boss.”
“You’ve been doing your homework.”
“It was in the papers.”
“Not Lubec’s name,” Huck said.
“No?” She didn’t act as if he’d caught her in a deception. “Someone must have told me.”
“When?”
“Recently.”
Now she was being openly deceptive, making him wonder what all she’d been up to in the days since she’d found her friend and her red kayak in the marsh. Lubec could have had good reason to send Huck in to talk to her. He kept up with her quick pace. “Ever think Crawford and his people are a little jumpy these days and might not want someone asking questions about them?”
“You mean me, because of Alicia, because she wasn’t herself and she showed up at their front gate early one morning when they all were in bed.” Quinn shifted to him, still moving at a fast clip, her eyes bright, shining with energy, a touch of indignation. “What, do they think Alicia and I conspired to make Oliver Crawford and his people uncomfortable?”
“Quinn-”
“The Kayak Caper.”
Huck sighed. “Having fun?”
“Not really. If I worried every time I asked a question someone didn’t want me to ask, I couldn’t do my job. I have to put that kind of resistance aside and focus on what I’m supposed to do. I try to keep an open mind and not let outside forces influence my conclusions.”
“That’s why you’re good, but it’s not your job to investigate what happened to your friend last week-”
“How would you know I’m good? Have you been researching me? Why is that okay but it’s not okay for me to research you all?” She was on a roll now. “Maybe I should be taking you for a walk and picking your brain.”
Huck decided to keep silent.
“That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Picking my brain-finding out what I’ve been up to since I left Yorkville?”
“It was a good excuse to get to see you.”
She obviously didn’t believe him.
“Quinn-”
“I’ve only reached a few conclusions about Oliver Crawford and you Breakwater Security guys.” She eased her pace slightly and gave him a sideways glance, the coolness suddenly back. “For instance, I don’t believe Huck Boone is your real name.”
“No, huh?”
“I told Special Agent Kowalski. And this Venezuela rescue of yours-” She shook her head. “I did a little investigating. Something doesn’t pass the smell test there, either.”
Huck was thinking about shoving her into a cab, taking her to Nate Winter and having him put Quinn Harlowe under lock and key. “Vern and I did a good deed. We worked under the radar, and the U.S. government might not approve-”
“I checked with a law enforcement source I have in Venezuela. Very reliable. She says that the kidnap victim you rescued wasn’t a particularly good guy. He was involved in Colombian emerald smuggling. He disappeared after you freed him.”
Because, Huck thought, unbeknownst to Vern, he’d managed to tip off fellow U.S. federal agents who subsequently took his rescued emerald smuggler into custody. Turned out he was an American citizen wanted for a long list of wrongdoing.
“Wouldn’t you disappear if you were a smuggler?” he asked Quinn mildly.
“I don’t think rescuing a smuggler is such a good deed.” Quinn stopped in front of a small coffee shop with flowerpots and four round tables out front. “If you want, you can get us a table and I’ll buy coffee-”
“That’s okay.” In her mood, she could be out the back door in a flash, and he’d have to explain why he went for coffee by himself. “I want to see what’s on the menu.”
“Every kind of coffee you can think of.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Biscotti, croissants, muffins, cookies…”