He had to produce.
Getting out of there with the laptop was out of the question. Stuffing the notepad in his pants was only a marginally more credible option, but the old bat downstairs would never let him out the door. For all he knew, Quinn could have used the notepad to scribble down a speech to the Rotary Club.
If he didn’t bring something to his goons, they’d be pressing buttons on their computer by tonight, sending pictures of him and the congressman’s underage daughter, and he’d be Washington ’s next jaw-dropping scandal.
All the Nazis needed was confirmation that Quinn was, indeed, digging into their business and an idea of how far she’d gotten.
Do the dumb shits think she’s some kind of undercover federal agent?
He glanced at her hen-scratching on the top page of the notepad.
Venezuela. Emerald smuggling. Oliver Crawford, Dominican Republic.
Tortures. Executions.
Steve shuddered. Who the hell were these guys? He wondered what would happen if they decided Quinn knew too much.
Not my problem.
He quickly tore off the top three sheets in the notepad, making sure he didn’t leave behind any threads of paper from the spiral holes, and folded the sheets, tucking them into his suit-coat inner pocket. With a little luck, Quinn wouldn’t notice anything was missing until it was way too late.
“Mr. Eisenhardt?” It was the receptionist, calling him sternly from the staircase. “Mr. Eisenhardt, I’d like for you to wait for Ms. Harlowe downstairs.”
A man came out of another second-floor office down the hall and spoke to her, but Steve couldn’t make out what the guy was saying. He returned the notebook to its spot on Quinn’s cluttered desk. He hadn’t broken into her office-he’d walked in. The Nazis had assured him they’d distract Quinn and give him a window of time in which to operate.
The old-bat receptionist would tell Quinn that he’d been there. If either of them suspected he’d been up to anything underhanded, they’d be on the phone with the cops in a heartbeat. Alicia’s death had put everyone he knew in Washington on edge.
He went to Quinn’s door. “Is that you, Miss Worthington?”
He could see her marching down the hall toward him. She inhaled deeply through her nose. “Mr. Eisenhardt, didn’t you hear me?”
“No, I didn’t. I mean, I heard you, but I couldn’t make out what you were saying. What’s up? Quinn back?”
She glared at him, not nearly as winded as he would have expected for a woman her age. “Quinn isn’t back yet, no. I asked you to wait downstairs.”
“You did? Sorry. I’m not used to the routine around here.” He could see that charm wasn’t going to work on her. “I was one of her friend Alicia’s colleagues at Justice-we were in and out of each others offices all the time. Cubicles, actually.” He gestured at the elegant Octagon Room behind him. “This is much nicer. Really swank.”
“She needs to get used to locking her door.”
He’d gambled that Quinn’s office wouldn’t be locked. A risk, but he was right. He didn’t want to think about what would have happened if he’d been wrong-what he’d have had to force himself to do. Somehow, some way, he had to bring the Nazis what they wanted.
“Hey, I don’t want to get you into any trouble,” Steve said. “I can’t wait around here, anyway. I was hoping to catch her. What’s she doing, taking a walk in the park?” The Nazis had told him they had a guy distracting her, but Steve didn’t know any details. He didn’t want to know. “We’ve all had a rough time since Alicia’s death.”
Thelma toned down the sourpuss expression. “I imagine so. Miss Miller was your friend, too?”
He felt a prick of real sadness. “I didn’t know her as well as Quinn did. I’ve only been at Justice a couple months. But, yes, I considered her a friend.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Eisenhardt.” But, refocusing on why she was there, Thelma stood to one side of the door and motioned him toward the stairs. “I’ll follow you downstairs.”
Don’t do me any favors. As he started past her, he noticed her give Quinn’s office a suspicious scan. Steve wondered if he looked shifty, or if she just didn’t trust lawyers. Stealing stuff off a purported friend’s desk wasn’t the kind of risk he preferred to take. Sexual indiscretions were one thing, but he didn’t like breaking the law. If he’d known the congressman’s daughter was underage, he’d never have touched her.
But he’d suspected. He just hadn’t asked her or bothered to find out on his own, which he could have done just by going to her father’s Web site. He’d wanted what he got from her, and he didn’t let anything stand in the way of his obsession.
When he reached the first floor, he smiled at the receptionist. “You’ll tell Quinn I stopped by?”