If Huck Boone/McCabe was guarding bodies, she might as well be in hot-pink lipstick.
What a thought. She felt a rush of heat and quickly threw her open-house outfit and enough clothes for the weekend into a zippered bag.
In a few minutes, she was on the road, a stack of work next to her on the front seat. She rolled down the windows and opened the sunroof, letting in as much warm spring air as possible. She loved the freedom of being able to juggle her schedule and-often-work outside her office. Being her own boss had its downside, but not, she thought, today.
Once she cleared city traffic, she called Special Agent Kowalski on her cell phone. She hoped just to leave a message, but he picked up. “Where are you?” he asked her.
“In my car.”
“In your car in Alaska, or in your car in front of FBI headquarters?”
“I’m on the Beltway.”
“Going-”
“About sixty-five miles an hour.”
He took an audible breath. “All right. What’s up?”
“You all need to find Steve Eisenhardt and make sure he’s not mixed up in-” She stopped herself. Did Kowalski know about the undercover marshals? Huck hadn’t been specific with her. “I’m pretty sure he searched my office this afternoon. He just happened to stop by when I was out.”
“Why should I care if he searched your office?”
“Because I had notes out on research I’ve been doing on Oliver Crawford and Breakwater Security.”
Silence.
“Nothing I kept in the open would compromise me or anyone else in any way,” Quinn added carefully. “No notes from conversations I had with sources, none of my conclusions-”
“What sources?”
“Just people I know from my work.”
“What conclusions?”
“‘Conclusions’ is too strong a word. Thoughts, questions, speculations-none of that was in the open. Most of it’s in my head or on a password-protected file on my laptop-”
“Which is where?”
“Right next to me on the front seat of my car. It was on my desk this afternoon. Steve could have grabbed it, but he didn’t. He must have known Thelma would never have let him out of the building with it.”
“Thelma’s the receptionist,” Kowalski said.
“I see you’ve been doing your homework, too.”
“Any idea why this Steve character would care if you were researching Oliver Crawford and Breakwater Security?”
“No.”
“Don’t you lock your office?”
“I didn’t think of it. Someone stopped by to see me, and we went out for coffee-I never went back upstairs.”
Just a half beat’s hesitation. “All right. Anything else?”
Quinn bit her lip, considering Kowalski’s reaction. Why wasn’t he asking her who’d stopped by her office? But she didn’t pursue the subject. “Don’t you want to know who Steve Eisenhardt is?”
“You told me you called him after Miss Miller took off in the black sedan.”
“Good memory,” Quinn said, tongue-in-cheek. He wasn’t telling her everything-and he didn’t care that she knew he was holding back. But she had no status herself in any investigation, whether it was Alicia’s death or whatever-whoever-Huck McCabe was hunting in Yorkville.
“Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment.” He didn’t sound grateful for anything. “Where can I find you if I need to talk to you?”
“Yorkville.”
“That’s not a good idea. Why are you headed there?”
“I’m going to an open house at Breakwater tomorrow afternoon.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Oliver Crawford asked Gerard Lattimore to invite me.”
“You like playing with fire, don’t you?”
“Actually, no, I like peace and quiet.”
Kowalski grunted. “Then go pick lilacs and read a book tomorrow. Watch the birds.”
“I had coffee with Huck Boone this afternoon,” she said.
Another two-second silence.
He knows about Huck. Quinn felt her hand on the phone turn clammy. “I’m coming into traffic-I need to hang up.”
She clicked off, tossing the phone onto the seat. Traffic was fine. She just didn’t need another federal agent second-guessing her. If the FBI and the marshals had bad guys to catch, they could go catch them. She’d stay out of their way. In the meantime, Oliver Crawford was her neighbor, Breakwater Security wasn’t going anywhere, and the best thing she could do-Huck had even said so-was to resume her normal routine.
In April, she’d spend the weekend at her cottage.
If invited to a party at the Crawford estate, she’d go in a heartbeat.
28
Although it wasn’t yet dusk, tall white candles lit the elegantly set table in the formal dining room. Huck didn’t want to be there. He had already refused Oliver Crawford’s offer for him to sit at the long, antique table, with its high-backed upholstered chairs.