He reached for the door handle. I grabbed his sleeve over the seat, then stopped, unsure, but when he turned, I saw the glitter of amusement in his eyes.
"How'd you pull the hit if your gun was supposedly frozen?" I asked.
"Grabbed an icicle."
"A what?"
"Icicle. You know. Long, sharp piece of ice…"
"Bullshit."
His brows shot up in mock offense, the eyes under them still dancing. "Don't believe me? Right in the neck. Perfect weapon. Melts. No evidence."
"No way."
"You don't sound so sure."
I searched his eyes but, as always, there were no answers there. He gave a dry rasp of a laugh and grabbed the door handle, then looked back over his shoulder.
"Okay?"
I smiled. "Thanks, Jack."
Fifteen minutes later, Quinn pulled a beige Crown Victoria into the Keyeses' driveway. He got out, stretching his legs as if it had been a long ride, then peered over his shades at the house. The sky was overcast, but with some disguises, you can get away with wearing sunglasses, just like you could get away with an earpiece that wasn't completely hidden.
As Quinn surveyed the house, Jack got out and adjusted the holster, making sure it would "accidentally" show if his suit jacket swung open. Again, just part of the disguise, not necessarily an accurate one, but sometimes expectation is more important than realism.
They proceeded to the door. A tiny woman with a dark ponytail answered their knock. From my vantage point down the road, I could only make out her size and hair color. Their voices, though, were clear, courtesy of the two-way earpieces.
"Leslie Keyes?" Quinn asked.
"Yes?"
"John Turnbull and Derek Walker, federal agents with the Department of Intrastate Regulation and Enforcement."
Quinn machine-gunned the words, nearly too fast to distinguish, but bolstered with a weight of authority that dared you – ignorant layperson – to suggest there was no "Department of Intrastate Regulation and Enforcement." He flashed a badge and a card, emblazoned with a logo mishmashed from several legitimate federal agencies.
When I'd expressed skepticism – after I'd stopped laughing – Quinn swore it worked. He'd been using the badge and ID for over a year, and never been questioned. The moment people heard the words "federal agent" from a big, solid-jawed guy in a suit and shades, the rest flew past in a jumble as they mentally scrambled to figure out what they'd done wrong.
Leslie Keyes certainly bought it, saying, "Yes, yes, of course" when Jack asked if they could come inside and ask a few questions. I watched the door close, then steered out to find a safer place to sit and listen.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Leslie led Quinn and Jack into the house, seating them in what was presumably the living room. A faint rattle crossed the transmission, then Jack's low laugh.
"I don't want to sit on this. Some little guy wouldn't be too happy if I broke it." Another rattle as he laid the toy on the table. "Boy or girl?"
"Boy. My friend's son. They were over yesterday. He must have left that there."
From the tautness in her voice, she was lying. Yet her response wasn't what we'd expected. Presumably, the Byrony Agency would have made the adoption as legal as possible. Legal enough to pass a federal inspection, though? Maybe she wasn't sure.
"Don't call her on it," I said. "Play it out."
"But you do want children, correct?" Quinn said. "That's why you engaged the services of the Byrony Agency."
A moment's silence, then, "Yes, we did. Is that what this is about? We're no longer with them, and we paid our bills – "
Quinn laughed. "We aren't bill collectors, ma'am."
"No, no, of course not. I just meant – "
"We're here on a routine check of the agency's procedures," Jack said.
"The agency? Have they done something wrong?"
"No, as I said, it's a routine check."
"Why?" Quinn cut in. "Did you have concerns about them?"
"Concerns? Not at all. They were wonderful. We just decided to pursue other options. But we'd recommend them, and we have. A great agency."
I said, "Okay, take it down a notch. She's already spooked and you don't want to push her into full-blown panic."
Jack took over. "Like I said, it's a routine check only. Private adoption can be a very tricky area, Mrs. Keyes, and we have to be absolutely certain no one – from the birth mothers to the agency to the prospective parents – misuses the system."
"Prospective parents? You think we misused the system?"
"At the moment, our investigation focuses entirely on the Byrony Agency."
In the moment of silence that followed, I could picture Leslie, looking from one "agent" to the other, not believing their "routine check" line. That was fine. We didn't want her to.
Quinn and Jack took turns asking about her ex perience with the agency. Most of the questions were mundane – how much advance notice was she given before the home visits, did she have any difficulty understanding the forms. But every now and then they'd toss in a zinger like, "Did anyone ever offer you additional services for an additional fee?" before swinging back to the general queries.
After ten minutes, I swore I could hear her heart pounding against her ribs. Then, as they reached the end, I did hear a sound – the distant fussing of a baby.
"Ignore it," I said quickly. "Unless the baby starts crying, pretend you don't hear anything. If it's Destiny, she'll fuss for a while before wailing. Finish up and get out of there. If she cries, you'll have to call Keyes on it, and I'd rather you didn't."
As Quinn finished the questions, Jack asked to use the washroom. In the silence that followed, you'd think he'd just demanded permission to conduct a full search of the premises.
"There's one right here on the main level," she said finally.
A low chuckle. "In a house this big, I hope so."
A few flustered words. Obviously, she'd mistaken Jack's request for a ploy to go upstairs, maybe investigate the gurgling and whimpering. That wasn't his intent at all. He just wanted to lay a bug.
While Jack was gone, Quinn asked the final questions, then chatted with Leslie, saying it seemed like a nice neighborhood, a great place to raise kids, he hoped that worked out for her and her husband… All benign small talk, but the woman was probably convinced she heard a note of sarcasm behind his words, that he knew she already had a child.
When Jack returned, she bustled them to the door.
"Oh, I left a card on the table," Jack said. "In case you need to contact us."
She thanked him and hurried them outside. By the time she realized the card wasn't on any table, they'd be gone.
The guys drove over and parked near me at the minimart. Quinn hopped in my passenger side, as Jack made his way, at half the speed, from their car to mine, across the minimart parking lot.
"Has she -?" he began.
I motioned Quinn to silence, nodded, and turned up the volume as Leslie took that critical next step – placing a call to her husband. Jack hadn't had time to bug the phone, so we were limited to her side of the conversation. First came the rush of words, as she explained the visit from "the FBI"… having apparently completely blocked everything after the words "federal."
"They found Miranda's rattle and I know I shouldn't have lied – we have the papers – but I wasn't taking the chance, Ken. I won't lose her – "
A moment's pause.
"I'm not panicking," she snarled, sounding a lot less flustered than she had with Jack and Quinn, her protective instinct taking over. "They asked a lot of questions about the Byrony Agency, like whether they'd offered us anything different or special, but they didn't specifically say – "
A sharp intake of breath as he presumably cut her short.
"Damn it. Right. Okay I'll meet you – "
Pause.