One ring. “Hello?” A woman’s voice.
“I think I might have the wrong number,” Quinn said, almost sure of it. “I’m looking for Peter.”
“Who is this?” There was a surprised tone to the voice, a voice Quinn realized he recognized.
“Misty?”
“Tell me who this is or I’m hanging up.”
“It’s Quinn.”
Dead air for a second. “Quinn? How did you…how did you get my number?”
“I didn’t know it was your number. Peter gave it to me a few years ago in case of an emergency.”
“Typical. That man…” He could almost hear her shaking her head.
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of him, but he hasn’t responded. I thought I’d give this number a try, but I don’t suppose you’ve seen him lately.”
“Not for a month or so.” Misty had been Peter’s assistant back in the Office days, and one of the few people Peter fully trusted. Since the end of their organization, she had been shuffled off to a far less interesting government job, while Peter had been labeled a consultant and stuck behind a desk. “When did you call him?”
“Last night, probably around midnight your time, and again just before I called you.”
“And you left messages?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s not like him. He should have called you back by now. Are you sure you have the right number?”
Quinn read off the number he had for Peter.
“That’s it,” she said, sounding concerned. “Let me check and get back to you.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“No. I do.”
Quinn knew it didn’t matter who was officially paying her salary, Peter would always be her boss.
“I appreciate it.”
“I’ll call you right back.”
Quinn put on the coffee, and made a bowl of instant oatmeal. He’d only taken two bites when his phone rang.
“I can’t get through to him, either,” Misty told him. “I’m about to head into work, so I’ll swing by his place first and see if he’s even home.”
“If you don’t mind, that would be great.”
It was forty minutes before she called again.
“Quinn, something’s wrong.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Her words came out in a rush. “He didn’t answer his door. I know the code to his place, so I let myself in.”
“Slow down.”
He could hear her take a few deep breaths.
“He’s not here. But his bed’s not made, and his glasses are still on his nightstand. He needs those these days.”
“Maybe he has a second pair.”
“His alarm clock is hanging by the cord over the edge of the stand, and the picture of his wife is on the floor, the glass broken.”
Wife? Quinn didn’t even know Peter was married. “What about her? She’s not there, either?”
“Who?”
“His wife?”
“She’s been dead for ten years.”
“Oh. I didn’t know.”
A pause. “There’s more.”
“What?”
Another moment passed before she spoke again. “Some of the things on his dresser are knocked over.” She hesitated. “It looks like there was a struggle. Quinn, what could have happened?”
Quinn made her go through the entire apartment, looking for anything unusual. Other than the disorder in the bedroom, though, nothing else stood out.
“Can you take the day off?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Good. I want you to stay there. I’m going to send someone to you who will give the apartment a thorough going over. Don’t touch anything else, just sit down and wait.”
“No problem.”
“Give me the address.”
Once he finished with Misty, he called Steven Howard.
“It’s Quinn.”
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Where are you now?”
“Home.” Home for Howard was Virginia, not far from DC.
“What’s your day look like?”
“I’m open for the next seventy-two hours.”
“Good. I need you to get to DC right away.” He gave Howard Peter’s address and filled him in on what he needed him to do. “Call me the second you’re done.”
“You got it.”
“Thanks.”
As he hung up, Orlando entered the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“Was that Peter?” she asked.
He shook his head. “This might be an even bigger situation than we thought.”
Howard called just over an hour later. Using the camera on his phone, he gave Quinn, Orlando, and Daeng-who had joined them fifteen minutes earlier-a tour of Peter’s apartment.
As Misty described earlier, the bedroom definitely showed signs of a struggle. In addition to the items she’d pointed out, Howard discovered spots of blood on the bed frame and in the hallway leading out to the living room.
“It’s not a lot,” he said. “So whatever it’s from, the wound can’t be that big.”
“How long has it been there?”
“Hard to tell. It’s all dry.” The picture moved down toward the carpet, and Howard’s rubber-gloved hand entered the frame. He touched a dark spot about four inches from the wall. The normally loose carpet fibers were stiff. “See? That’s got to be a few days at least. Could be a lot longer, though. A lab might be able to figure it out.”
The picture rose again as Howard stood.
“Something I want to show you in here,” he told them.
He moved down the hall and into the living room. Almost every inch of wall space was covered with overflowing bookshelves. There were even more books stacked on the floor here and there. The furniture consisted of two easy chairs, a love seat, and coffee table. There was no TV.
For a moment, the camera caught Misty standing by the door, looking concerned, then it swung to the right and pointed once more toward the floor.
“See the books?” Howard asked.
While most of the image area was empty, there were four columns of books along one side. The two columns at either end were stacked neatly, but the two in the middle had been shoved back a few inches.
“I think they put him on the floor here,” Howard said. “Look at this.”
The image moved down again until it was just a couple inches above the carpet. Howard’s finger moved back into the frame and rubbed across the surface. As it did, several tiny white spears, no more than an eighth of an inch long, jumped up and down. Howard pressed his finger against one of them, adhering it to the glove, and turned his hand so the spear was visible on the camera.
“Plastic,” he said.
Both Quinn and Orlando had seen similar fragments before. Sometimes when plastic ties where used for handcuffs, the tips of the ridges could shear off, leaving behind spears just like the one Howard was holding.
Howard rose back to his feet, this time turning the camera around so he was looking into the lens. “I figure they surprised him in his bed, hauled him out here, and cuffed him. If it was me, I would have drugged him, too, so he didn’t cause any problems on the way out.”
The fact that they’d even found Peter, let alone broken into his place, was shocking. Peter was secretive even in the least threatening of situations. Quinn knew he had security in place that was at least on par with what Quinn himself employed, probably even better. Of course, even the best systems weren’t perfect, and Quinn’s methods hadn’t always kept people out, either.
“Fingerprints?” Orlando asked.
“Checked the door when I first came in,” Howard said. “It was clean. Spot-checked a few other places, too. Same thing. Could make another pass if you want, but I have a feeling I’m not going to find any.”
Both Quinn and Orlando knew he was right.
“No. Not necessary,” Quinn said. “Is that it?”
“So far. I want to do another look around, then check the building’s common area and out front.”
“Okay. Report back when you’re done. Let me talk to Misty.”
The image whipped around the room as Howard carried the phone over to Peter’s former assistant and handed it to her. Though Quinn had talked to her hundreds of times on the phone, he’d met her in person only twice. The last time had been several years earlier. But it wasn’t those intervening years that made her otherwise youthful face look aged this morning.