“You should really sleep in a bed, you know.”
He twisted around and saw her. Orlando. She was looking at him, her eyes half opened. He nearly knocked the computer off the table as he pushed himself up and moved to the bed.
“Hey,” he said, smiling.
“Hey.”
For a moment, he couldn’t get another word out and just stared at her. Finally he managed, “How are you?”
“You tell me.”
“You’re alive.”
“That’s encouraging.”
“And the doctor says you’re doing better every day,” he added quickly, pulling himself out of his shock.
She closed her eyes and readjusted her head on her pillow. When she opened them again, she asked, “How long have I been here?”
“A week and a half.”
“That long?”
“The doctor said we can take you home soon.” He hoped that would make her feel better.
She studied his face as if trying to see if he was lying. “How soon?”
“Another week or so.” He leaned over the bed and brushed away a strand of her hair that had fallen over her cheek. “You need to build up some strength first, that’s all.”
He took her hand, and realized she was staring at him again.
“How bad?” she asked.
“How bad what?”
One side of her mouth rose in a weak smirk. “How bad am I?”
“Not as bad as you were.”
“Don’t do that. Please.” She squeezed his hand. “Just tell me.”
He smiled as best he could. “At some point soon, you’re going to need to get your knee replaced.”
“That sounds like fun.”
He was silent for a moment. “You’re missing a couple things.”
She stiffened slightly, and he could see her mind racing as she wiggled the toes on her uninjured leg, and the fingers of both hands.
“Nothing on the outside,” he said.
“Then what?”
“Your left kidney, and your spleen.” He raised an exaggerated eyebrow. “Apparently we’re born with two kidneys. Did you know that? And the spleen? Don’t need it. The things you learn hanging around a hospital.”
She rolled her eyes back and let out an exasperated huff. “Dammit, Quinn. You could’ve just said that right off. For a second there I thought I was going to have to worry about mixing up prosthetics with Nate.”
“Don’t think you guys would get mixed up. He’s a lot taller than you.”
She clamped down on his hand, her grip surprisingly strong for her condition.
“Hey,” he said. “Just being honest.”
The short laugh that escaped her lips quickly turned into a cough.
Quinn grabbed a pitcher of water on the nightstand and filled one of the waiting cups.
“Here,” he said, slipping a hand under her head, and moving the cup to her lips. “My fault. I shouldn’t have gotten you going like that.”
The warmth he’d begun to feel as they’d talked had disappeared the moment she stopped laughing.
When she had enough water, she pulled back and cleared her throat. “I’m okay. My throat’s dry, that’s all.”
He lowered her head to the pillow and returned the cup to the nightstand. “You need to take it easy. Getting stronger is your only job now.” He reached out and squeezed her hand again. “Get some more sleep. That’s the best thing you can do.”
Her eyelids were already half shut, the exertion of their conversation clearly having taken its toll. Thinking she was on the verge of knocking out, he took a silent step backward and turned toward the door.
“You weren’t here before,” she whispered.
He stopped.
“I woke up…I don’t know when, but you weren’t here. Liz said…you were…you were away.”
He licked his bone-dry lips, his guilt thundering back down on him like an avalanche. “I’m here now,” he said.
“Liz told me you were trying…to find out who was…responsible.” Her volume decreased with every syllable, each new word a struggle.
“We can talk about it later.” Dammit. He knew his sister had said more to Orlando than she’d let on.
Orlando took a couple of breaths. “I…want…”
The pause was long, and Quinn wondered if she had finally drifted off. But then she cracked her eyelids open again.
“I want…to help.”
“Just sleep now,” he said. “That’s the best help you can give us.”
But he needn’t have said anything. She was already out.
Daeng looked out the cabin window. Sometime during the night, clouds had begun rolling in. They were darker now than when he woke an hour ago, and held the promise of rain. Maybe in an hour. Maybe at the end of the day. It was hard for him to tell. In Bangkok he would have known without even thinking about it. Los Angeles, too. But this part of the States was unfamiliar to him.
Across the room, the bedroom door opened, and Misty stepped out quietly.
“How’s he doing?” Daeng asked.
“I gave him some more ibuprofen, and he fell back asleep.”
Daeng knew Howard could probably use something stronger than over-the-counter drugs, but without robbing the drugstore where they’d stopped, their choices had been limited.
“I made some fresh coffee,” he said.
Misty allowed herself a small smile. “Exactly what I need.” She walked into the kitchen and poured herself a cup. “You want some?”
“I’m fine,” Daeng replied.
When she joined him at the table, she looked at the cloth grocery bag containing Peter’s files, sitting off to the side. “We should get rid of those.”
“Why not now?”
Half a minute later they were kneeling in front of the fireplace, the bag between them. Using some kindling and a few pieces of wood from the holder on the hearth, Daeng got a fire going. Misty then pulled out a file, opened it, and began feeding sheets of paper one by one into the flames.
Daeng considered helping, but he could tell that for her, this was more than a simple task of getting rid of unwanted documents. This was an act of finality — a cleansing, even — one of the last things she would ever do for Peter. There was a respect to the way she placed each page into the blaze — gently, a pause as the fire caught, then the next sheet.
After a file was empty, the folder itself was burned before Misty moved on to the next. When she finished the last, she stared at the flames until the final bit of paper curled into black ash.
“Thank you,” she said.
Daeng dipped his head in acknowledgment.
He gave her another moment before he stood and grabbed the bag. The heft of the bag caused him to pause. He reached inside and pulled out the wooden box. He opened the top, expecting to see the metal canister, but it wasn’t there.
“Do you have the microfilm?” he asked.
“It’s not in there?”
He turned the box so she could see.
“Quinn must have taken it with him,” she said. “He had it last, didn’t he?”
“Must have,” Daeng said. Not wanting to take a chance, he sent a text asking Quinn if he took the microfilm, and then carried the bag and the box to the table.
The reply came quickly: YES.
That was a relief. Daeng had no desire to retrace their steps in hopes of locating the spool of film. He started to shove the box back into the bag, but stopped. He took his new role as the main support member of Nate and Quinn’s teams seriously, and had learned to always be an asset rather than a liability. One of the things Nate had stressed was details. These were the backbone of a cleaner’s job. Missing a detail could blow a whole mission and quite possibly get someone imprisoned or even killed.
He’d almost missed such a detail. It had been right there in front of his eyes as he’d looked inside the box. The black foam that had held the canister in place had not been level with the plane of the box. Rather, it was tilted, albeit just a fraction of an inch.