A Deadly Business (A Mia Quinn Mystery)

by Lis Wiehl

  Eli started to ease up on the accelerator. But as he did, something inside the other car caught his attention. Did the old man have something in his hand? He squinted, and then his insides turned to ice.

  It was definitely a gun. But it wasn’t pointed at Eli.

  It was pointed at Mia.

  CHAPTER 62

  Where is he?” Mia spit the words at the old man pressing a gun into her side. “Where is my son?” Her hands were slick and hot on the steering wheel. She barely saw the cars around them.

  They had Gabe, Vin had told her a few minutes ago. They had Gabe, and the only way they would keep him alive would be if Mia went with him. Right then.

  “Have you hurt him?” Her voice cracked. “If you’ve hurt him . . .”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said tonelessly. “Shut up and keep driving.” There was no passion in his voice, as if he wasn’t even invested in their conversation. As if what she had to say didn’t matter. The kindly old man who had apologetically told her about Scott’s last few minutes had disappeared as if he had never been. Which Mia supposed he hadn’t.

  Should she even ask about Brooke? Would asking only serve to draw attention to her? Or was Vin keeping silent because something irrevocable had already happened to her daughter? Four-year-olds were not known for obeying orders. A gunshot might be the quickest way to silence a crying child.

  No, Mia told herself, her gorge rising. No. The reason he’s not saying anything about Brooke is because they don’t have her. Maybe had even forgotten or not known about her. It was better to keep quiet.

  But she couldn’t keep absolutely silent. The wheels were turning in her brain. “You killed Scott, didn’t you?”

  Beside her, Vin shrugged. Still, it felt like an admission. All he said was, “Turn left at the light.”

  But before they got there it turned red, giving her a moment to think. Was there anything she could do?

  “Don’t make eye contact, don’t call out, don’t do anything to draw attention,” Vin said, pressing the gun more firmly into Mia’s side, just below her ribs. She had seen enough crime-scene photos to know what would happen if he pulled the trigger. If the bullet didn’t kill her outright, the infection from having her intestines ripped apart probably would.

  As ordered, Mia kept her face pointing straight ahead, but still she concentrated on what she could see in her peripheral vision. The person closest to her, a girl in the passenger seat of an SUV, was texting on her phone. Even if Mia rolled down the window or ran out of the car, what could that girl do? What could anyone do? If Mia tried anything, she would be dead within seconds.

  The light turned green and she took the turn. “So I guess you were a little more than just a passerby who happened upon my husband’s accident,” she said.

  “Look, Mia.” The sound of her name in his mouth made her shiver. “When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Your husband decided he was too good for certain things. Like he could pick and choose. Fraud and tax evasion were okay, but selling coke wasn’t? We didn’t need him getting a conscience. Don’t worry, I made sure it was fast. Fast and smart. And I covered my tracks. No one had to know. But then you had to come along and start asking questions.”

  So the Jade Kitchen was selling more than Chinese cuisine. Mia wondered how Kenny Zhong did it. Four restaurants meant a lot of people coming and going. Maybe he hid drugs in takeout boxes?

  But Kenny hadn’t done his own dirty work. The man sitting beside her, sitting close enough that she could hear his slow exhalations, had swung a bat at Scott’s head so hard that it had shattered his skull. And Alvin Turner—or Vin—still seemed to think of himself as the good guy. The chances of appealing to his sense of human decency were slim.

  “I have a diamond ring worth thirty thousand dollars,” she said. “You can have it if you let me and my son go.” It was in her purse, the purse still strapped across her shoulder, but Vin didn’t need to know that.

  “Good to know.” His voice was laconic.

  “Please, if not me, then my son. Let Gabe go, and I’ll tell you where the ring is.”

  He sighed. “There’s no point in talking. This whole thing has gotten way past the point of talk.”

  He was never going to let her go, that was clear. She had seen his face. Knew his name, at least if the name he had told them was true. People who were dead couldn’t talk.

  The same was probably true for Gabe. Was she really helping her son by following Vin’s orders?

  Could she crash the car into something and get out and run? Mia looked up the road. There. Where the road turned. It wasn’t a line of trees like Scott had crashed into, but there was a telephone pole. She wasn’t wearing a seat belt, just as Scott hadn’t. How badly would she be hurt? She remembered Scott’s torn aorta. At least the pole was closer to Turner’s side. Maybe the two of them would die together.

  The pressure of the gun was gone from her side, but before she could react, the barrel was pressed just under the hinge of her jaw.

  “Stop thinking about how you’re going to get out of this,” Vin said. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

  “Don’t make this harder!” she repeated, anger singing through her veins. “For who? For me or for you? Because I’m getting a feeling this is going to be pretty dadgum hard for me.”

  To her surprise, Vin made a muffled snort.

  Had that been a laugh? But then the nose of the gun pressed into the spot under her jaw even harder than ever.

  Following the directions he barked at her, she turned into the parking lot for Puget Marina. As she parked she looked around for someone who might help her. But there were only a handful of cars and no people to be seen at all. On an August afternoon there wouldn’t be a free parking space. But it was a different story on a blustery late afternoon in November.

  There was no point in relying on someone else to save her. If Mia was going to live, she had to figure it out by herself.

  CHAPTER 63

  Driving this fast was probably not a good idea. Especially when he was trying to track a moving dot on an app on the tiny screen of his phone. The phone was propped behind his steering wheel against the control panel, just below the dial that showed his speed. Charlie was trying to pay attention to the first and ignore the second.

  He radioed dispatch, raising his voice to be heard above his siren. “I need you to run a name for crim hist.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “A guy named Alvin Turner. I’d say he’s over sixty and local.” His chest felt tight.

  Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Mia wasn’t really in trouble. Eli’s description of a man with white hair and a ruddy face—that could be anybody. It didn’t have to be the guy who had witnessed Scott’s accident. Or who had claimed that he had. And just because Eli thought he had seen him pointing a gun at Mia, that didn’t mean that was what was really happening. Maybe it had been . . . something else. Charlie cast around for what that something else could be. A cell phone. Even a pack of cigarettes. There could be an innocent explanation. Couldn’t there?

  If Turner was in the system, his criminal history would show his arrests—by penal code number as well as the name of the crime—and whether each had resulted in conviction or dismissal. It would also list if he was currently incarcerated or had been, or if he was on parole or probation.

  Hardware. Wasn’t that what Turner had said? That he was retired from the hardware business?

  It only took a minute, and then the dispatcher was back.

  “Got it. It’s pretty long.”

  Charlie’s stomach dropped. He felt like he was on a roller coaster and just starting to fall. “Hit the highlights for me, would you?”

  He remembered how Turner had told them about Scott’s speeding past him, described coming upon the accident and trying to find his pulse. Probably none of that was true. And the old guy had forgotten to mention the part where he bashed Scott in the head, snapping his jaw.

  Charlie
was going flat out now, car after car pulling over as traffic parted before him like water. He never stopped scanning for that one driver who would refuse to pay attention to the lights or the siren, for someone too befuddled or too stubborn to pull over.

  For all his speed, the dot of Mia’s phone was still a couple of miles ahead of him, heading due west. Pretty soon it would reach Puget Sound and have to head north or south. He had goosed the car up to eighty-five and it didn’t seem nearly fast enough to close the distance.

  The dispatcher was silent for a second as she searched the records for the most recent and most violent offenses to give Charlie a hint of what he was about to deal with. “He was released from Lompoc fifteen months ago. Served nineteen years for bank robbery. Past crimes—and there’s a lot of them—include hmm . . . extortion, kidnapping, and, um, murder.”

  Charlie was an idiot. The patrol officer could be excused for not running Alvin Taylor’s name for what seemed to have been an uncomplicated accident. But once Charlie figured out it was a murder, he should have looked at everyone. But no, he had trusted that white hair and those sagging blue eyes. But even criminals got old. And now Mia was going to die because of his mistake.

  But why had Turner killed Scott? And what did he want with Mia? The only thing in Charlie’s favor was that Turner was alone with her. Once Charlie threw himself into the mix, he could shift the balance of power.

  The dot seemed to have stopped. Charlie nearly clipped a pulled-over black Blazer as he risked squinting at the cell phone’s miniature map. Instead of turning north or south, it was at—he looked closer—Puget Marina. Puget Marina was just one of the dozen marinas bordering Seattle, a city that liked its water at least as much as it did its land.

  A half mile away he cut his siren but left the lights on. Less than a minute later, Charlie barreled into the marina’s parking lot, tires squealing. It held only a few cars. This certainly wasn’t boating weather. As he hit the speed bumps fast enough that his teeth clacked together, he grabbed his phone. The dot was close. Maybe a couple of hundred yards away. He scanned the parking lot for the old blue Ford Eli had described.

  There!

  But when he ran over, gun drawn, it was empty. Charlie radioed dispatch to send in all available units but to have them come in without lights and sirens. After a second’s thought, he also asked dispatch to alert Harbor Patrol to send the closest unit.

  Holding the phone in front of him, he began to run toward the dot of Mia’s phone. He loped down a flight of metal stairs so fast it was more of a controlled fall than a run. He scanned back and forth, looking for Mia on one of the boats, the pier juddering under his long strides.

  According to the app he was very close, but still there was no one around. The only sounds were the soft lap of the waves and the crows and seagulls calling overhead.

  His dot and Mia’s now overlapped. He was right where the phone showed her as being.

  Or as having been. Because as he watched, the display changed to: “Old location. Currently unavailable.” He pushed the refresh button, but the words didn’t change. And his dot was right on top of her last location.

  He was at the end of the pier, right next to an empty space. He squinted and looked out over the water.

  A boat. Heading out into the sound.

  Not just a boat. A yacht. White. Gleaming. Sleek. And fast.

  Very fast.

  CHAPTER 64

  Vin scooted closer to Mia, close enough that she could smell him, sweaty and sour.

  “Get out. Slowly. Stay right by the car. Don’t try anything. I’ll have a gun on you the whole time. A bullet can outrun you.”

  Mia did as she was told, but as she put her feet to the ground, she tried to position herself to slide around to the far side of the door. Maybe she could slam it closed on him. But Vin was as close as her shadow, his breath hot on the back of her neck. “I told you not to try anything.”

  Mia didn’t bother denying her half-formed plan. She was already trying to figure out what she could do next.

  “Okay, we’re going to take a little walk. And if we meet anyone, you’re not going to say anything. Or both you and them will die.” Vin grabbed her arm with iron fingers and pressed the gun into her side. If she managed to live through this day, her body would be pockmarked with bruises.

  “You’re taking me to Gabe?”

  “Not if you keep asking questions. Not if you don’t do exactly what I say.”

  Vin might be marching her forward, but he couldn’t stop her head from turning. Couldn’t stop her eyes from searching. Surely there had to be someone here who could help her. Or maybe not help her, but at least call the police. But there was no one. The only sign of life was the birds crying overhead.

  They walked down a ramp, past boat after boat. All of them, on this blustery afternoon, empty. She kept wondering when he would tell her to stop. Was he planning on marching her into the ocean? Then they reached the last yacht.

  And there was Oleg Popov. Not Kenny Zhong. Oleg. Mia tried to recalculate.

  “Come aboard, my dear,” he said.

  “Where’s Gabe?” she demanded as she climbed aboard. “I need to see my son. Now.” Was he tied up below? There was nothing on the deck but a stack of concrete blocks.

  He gestured. “Come down below.”

  They went down into the yacht’s living quarters. Vin shadowed Mia’s footsteps, his gun still inches away from her. Everything was compact and immovable. The highly polished table was bolted to the floor. For seating there were leather banquettes and two fixed swiveling chairs. Even the art on the walls was screwed down, reminding Mia of the mental hospital where they had talked to Manny.

  “I’m afraid your son is not here,” Oleg said.

  “What?” Mia put her hand on her chest. What was he saying? Had something even worse happened to Gabe?

  “I knew you wouldn’t go with me unless you thought it would help one of your kids,” Vin said.

  Mia’s knees sagged. “They’re safe, then?”

  Vin shrugged. “I don’t believe in visiting the sins of the fathers on the children. Or the wives. But you—you gave us no choice.”

  Oleg put out his hand. “Please give me your purse.”

  Mia tried to think of something to do with it—could she swing it at him?—but in the end, she simply lifted the strap over her head and shoulder and handed it to him. After rummaging through it, he found her phone and turned it off, then set it down on a banquette. He also found the ring box, looked at her for a long moment, then slipped it into his pocket. He walked over to the helm and, after flipping a few switches, started the engine.

  “What are you going to do to me?” She had to raise her voice. Vin watched her. He held the gun easily, as if it were a tool he used daily.

  “It is a sad story really, Mia,” Oleg said. “You killed yourself. Drowned yourself in the Sound.” The yacht began to move forward.

  He was speaking as if it had already happened. As if she were already dead. Mia held herself very still. She would not let them see how afraid she was. “Anyone who knows me will know I would never leave my children.”

  “Ah, but you’ve only recently discovered that your husband had a mistress. In fact, you tracked her down over the weekend and killed her.”

  They were outside of the harbor wall now. Bile flooded her mouth. How deep was Puget Sound? Surely hundreds of feet.

  “Vin is going to go back and move your car next to the water. On the seat, they’ll find your purse and your keys. On top will be the gun you used to kill the poor girl. Her name was Elizabeth Eastman.”

  She didn’t have time to think about the girl being dead. “Everyone knows I hate the water.”

  He smiled, and her blood turned to slush. “What better way to punish yourself for what you have done? However, I am afraid we are going to have to tie you to those cement blocks outside. I am sorry, but it must be done.”

  “How are you going to explain away the cement blo
cks? That certainly won’t look like a suicide.”

  “We will not need to. The blocks will ensure that they will never find your body.”

  Her heartbeat was slamming in her ears. “Don’t do this. If you have a soul, don’t do this.”

  “You forced my hand. You would not stop asking questions. You would not let the dead bury the dead.” He made some adjustments to the instruments, and the sound of the engine changed. Mia could feel the yacht slow and then stop. The engines idled.

  At a nod from Oleg, Vin prodded her with the gun. “We’re going back up now.”

  Oleg nodded. “My advice would be not to fight this. Vin will shoot you if he has to. I do not want him to—it will make a hell of a mess.”

  Mia’s tongue was a piece of leather in her mouth. “It would be faster for me, though.”

  Vin laughed without mirth. “There’re plenty of places to shoot you that will only leave you disabled and in a lot of pain. But all you have to do when you go into the water is take a nice deep breath and it will all be over.”

  Mia looked around for something she could use to fight back, but there was nothing extraneous, nothing loose, nothing that could tip over or come loose during a storm. When Vin poked her again with the gun, she climbed the stairs and went out onto the aft deck. The ocean was all she could see, stretching all the way to the horizon on every side. So many of her nightmares had been just like this.

  Oleg took a piece of wire and began to thread it through a block. Wire. Not rope. Nothing that she could hope would stretch once it was wet. If anything, it would cut into her skin.

  Mia did the only thing she could think to do.

  She leaped over the side and into the water.

  CHAPTER 65

  As Mia leaped off the yacht, time slowed down. While still in midair, she uttered the oldest prayer of all. “Help.”

  The shock of the icy water stole all the breath from her body. She sank through the gloom. Her lungs demanded air, but she denied them until they turned hollow, until they felt as if they were turning inside out. She heard the muffled sounds of bullets stitching the water.