by Susan Mann
Ravi translated when the woman finally spoke up. “ ‘Our actions might be seen as dishonorable by many of our people. But our cause is noble and right. We do this for the Khalsa. They will see it once Khalistan is a reality, not only a dream. One must do what is necessary. The gurus would approve.’”
Captain Sanctimonious apparently had gotten himself under control. He was no longer yelling. Ravi said on his behalf, “‘We must report to our superior.’”
“‘Yes, of course,’” Ravi said after Pink Shirt Guy spoke. “ ‘Tell him everything—’”
His voice was drowned out by a rustling noise and a furtive “shhh.” A pain-filled grunt quickly followed.
Quinn gave James a sheepish look. “Sorry.”
To Ravi’s unspoken question, James said, “Elbow to the gut.”
“We can turn it—” Quinn started, reaching out for the phone.
“No way,” Ravi said, cutting her off.
James’s voice came from the recorder. “Quinn! It’s me!”
A few seconds of silence ensued before a series of loud, rapid thunks kept her words from being picked up by the microphone.
James continued his narration for Ravi. “She was pounding on me.”
Ravi’s eyes were round when he looked at Quinn. “Remind me never to piss you off.”
The thumps ended abruptly and James’s voice said, “What the hell, Quinn? What are you doing?”
There was more rustling and several seconds of silence. Quinn felt the heat in her cheeks when she thought about her and James’s brain-melting kiss.
Captain Sanctimonious cut loose.
Ravi winced and sucked air in through clenched teeth.
“What?” Quinn asked.
“Loosely translated, he called you a sex-crazed whore.”
As if that wasn’t mortifying enough, from her own traitorous phone, she heard herself release a low, pleasured moan. She slapped a hand over her face to hide her embarrassment.
Through the slits between her fingers, she saw Ravi grin and hold his fist out toward James. “Nice, dude.”
James, looking thoroughly smug, bumped Ravi’s fist with his.
Quinn dropped her hand and rolled her eyes. She poked James in the side with an elbow. “And what? I’m a whore while the same guy calls James a conquering hero?”
“Nope. Just said he’s ‘no better than a dog surrendering to his lower urges.’”
James shrugged, his smugness intact.
“Do you mind?” faux drunk James said. “My wife and I are trying to have a private moment.”
Ravi ducked his head and grimaced at the flurry of furious words spewed by Captain Sanctimonious. “He suggested the only way to deal with your base desires would be to, um, castrate you.”
“Dude,” James exclaimed and crossed his legs as if protecting himself. “That guy is intense.”
Quinn nodded. “Somebody needs to grind up some Prozac and sprinkle it over his oatmeal.”
“Hey, man. What’s your damage?” she heard herself ask from the phone.
It was at this point when the woman spoke. Ravi said, “She basically told the dude to lighten up. She said he’s holding you two to a standard you can’t possibly live up to since you don’t follow the Sikh path.”
More rustling and then the sound was dampened.
“I put the phone in his back pocket,” Quinn explained.
James’s groggy voice said, “I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re saying.”
“They say no kissing in public,” Pink Shirt Guy said.
“Neither of them ever said those exact words,” Ravi said. “I guess he decided to summarize.”
“Yeah, yeah, public. Whatever. C’mon, baby. Let’s not be in public.”
Quinn gave James an amused smile. “Baby?”
“I thought I’d give it a try. You don’t like it?”
“I could get used to it,” she said, her smile widening.
He waggled his eyebrows at her. At the same time, his voice said from the phone, “Clear.”
“And that’s where we stop,” Quinn said. She snatched the phone from the table and ended the playback. “What are your thoughts on what they were talking about in the conference room?” she asked Ravi. “Do you think they’re connected to the Falcon and the ambassador’s kidnapping?”
“The name Falcon never came up, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t part of the conspiracy,” Ravi said. “They talked about Khalistan and doing the wrong things for the right reasons. I think we’ve hit on something.”
James nodded. “I agree. It sounds like something’s going down soon. We need to find out what it is.”
“That’s more than a little terrifying,” Quinn said. “It could be another kidnapping, a train or bus bombing, an assassination. It could be anything, anywhere.”
James said, “First thing is to figure out who they are.”
“Did you get any pictures of them?” Ravi asked.
Quinn shook her head. “Didn’t get the chance. I can tell you Captain Sanctimonious was dressed like the guy Sandhu talked to at the bar. Miss Pragmatic wore a turban. I recognized her from a photo taken at a protest. It didn’t identify her, though. Pink Shirt Guy was clean-shaven, no turban, and, well, wore a pink dress shirt.”
Ravi stared at her with a blank expression.
James snickered and said, “Quinn likes to use descriptive names for people when she doesn’t know their real ones.”
“Works for me,” Ravi said. “I’ll work on getting their names. There weren’t very many men dressed like Captain Sanctimonious at the reception and even fewer women in turbans. It shouldn’t be to hard to find out who they are.”
“Good. Once you do, we’ll start tailing them,” James said. “We might be able to figure out what they’re up to based on their movements.”
“And lead us to some of their associates. If we’re really lucky, even to the Falcon, assuming he’s here in Punjab, that is,” Quinn added.
“If we track to the Falcon, that would definitely be knocking it out of the park,” James said. “We can also get Langley in on this. Maybe they can make some connections between these three and figure out what they might be up to. I don’t want to play from behind on this if we can help it.” James felt tense, excited energy radiating from him. “We’re on to something. I can feel it.”
Ravi jumped to his feet. “We haven’t been gone from the reception very long. I bet it’s still going. The Terrible Trio may or may not be there now, but I bet I can gather some intel on them.” He strode across the floor and yanked the door open. “I’ll report back in a while.” And he was gone.
Quinn toed off her shoes, folded her legs up, and tucked her feet under her thighs. “What do we do now? I can’t call that Punjabi policeman. I need Ravi to talk to him first in case he doesn’t speak English.” After a little more thought, she said, “Although, as a policeman, he probably does.” She really hoped Deputy Superintendent A. S. Dhami had some helpful information, since he was the only man in the photo she could contact. Constable Kuldeep Singh had been killed in the line of duty a number of years before.
“It’s a little late to call him tonight,” James said.
“That’s true. I guess I’ll write a report for Meyers about what happened at the reception.”
“Why don’t I work on that while you video chat with Nicole? You asked me earlier today to remind you.”
Her head dropped back and she stared at the ceiling. “I totally forgot. You don’t mind?”
“Not even a little. We’ve been so busy, you haven’t had a chance to talk to your friends and family. We have a little time now. Go for it.”
“I’m not gonna argue.” It was like he intuitively knew she’d suffered sporadic pangs of homesickness throughout the day. She sent Nicole a text asking if she had time to talk. “Thank you.” Quinn kissed his cheek and went to retrieve her laptop.
James moved to the desk and opened his computer. “Can I have your
phone? I need to download the recording for the report.”
She glanced at him from over her shoulder. “Uh, you do remember what’s on there, right?”
“Yes, I was part of the live show,” he said with a sparkle in his eye. “I’ll only include what was recorded up to the point when I show up.”
“That’ll work.” Her phone blinged, and a glance told her Nicole was ready to chat. Quinn handed her phone off to James and settled on the couch with the computer on her lap. A minute later, the call connected.
“Hey,” Quinn said. Nicole’s hair was a mess and her face was puffy from sleep. “You’re bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning.” Her friend glared at her like she was trying to cause Quinn to spontaneously combust. “Sorry I woke you, Nic. I didn’t think you’d still be asleep at ten o’clock.”
“It’s okay.” Nicole’s voice was gravelly from lack of use during the night. She cleared it and wiped a hand over a rheumy eye before continuing. “Brian took me out for karaoke last night. I drank a little too much.”
“Uh-oh. What’s the matter?” Whenever Nicole was driven to the brink, karaoke was the one thing that never failed to bring her back. “Virginia on the warpath?”
“Nah. She’s been so busy the last couple of weeks getting stats and a budget together for the next city council meeting, she’s hardly ever out of her office.” A series of high-pitched beeps went off in the background. “Hang on. My coffee’s ready. I’ll be right back.”
Nicole disappeared. Quinn was left to enjoy the view of Nicole’s print of Picasso’s Blue Nude hanging on the wall. She’d been with Nicole at the swap meet the day she’d bought it. Nicole had declared people would think she was “all cultural and crap like that” because of it. Quinn didn’t know if it had worked, but it was an interesting piece nonetheless.
Nicole slid back into frame and slurped from her LA Dodgers coffee mug. “My mom is driving me batty. I swear, it’d be easier to just elope.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d heard Nicole say that. “What’s up?”
“She’s hounding me about making the wedding more Korean. She’s worried our relatives will judge her if it’s just a normal American wedding, which is all I want.”
“What does Brian think about it?”
Nicole snorted. “He’s no help. When I showed him pictures of traditional Korean wedding clothes, he got all excited. He thought they were cool. I was dumb enough to show him a hanbok with dragons on it.”
“Dragons are cool,” James said.
That perked Nicole up. “Is that James? Let me say hi.”
Quinn complied by spinning the laptop and pointing the screen at him.
James twisted in his chair and gave her a wave. “Hey, Nicole.”
“Don’t ‘Hey, Nicole’ me, James,” she said. The hungover lethargy from a few minutes before had disappeared. “Are you guys in a hotel room? You’re in a hotel room. What are you doing in a hotel room? Oh my God! You’re on your honeymoon! You two eloped!”
Quinn didn’t even get a chance to be mortified at Nicole’s constant obsession about her and James eloping when she realized she still wore Quinn Riordan’s wedding rings. She was so used to them, it hadn’t occurred to her to take them off. As a warning to James, she raised her left hand so he could see and slid the rings from her finger. Even though his eyes never moved away from the screen, he slid his left hand under his thigh.
“No, we’re not on our honeymoon,” he said without missing a beat. When Nicole harrumphed, he gave her a sly smile and said, “If we were, there’s no way we’d be talking to you right now. We’d be busy doing other things.”
“I approve of his answer,” Nicole stated solemnly. “And even if you’re not on your honeymoon, you’re obviously in a hotel somewhere. So either way you’d better be rockin’ my girl’s world so hard she—”
“And now you’re done talking to James,” Quinn said and whirled the computer around.
“You’re no fun,” Nicole grumbled and pinned Quinn with an accusatory stare. “What are you two up to, anyway?”
“We’re on a trip for work.”
“More dusty artifacts? You looking for the Ark of the Covenant this time? You might want to check that warehouse they put it in at the end of Raiders.”
“If we find it there, you’ll be the first to know.” Quinn wanted to get off the subject of where she and James were and why. “What are you going to do about the wedding? You already have your dress ordered and everything.”
“I’m hoping I can talk my mom into a compromise. There’s this thing called the paebaek ceremony. The bride and groom bow in front of the groom’s parents and do some other stuff.” Nicole shifted in her seat, a sure tell that something made her uncomfortable. “It’s usually done after the wedding ceremony in front of the family before they go to the reception. The problem with that is everyone not at the paebaek is hanging out waiting for us. They’ll all be drunk off their butts before we even get there.” She took another sip of coffee. “What do you think about us doing the paebaek at the reception? I know Brian’s family would be cool with it, but would it be weird for the other guests who aren’t Korean?”
“Are you kidding? People will love it, and if they don’t, to hell with them. It’s your and Brian’s wedding. You do whatever you want.” Quinn squinted at her when she looked only slightly less concerned. “Why aren’t you more relieved about this?”
“It would involve us both wearing hanboks, bowing, and pouring tea.”
“Yeah, so? That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“And, um, at the end? The parents would throw dates and chestnuts at us.”
James spun around and gave Quinn a bewildered look that matched her own.
“I hope it’s more of a gentle toss than an angry pelting,” Quinn said.
“They toss them, yeah. I’m supposed to catch them in my apron. Tradition says it will tell us how many kids we’ll have: dates for girls and chestnuts for boys.”
Quinn grinned. “I’m not gonna lie, Nic. I would pay good money to see that.”
“Of course you would,” she said wryly. “So what do you think? Too weird?”
“No. Not at all.” Quinn wished she could share with her friend how amazing it had been to witness a Sikh wedding. “I think it’s a fantastic idea. You should do it. I think it’s a great way to honor your parents and share your heritage with the rest of us.”
Nicole visibly relaxed and a relieved smile overcame her face. “Cool. Thanks for talking this out.”
“You’re welcome.” Quinn’s smile was crooked when she added, “You can name your firstborn date after me.”
Nicole laughed and saluted Quinn with her coffee mug. “I deserved that.”
“You did.”
“Hey, I need your measurements for your bridesmaid’s dress. I picked the purple strapless, by the way. Is there a chance you could get that done wherever the hell you are and send them to me?”
“I just had it done the other day. I’ll email them to you.”
“Why did you just have them done?” Nicole asked, clearly suspicious.
Quinn could have simply said she knew Nicole would need them, but where was the fun in that? “Well,” she said with a wicked glint in her eye, “James and I like to play the stable boy and the baron’s daughter. We thought it would be fun if—”
“Stop. Just.” Nicole’s eyes screwed closed in a grimace. “Stop.”
Quinn laughed while James snickered and shook his head.
Nicole opened her eyes and gazed at Quinn. With a hint of sadness in her voice, she said, “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. So much.” Quinn swallowed at the sudden lump in her throat. “I’m sorry I haven’t been better about staying in touch. With the move and the new job and everything, it’s been crazy.”
“I know. Between work and wedding planning, it’s been hard for me, too.”
“I promise to do better.”
Nicole smiled and nodded. “
Me too.” She glanced away from the screen to the clock Quinn knew was mounted on the kitchen wall. “I gotta go,” she said and looked back at Quinn. “I need to talk to my mom. After I scrape her off the ceiling, I’ll need her to help get the paebaek stuff going.”
“Have fun. Talk to you soon.”
“Bye.”
Quinn clicked the icon and ended the call. She sat motionless and stared at the monitor.
James pushed back his chair and patted his thigh, inviting her to sit.
Happy to comply, she slipped her rings back on and set her computer down. Going to him, she perched on his leg and draped her arms around him. Resting her head against his, she said, “This long-distance business sucks.”
“I know.”
“And it’s gonna suck even harder when you’re in Moscow and I’m in Virginia.”
“Yeah, it will.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged her. “We’ll make it work.”
She appreciated the certainty in his voice and hoped he was right. She couldn’t even fathom a world where they weren’t together like this all the time. “We will.”
She just wished she believed it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Quinn battled the undercurrent of terror that came with driving on the left side of the road while at the same time navigating the insane streets of Amritsar. One of those things alone would have been bad enough. Both at the same time made her palms slick. She managed, though, and once out of the city and on the highway heading south to Tarn Taran, she was able to relax a bit as the countryside rolled by. Thirty minutes later, she brought the Alto to a stop in front of the modest brick and stucco house of Deputy Superintendent A. S. Dhami, Retired, and shut off the engine.
Her phone rang. She glanced at the screen and answered it with a teasing, “You were watching me, weren’t you?” The fact that James had agreed to let her go by herself to visit Deputy Superintendent Dhami was a huge deal. He’d only argued a little.
“Yes, I tracked your phone. Sue me.”
Smiling, she said, “Nah. This gives me cover for whenever I track yours.”