none of them
Petra turned quickly, surprised to find Mikhail standing right behind her, holding a pen out. She hadn’t even heard him walk up.
“What are you doing?” he whispered through his smile.
“You shouldn’t be talking to me,” she whispered back. They were each supposed to be solo travelers with no knowledge of the others. It was another safety precaution. One they had used since they started on the mission. In a louder voice, she said, “Yes, I did. Thank you.”
As he handed her the pen, he said, “You need to get control of yourself.”
She glanced at him. “What are you talking about?”
He held her eyes for a moment, then looked down. As she followed his gaze, her breath suddenly caught in her throat. In her other hand was the photograph. She had actually pulled it out of her purse and was holding it in front of her.
Anyone who glanced at it probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But to have it out in the open was tempting fate. This was their map, the only reason they were in Hong Kong and the only reason they were heading to the East Coast of the United States. If someone
“Thank you for waiting, ladies and gentlemen,” the voice on the overhead speaker announced. “At this time we will begin boarding our first-class …”
“Put it away,” Mikhail whispered.
Petra slipped the photo back in her bag, then hunted around for her ticket. “Kolya?” she whispered.
Mikhail glanced past her for a moment. “Have a nice flight,” he said, then dipped his head and walked away.
Once he was gone, Petra stretched, then readjusted herself so that she was facing the direction Mikhail had been looking. Sure enough, standing on one of the moving sidewalks was Kolya. He was letting the system do all the work while he leaned against the handrail and sipped at a can of soda.
“At this time we will begin boarding seats in rows thirty-one through forty-four. Rows thirty-one through forty-four.”
Petra watched their young companion a moment longer. Then, with a final mental pull of an imaginary trigger, she retrieved her boarding pass and got into line.
“At this time, Harold’s son, Jake Oliver, would like to say a few words.”
The old wooden pews creaked as people used the break between speakers to reposition themselves. When no one immediately stood, necks craned and heads turned, looking toward the first row of the chapel.
Jonathan Quinn felt something poke him in his side. But he continued to stare forward, lost in his own thoughts. When it happened again, this time harder than the first, he pulled himself out of his head and looked over. Orlando was staring at him. Before he could ask what she wanted, she motioned toward the front of the room with her eyes.
He looked over and saw Reverend Hollis gazing at him, smiling.
“Jake, whenever you’re ready.”
Quinn closed his eyes for a second.
Despite the dead bodies he dealt with on a regular basis, attending funerals was something he’d been able to avoid for the most part. His reason was simple. It was the grieving. Death marked the living more than it marked the dead, and Quinn was never sure how to deal with those who mourned. Plus, seeing that grief made him think too much about what he did for a living. And that was something that was becoming more difficult to do.
Slowly, he rose. This funeral was different. The man lying in the open casket at the front of the room wasn’t some casual acquaintance, and the grieving weren’t friends of the deceased he had never met.
The mourners here in the Lakeside Mortuary Chapel in Warroad, Minnesota, were people he’d known for a long time. And the man in the box? He was the person Quinn had called his father.
He took a step away from the pew and glanced back at his mother. Her red-rimmed eyes were firmly fixed on the casket several feet away, her face not quite accepting, but resigned now.
Two days before, as they’d sat in the mortuary office, her face had been covered in shock and disbelief. Because of this, Quinn had ended up answering many of the questions the funeral director had asked. After a while he had put a hand over hers. “Mom, would you rather we finish this later?”
Nothing for several seconds, then she looked at him. “I’m okay,” she said, failing at an attempted smile. “I don’t want to come back and do this again. Let’s finish it now.”
Quinn held her eyes for a moment, still unsure.
“Sweetheart, I’m fine. I’m just glad you’re here to help me.”
They had talked caskets and hymns and Bible passages and who would deliver a eulogy.
“I’d like both you and Liz to say something,” she’d told him.
He had been caught off guard by the request. Speak at his father’s funeral? What would he say that didn’t sound insincere or made up? It would be much better if his sister was the only speaker. He started to say as much, but the look in his mother’s eyes stopped him.
“Of course. If that’s what you want.”
And now here he was, slowly making his way to the podium, a piece of paper with some random scribbled notes in his pocket, but really having no idea what he was going to say.
“Just think of your mother,” Orlando had told him a few hours earlier as they were getting ready.
“I’ve been doing nothing
“Exactly.”
“You’re thinking too much,” she’d said, then kissed him on the cheek. “You’ll know what to say when the time comes.”
He’d pulled her into his arms and held on tight, needing the energy she was feeding him. So naturally, just as some of his tension was starting to ease, his phone had rung.
“Who is it?” Orlando had asked.
“David Wills.”
“Don’t answer it.”
He frowned. “You know I have to.”
Wills was a client who worked out of London. A week before Quinn’s father had died, he had put Quinn on standby for an upcoming project. With very few exceptions, if Quinn agreed to do a project, he’d do it.
He flipped the phone open. “Hello, David.”
“Quinn. How are you?”
“What can I do for you?”
“I’m calling about the project we discussed. We’re officially on,” Wills said, his British accent clipped and proper. “I need you to get on a flight tonight to—”
And there it was, one of those exceptions. “Let me stop you. I can’t do tonight.”
“Okay,” Wills said, not sounding particularly happy. “Then first thing tomorrow morning—”
“David, I’m sorry, but the next few days are out. If you need to find someone else, I completely understand.”
Orlando leaned through the bathroom door. “He’d
“Make it two-ten and we have a deal.”
“Can I count on you being available to start by October first?”
That was a little over a week away. “Depending on where you need me, I should be able to do that.”
“Your first assignment will be in the States.”
“I’d say that’s doable.”
“Great,” Wills said. “Then we have a deal.”
As Quinn neared the podium he almost wished he’d told Wills he would fly out that night. It would have meant he and Orlando would’ve already been on the road to Minneapolis, a six-hour drive away. He could have avoided the whole ceremony. But the reality was he could never have done that.
He caught sight of his sister, Liz, sitting next to their mom. Predictably, she didn’t return his gaze.
When he and Orlando had arrived a couple of days before, he had thought that maybe their father’s death would spark a reconciliation between Liz and himself. Maybe not full on at first, but at least start things moving in the right direction.
But because of her school schedule in Paris and the long transatlantic flight, Liz hadn’t arrived in Warroad until right before the service. Quinn had been in the lobby greeting mourners when she came rushing in, still wearing jeans and a sweater.
“Liz,” he said, surprised.
“I’m not too late, am I?” She seemed to be all motion: fidgeting with the shoulder strap of her bag, one foot tapping, and her head swiveling side to side as she took in everything in the lobby except her brother.
“You’ve still got thirty minutes.”
She nodded, her face neutral. “Where’s Mom?”
“She’s in back with Reverend Hollis. She should be out in—”
Liz started walking toward the chapel doors. “She’s through here?”
“Liz, it’s probably not a good idea to interrupt them right now.”
“I don’t care what you think. I want to see Mom.”
“Liz, wait.”
But before he could say anything else, she had disappeared into the chapel.
The podium was right before him now. There was no backing out.
With a deep breath, he stepped behind it, then looked out at the room full of his parents’ friends and relatives. Everyone watched him, waiting.
Everyone except Liz. Her eyes were riveted on the flower display behind the casket, her jaw tense. Quinn couldn’t feel mad at her. He knew, like his mother, she was hurting. She’d lost her father. If anyone in the room had ever understood Harold Oliver well, it would have been Liz.
Quinn pulled the notes he’d written out of his pocket and set them on the podium. After another deep breath, he smiled at his mom, then looked again at the people gathered before him.
“What I remember most about my father … what I …”
He stopped and glanced at his notes, but there was nothing there that could help him.
He glanced up at his mom again. She was looking back, her eyes soft, streaks of tears on her cheeks. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, that the right words just weren’t coming. But then, as he looked at her, he realized there was something he could say, something that wouldn’t be false.
“What I remember most about my father is the way he loved my mother,” he said. “You could tell in the way he looked at her, and the way he always waited to eat until she was at the table. And the way he waited for her, and didn’t give up hope before they were married.” He told stories of life on the farm, of family trips, of Fourth of July picnics all from the perspective of the relationship between his father and his mother.
“He loved her,” Quinn finished. “And that was enough.”
Quinn guessed that at least twice as many people had jammed into his mother’s house as had come to the chapel. When it got to the point where he couldn’t turn around without bumping into someone, he caught Orlando’s eye and motioned to the back door.
The yard was considerably less crowded than inside the house, but it was something equally annoying to Quinn.
Cold.
He shivered as they walked down the steps. Anything below sixty degrees just felt wrong, and the current temperature was definitely well south of that mark. If this had been Los Angeles, the day would have been considered full-on winter. But here in northern Minnesota, it was merely typical fall. And, as if to emphasize that point, several of the dozen or so people who had also opted for the outside weren’t even wearing jackets.
Quinn shivered again, then pointed at a couple of empty chairs. After he and Orlando were seated, he began picking at his food, but nothing looked appetizing. After only a few minutes, Orlando set her equally untouched plate on the ground and said, “I should check on Garrett.”
She had left her son at home in San Francisco under the watchful care of Mr. and Mrs. Vo. Orlando and Quinn had agreed that this was not the time for Garrett to be introduced to Quinn’s family. Perhaps the following summer.
Before she could retrieve her phone, though, several women approached them.
“Jake, that was just lovely — what you said about your father,” one of the women said.
“Thank you,” Quinn replied. He remembered her as the mother of someone he’d gone to school with, but her name escaped him.
“Yes,” one of the other women said.
“Absolutely lovely,” the last told him.
“Thank you.”
“I can’t believe how grown up you are now. And who is this beautiful woman you’re with?” the first asked.
Quinn could feel Orlando tense beside him. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “This is my girlfriend, Claire.”
The first woman smiled. “Nice to meet you, Claire. I’m Mrs. Patterson.”
“How nice you could come with Jake,” the third said. “I’m Mrs. Moore.”
“Claire? I wouldn’t have expected that name,” the second one said.
Quinn frowned, annoyed, but Orlando immediately put a calming hand on his thigh and said, “My father was part Irish.” It wasn’t a lie. Her father was half-Irish, but her father had also been half-Thai, and her mother one hundred percent Korean. When someone looked at Orlando, her Irish ancestry was the last thing she saw.