“They came to me,” she said. “They want information from you, and I suggest you give it to them.”
His questioning gaze turned from her and then blanked out to disbelief as he noted these two men, standing and glaring at him. “I don’t know anything,” he said weakly.
“Well, you have some friends, not necessarily good and true friends but some friends. And we got word that this address was part of a case that we’re working on,” he said.
“You guys cops?” he asked, and he started to straighten, as if feeling better. “In that case, I’ll have your job.”
“Private security,” Quinn said quietly. “And I wouldn’t be worrying about my job,” he said. “You don’t have a job of your own, and, in the meantime, you’ve been working for the wrong guys.”
At that, his eyes grew wider. “What are you talking about?” he asked. Growing a little courage, he added, “You don’t know anything.”
“No?” Quinn asked. “You’re really a shitty judge of character.”
“I don’t know anything about what you’re talking about,” said Dracon, but he was getting nervous now, looking around for an exit.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Quinn said. “We want to know who paid you and how you’re involved in this.”
“I didn’t do anything,” he said, and he looked over at Izzie pathetically. “Tell him. I never worked.”
“I already told him that and also told him about your buddies.”
At that, his face darkened. “Why would you do that?” he asked, then he glared at her. “You’re always making things worse, you sniveling bitch,” he said, his voice gaining volume. “I mean, it was all I could do to try and tune you up so that you were worth my time as it is.”
At that, Quinn had Dracon off his feet again, Quinn’s hand on his throat again, choking him against the wall. When Dracon was finally compliant, Quinn let go, Dracon hitting the floor harder this time. “You open your mouth about Izzie again,” he said, “and the next time I won’t stop strangling you until your last breath was an hour earlier.”
The guy just stared at him, swallowed hard, then placed his hands on his throat and swallowed several more times.
“We want to hear everything you’ve got to say,” Quinn said, “about everything.”
Dracon shook his head and remained on the floor. “I can’t. They’ll kill me.”
“Yeah, well, I heard that about your two best buds. Just remember. I’ll kill you if you don’t tell me,” he said. “At least I’ll give you a chance to live. That is, if you tell me what I want to know.”
Dracon stared at him and cried out, “They will kill me.”
“And what did you do for them that they’ll kill you for now?” Ryland asked quietly beside Dracon.
The guy looked at him, preferring to deal with him than Quinn, who still stood like an avenging angel over him.
“I didn’t do anything. They just needed a place for a few days.”
“They stayed here?” Ryland looked around in disgust. “I doubt it.”
“But the place wasn’t bad back then. I did kind of let the place go.”
“You think?” Quinn stared in disgust. “You mean, they just wanted it as a drop location.”
He nodded eagerly. “Yeah, that’s all they were doing. Getting stuff delivered here.” He said, “Some problem with their address.”
“The problem with their address was the fact that they couldn’t let anybody know where they were.”
“You’re such an idiot,” she muttered. Dracon turned to glare at her. She shook her head. “God, how did I ever end up in this mess?”
“Yeah, that’s what Bullard would be asking you right now, too,” Dracon said.
At Bullard’s name, Quinn turned and stared at him.
“Bullard? Is that what you’re here about?” Dracon asked.
Quinn nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s what I’m here about. What do you know about him?”
“He’s dead,” he said in surprise. “They killed him.”
Quinn glared at him. “You say that, and yet you still haven’t given me the details I asked for.”
“They said that they were hired to kill him.”
Quinn felt something inside him sinking again. “They were hired to kill Bullard?”
“Yeah, and they hired somebody else and somebody else hired them. They said it was really convoluted, but it works, so they figured they pulled off the biggest deal of their lives.”
“And do they have proof that it worked?” Quinn asked. And something must have been in Quinn’s tone because Dracon immediately cringed.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know,” Dracon said.
“Where can I find these friends, so I can confirm what you just said?”
He straightened and said, “I haven’t talked to them in weeks.”
“Yeah, how come?”
“Because I wanted more money,” he said. “I didn’t think I got paid enough.”
“And the fact that they paid you at all just blows me away,” Quinn said. “So tell me where I can get a hold of them.”
He looked over at Izzie. “Surely you don’t want me to do that.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because you were the reason that I got in trouble in the first place.”
“What are you talking about?” she said, frowning at him.
“They wanted you. I was keeping you for them.”
She stared at him in shock. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Because I let you go or you got away,” he said, “I got in trouble. I almost got killed because of that.”
“That was over a year ago,” she said. “Maybe more.”
“All I can tell you is that it wasn’t long enough because, when they came here and found out I’d lost you, believe me, I took a beating too.” He pointed at his nose.
It did look different. She nodded. “I wondered what happened to that. I figured maybe your next girlfriend actually beat the crap out of you for a change.”
“The only reason I tied you up was that they said I had to make sure you were here. And then they were delayed, and, by the time they got here, you’d gotten away.”
“So what did they want with me back then?” she asked slowly.
“Well, they wanted your uncle Bullard.”
She took a long slow deep breath. “Back then? Over a year ago?”
“Well, they were putting plans in motion, but you screwed things up,” Dracon said. “So, when they came here again, I didn’t have any choice but to say yes.”
“Why would they use you again, since you already had screwed up once?” Izzie asked him.
“This was a setup,” Quinn said quietly. “They wanted me to find Izzie, and they wanted me to find Dracon.”
Chapter 3
“Dracon being a patsy almost makes sense,” Izzie said. “But why would this be one whole year in the making?”