The Next Accident - Lisa Gardner [121]
“I don’t have a wife,” Quincy said.
“Ex-wife then,” the man granted graciously. “Still demoting her even after she’s gone. You are a cold fish.”
“What do you want?” Quincy shifted the phone to his other ear. He caught Rainie’s eye and made a circular motion with his hand. She nodded immediately, and slid off the bed naked in search of a tape recorder.
“It’s not what I want, Pierce, it’s who I want. But all in good time. Would you like to speak with your father?”
“We both know he’s dead.”
“You don’t know that. You’re assuming he’s dead so you won’t feel guilty. I understand he raised you all by himself, served as both mother and father. And yet how quickly you let him go. ‘My father has been checked out of his nursing home? Goodness gracious, let me run away and hide!’ I expected more from you.”
“I doubt it.”
Rainie arrived with the tape recorder. Quincy held the phone out for better audio as she fumbled with the buttons, then began to tape.
“He’s alive,” the man said. “Well hidden from federal minions and quite querulous, but very much alive.”
Quincy didn’t answer.
“Maybe we can arrange a swap. You can exchange your daughter for your father. She’s younger, but in his current state he’s more of a child.”
Quincy didn’t say anything.
“Or maybe we should bring the lovely Lorraine into the mix. You can swap your lover for your father. Sure she has a nice ass, but we both know you don’t keep women around for long. Does she moan for you, Pierce? Your wife moaned for me. So did your daughter.”
“How is the weather in Texas?” Quincy asked. Rainie looked at him in confusion. Then she remembered. Mickie Millos lived in Texas. Quincy was fishing.
“Texas? You aren’t on the right track.”
“And what track would that be? The one where I ruined your career, destroyed your life? Interesting, that I could have such an impact on your life and not remember you at all. Guess it was all in a day’s work. I have met so many incompetent criminals over the years.” Quincy’s voice was light, goading.
In contrast, the man’s voice gained an ugly edge. “Don’t fuck with me, Pierce. There are plenty of people in your life left to kill, and I can make it better for them, or worse.”
Quincy feigned a yawn. “Now you’re boring me.”
“Will I be boring when I touch your daughter? Will I be boring when I rip off her shirt and run my hands over her tomboy breasts? I’m much closer than you know.”
“You won’t touch my daughter.”
“Going to protect her, proud papa?”
“I won’t have to. Get within four feet, and she’ll kick your balls into your throat.”
The man laughed. “Funny,” he said. “That’s not what Bethie or Mandy did.”
For the first time, Quincy’s grip tightened on the phone.
“Pierce,” the man said, “intermission is over. If you won’t go back home for your father, I’ll just have to find somebody else to kill. You have one hour to get on a plane headed to Virginia.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then I will make her death very long and excruciatingly painful.”
“You can’t touch my daughter—”
“It’s not Kimberly I’m going to punish. Get to the airport, Supervisory Special Agent Quincy—you don’t have many friends left. Oh, and please tell Ms. Conner that next time she hires a private investigator, she should find one who doesn’t like chocolate.”
The line clicked off. Quincy stared at Rainie. There was a fierceness in his expression she had seen only once before—the night Henry Hawkins had tried to kill her.
“He’s coming after you,” he said.
She shook her head. “No, not me. Think about his words, Quincy. He wants you home. He’s obviously gotten to de Beers. That means East Coast. He’s still somewhere around Virginia.”
“But who . . .”
They got it together. “Glenda!” Quincy swore.
“We have one hour.”
Quincy picked up the phone and dialed furiously.
33
Quincy’s House, Virginia
“Get out of the house.”
“Pierce? I don’t think—”
“Glenda, listen to me. The UNSUB just called. He wants me back on the East Coast and he’s prepared to kill someone to force me to