Jesus fried chicken!
Elizabeth drew a deep breath, tried to come up with an excuse. She looked up at the security camera, not sure whether it had a mic. “Let’s not talk about it here.”
They rode the rest of the way to the ground floor in silence, giving Elizabeth time to come up with an excuse. By the time they were seated, she was ready.
“I’m frustrated because I’ve used up four days of my two weeks here, and we haven’t gotten anywhere. I’m working with both hands tied behind my back. I’m not used to being ineffective.”
That was at least true, if not the truth.
“Och, you shouldnae be so hard on yourself. We’re workin’ blind here. If we had those phone records…”
“Can’t we ask Ava to request them on our behalf?”
Quinn shook his head. “What if she looks at them herself and discovers that Jack didnae really lose the old mobile?”
Even Quinn’s compassion was sexy.
Damn him.
“Then I guess we support her through that. Whatever the truth is, she’ll have to face it eventually. Better sooner than later.”
“Aye, it’s true, but I dinnae want to be the one to hurt her.”
“It might be better coming from you than Wilson.”
“Aye.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have no idea what’s in those phone records. But Idoknow what will happen if we don’t get them.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
* * *
Quinn saton the sofa in Elizabeth’s room, Elizabeth pacing slowly back and forth as the two of them worked their way through the data on the whiteboard.
“It’s three in the morning. He drives into the alley for some reason. He gets out of the vehicle—or is forced to get out.” She shook her head. “No, he gets out voluntarily. If someone forced him to get out, he would have known something was going to happen.”
“What if the killer pointed a firearm at him?”
Gun crimes were rare in Scotland, but they did happen.
“If the killer had a firearm, why didn’t he just shoot Jack? Why risk getting close to him to cut his throat when he could end it with a bullet?”
Aye, that didn’t make sense.
Elizabeth moved on. “He gets out of the car for whatever reason, and someone cuts the right side of his throat. Okay, combat expert, let’s try it.”
“Try killin’ a man?”
“Aye, killin’ a man.” She mimicked his accent—not bad, really, but then she was a linguist. “I want to do a walk-through.”
Quinn got to his feet. “You want me to pretend to be the killer, aye?”
“Exactly.” She motioned him forward. “Stab me.”
He’d like to penetrate her all right. “Where should I stand?”