“Wilson dreamed up some idea about the two of us—Jack and me—bringin’ drugs into the country from Afghanistan.”
“Patel asked me the same thing—whether I’d ever brought back heroin from Afghanistan.” As outrageous as it was, Elizabeth understood. “They must have a good reason for considering this as an angle. They have a murder to solve, and they’re going where the evidence takes them.”
“Bastards.” Quinn took the car keys out of his pocket, unlocked the doors.
“You and I have a bigger problem.”
Quinn opened her door. “What do you mean?”
She took her cellphone out of her handbag and tossed her handbag onto the seat, then got onto her knees, turned on the phone’s flashlight, and looked beneath the car.
“What the bloody hell are you doin’?”
“Looking for a GPS transmitter. And there it is—near the muffler.”
Quinn got down next to her, lay flat on his belly, looked. “Sweet sufferin’ shite!”
He removed the device, which was held in place by magnets. “I’ve a mind to shove this up Wilson’s tight arse.”
“Probably a bad idea.” Elizabeth stood, took the transmitter from Quinn, and started back toward the police station’s front doors.
He got to his feet. “Where are you goin’?”
“To give this back to Wilson.” She hurried inside, Quinn a step behind her, and spotted Wilson and Patel talking together. She walked over to them, dropped the device in Wilson’s hands. “I think this belongs to you.”
The looks on their faces almost made her laugh.
* * *
Quinn tooka sip of his whisky, wishing he had the bottle. “Is that what you get after servin’ your country—suspicion, slander?”
Elizabeth sat on the sofa across from him, somehow unruffled by all of this. “If they’d had any evidence against us, they would have arrested us. They’ve got a murder to solve. They’re just doing their job.”
“Doin’ their job? Harassing us is doin’ their job?”
“They have to go where the evidence leads them. If they have reason to suspect that Jack was selling—”
“Jack wouldnae sell drugs!” Quinn all but shouted the words, his temper frayed.
He couldn’t read people the way Elizabeth could, but he knew she no longer believed him.
Can you blame her?
Even Ava was beginning to doubt, Ava, whom Jack had loved with all his heart.
“Remember what I said yesterday—how some of what I say could be upsetting?”
“Aye.” Of course, he remembered.
“That’s where we are now. I’m sharing my professional assessment with you.”
Quinn saw the sympathy on her face, the concern in her eyes, but it didn’t take the edge off his anger. Still, he didn’t want to take his temper out on Elizabeth. She’d come here on what could have been a holiday to help him. None of this was her doing.
He took another swallow of whisky. “Your professional assessment is that Jack was sellin’ drugs.”
“The evidence so far strongly suggests that.” She ran through it for him. “He was murdered in a concealed alley near his vehicle, which means he drove there himself. It’s an alley you can’t wander into by taking a wrong turn. You have to choose to be there. Hechoseto be there—at three in the morning.”
She stood, came around the coffee table to sit on the arm of Quinn’s chair. “Someone he knew got close enough to him to kill him without Jack putting up a fight. There were no drugs in his system, but there were traces of two illicit drugs on his hands, in his pocket, and in his car. We know he lied about losing his cell phone.”