Quest (Dane Maddock Adventures) Read Online Free PDF Page B

and locked the door. Inside, he turned on the water and retreated to the stall before making his call.
    “You sent the wrong attachment.” Not so much as a hello. “What the hell is this picture you sent me, anyway?” The voice belonged to the man who had first contacted him with the business proposition.
    “No, really, that’s it. That was the only thing in the envelope.”
    “The next two words out of your mouth had better be ‘April Fool’ or else my employers are going to be very unhappy with both of us.”
    “I’m serious.” Newman forced himself to remain calm, though his heart was racing. What kind of people had he gotten himself hooked up with? “That is what the girl turned over to my captain.”
    “And you’re certain it was the right envelope?” Suspicion lay beneath every word. “If you’re messing with me, you won’t see one penny of the money. And that’s only if they take the news well. If they don’t… ”
    If I don’t get that money, certain other people are going to be after me, too. Either way, I’m toast, Newman thought. “I’m one hundred percent sure. I saw the girl take the envelope into the captain’s office.”
    “Fine.” The caller gave an exasperated sigh. “What about the back? You didn’t send me a picture of the flip side.”
    Newman froze. Had he even looked at the back? Surely he had taken a quick glance to see if anything was there. He must have looked at it, seen nothing, and just taken pictures of the front. In any case, he wasn’t going to tell this guy that he might have overlooked something that simple. No way was he going to make this fellow any angrier than he already was.
    “The back was blank. What you’ve got right there is everything.” He held his breath, wondering what the reply would be, and what it might bode for his future well-being.
    “All right, whatever. I don’t get why this thing is such a big deal, but that’s not for you and me to decide. We do need to make sure this is the real thing, and the girl didn’t pull some sort of switch on us. I’ll check her place. You find out if she might have decided to stay somewhere else.”
    It was a good thing Newman was in the head, because he felt like he was going to throw up. He’d agreed to provide information, not help track down and interrogate innocent women. He hoped the man had nothing in mind more serious than interrogation. He swallowed hard. “I understand. Do you have her name?”
    “Yeah, it’s Kaylin Maxwell.”
     
    Thirty minutes and the walls were already closing in on Kaylin. She sipped a cup of hot tea, which was not bad for a complimentary hotel brand, and tried to relax. It was lunchtime, but she had little appetite.
    Her conversation with Thomas’s dean had been a waste of time. The man claimed to have no connections in South America, but promised her he would “ask around.” The call to her congressman’s office was equally fruitless. She’d left a message with a skeptical-sounding aide, who asked that she email him with the details so he could look into it, whatever that meant.
    Now that she was calm enough to reflect, she felt like a fool for panicking when the man had come after her, and letting a teenager fight her battle for her. What happened to the tough, self-reliant girl her father raised? She’d been in worse situations before. Since she and Thomas had become serious, she had allowed herself to get soft. Why, she didn’t even carry her .380 in her purse any more. It was still in her glove compartment where it had lain for a couple of years now. What would her father think if he could see her right now, cowering in a hotel room, hoping other people would solve her problems for her?
    No more of this. It was time to take action. She took out her phone and scrolled down to the D’s. There was the name, still there, though the two of them hadn’t talked in… she didn’t know how long. What if he had changed his number? No, that wouldn’t be like him.