The Collected (A Jonathan Quinn Novel) Read Online Free PDF Page B

room. Everything was neat and in its place.
    Too neat.
    Liz felt fingers slowly squeezing her heart. She walked over to his en suite bathroom. Counters clean and empty, sink and shower bone dry. She grabbed the shower towel and ran a hand up and down it. No moisture at all.
    He’s not here. He hasn’t been here for at least a day or more.
    She could no longer ignore the possibility she’d avoided earlier. She knew, despite his assurances to the contrary, that his job often put him in danger. It still might not be that, but…
    Please, let him be all right.
    She stared at her reflection in the mirror, worried, unfocused eyes locked on worried, unfocused eyes.
    She pulled out her phone.

CHAPTER 6
     
    SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
     
    J ONATHAN QUINN FLIPPED over in the water, pushed off the wall, and started a new lap. So far he’d gone up and back forty-eight times. Five more and he’d reach a mile and a half, his goal for the day.
    He kept a steady pace, his smooth strokes cutting a path through the pool that instantly sealed up behind him. He tended to be more of a runner, but in the past couple of months he’d worked swimming into his routine, mainly to help strengthen his shoulder and neck after they’d been injured in an unfortunate meeting of flesh and bullet.
    It was Orlando who had suggested he try it when they were still in Thailand, mentioning how it would help improve his mobility.
    “Plus, you’re not getting any younger,” she’d added. “The less stress you put on your body, the longer it’ll last.”
    “Thanks,” he said sarcastically. He wasn’t even forty yet, but truth be told, he could see the birthday in the not-too-distant future.
    “Seriously, you’ve got to think about these things,” she told him. “I do.”
    “You do? For me or for you?”
    She gave him one of her patented blank stares. “Me? No. I’m not as old as you are.”
    While they were staying at the temple in Thailand, Quinn had taken a boat up the Chao Phraya River every day to a hotel that allowed him to use its pool. Upon returning to the States three weeks earlier, he’d joined a gym with a lap pool not too far from Orlando’s house.
    Enrolling there had been a strange step for him. The last time he’d belonged to a public gym was during his time as a rookie cop back in Phoenix. Since then, the only time he shared his workout space with people he didn’t know was at the occasional hotel while he was on a project. Going back to the same place nearly every day, seeing the same people on the treadmills and weight machines and in the pool made him feel exposed, like he was creating a habit that could be a problem later.
    In his business, habits could be dangerous, but the draw of the water was enough to keep him coming back. That, and the fact he wasn’t even sure he was in the business anymore.
    He reached the end of the length, executed another flip turn, and headed back for the second half of the lap.
    Forty-nine, forty-nine, forty-nine , he told himself, so he wouldn’t forget which one he was on, then let his mind return to what he’d been thinking about—the business and his place in it. It was the same topic he’d considered the day before, and the day before that, and the weeks before that.
    For years he’d been one of the best cleaners in the espionage world, the person in-the-know clients would go to when a body needed to disappear. Quinn was efficient, discreet, and reliable, with a highly developed ability to see details where others would see nothing. Using him on a job was as close as possible to a guarantee that there would be no blowback.
    A year ago, he’d occasionally wondered how long he’d be able to keep doing the job, but hadn’t given it any serious thought. A lot had happened since then, most notably his mother and sister being targeted because of the man he’d become. He’d been able to keep them from harm, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been severely shaken by the events, or