Back Road Near the Reservoir

Marin County, California

February 22

Harry sat beside Quinn in the passenger seat of the red Maserati convertible, thumbing the two-sizes-too-small jeans that strained to contain his ex-jock thighs. He looked terrible, paler than milk, the fresh bandage on his neck spotted with blood. He'd started complaining the minute they'd escaped from the hospital, his biggest grievances being male nurses with meat-hook hands, cranberry juice boxes, and his friend's jeans that had a vice-like grip on his nads.

"That was my favorite hoodie," he gripped, repeating himself.  She'd lost count of how many times. "My lucky hoodie." He slapped the air in frustration. "Now look at it."

Quinn did, glancing down at the sweatshirt she still wore. At the various rips and snags, bloodstains, and embedded finger-paintings of mud. Given the events of the last hours, she could almost believe the hoodie was lucky. Not only had they escaped from Blockman, Roundman, Pierce, Harry's locked hospital room, and the Black Guard, but also certain death in a fifty-foot plunge down a hillside landscaped with very large boulders and really big trees.

If that isn't luck—

"I wore that hoodie to my first college poker game," Harry droned on. "Started a nine-month winning streak that damn near paid for medical school. You should've been more careful."

"You're kidding, right?" Quinn was growing more pissed off by the moment. With everything that had happened, everything they'd been through, and he was worried about a stupid sweatshirt?

"I'm just saying."

Quinn pushed the Maserati down the narrow strip of asphalt through a shroud of darkest black peculiar to a backroad, Marin County night—or so Harry had said. The air smelled wet, felt stone-cold, and she tried not to shiver.

"Richest county in the country," she huffed, "and they can't afford a "falling-flying-thing-crashed-here" sign? Are you sure we're going in the right direction? I can't see a thing in this fog."

"We're fine, Harry said. "Just keep going straight." He stared down the road, his attention elsewhere—and nowhere. 

Until now, she'd considered his bossiness, sarcasm, and lack of patience with her as his peculiar way of showing friendship. Growing up in one foster home after another, sometimes it was hard to tell when people liked you—or didn't—since words had many meanings depending on how you used them. Horrible at nuance, it was all confusing to her.

"Your friend said follow the blue light, and we'd find the crash site," Quinn said. "So, where's the blue light?"

"I told you, it's just beyond those hills."

"He said it was like a beacon. I don't see anything that remotely looks like a beacon."

Harry ran a shaky hand down his face. "Look, I've lived in Marin County all my life. I know these roads like the back of my hand. You're just going to have to trust me."

"Yeah, well. Where's the traffic? Your friend said there'd be a lot of traffic, and I don't see it. Where is it?"

"Quinn—"

She didn't like how he drew out her name, like she wasn't smart enough to catch on as if he would have to spell everything out for her.

"We're ten minutes from the crash site," Harry said. "Fifteen max. And we won't get there any faster than we get there. So, relax. I know what I'm doing. I got us these clothes, didn't I? And the car?"

As much as Quinn hated to admit it, he was right. She'd gotten them out of the hospital and through the forest on a path too narrow for anything but another cart to follow. But once they'd left the forest, the show had become his.

They'd emerged from the woods near Highway 101 in the middle of a traffic jam, historic even for Marin. Harry had tossed her a watch-and-learn smile, oozing all the charm of a Marin County native as he approached an attractive, fifty-something woman sitting behind the wheel of an idling convertible. Within seconds, despite his bloody appearance and obscenely flapping hospital gown—or maybe because of it—she'd handed over her cell phone and no doubt offered to have his babies. Or at least volunteered a daughter or two who wouldn't mind.

Half an hour later, Quinn was changing behind a pine tree into incredibly oversized jeans and a sweater supplied by Harry's friend, Max. Also a doctor, he'd cleaned the scratch on her head and the wound on Harry's neck, all the while cursing out his friend for refusing to head to a hospital. Eventually, reluctantly, Max provided Harry with some clothes, his personal cell phone, and the keys to his Maserati, flipping Harry off as they drove away.

It was all very disorienting to Quinn. Part of the system from a young age, her single-parent mother too young and strung out on drugs to be bothered, she had no idea what it was like to be surrounded by people. People who knew your history, your faults and dark moods, and still thought enough of you to venture out in the middle of the night, giving you the proverbial clothes off their back and their car, just because.

Roots were alien to her. Ties to people and places felt suspicious at best. Still, a part of Quinn yearned to fill that empty, achy corner of her life. She just didn't know how. She had no other history than sleeping in someone else's bed. Even if she could adopt a different life, what would be the point? She was who she was. And no fiddling with the past would change that.

"You got a mirror?" Harry asked.

"Behind the visor," she said.

Harry raised an eyebrow, maybe thinking he should have known that. Peeling back Max's re-bandage job, he studied the ragged wound puckered by too many poorly executed stitches.

"Well, that's a shitty job," he said, examining his neck. "Certainly, not Jack's work."

"You're right," Quinn snapped. "A guard doctor took over when Jack left you on the War Room floor to die."

"Is that what you think happened?"

"I was there."

"Jack was doing what he was trained to do. What we've all been trained to do: the job. Under the circumstances, I'd have done the same."

"Not me." She twisted the steering wheel cover beneath her fingers until it resembled a bludgeoned pretzel.

"Then maybe you should rethink your career choice." Harry angled her a look like a disapproving parent as they peered over their reading glasses.

Furious, Quinn slammed on the brakes. Harry bounced forward and would have collided with the dashboard if it hadn't been for his seatbelt.

"What the hell!"

"This is bullshit!" She threw the car into park. With everything she'd been through over the last twenty-four hours, all the suffering and fear and death, how dare he act supercilious. "You were bleeding to death, and Jack just left you. For all he knows, you're dead."

Harry shook his head. "That's not what happened."

"You don't know. You were out of it. I was there."

He turned in his seat to face her. "What bothers you more? Me dying or your hero taking a nosedive off that pedestal you put him on?"

Quinn gasped as though she'd been punched in the gut. How did he know? She'd been so careful, never looking Jack in the eye. Never being alone with him. Except for earlier in his office when she'd told him about the signal. So excited about the discovery, she'd touched his hand in her enthusiasm. Walter had been waiting just outside Jack's door. There was no question he saw.

If Harry and Walter know, does that mean Jack knows too?

"You know what?" She threw her arms up in surrender. "You're right. I'm not cut out for this work. I quit."

She turned, ready to bolt. Ready to slip from the car and run as far from Harry, UR, and Jack as possible. To hell with being in the middle of nowhere.

Harry grabbed her arm. "Don't think you're going anywhere. You don't get off that easy."

She tried to pull from his grasp, but he held on tight, his face inches from hers as he searched her eyes. And she got the crazy idea that he was going to kiss her.

Maybe not such a crazy idea?

The sound was like an animal hitting the front of the car, and the Maserati rocked backward. Startled, Quinn looked up to see a bearded man, hands braced on the car hood, his eyes wide with terror. He was dressed in a filthy t-shirt and ratty jeans, and his shoulder-length hair was so greasy it looked wet. He'd peed himself, and the stench made her gag.

Whimpering, gaze vacant, he staggered a half-dozen yards, then fell to his knees in the dirt.

"Stay here," Harry told her, slipped over the car door, and went after him. Quinn took a couple of deep breaths and followed.

Tears streaming, the man mumbled something she couldn't quite make out. Harry was leaning over him, a supportive hand on his shoulder, and he looked up as she approached. She expected to see anger on his face for her having disobeyed him again, but all she saw was disbelief. And wonder.

"What?" Quinn said.

Harry pulled his friend's cell phone from his jeans pocket and tossed it to her. "Max owns a private clinic. Have him send an ambulance. Then see if you can locate Jack."

"Why?" she said, thumbing through the phone's directory until she found Max's number. "What's happened?"

Harry looked down at the man and then up at the night sky. "We've got company."