Free Becoming Quinn by Brett Battles

corrected her. “It’s just…a feeling.” He explained how he’d been going through the footage, but had stopped when he’d seen the two men come out the front door, and known immediately there was something different about them. He told her how he’d traced their movements backwards, the subtle communication between them, the matchbook.
    “That’s it?” she asked. “Nothing connecting them to the murder, or even putting them in the vicinity other than the one guy picking up some matches?”
    He shook his head.
    “Just a feeling?” she asked.
    “Yes.”
    She frowned, then pointed at the printout of the man by himself. “What about this guy?”
    Jake described the incident in the elevator.
    “That could have been anything,” she said.
    Jake nodded. “I know. He’s probably not even involved. But I got a print just in case.”
    She was silent for several moments, then she gestured at the printouts. “These, I can understand you not wanting to tell anyone about. Other than some instinct you seem to have about them, there’s no way to connect these guys to what happened. But this other stuff—”
    “There’s no way to connect them yet ,” he said, cutting her off.
    She narrowed her eyes. “What are you thinking?”
    “I’m thinking I need your help.”
    “I don’t like the sound of this.”
    “What if we do a little checking? We can see if someone closer to the crime scene might have noticed one of these guys the other night.”
    She closed her eyes and shook her head.
    “I’m just saying it wouldn’t hurt anything to show the pictures around,” he went on. “If we start now, we could be done by lunch.”
    “You can’t be serious.”
    He smiled. “Come on. It’ll be fun. And when we don’t find any connections, you can tell me what an idiot I’ve been.”
    “I can tell you that now.”
    “I promise that when we’re done, I’ll turn in the matchbook and the pictures I took of the marks in the ground and tell them everything.”
    “That’s…going to get you in a lot of trouble, you know,” she said, her voice suddenly uncertain.
    “You’re the one who’s been saying I should, and you’re right. Whatever happens to me, I’ll deserve it. I’m just asking for a few hours of digging first. That’s all.”
    She huffed out a laugh, then gave him a smirk. “That’s all?”
    “Yes.”
    “I swear to God, if I get fired because of this, I’m going to kill you.”
    “So you’ll do it?”
    For a moment, she simply stared at him, then she said, “Three hours. That’s it.”
    “Three hours is plenty.”
    •    •    •
    Jake’s hope was that if the men from the Lawrence had been involved in the Goodman Ranch Road murder, they would have made a stop somewhere on the way—maybe for gas, or a bite to eat to kill the time.
    With a few minor variations, there was really just one logical route from the Lawrence Hotel to the crime scene. Before they began their search, though, Jake grabbed his stuff out of his Civic and hopped in Berit’s vintage Charger. From Di’s Diner, they went to Berit’s townhouse, where, with considerable effort, Jake convinced her that they should don their uniforms.
    When he saw the skepticism on her face as she came back down to the living room, he said, “Trust me. It’ll make things easier.”
    Her only reply was a low grunt.
    They drove out to Goodman Ranch Road, stopping a couple of lots short of the crime scene to make sure they didn’t miss any potential places the men might have stopped, then Berit executed a quick U-turn.
    Three-quarters of a mile back down the road, they came upon the first possibility, a combination gas station/mini-mart. It only took a few moments before Jake realized a glaring flaw in his plan. If the men had made a stop somewhere, it would have been at night. Which meant anyone who had been working on Saturday night probably wouldn’t be working that Monday morning.
    The look on Berit’s face when the clerk