Page 69 of Kill For Me Kill For You
Perfect.
Amanda returned to the back door. She put strips of duct tape on the pane, covering it. Then a single strip from the center, down tight over the frame, and extending to below the lock. Taking her time, she placed the cushion against the taped pane, and stabbed at it with the screwdriver, so that the head was jabbing at the edge of the glass, through the cushion. It sounded like ice being crushed in a cocktail shaker, but somehow muted, as if it was happening in another room close by. Not loud enough to be heard by any next-door neighbors unless they were in their own back yards.
Amanda pushed that thought away. Moved the cushion. Stabbed.
When she had manoeuvred the cushion all round the edges of the pane, she threw it back into the tool shed. Then, she pushed at the pane. It fell through onto the other side of the door, but the tape she’d placed across the center made sure it didn’t fall to the floor. The broken glass was all still attached to the tape and remained in one piece. Careful to avoid the small shards surrounding the edge of the frame, she curled her arm through the door, and unlocked it.
The door opened. Soundlessly. No creaks. No alarms.
She was in.
Finally.
She gave herself ten minutes to search the property. She was looking for papers. ID. Mail. Credit-card statements. Anything that might give a clue to where she might find Naomi. She was certain Naomi had known Quinn – all that information she’d given Amanda about the layout of the back of the property. Either she’d been watching him for a long time, or she’d been in the house before.
No one wants a man dead like someone who knows him well.
Amanda didn’t fully shut the door behind her in case she needed to make a quick exit. She moved fast through the home of her victim, her flashlight leading the way. She was careful not to let the beam hit the windows. The drapes were all closed, but she didn’t know how thick they were and didn’t want to advertise her presence.
Nothing of interest in any of the kitchen drawers. Some art on the walls, same as the living room. No photographs, though, nor any placed on the mantelpiece – no images of Quinn, nor his family nor loved ones. The dining room was a small office, with a laptop on the desk and a bookcase to match the one in the living room. No papers in the desk drawers, not even a notebook. The house was clean, minimal, with straight lines and white and black as a color palette.
Before she went upstairs, Amanda saw a console table in the hallway. She opened the drawer and hit paydirt.
Some utility bills and other assorted mail.
All in the name of Frank Quinn.
There were no pictures of him in the house. There was a thin veil of dust on the console table, but it had been disturbed. A thin line about eight inches long, with another smaller line behind it. Probably a picture frame. A picture of Quinn, she thought. More than likely the picture they’d used on TV.
Among the mail she found a birthday card. It was at the bottom of the pile and had once been white, but it had yellowed with age. The front image was a single lit birthday candle. She opened it to find more dust inside.
Happy birthday to the world’s best son.
I love you so much, Frankie.
God bless,
Mom
X
She swallowed, noticed the sting of emotion welling up at the back of her throat. Quinn may have done many things to Naomi to make her plot his murder. Maybe he was an unfaithful lover? A crook who swindled her out of her money? Maybe even someone who physically hurt her or hurt or killed someone close to her? Or maybe he was an innocent, and Naomi wasn’t acting out of vengeance but malice. At this moment, Amanda didn’t know. She only knew Quinn was someone’s son.
She knew there would be a price to pay for what she had done. Both emotional and legal. Who would believe she’d acted in self-defense when she had broken into the man’s back yard and he’d found her holding his axe.
Amanda put the mail and the card back in the drawer, slowly pushed it shut. She closed her eyes, tried to reset, as if she was shutting her guilt away in that drawer to be dealt with later.
Right now, there was a job to be done.
There was nothing she could find on the internet about Frank Quinn. Not since the fake websites had been taken down. He certainly wasn’t a teacher, and she could find no link between that name and a school, and, so far, nothing to reveal who this man really was, and the link between him and Naomi.
Amanda crept upstairs.
A single toothbrush in the bathroom.
There were three bedrooms, one of them empty apart from a spare double bed. The second bedroom was essentially a walk-in closet. Two wardrobes, a shoe locker and a chest of drawers. Just clothes: suits and shirts and a shelf of books.
The main bedroom had a double bed, and a nightstand. There were books piled up by the bed, mostly on history and some books on espionage and spy rings. Non-fiction. This sparked her curiosity briefly, but it wasn’t relevant and she knew it.
