Chapter 4 Quinn
FOUR
Quinn
Monday morning hits with fluorescent brightness and the sharp scent of burned coffee.
My desk is covered in case summaries when Martin stops by just after eight.
"Walk with me," he says.
I grab my coffee and follow him down the hall. The fluorescent lights hum overhead. The office is quiet this early, only a few people at their desks. Martin doesn't speak until we reach one of the smaller conference rooms at the end of the hall.
He closes the door and gestures toward a chair.
I sit. Martin stays standing near the door for a moment, then moves to the window. His hands slip into his pockets. The posture is casual, but I 've been doing this long enough now that I know it doesn’t mean anything.
“All right,” he says. “Walk me through where we are.”
“Right now I'm making a flow chart of how the day-to-day at Stone Intermodal looks. I haven't started anything yet, but my first plan is to visit the docks and just get to know the workers.”
He nods. “What do you need to get this investigation going? You can have any resources you need.”
I straighten in the chair. “Right now, nothing. I’ve gone back through the preliminary materials.
The homicide ruling hasn’t changed. It was a mugging gone wrong.
But the unresolved pieces are still there, including the timeline gaps and the other missing people that have worked with them in the past.”
“What does that tell you?”
“Nothing, yet,” I say carefully. “But I plan to really dig into the shipping manifests and see where the missing folks and Robert Stone line up.”
“That's what we want to do. Nothing saying there is anything there, but I want to be sure,” he says.
“I’m not convinced it was random, but I’m also not convinced it wasn’t. When I'm finished, we'll know.”
Martin turns from the window and leans back against the edge of his desk. “I like your confidence. If anyone can find the needle in a haystack, it's you.”
He doesn’t need to explain why this landed on my desk. We already had that conversation. The promotion, the quiet shift in responsibility, the expectation that I would ask the right questions before drawing any conclusions.
Because of who Robert Stone was, and Stone Intermodal's significance in this city, we have to tread lightly until we have something concrete.
“What I’m trying to do now,” I continue, “is define the scope. Figure out what’s reasonable to look at without creating noise. I don’t want to start pulling threads until I know which ones actually matter.”
“What threads are you considering?” he asks.
“Financial exposure,” I say. “Nothing specific yet. Just whether there’s anything in the company’s structure or recent activity that would suggest motive, leverage, or pressure points tied to Robert Stone personally.”
Martin studies me. “You’re keeping it abstract.”
“For now,” I say. “I need a clean baseline before I start looking for anomalies.”
He nods once.
"My plan is to start with the corporate side and work outward. Stone Intermodal’s public filings, subsidiary structures, port authority contracts, recent audits. I want to build a clean financial map before I look for irregularities.”
“And how do you define irregularities in this case?” he asks.
“Money that suggests motive, debt exposure that wasn’t public, payments that don’t line up with declared operations. I want to put my eyes on anything that could explain why someone might want Robert Stone dead or why his death benefited someone else.”
Martin watches me closely. “And if you find nothing?”
“Then we document that,” I say evenly. “And we close it.”
“That answer matters,” he says. “The Stones are powerful. Stone Intermodal moves a significant percentage of container traffic through this port. They have political connections, legal teams on retainer, and a family that just buried their patriarch. We are not looking to rattle cages for sport.”
“I understand,” I say. “This isn’t a fishing expedition.”
“No,” he agrees. “It’s a confirmation exercise.”
He pushes off the desk and crosses to the table, picking up a thin folder. He doesn’t hand it to me yet.
“This stays quiet,” he says. “No subpoenas. No direct contact with the company or the family. No outreach that leaves a footprint. You pull what you can from public and quasi-public sources. If you need anything beyond that, you come to me first.”
“Understood.”
“You’ll give me a weekly check-in,” he continues. “Short, focused, what you’ve reviewed, what you’re flagging, what’s next. If you hit something that looks real, we pause and reassess before you dig deeper.”
“And the timeline?” I ask.
“Let's start with six weeks for an initial assessment,” he says. “That doesn’t mean it ends then, but we should know by then if we need to keep going or you're satisfied that there really is nothing there. If you need more time after that, you justify it.”
He finally hands me the folder. It’s thin by design. Enough to start. Nothing more.
I stand and take the folder. “I’ll send you my initial outline by end of day.”
“Good,” he says. “And Quinn.”
“Yes?”
He meets my gaze. “Trust your process. That’s why you’re here.”
I leave his office and walk back to my desk. The bullpen is louder now. Phones are ringing, voices are starting to overlap as the office comes alive.
The pressure settles in my chest, familiar and sharp, but underneath it is something steadier. Purpose. Direction.
I open the folder and start reading.
The folder sits open on my coffee table. I've been staring at the same page of shipments for the week before his death for twenty minutes.
My phone buzzes and Leah's name flashes on the screen.
Be there in 10. Bringing wine.
I close the folder and shove it into my work bag. By the time she knocks, I've changed into sweatpants and pulled my hair into a messy knot.
She sweeps in with two bottles of wine and a grin. "You look like hell."
"Thanks."
"I mean it in the best way." She sets the wine on the counter and grabs glasses from my cabinet without asking. "How is work going?"
"I'm officially on my new assignment. Right now I'm just poring through everything, so nothing too exciting. But it's good."
She pours. The red catches the light from the lamp in the corner. The rest of my apartment is dim, comfortable. Exactly how I need it right now.
Leah hands me a glass and drops onto the couch. She tucks her legs under her and watches me over the rim.
"Okay, let's get to the good stuff. I need to hear about Saturday night. This vague 'I saw him and we might have hooked up in a storage room' isn't anywhere close to cutting it. Details."
"So, he's even hotter than I remember. And he's an amazing kisser."
We both devolve into laughter as I cover my mouth, surprising myself with my candor. I still can't believe I did that. My heart is racing just with the thought of it all.
"Quinn Mercer." Her voice pitches higher. "Did you have sex with him?"
"We stopped short." I set my glass down. "But it was just as hot and insane, we pushed up my dress and I had my legs wrapped around his waist. Oh, my god, I have no idea what came over me."
"Um, I'll tell you. You've been obsessing over this mystery man for several weeks. Duh, of course you jumped his bones the minute you saw him. How did y'all end up in a storage room, for Christ's sake?"
Between giggles and gulps of wine and a pang in my chest, I tell her about first talking about architecture, of all things, while he had on his mask, and then how I recognized those lips and jaw line, and that led to him offering to show me the building.
"You're living the stuff dreams are made of, Quinn. I mean, a hottie saves you in the street, then you run into him at one of the most exclusive parties in the city, masked, no less, and then freaking knock boots in a secret room while the party goes on below you."
"Correction, we didn't consumate the boots-knocking. So, technically, we weren't knocking boots. Important distinction."
"And why, pray tell, did you stop short of doing the deed? You were already there. Pop, and you're done. Don't tell me you freaked out."
"I totally freaked out," I say as I bury my face in my hand. "I mean, anyone could have walked in at any time. I don't even know the man's last name."
"So? Who cares? It's just sex."
"I care."
"Obviously." She leans forward. "So what happened after?"
"I went back to the gala. He went back to the gala. We didn't talk again."
"But you wanted to."
Leah's grin spreads. "Okay, describe him again. Without the mask this time."
"Tall, blonde, amazing brown eyes, and washboard abs. Yes, I felt his abs."
She stomps her feet on the floor and her wine sloshes a little onto her pants. She sets it down and pulls me in for a hug.
"You never do this. You plan everything, you follow every rule. I'm so proud of you for stepping out like a big girl and finding your freak streak. Please tell me you guys exchanged numbers or snaps or something."
My chest tightens. "I gave him my number."
"That's my girl! Have you heard from him?"
I glance at my phone on the table. The screen is dark. "Yeah. He actually texted me yesterday, but I—"
"And you haven't responded."
"Not yet."
Leah sets her glass down. "Why not? That means he's interested. I know you are, so what the hell, Quinn?"
"Because this is exactly the kind of distraction I don’t need right now."
"So what? You're allowed to have a life outside of work.” Leah's expression softens.
"Quinn, you think everything through. Your whole life is controlled.
Work, family, all of it. Maybe you're allowed to want something just because you want it.
And you do it, just because it feels good. Be reckless once in a while. Jesus.
"I'm nervous."
She pulls back. "What's the worst that happens? You go on a date, maybe you finish the deed. Maybe it's great. Maybe it's not. Either way, you'll survive."
I promise her I will write him back, but tell her I have to think about it first. I plan to, but I can't with her. So we move on to less exciting and therefore less stressful things.
We put on the last episode of House of Guinness, which I’ve been waiting all week to see. Tonight I couldn’t tell you how it ends. Every time my phone lights up, my pulse spikes, but I don’t check it. Not with Leah sitting there watching me pretend I’m unaffected.
After she leaves, I sit on the couch with my phone in my hand. The screen glows in the dim light. I pull up his text and read it for the thousandth time.
Good to meet you properly. I'd love to see you again.
I untangle shell companies and offshore transfers for a living. I trace money through six layers of concealment without blinking, and this is what stumps me.