Off the Clock Read Online Free

police, I swear.”
    Quinn stared at him blankly for a moment. “Are you done?”
    “What do you want?”
    Quinn turned away from him and set the stack of papers on the sink counter, then one by one began taping them to the mirror. These were the ten best shots—if you could call them that—of Nick’s trophy photos. The eleventh printout was a photo of Nick and his wife.
    “Does Dr. Meyers know about your hobby?”
    The shock in the man’s eyes confirmed that she didn’t.
    “Well,” Quinn said, “she’s going to now.”
    “No,” Nick blurted out. “Please. I promise…I promise I won’t do it again.”
    “Save your breath. I know you won’t.”
    Nick looked confused. “Okay, um, then, uh, then there’s no problem, right? You’ll just let me go, and won’t tell my wife. Yes?”
    “Sure, Nick. That sounds like a great idea. Then in a couple weeks you’ll convince yourself that I was just here to scare you, and won’t be coming back. You’ll start up again right where you left off. The problem with that is, I would come back. And I would be as mad at myself for giving you a break as I would be at you. So, I figure, why not do now what I would have to do then?”
    “What do you mean, ‘have to do then’?”
    Quinn smiled sympathetically. “I’m not here to scare you. I’m here to take care of the problem.”
    He walked out of the room.
    “Wait!” Nick called out. “What does that mean?”
    Quinn didn’t answer.
    “Hey! What does that mean?”
    Back in the den, Quinn printed out the last item, then removed the thumb drive and slipped it into his pocket. In the kitchen, he helped himself to a bottle of water, and leaned against the counter, waiting.
    Forty-two minutes later, just a little over an hour after he’d made his calls, his phone buzzed with a text.
    2 minutes away
    He took another sip of the water, then headed for the front door. The first thing he’d done after Nick had fallen unconscious on the den floor was to completely disable the alarm. So opening the front door now was not an issue.
    He crossed the yard to the Mercedes and used Nick’s keys to unlock it. Inside he found a remote, pushed the button, then watched as the gate across the driveway swung open.
    Thirty-seconds later a van pulled in. There were no windows along the sides, only a large logo advertising a local plumber who didn’t exist.
    Steve Howard and Ivan Donahue climbed out of the front. Quinn had worked with both of them several times in the past. When he’d called to tell them he had a little off-the-clock work for them, neither had even hesitated to say they were in.
    They nodded their hellos, but everyone remained quiet until they were inside.
    “Hey! You can’t leave me like this!” Nick yelled from the back as Quinn closed the front door.
    “I take it that’s the package,” Howard said.
    Quinn nodded. “You have the stuff?”
    Howard pulled a plastic box from his pocket, and handed it to Quinn.
    “Come on. I’ll introduce you,” Quinn said. He led them to the bathroom. “Gentlemen, this is Nick Meyers.”
    “What the hell?” Nick said, his eyes growing as wide as they could go at the sight of the two new arrivals. “Jesus. Please, just let me go.”
    Howard and Donahue took a quick look, and both noticed the pictures on the bathroom mirror.
    “Whoa, dude,” Donahue said. “Not your best angle.”
    “I take it his visits to these places were not exactly welcome,” Howard said.
    “No, they weren’t,” Quinn confirmed. “And these aren’t all of them.”
    Howard looked back at Nick. “You’re a sick son of a bitch, aren’t you?”
    “What are you guys going to do to me?” Nick asked.
    “Go ahead and cut him down,” Quinn said to Howard. “I’ll be right back.”
    He returned to the den, grabbed a pen off the desk, and retrieved the final printout from the printer. When he got back to the bathroom, Nick was sitting on the closed toilet lid, his wrists and ankles still