Read Online Becoming Quinn by Brett Battles - Free Book Online Page B

the other side of the booth, their waitress walked over.
    “Something to drink?” the woman asked.
    “Coffee, please,” Berit said.
    “Sure thing.” The waitress retreated to the counter.
    Berit stared at Jake for a moment, then said, “Four and a half hours.”
    “I’m sorry?” he said.
    “Four and a half hours. That’s how much sleep I got. I should still be in bed, but I’m not. You owe me three and a half hours of sleep.”
    “You get eight every night?”
    The waitress returned with the coffee before Berit could respond, and set it on the table.
    “You guys ready to order?” she asked.
    “Oatmeal,” Jake said.
    “All right. And you, ma’am?”
    Berit was holding the coffee to her lips and blowing across the surface. “It’s too early to eat.”
    “So, one oatmeal? That’s it?”
    “Make it two,” Jake said. “She’ll get hungry.”
    The waitress made a quick note on her pad, then left them again.
    Berit rolled her head around in a circle a couple of times, and said, “I swear to God this better not be girl trouble. I will kill you if it is.”
    Problems with the opposite sex were another thing they would discuss now and then, though it was more about the men who kept asking Berit out than the few dates Jake went on. It was interesting. They were the best of friends, but not once had either of them even hinted at taking their relationship further. She was a beautiful woman made even more so because of her intelligence, but he just never felt a romantic attraction. There was a very good reason for this: she reminded him of an older version of his sister, and he couldn’t deny she was filling the void Jake had created when he’d been forced to basically abandon Liz back home.
    “No girl problems,” he said.
    Her face grew a bit more serious. “Something at work? Is everything okay?”
    “Yeah,” he said hesitantly. “Everything’s fine. It’s just…” He paused.
    “What?” When he didn’t answer right away, she said, “What did you do?”
    He cracked a smile. “It’s not like that.”
    “Then what is it?”
    “The murder two nights ago,” he said. “I may have a lead on who did it.”
    “Are you serious?”
    He nodded, then proceeded to tell her everything. Somewhere in the middle of the story, the waitress returned with their oatmeal, but they barely noticed. When he was through, he pulled out the plastic sandwich bag he’d put the matchbook in at his apartment and showed it to her.
    “You took that from a crime scene?” she said, staring at him like he was crazy.
    “They’d already gone over everything. This could be nothing.”
    “Or it could be something . Why didn’t you just give it to someone?”
    “Look, I know I probably should have,” he said.
    “ Probably ?”
    “Okay, maybe I…I mean, I should have. But they would have just lumped it in with everything else. Who knows how long it would have taken for someone to follow up on it, if they even did?”
    She rolled her eyes. “Did you at least tell someone about the markings you found on the ground? The cable impression? The spot at the tank where someone was sitting?”
    “Those could have been made anytime.”
    “And they could have been made the night of the fire, Jake. What the hell are you doing?”
    Several people at nearby tables looked over.
    Jake leaned toward her, dropping his voice to just above a whisper. “Think about it, Berit. What do I really have? Nothing that can’t be explained away in half a second.”
    “That’s not a judgment for you to make,” she replied, the level of her voice now matching his. She frowned, and he could see she was trying to think it all through. Finally, the disapproval on her face softened. “Tell me about these guys at the hotel.”
    Jake put the two printouts from the Lawrence Hotel on the table.
    She examined them, then shrugged. “I don’t understand how you know these guys are connected to the murder.”
    “I don’t know, not for sure,” he