The Deceived by Brett Battles

of the shops. From there he had a clear view back down the street. At the Mobile station, it seemed like business as usual. Someone else had already pulled up to the pump where Quinn had been.
    He glanced at his watch. Five minutes passed since the Volvo had spotted him at the station. By now they would be thinking he should be almost done, if they weren’t already wondering why he was still there. Soon they would feel compelled to check again. Quinn guessed it would be seven minutes total.
    It was eight by the time the Volvo returned.
    The distance was too great for Quinn to see the men inside, but he knew they had to be surprised not to find the Lexus still sitting there. After all, their tracker was telling them the car should not have moved.
    They made a quick turn into the station and pulled up on the other side of the pump Quinn had been at. The driver stayed at the wheel while the other two men got out. They tried to look natural, one man even removing the nozzle from the pump, but their movements were forced.
    It took them a little over a minute to find the transponder, and when they did, they didn’t look happy. One of the men pulled out a phone, hit a couple buttons, then put it to his ear. The other quickly replaced the gas hose and climbed back into the car.
    Quinn took that as his cue to get back in the Lexus. He pulled out of his spot, but didn’t exit the lot immediately. Several moments later, the man on the phone got back into the Volvo, and the car pulled out, heading in the opposite direction of the strip mall.
    It didn’t take long for Quinn to catch them.
    The darkness played in Quinn’s favor. A big city meant roads jammed with cars, and lots of headlights moving in and out of the flow of traffic. It made it easy to hide among the pack and remain unseen.
    After a while, it became obvious the Volvo was headed back to the house on White Magnolia Lane. As they neared the neighborhood, instead of continuing the chase, Quinn turned down one of the side streets. He knew now where they were going, and while the night was great at disguising his presence on the busy main roads, he would stand out on the less traveled residential streets if he continued to tail them.
    Unfortunately, the neighborhood was not set up in any logical pattern, so finding an alternate route wasn’t as simple as he would have hoped. The roads twisted and turned, some making large arcs and returning to the same road they started from, while others wound away to dead ends. Everywhere the landscape was green and lush. Where the lots hadn’t been carved out for homes, there were trees and bushes. Not quite wilderness, but not quite tame either. What it wasn’t suited for was shortcuts.
    Quinn cursed to himself as he made two wrong turns before finding his way back to White Magnolia Lane. He came at it from the opposite direction he had earlier, stopping when he was about a block away from the house. He grabbed a pair of thin leather gloves, and a compact flashlight from his bag in the trunk. He felt a momentary annoyance that he didn’t have a gun. He never flew with one, so his habit was to pick up one at his destination if he felt it necessary. But things had happened so fast once he’d arrived in Houston, he hadn’t had time to track down a source.
    He made his final approach on foot, using the cars parked along the street as cover. As he expected, the Volvo was already there, sitting in the driveway near the garage.
    What was more surprising was that the house was lit up both inside and out. It seemed as if every switch in the place had been turned on. Even the two floodlights mounted above the garage door were on.
    The minivan that had been parked in front was still there, but now all its doors were open. Quinn could see several suitcases piled in the back. The bicycles that had been on the lawn were stacked on the roof of the van and tied to the luggage rack.
    As Quinn watched, a man came out of the house carrying a large