by Scott Blade
Widow spent the next several minutes cleaning himself off. Blood was all over his face. He wasn’t sure from which of Sathers’ injuries.
He went back into the empty toilet stall and slipped his boots back on. He took up the nail clippers and the water bottle and left. He thought about taking the silenced gun, but it was empty, and he didn’t need it. He thought about disposing of it, but it was evidence that could help the cops or confuse them. He hadn’t touched the actual gun; he’d only touched Sathers’ hand. So he left it.
On the way out, Widow stopped in the janitor’s closet. He sleeved his hand and gripped the doorknob and jerked it open, shattering the wood around a cheap locked door. Inside, he found an out of order sign. He snatched it up, exited the bathroom, and slipped the sign on the door on his way out.
Hands in pockets, Widow returned to the bus. The old couple was back on board before anyone else. They were last to exit and first to reboard; he figured they wanted to avoid holding everyone up, as they had indicated after everyone else got off the bus.
The old lady smiled at him, and the old guy said, “Back with us, young man?”
They both got a good look at his face.
The old lady said, “My, you look flushed, like you just ran a marathon.”
The old guy asked, “Everything all right, son?”
Widow thought for a second and gave them an excuse.
“Everything’s great! More than great! I met a woman.”
The old lady put a hand on her cheek and shot him a huge smile.
The old guy said, “A woman? Here? At the service station?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of woman can you meet at a truck stop?”
The old lady hit her husband with a friendly jab in the ribs.
Widow said, “She’s a truck driver.”
“Truck driver?”
She said, “Jeb, nice women drive trucks too! Women can do whatever men can do, only better.”
Widow thought of Gray and smiled and sat down for a moment. He casually took off his Havelock, like he was warm, and folded it up and stuffed it behind him in the seat.
The old lady said, “Well, are you going to keep riding with us or go with her?”
Widow turned around in his seat and looked back at them.
“You think I should go back and get a ride with her?”
The old guy said, “If you like this woman that much, I would! I don’t let chances like that pass me up.”
“Really?”
“That’s how I got this one here!”
The old guy wrapped an arm around his wife and squeezed her close to him.
Widow smiled and nodded.
“You’re right. I’m going to go after her.”
He stood up from his seat and moved to the aisle. He left the burner phone in the seat with the GPS tracker in it, but he took the bald guy’s cell phone. Then he got up and stepped back off the bus. He took one last look at the old couple and waved at them.
Off the bus, he passed the driver standing by the door. He was ready to go.
The driver said, “We’re leaving in a few, sir.”
Widow kept walked and waved back.
“Have a safe trip.”
“Are you staying behind?” the driver asked.
Widow didn’t respond.
He walked on, down the freeway, back the way he’d come, toward DC.
Forty-Two
Two hours later, Widow sat at a table, finishing off a cup of coffee, and eating the last of the fries from a cheeseburger and fries he had ordered and eaten. He faced the window of a fast-food joint in Greensboro, North Carolina, off a freeway cloverleaf.
That was when Gray pulled into the lot, off the freeway, in her NCIS-provided Charger. She pulled into a parking space right in front of the window and looked up at him and waved.
Widow finished the fries and crumbled up the paper from the cheeseburger, wrapping all his trash into it. He trashed it on his way out the door and he tossed the coffee cup, which was empty.
He walked out and over to the Charger and got in.
Gray looked him up and down and saw a cut on his cheek.
“Looks like you had some trouble?”
“You should see the other guy.”
She asked, “Ditch the phone?”
“It’s on a bus headed to Atlanta and wherever the bus goes from there.”
“How far is that from here? Like five hours?”
“Yep. Plus one stop. Probably.”
“Was there a guy following you like you thought?”
Widow nodded.
“How did you ditch him?”
“He’s dead in a toilet two miles south.”
Gray turned and stared at him.
“You killed him?”
“He was the other guy.”
“Widow, you don’t have a permit to kill! You’re not James Bond!”
“License.”
“What?”
“James Bond had a license to kill.”
“Whatever! You can’t just be killing people. Did you clean up after?”
“I wiped my prints. But I left him where he died, in a toilet.”
More than he deserved, Widow thought.
Gray said, “I should get someone down there.”
“For what?”
“We should tell the local police.”
“Nah. Best to just let them do their thing. We got our own problems. Plus, we’re trying to stay under the radar.”
“So, what now?”
Widow said, “We do need a fingerprint match so we can ID the guy who attacked me.”
“You scanned his prints?”
Widow reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of rolled-up bloody paper towels.
“No. I took his finger.”
“Widow!”
“What? We need to know who he is. Can you scan for his print?”
“That’s gross!”
“Can we get a print off him or not?”
Gray fished out her phone and unlocked it.
She said, “Here. Take my phone. There’s an app on there. Just open the app with the green icon of a fingerprint and scan his print on that button. It’ll automatically send the print to the database in Quantico and search for us.”
Widow took the phone and unwrapped the bloody finger. He wiped off the print as best he could with the paper towel.
Gray said, “In the glove box, there are wet wipes. Wipe it before you scan it and then after. I don’t want a dead guy’s finger all over my phone.”
Widow popped the glove box, found the wet wipes, and did as she had instructed.
After it was all done and sent, he asked, “What do you want me to do with the finger?”
Gray buzzed down his window.
“Throw it away.”
“You sure? It’s evidence.”
“Yeah, that you murdered a guy and stole his finger!”
“Good point,” Widow said and he tossed it out the window.
They drove on in silence for a minute until Widow spoke.
“You notice any tails on you?”
“No one is following me. Don’t worry.”
Widow took a second and checked the clock on the dashboard.
“We already missed our flight out. It was out of DC anyway.”
“Don’t worry; I canceled it.”
Widow nodded and said, “Good. You got a spending budget from Unit Ten? Cause we’re going to need more plane tickets. Plus, we’ll need hotels.”
“I can get one if Cameron approves. I’m still a newbie, you know.”
“Don’t worry. She’ll do it. Let’s find the nearest airport and get out of here.”
“Where we going first?”
“Let’s do like you said. We’ll head to see Cho’s family. See if they’ll talk to us. Then we can drive down to San Diego and talk with the agents who investigated Cho’s murder and then Shore’s parents in Hawaii.”
Gray smiled inadve
rtently, like it couldn’t be helped.
“Southern California in autumn and Hawaii? Cameron’s going to think we’re hitting the beach.”
“We might.”
“What?”
“We’re going to be there anyway. If we have time, we can hit the beach. You pack a bikini?”
She shot him a sideways stare that could level a SEAL platoon.
She said, “I didn’t pack anything.”
Widow glanced in the backseat and saw no suitcase. No extra clothes.
“You didn’t? What took you so long to get here?”
“It didn’t take me that long.”
Widow smiled and looked out the windshield.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Forty-Three
Their flight left on time from an airport in Greensboro and landed in Dallas, where they had a brief layover until they were back in the air and finally landing at LAX in Los Angeles. To them, it had felt like nighttime, but the time zone differences made them see the sunset more than once in a single day.
They rode in premium economy because Widow needed the extra legroom, which he hadn’t asked Gray to set up for him. And she hadn’t. Cameron did. She had it all arranged for them. She knew Widow needed the legroom and requested it.
Both flights were good. No problems. No complaints.
After the plane, they left the airport terminal and went to a car rental counter, where Gray asked if they had any Dodge Chargers. Apparently it was her personal favorite. It turned out they did have one, only it didn’t come in navy blue. They had two colors. One was Army green, and that was a hard no for Gray. The second one was all black, with black leather interior. It cost more, a lot more, than the other one. Widow saw her sign for it.
The weather in LA was much warmer than DC and Greensboro. Widow took off the bullet-holed Havelock, tossed it over a shoulder, and carried it with one hand. They got to the car and got in, Gray behind the wheel and Widow in the passenger seat. He didn’t even ask to drive. He knew his place.
He said, “We should grab you a change of clothes.”
“Not here. Airport clothes are crazy expensive.”
“I know. I meant at a thrift store.”
“Thrift store?”
“Yeah. Drive around; I’m sure LA has plenty of them.”
“No. We’re not going to a thrift store.”
“Why? What’s wrong with thrift stores?”
Gray stared at him with that same sideways look from earlier that could level a SEAL platoon.
“You can’t represent the NCIS in thrift store clothes.”
“So, what then?”
Gray looked at him and fired up the engine and smiled.
An hour later, Widow was in an expensive button-down shirt that was a little tight, in his opinion. He wore a muscle shirt under it. He didn’t pick out the muscle shirt or the tight button-down. Gray picked out both. When he put on the muscle shirt, she told him that “muscle shirts were designed for guys like him—guys with muscles.”
He wore black chinos and black Oxford shoes. She had forced both on him. She also got him a black sports coat, but like his Havelock, he didn’t wear it. He just carried it around as an accessory.
Widow wanted to leave his old clothes behind, but Gray made him put them in the shopping bag alongside her own, which he ended up carrying anyway.
Gray bought a stylish outfit that was becoming to any good female NCIS agent. She looked professional and tough and compassionate, all at the same time. She wore a black jacket, black pants, and a white top that stuck in Widow’s mind like a tune he couldn’t stop singing to himself.
Widow and Gray walked out of a store in Culver City and headed back to their car, which they had left in a paid lot. There were no other free spaces anywhere else.
On the way back to the Charger, Widow looked at the sky. It was dark.
He asked, “What time are we going to see the Chos tomorrow?”
“Widow, we’re going over there now.”
“Tonight? Isn’t it better to do these things in the daytime?”
“We already have a meeting with them lined up. Cameron set it up. They’re expecting us.”
“Are we eating dinner there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s not a social call, but they may offer us dinner.”
“I doubt that. Where do they live?”
“Somewhere in the Hollywood Hills. I have the address in my phone.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
They made it to the Charger, got in and fired it up, and paid the valet for the parking. Soon they were back on the road and headed north.
After driving through LA, trying to avoid traffic, they ended up having to deal with some LA traffic. But it wasn’t too bad. Both Gray and Widow had been through worse.
They finally made it into the Hills, where they followed roads winding through them and around them. Widow marveled at the view from the drive. Almost everywhere he looked was some kind of a spectacular view, some kind of vista. It all looked like the wallpaper that came with computers. He had never been to the Hollywood Hills before.
After twenty minutes of more driving and winding around the loops and getting a little lost, they made it to the address that the Cho family had provided.
Widow and Gray spent about ten seconds, jaws dropped, staring at the house in front of them. The driveway was short, and the street was empty, but the house was magnificent. It was two stories, all white and all windows. It was crafted like a work of art, the kind of house that was built with the first step hiring an architect who had probably been featured in magazines.
The house was built into the hilltop on Skylark Lane. In the front, leading up to the front door, was some kind of half greenhouse, half entrance.
Gray killed the engine, and they stepped out of the car. She looked back over her shoulder and paused.
“Widow,” she said.
He looked at her. She pointed out toward the city. He turned and looked and saw a view so beautiful it looked like it was a fake background in a movie.
Widow saw downtown LA, the lower hills of Hollywood, all the way out to the ocean. It was breathtaking.
“Wow!” he said. “What do they do for a living?”
“They run some kind of production company. Film, I guess.”
“Show business money?”
Gray said, “I guess so.”
Gray saw Widow shutting his door, and she said, “Widow?”
“Yeah?”
“Forgetting something?”
“What?”
She gave him a sideways look again, and she put her hands on her hips.
“Your coat?”
Widow looked down into the backseat and saw his sports coat draped across the seat.
“Do I have to wear that?”
“Widow! Yes! You have to wear it!”
He shrugged, closed the passenger door, sidestepped to the rear door, opened it, and scooped up the coat. He put it on. Like the other items she had picked out for him, it was snug.
He closed the car door and joined her, and they walked up the drive to a stone walk that led through the greenhouse up to the front door. Gray hit the doorbell, and a loud noise was heard throughout the house.
Gray looked at Widow.
“I should’ve gone into movies.”
“You could be a movie star.”
“You think so?”
“I’d stare at you for two hours,” he said.
She smiled, blushed a little, but resumed her tough exterior the moment the huge front door swung open.
They were greeted by an elegant woman in her late fifties or early sixties, but she looked much younger. The only reason Widow knew her age was from the math of Henry Cho being dead since he was in his late twenties, and that was twenty years earlier. She was short and Asian. She greeted them with a big smile made of porcelain veneers.
“Welcome. You must be Officer Gray?” the woman asked, and she put a hand out to Gr
ay to shake it.
Gray took it and shook it.
“It’s Agent Gray, ma’am.”
“Of course. My apologies,” she said, and she turned to Widow next. “And you are?”
Widow took up her hand and shook it gently.
“Jack Widow, ma’am.”
“Nice to meet you both. My name is Jessica Cho. Come in.”
They followed her into the house. She closed the door after them and led them into the first floor that opened up to huge windows in the back. The view from back there was as good as the one in the front. Plus, there was an infinity pool.
Jessica Cho led them to the main room and then turned to the edge of the kitchen. A short Asian man stood in the kitchen near a bar that sat six people.
He came forward and introduced himself as Henry’s father, Jim Cho.
“Have a seat,” Jim Cho said. He pointed at the seats at the bar.
Gray and Widow both huddled together at one end, and Jessica sat on the other side of Gray. Jim Cho circled around the bar and stood on the other side like a bartender.
Just then, Widow saw a woman about forty years old dressed in casual clothes. She was also Asian and also short. She entered from the hallway and went into the kitchen.
Jim Cho spoke to her in a foreign language that Widow recognized as Korean, but he had no clue what was being said. The woman seemed to hop to work as if he had given her an order. She went to a cabinet and pulled out a kettle and started to boil water in it over a gas stove.
Jim Cho said, “This is Chang, our housekeeper. She’s going to make us all some tea.”
Of course, Widow’s first thought was to ask for coffee, but then he remembered they were there about the Chos’ dead son. Best to just take what they offered and forget about coffee.
After several minutes, introductions had been made. Expectations had been placed. And the tea was served in front of them. It was black tea, at least, so Widow sipped it and enjoyed it.
After small talk had passed, Gray said, “We’re both very sorry about your son. The NCIS is greatly sorry.”