The Widow File

by S. G. Redling

  He seemed heartened by this. “That’s true. You’re right.”

  “I mean, I don’t actually know anyone any higher than Mrs. O’Donnell but—”

  “Okay,” he said to himself and turned both phones off.

  “Okay what? What are you doing?”

  “We need a burner. A couple of them.”

  Dani nearly missed their exit and had to talk over the blare of horns behind them. “‘Burner’? Why? Like camping stoves?”

  Choo-Choo sighed. It seemed his nerves had been restored enough to reclaim his feline attitude of casual disdain. “Phones. Burner phones. We need to keep these off unless absolutely necessary.”

  “They can track us with them, can’t they? Can you turn off the GPS?”

  “Yeah, I did but that’s not…” He tapped the phones together, chewing his lip as he did when he was working on an especially difficult gig. Dani could feel her shoulders relaxing, knowing her friend was getting his act together. Choo-Choo liked to play the spoiled pretty boy but he hadn’t gotten the job at Rasmund because of his looks.

  “It’s not what?”

  Choo-Choo pointed his phone at her. “They may not know we’re both alive.”

  “Well they know I’m alive. I called them to let them know.” She resisted the urge to punch herself for that. She followed the thought through to the next logical conclusion and her throat tightened in fear. “Are you going to go? Do you want to go? They don’t know you’re alive. You could just… I mean, you don’t have to…”

  “What? No.” Choo-Choo managed to look simultaneously heartbroken, horrified, and offended. He grabbed for her hand and pried it off the steering wheel. “I’m not leaving you, Dani. That may be the advantage we’ve been looking for. They don’t know I’m alive.”

  “You could go to the cops. You could tell them the truth, tell them I didn’t do it.”

  “I wish I could, Dani, but these people, whoever they are, just broke into a secure facility and wiped everyone out. They knew who you were and had your picture and phone number. Something tells me they’ve got more than one contingency plan.” He tossed the phones into the cup holders between the seats. “No, we have to work our advantage right now.”

  “Our advantage?” Dani said. “Everyone’s dead, we just jumped off a roof, and we’re running for our lives and can’t tell anyone because they’ve kidnapped our boss and are going to pin it all on me.”

  “We have several advantages actually.” Choo-Choo ticked them off on his elegant fingers. “They don’t know I’m alive or that you have anyone to work with. They can’t track us if we stay hidden. And despite all their stealth and finesse, they have terrible timing.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  He smiled. “Because they broke in before I had a chance to cut the Stringers.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  “It’s outstanding. The Stringers are very dangerous people and it’s good to have them on our side. I can’t imagine they’re going to be happy when they hear about this.”

  “How do we know that they haven’t been, you know, gotten to yet?”

  Choo-Choo snapped a look at her that made her jump. His tone sounded offended. “The Stringers? Nobody gets to the Stringers.”

  “Oh, I don’t really know them. To tell you the truth, the idea of them kind of scares the hell out of me. What is it they do, anyway? I mean, are they like hit men? Does Rasmund use hit men?” Choo-Choo only shrugged. “How do we reach them?”

  A flash of tooth appeared as he began to gnaw on his lip once more. “I’m not exactly sure.” He shouted down her sound of disbelief. “I mean, I can reach them. I’m the one that sends the signals. But I don’t exactly know how to meet up with them. They only go face-to-face with the Faces, and even then only in an emergency.”

  “So you wouldn’t know one of them if, say, they were pointing a gun at you?”

  “Why would they point a gun at me?”

  Dani shrugged. “Seems the thing to do today.” She made the turn, heading for Key Bridge back into the district. “Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but why did we have Stringers on this job?”

  “Standard.”

  “For investigating a group like Swan? Swan seems so, I don’t know, groovy? Peaceful? I mean, they make recycling bins and solar panels.”

  “They also make body armor and portable military structures. They’re paranoid as hell and they hired us because they were afraid someone was going after their new research. If it’s high enough risk to hire us, it’s high enough risk to need Stringers. Jobs like this sometimes require a little more than Face charm. Just ask Dr. Marcher.”

  “Marcher?” Dani almost rear-ended a car stopped in front of her. Her eyes were wide as she tried to put together a sentence. “You don’t think… it wasn’t… how Marcher died… we didn’t, I mean, Stringers didn’t… that’s not what… right?”

  “Do I think the Stringers took out our own client? No.” When Dani relaxed, he went on. “But I don’t think it’s outside of their job description, if you know what I mean. It’s not like we keep files on that sort of thing. The Stringers are an entity unto themselves. An entity with guns. It wouldn’t suck to have them on our side.” Choo-Choo pointed to a shopping plaza off the highway. “Pull off here. I’m going to get us some phones.”

  Dani watched Choo-Choo jog across the parking lot. He was the only man she had ever met who could make faded jeans and a blue flannel shirt look like fashion. When he disappeared inside the Rite Aid, anxiety shot through her. She was alone. He was only a couple of yards away but now, with the silence of the car and time alone, her panic roared up at her. Everyone was dead. Really dead. Not dead like on a videotape or dead like on a news story.

  She turned the rearview mirror to stare at herself. Those eyes. Those were the same shocky eyes she’d seen on surveillance videos and news reports, recorded during witness statements and interviews. She was now one of those people. She was a survivor of violence.

  So far.

  She spotted Choo-Choo coming out of the drugstore with a bag swinging from his arm but instead of heading for the car, he hurried a few doors down to RadioShack.

  “Surely to God,” she said to nobody, “you’re not bargain hunting.”

  Dani was considering beeping the horn to hurry him up when he came back out and headed to yet another store down the plaza, but couldn’t bring herself to risk the attention. Choo-Choo had a plan and she trusted him. If he thought this was the time for a spree, who was she to stop him? Getting to the car without being shot had been the extent of her strategy. It was all improv from this point on.

  They needed money. She had money. She had cash and her passport stashed in the cubby beneath her bed. As her father had taught her, she kept little caches all through her apartment and even one in her car that she had completely forgotten about. Popping the trunk, Dani hurried around to the back of the car. Pulling back the fabric floor mat, she pulled up a little nylon bag tucked inside the spare tire. When they had started dating, Ben had teased her about her tendency to squirrel things away. He had no idea how pervasive that tendency was.

  Her dad, a long-haul trucker, had instilled this lesson in her. Cash is king, he would say, and a handful of kings can get you out of an awful lot of trouble. Inside the bag she found a change of clothes, some protein bars, and a tightly wrapped bundle of tens and twenties, six hundred dollars if memory served her. Her dad had also driven home the point that, fair or not, it was more dangerous for a woman than a man alone on the highway. That’s why she kept a tire iron in the pocket of her car door and a small air horn under the seat. She could see her dad winking at her. Make a lot of trouble and make a lot of noise, Dani-girl. Make ’em wish they hadn’t messed with you.

  But they had messed with her and all the tire irons in the world couldn’t keep her safe now. Still, she had cash and she had Choo-Choo. She had her car and for the moment she had some level of invisibility from whomever was chasing
them. They could get back into the city, find a place to hide, and maybe Choo-Choo could contact the Stringers. Maybe the Stringers could get them out of this, get to the FBI. Anything was better than just sitting there, frightened and waiting to be caught.

  As if he’d heard her thoughts, Choo-Choo came loping across the parking lot, the lowering sun catching the blond of his glossy hair and, just for a minute, he looked like an ad for some hip high-end clothing line. She slammed the trunk shut and leaned against it, taking one minute out of the panic to enjoy the sight. Choo-Choo swung the collection of bags from his long fingers and when he got to the car, he leaned against it rather than climbing in. Dani was just about to make a crack about lingerie modeling when Choo-Choo bent in two and vomited between his feet.

  “Oh my God, are you okay?” Dani came around to his side of the car but stopped outside the puddle spattered in front of him.

  Choo-Choo spit once and then again, holding up his hand to stop her from coming any closer. He didn’t have to worry. Dani had always been a sympathetic vomiter and just the idea of it made her mouth sweat in that telltale fashion. Choo-Choo straightened up with a long sigh, brushed his hair back from his sweaty face, and opened his car door.

  “We never speak of this.” He slid into his seat and slammed the door behind him. Dani climbed in her side, not turning to face her pale friend.

  “You’re not going to do that again, are you?”

  “That should be all of it.” He wiped his hands on his knees, his fingers trembling. “I’m sorry you had to see that. It’s a fear reaction.”

  “Understood.” She pulled back onto the highway. “There are mints in my purse.”

  They drove in silence until Key Bridge. “Where should we go?”

  “Thank you.”

  Dani looked over at Choo-Choo who had regained some color. “For what?”

  “For not laughing at me for blowing it back there. For not letting me stay on that roof.”

  “You’re kidding, right? I’m not entirely sure I haven’t peed myself yet.”

  “Yeah, but you,” he looked her over like he was memorizing her. “You don’t panic. You don’t cry and you’re so smart. I don’t know if people realize just how smart you are. If you realize it.”

  “Please.” She had to look away to keep her eye on traffic. “I’ve panicked so many times today I’ve run out of sweat.”

  “I’m really glad you’re with me.”

  She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Me too. We’re going to get out of this.” He nodded and looked back out the windshield. “We need to find someplace to go, someplace safe where we can stop and think and make a plan.”

  “Turn up M Street. Head to Dupont Circle.”

  She made the right into the Saturday afternoon traffic. “You know a place?”

  “A little hideaway. It’s an inn. They know me there.”

  “They know you at an inn?”

  He arched an eyebrow at her. “Don’t ask.”

  “Shouldn’t we stay away from places where people know us?” The familiar streets of her usual drive home from work reignited the fear in her, reminding her just how far from normal her life was at the moment. “I mean, if someone is looking for us, if we can’t even use our phones because they’re tracking them, do we really want to use a credit card to check into a hotel where they know you?”

  “Trust me. They’re known for their discretion. And I don’t need a credit card.”

  She barely made the light onto New Hampshire Avenue. “You’re going to have to do better than that. You haven’t even told me what’s in all those bags you’ve got. If you have a plan, you need to let me in on it because my reservoir of freak-out prevention is running a little dry right now.”

  “I bought phones. Burner phones. Seven of them.” He pointed for her to make a turn. “I went to more than one store because, believe it or not, people get a little twitchy when anyone starts buying a bunch of disposable phones. It’s kind of a red flag for either drug dealers or terrorists and I didn’t need some patriotic clerk slash Gomer Pyle wannabe calling Homeland Security to report suspicious activity.”

  He caught her side-eye and shook his head. “And don’t tell me I don’t fit the profile. Blond hair and blue eyes do not an innocent man make. We know Rasmund has already exploded. Police and rescue workers are going to be on-site and every news outlet is going to be covering it. They’re going to whip up a public frenzy and encourage people to scour the area for suspicious activity.”

  Dani had to force herself to loosen her grip on the steering wheel. “Jesus, Choo-Choo, this is really helping me calm down.”

  “I’m just telling you how it is, Dani. You read data, I listen to broadcasts. I listen to scanners and phone calls and radio transmissions. The first twelve hours after an incident are the most active for phone-in tips from concerned citizens. Especially around the Beltway and especially if it involves explosives. Remember when that gas station caught fire in Clarendon last year?” She nodded. “We monitored the state police line for twenty-four hours. They logged in sixty percent more phone calls in that period than they had the entire month. All from helpful citizens who thought they had information.”

  “You monitor police lines?”

  “Of course,” he said. “My point is that that gas station blew up because of a faulty electrical system. No foul play. What do you think is going to happen when rescue workers find the bodies inside the building? It’s not going to take long for them to realize what really happened. We need to be as low-key as possible.”

  She couldn’t agree more. “So why are we going to a hotel—excuse me, an inn—where they know you?”

  “Because they know me. I sort of have a tab there.”

  She pulled up to the curb before an artfully landscaped gray brick building that she’d seen on dozens of tourist brochures. “The Milum Inn? You have a tab at the Milum Inn? I didn’t know mere mortals were even allowed to stay here. I thought they hired actors and models to be window dressing to make the rest of us look bad.” He shrugged again. “I don’t want to know this story, do I?”

  He sighed as he opened the door. “Probably not.”

  She grabbed her bags as the valet hurried to the car. “Probably not.”

  The interior of the lobby lived up to the inn’s exterior promise—understated, elegant, and with just enough quirk that Choo-Choo fit in like the room had been designed around him. He sauntered—Dani could call that walk nothing but a saunter—to the desk, where the young woman behind the counter smiled and blushed when she recognized him.

  “Hello again, sir,” she said, and Dani would swear she fought back a giggle.

  Choo-Choo leaned forward, looking at her through his lashes. “Please, what is it going to take for you to call me Sinclair?”

  The giggle she suppressed wiggled through her body as she forced her eyes and her fingers to focus on the keyboard before her. “Probably my job, sir.” After a few keystrokes, she looked back up, biting her lip. “I don’t see anything.”

  Choo-Choo leaned against the counter as if exhausted by her announcement. “I’m early. You know me. What am I going to do on a Saturday afternoon?” He smirked at her. “Watch football?”

  The giggle would be held back no longer and the blush on her cheeks looked warm enough to be uncomfortable. Looking around her as if afraid of being caught, the young woman winked back and began typing. After a few minutes, she reached under the counter and withdrew a plastic key card. She slipped it into an envelope and slid it across the counter.

  “The usual?”

  “Mm-hmm,” she said. “But it’s being cleaned right now. Can you give me an hour?”

  Choo-Choo made a comical sound of outrage. “How dare someone use my room?”

  The clerk laughed. “Would you like to speak to the manager?”

  “I certainly would,” he purred, draping himself on his elbows over the counter. “But only if she agrees to do it in my room over martinis.”
>
  She laughed again and pushed back from the keyboard as if to physically break Choo-Choo’s hold over her. “You’re a very bad man, Sinclair.”

  “I know. That’s why everyone pretends they don’t know me.” He tapped the card on the counter before slipping it into his pocket. “We’ll be in the bar. And you never saw me.”

  “I never do,” she said with a sigh. She looked up as Choo-Choo turned, her eyes widening at the sight of Dani. Apparently, short girls in jeans and corduroy jackets weren’t the client’s usual company. Dani gave the woman a jaunty wave.

  She followed her friend into the cool dark expanse of the bar, climbing onto a wrought-iron stool beside him. The bartender placed two napkins before them.

  “Good afternoon, sir.”

  “Good afternoon.” Choo-Choo spun the napkin around, looking at Dani rather than the waiting man. “A kir royale.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Dani watched as the man set about making drinks. “He didn’t seem to know you.”

  “He’s the bartender. It’s his job not to know anyone. Just their drinks.”

  “He didn’t know yours.”

  “What?” Choo-Choo looked at her as if she’d just spit. “Of course he does. The kir royale is for you.”

  “I don’t even know what that is. And how can you think about a drink?” She lowered her voice when he arched his eyebrow at her. “We have to make a plan. And isn’t your stomach kind of, you know, not ready for alcohol?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. A dirty martini is exactly what I need. Alcohol to settle my nerves, something slightly bitter as a digestive, and the olives will help me retain fluid so I don’t become dehydrated. As for the kir royale, well,” he looked her over, focusing on her swinging feet that didn’t touch the chair rail. “That’s just an educated guess. You don’t strike me as a drinker.”