The Widow File

by S. G. Redling

  He’d gone through her closets. She knew this because just this morning when she’d slammed the door shut, she’d heard the ugly knit shawl slide from its hanger. Her aunt had knit her that shawl. (Poncho? Wrap? She didn’t even know what to call it.) Aunt Penny had been one of the few relatives who had been truly kind to her and Dani didn’t have the heart to throw it away. She kept it on a plastic hanger at the edge of her closet where it continually slid to the ground. Before Dani had opened the closet on this trip, she’d seen a clump of fringe peeking out under the door. She’d picked that shawl up enough times to know it always puddled against the door, never slipped under it. Someone had opened the closet door and the shawl had spilled forward. Not just someone—Tom.

  She took care not to rustle the clothes. She pulled a heavy black shirt out and slipped the hanger onto the shelf overhead. She had to assume Tom was a man of details and she didn’t want to give him any sign that she’d been here. Her phone beeped again.

  “HE’S GONE. GET OUT.”

  All caps. That couldn’t be good.

  Dani shoved the shirt into the bag on top of the binoculars and all-purpose tool she’d gotten from the box. She’d grabbed a few other items as well, not certain any of them would be useful but she figured nobody ever regretted having duct tape. With a quick check to make sure she hadn’t disturbed anything, Dani let herself out of the apartment, opting to slip down the stairs rather than take a chance in the elevator.

  The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees, the dampness of the low-lying city raw against her skin. People huddled together as they passed her, the neighborhood still busy for a cold Saturday night. Dani wrapped Choo-Choo’s blue flannel shirt around her more tightly. She’d added a few layers in her apartment as well as grabbing a set of gloves, a knit cap, and another scarf. Her now overstuffed bags banged against her hip and the smell of Thai food had awakened her hunger. She hoped the inn had room service.

  Choo-Choo texted again that he had finally found a cab and would meet her at the bar. The need to see him throbbed in her. Dark, cold, alone, scared—those words banged around her head as she hurried down the dark sidewalk, watching every passing face for signs of danger or recognition. The cold combined with nervous exhaustion to make her face feel numb, her eyelids heavy and dry.

  She almost missed him.

  On the last block, she spied the elegant awning of the inn and knowing she’d be back with her only ally, she could feel the energy surge through her legs, wanting to hurry her those last few yards. She stopped watching the faces around her, she stopped thinking about anything other than putting her bags down and warming up every inch of body. Night, cold, dark, and fear had turned her into a burrowing animal seeking only a warm nest to hide in.

  If he hadn’t stopped at the streetlight to glance up at the facade of the inn, she would have walked right past him. She really didn’t even know how she recognized him. True, he stood out from the rest of the people on the sidewalk since he stood in just his shirtsleeves, seemingly unaffected by the damp night. But the photo Joey had taken of him had been at an angle, showing three quarters of a tense face. Under the streetlight, though, hands stuffed easily into his pockets, white shirtsleeves rolled back to reveal muscular forearms, his shoulders looked relaxed, and his profile was almost a smile. Her first reaction was recognition, a sudden irresistible “Hey!” the human brain shouted at familiarity. That he had chosen that moment to be looking anywhere but in her direction, Dani knew, was the only reason she managed to not give herself away.

  He knew where she was. He’d found her hiding place.

  He turned back to the sidewalk when she was less than half a block away. She’d gotten a grip on the freeze/jerk/halt motion that had kicked through her muscles, had a half-second argument with herself about running away, and managed to resume what she hoped was a normal gait. Feeling exposed and obvious, she racked her brain trying to remember what her eyes normally did when she walked, how she normally held her hands and her shoulders when she wasn’t strolling past the man who had murdered her coworkers and was now targeting her.

  Would he pull a gun? Would he shoot her right there on the sidewalk? Or would he drag her into an alley and slit her throat? His arms looked strong, the white fabric taut against a long line of muscles in his shoulder. He could strangle her. He looked like a strangler. Where were her hands? He was looking at her. Should she look away? Would she look away if she didn’t know who he was?

  The struggle to appear normal made each step feel like a hulking lurch and she felt as if her eyes would fly out of her head if she didn’t blink. If he’d found her here, he could find her anywhere.

  She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek as she moved to within a dozen feet of him. When she cleared the outer ring of light from the streetlight, she looked up just in time to see that flicker, that minute widening of his expression that told her he recognized her. As she had when hiding blind in the beanbag in her office earlier that day, Dani used every ounce of self-control to resist screaming and flailing, anything to end the suspense.

  He held eye contact with her, his expression warm and expectant. If it had been any other situation, Dani would almost think he was flirting with her. Or getting ready to approach her to pitch his lord and savior. D.C. afforded plenty of practice dodging pitches of every stripe and Dani clung to her small advantage. He didn’t know she knew what he looked like. He had missed her moment of recognition. He thought he was observing her unseen.

  When they were close enough that they either had to speak or avert their eyes in the urban fashion, Dani wondered if she could do either. He made the decision for her.

  “Hi.” He tipped his head back with a nod and smile. Dani felt her neck creak in tension when she nodded back. “Cold night.”

  “Yeah,” she managed to breathe out. She slowed her pace but kept walking to the inn’s steps. She couldn’t stop the words. “Where’s your coat?”

  He looked down at his arms as if just realizing his arms were bare. “I don’t get cold.”

  “Really?” She wanted to continue with a spit-screamed rant along the lines of “Because you’re a slice of hell off of Satan’s ass, you crazy son of a bitch!” But she managed to keep it to “I do. I’m cold.”

  He nodded at that and flashed her a big smile. He had beautiful eyes, one part of her brain mentioned, while another part wondered if they’d be the last thing she’d ever see. She forced herself to turn her back on him to head inside. When he spoke again, she half expected to see a bullet tear through the front of her shirt.

  “Excuse me.” He took a step toward her as she looked over her shoulder. “Do you know if there are any good Thai restaurants around here? Somewhere I could walk to?”

  That did it. That settled the stone that had been rolling jagged and rough over her nerves. Just as she had known when she’d realized she hadn’t reached 911, that certainty of “enemy” settled over her. She’d seen the Thai container open in the kitchen. She’d smelled it all over her apartment. Cold, hungry, and scared, she’d smelled Thai food, her Thai food, number thirty-three that he had helped himself to. He knew who she was, he knew what he planned to do to her, and what he had done to her friends, and he had the nerve to ask her about Thai food.

  “There are a bunch of different places. Head up Mass Ave toward Dupont Circle. From there go north.” She nodded her head in the direction from which she’d come. Maybe it was suicide but she wanted to see how far he would take this.

  He took it farther. “Yeah, there are a lot of restaurants up there. Any you recommend?”

  “Oh yeah.” She peeled her lips back in what she hoped looked like a smile. He was testing her, smug fucker. “Big Wong’s. They have the best crispy noodles.”

  He grinned at her and Dani decided that given the chance, she would shoot him in the face. “Big Wong’s? Thanks for the tip. You better get inside. It’s cold. Have a good night.”

  “You too. Enjoy your dinner.”

>   Given a chance, she was definitely going to shoot him in the face.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It was definitely time to retire.

  Booker kept his hands in his pockets as he hurried down the sidewalk, trying to keep his grin under control. He probably looked like a crazy person but he couldn’t help it. This had to be a sign that he should retire.

  It was nothing new to find the target more interesting than the client. That was the case more often than not simply because the target required more attention than the client. As long as the client could type in the bank transfer or hand over the cash, that was as interesting as they got. Targets had to be studied and understood, even boring targets.

  But Dani Britton?

  She was something altogether different. In her situation, not knowing him from the man in the moon, to stop and smile and talk about restaurants? Unbelievable. Booker had killed nice people before. He harbored no illusions that he only exterminated people that needed killing. There were more than a few occasions when he actually thought the deaths were a shame. It didn’t keep him from killing them but he did take a moment to acknowledge the loss to humanity as a whole. And to be honest, he wasn’t that big a fan of truly “nice” people, if such a thing really existed. In his experience, nice often worked as a blanket phrase for people too cowardly to stand up for what they wanted or too boring to know any better.

  But Dani Britton?

  She’d snuck out of Rasmund right under Duncan’s nose. Right under his nose. She’d had the presence of mind to lie to him on the phone about that hidden room. That was clever. And resourceful. And brave.

  Why couldn’t clients ever be that interesting? He answered himself: because clever, resourceful people didn’t usually need their messes cleaned up with his particular skill set. Ergo his increasing frustration with his career.

  Booker indulged himself with a moment’s fantasy of turning the job upside down, of blowing off the client and finding a way to whisk Dani away from it all. He let himself imagine her tiny feet under the covers with his, snuggling up and enjoying some real Thai food, maybe even in Thailand. It was ridiculous, of course. He was going to kill her because that’s what he got paid to do. Plus, if he really peeled back the layers and looked at the truth of the matter, the fact that she had eluded him thus far irritated his ego. It might be temporarily fluffing his libido but in the long run that irritation would win out.

  Still, the job had enough dead hours and dark spots; he couldn’t think of a thing wrong with taking time to enjoy a fleeting sweetness.

  He knew where Dani was—God, she looked adorable bundled up in that big blue shirt—and he would bet his life she had no plans to go out again this evening. He’d seen her bed. Dani Britton was a woman who enjoyed her comfort. Everything about her was low to the ground and he could just picture her cuddling up in a fluffy hotel bed, telling herself that tomorrow was another day. She’d praise herself on surviving thus far and promise herself that tomorrow she’d find a way to survive. Booker almost wished he could drop off her pajamas to her so she’d sleep well.

  He had work to do, however. He had to head back to his hotel, where his gear waited for him. He had to look back on his notes on Marcher to see if he could find any trace of the materials the client thought missing.

  What a mess this job was. How many times had he asked the client to be sure the job on Marcher was ready for him? How many times had he offered to break into the lab or his house, to be on-site with communication, and retrieve whatever it was they needed before he took the final step? Booker didn’t mind being thorough. He charged a lot of money for his expertise and took pride in being a problem solver.

  At the first meeting to set up the Marcher job, that little rat-face R had mentioned something about his widow. It took Booker all of seven minutes to discover that the scientist wasn’t married, had never been married. Did anyone respond when he’d passed that information back to the client? They sure did. They let that kid send Booker the abrupt message “Do your job.” So he did. And now it seemed like he had to do it again. And backtrack. Booker hated backtracking.

  He was just irritable tonight. The thrill of being face-to-face with Dani had diminished, dropping him down into a deep funk. He made a decision. He would go back to his hotel, get his things, and return to Dani’s apartment. He’d reheat the remaining takeout, climb into Dani’s bed, and do his work there. The thought of that cozy little nest made him smile, taking the edge off the darkest part of his mood.

  Dani lurched through the lobby of the inn, her feet remembering the way to the bar since her brain could do nothing but focus all its energy on keeping her mouth from letting out a primal howl of rage and fear. She wanted to lie down on the carpet, maybe crawl under one of those antique couches, and never ever come out again. She felt like she had looked into the face of the devil himself.

  He had found her. Maybe it was suicide to confirm her location for him like that, but what could she do? He knew about her apartment. He knew about the hotel. Maybe he knew about Choo-Choo too. Maybe he was dragging this out for some sadistic reason she could never understand. Maybe. But the whole situation had come down to shades of awful—it felt less awful to be inside than to be outside. It felt less awful to be by Choo-Choo’s side than to be alone.

  She managed to get herself onto a bar stool, her bags piled high enough on her lap to almost block her face, and get a beer. She needed something to eat. She could probably use a cup of coffee to take the chill off but the word “beer” was out of her mouth before she could stop it. The idea of putting together sentences fit for polite company was beyond her ability at this moment. Instead, she buried her chin on the heap in her lap, her feet swinging free below the stool. She could sleep like this, she thought. She would sleep like this if she wasn’t certain she would wake up screaming at any moment.

  When Choo-Choo tapped on her shoulder, she started. It turned out she could sleep in the chair without screaming, at least for a few minutes. He climbed onto the seat beside her and motioned for the check. A quick scribble and he once again led her to their room. Either he thought anything he had to tell her was too confidential to risk saying at the bar or, more likely, he could see the circles of fatigue and strain below her eyes and acted with compassion. In either case, Choo-Choo didn’t say a word until he had gotten her back on the settee, boots off, feet up.

  He dropped a bag on the table and started pulling out groceries. “I seem to recall you telling me one day as we sat in the sun behind Rasmund that your father used to make you bologna sandwiches on white bread with yellow mustard and nacho cheese Doritos. Am I remembering this correctly?” He lined the ingredients up, not checking to see her answer. “And I’m ninety percent certain you said he would let you wash it all down with root beer. Or was it Dr Pepper? Damn it, I got root beer but now I’m doubting myself.”

  “It was either. I like them both.” Her voice cracked seeing the humble buffet her friend laid out for her. “Man, I must have bored you to death with those details. How many times did I tell you this? That you’d remember all this?”

  “Hmmm.” Choo-Choo studied the ceiling, appearing deep in thought. “I think it was exactly… once.”

  “And you remembered?”

  “Of course I remembered.” He squirted mustard out on a slice of bread. “A: listening is what I do. B: You’re my friend. And C: it’s not like you used to bury us in personal information. I think I know four details about you. Three of them are what you put on your sandwich.”

  “There just hasn’t been that much to say. I’m kind of boring.” She stopped him before he put the second slice of bread on top of the lunch meat. “The Doritos go on the sandwich. Between the bologna and the bread.”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t look so grossed out. It’s delicious.” She laughed and reached forward to smash the chips between the meat and the soft white bread. It sounded just the way she remembered. The sour tangy smell rushed up at her, dragging u
p the feel of memories without the memories themselves. The too-sweet vanilla smell of the root beer bubbles would have brought tears to her eyes if she’d had any left. Instead, trembling took the place of crying or laughing or raging, her nerves too jagged to settle on just one emotion. She didn’t know if she’d be able to swallow the crunchy mustardy mess of a meal but she would certainly give it a try.

  Choo-Choo watched her eat. He watched her eyes and the grind of her jaws; he watched her fingers tremble as they reached for the root beer. “He looks like a pro.”

  “I know.”

  “I mean in person. The way he scanned the bar, the way his eyes took in the crowd. He’s definitely a pro.”

  “I know. I saw him too. Out in front.” She fumbled through a disjointed account of the interlude. “He smiled at me, like a real smile. And he asked me about a good restaurant.”

  “Jesus, Dani, you didn’t think to lead with that?” He sat up straight. “I’d have gotten you a sandwich to go, you know?”

  “He’s not coming here. Not tonight.”

  Choo-Choo looked like he might drag her out of the room by force. “And you know this how, exactly? Like you know you can trust him to tell you the truth?”

  She nodded. When he took a breath to start in on her again, she shook her head. “He found us here. Nobody knows we’re here but he found us here. He was in my apartment. He was in Rasmund. He’s probably in my fucking car right now. But he says he’s going to find out what the people behind this want and I believe him. You know why? Because I don’t have any other choice. Apparently I can be gotten to anywhere. I don’t know shit about shit and I have nowhere else to go. You know what I do have?”