by Scott Blade
“Nope. Just that it’s all we’ll find out here. Bunch of empty farmland.”
“Empty?”
“Lots of the farms here got hit back in the recession. They were hit as about as hard as anyone else. Spartan County used to be a thriving agricultural region.”
“What’s the population look like now?”
Shep shrugged.
“Less than it was.”
Adonis said, “They’re here. I can feel it. Abel’s smart—crazy, but smart. After he shot Brant, he would’ve known we’d find out, and throw up roadblocks. He's probably holed up here. Somewhere. An impromptu act, but he’s military. He knows how to change course on the fly. I bet he thinks he can outlast us. Outsmart us, too. Thinks we’ll have to give up eventually.”
“You talk about him like he’s some kind of military genius.”
“He’s smart and tactical. Look what he did to us. It’s a mistake to overlook that.”
“He shot my guy. Think that was smart?”
“I think that was bad luck. He probably didn’t expect to run into any cops. These roads are too vast to cover with a posted cop at each one. The odds of running into your friend like that were small. Plus, he’s crazy too. Don’t forget that.”
Shep stared at her.
“He’s sadistic.”
“I don’t deny that. Which is why we gotta find him. Put him down.”
Shep asked, “Do you think Brant was bad luck?”
She shrugged.
“Don’t be sensitive on me now. Look at it like a cop and not a pissed-off friend. At least until we catch him.”
Shep tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, looked out ahead like Brant’s ghost stood there, staring at him.
“Why do you think he would take refuge here? Wouldn’t they be better off plowing ahead?”
“The roadblocks. Maybe they thought about it after they shot Brant. But then he thought we’d find Brant’s body. They knew it would ratchet up the heat. Abel must’ve figured the roadblocks. Maybe he thought we’d set them up across several states.”
“They are set up across states. At least, North Carolina has them set up on their side. Fifty miles into the state, I think.”
Adonis pushed back from the edge of the car. She stood straight and nodded.
“See, killing a cop in South Carolina isn’t just going to piss off South Carolina cops. Killing a cop pisses off all cops universally.”
“Okay. But, we didn’t know Brant was dead for thirty minutes. It took you close to two hours to get here.”
“Yeah, but you guys ordered the roadblocks the second you found Brant, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Abel doesn’t know it took that long. He’s smart but crazy. Remember? He probably shot Brant, they drove on for a mile and then he thought about the dashcam. Or one of his guys brought it up. Or maybe he got scared after seeing Brant. Maybe he figured his escape route was compromised. Maybe he didn’t realize it was just bad luck. I don’t know.”
“Maybe. Or maybe they memorized the escape route and plowed through at high speeds until they broke through the perimeter before we put up the roadblocks.”
“I don’t think so. We can’t think that way. He’s still here, I’m telling you. I think they’re holed up somewhere.”
They were both quiet for a long beat until a thought occurred to Shep.
He said, “Or they swapped vehicles.”
“I don’t think so. Why would they have an extra one stashed this close to Carbine?”
“Stashed vehicles are commonplace for Special Forces operators like a bug-out bag to a spy. Or maybe they didn’t use a stashed vehicle. Maybe they hijacked one.”
Adonis looked at him. She hadn’t thought of that. He saw it on her face. She raised an eyebrow and looked at him.
“Let’s hope that hasn’t happened yet.”
“We need to find them before they have the opportunity. I know they’re here. I know they’re here.”
She hoped he was wrong. She hoped Abel hadn’t had a chance to do that. Too many people died today because of her mistakes. She couldn’t stop now. She had to find Abel. It was more than her feelings for Dorsch. She had to avenge him. She had to avenge all of them.
Adonis looked at her wrist, where her Timex used to be. It was still gone, which she knew, but she looked anyway. She frowned at the empty spot on her wrist.
She said, “Abel’s a terrorist, a lunatic. He’s a career army general, Special Forces—yes. But, he’s not some kind of messiah. He’s just a man. He’s a well-prepared man, but a man. Nothing more.”
“Okay, Adonis. Get in. Let’s hunt down this asshole until they shut us down.”
She smiled and waved up at Ramirez.
“Where do we go then?”
“Keep going straight.”
Chapter 26
L ESS THAN TEN MILES to the north, the whole White family was present, together, sharing in family conversations, like a Hallmark greeting card. They were a tightknit clan, no doubt about it.
Before they sat down to eat, the whole family stood up around the table like the knights of Camelot. Joining hands, they said a long prayer, which included a short bit about Widow. They prayed that he would get safely to where he was going and that he found happiness. They sat down after the prayer to eat.
No memories of long-lost family nostalgia struck Widow like they would a normal person because he had never known a family meal like this before. Sure, he had been to other people’s family gatherings in the past. But never his own. He had only known a mother and no other type of family except for the deputies under her command. They had been the closest thing to uncles he had known. Kind of like Dorothy in Kansas and the farm hands, Widow had grown up with a family of unrelated men he thought of as uncles.
A big serving plate of crisp, delicious bacon occupied the table space closest to Widow. Beyond that was another big serving plate that started out filled with scrambled eggs, but at this point, only a third of the eggs remained. One large serving plate was once loaded with sausages, and, now, it was also half empty, a big part Widow’s fault. Next to that was another bowl, overloaded with breakfast rolls. Beyond that was a plate with sliced oranges, as well as a pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice and a pitcher of water.
It was a full-court press. Many of Widow’s favorite breakfast foods were there in attendance.
The only thing missing from the table was a pot of coffee. The coffee was in the kitchen. Widow’s eyeballs kept roaming toward the open kitchen door instinctively, like a heroin addict staring at the place where he hides his stash.
Every few minutes, his nose sniffed the air because of the coffee aroma. It drew him to it like a siren at sea.
The youngest member of the family was a boy, eight years old. He raced his sister to be the first seated and was closest to the serving plate with eggs.
The sister was sixteen and showed no interest in her brother’s racing endeavor.
She was more interested in Widow, at first, as a teenager might be when a strange man sits at her family’s table. Her interest was a combination of curiosity and trying to look cool all at once. That all faded away within the hour as she started to stare at her cell phone, which was strategically placed next to her place setting. Every ten seconds it seemed, she would tap the screen, light up the phone, and check her notifications like she was expecting a life-or-death text message from someone.
This must’ve gone on at the table pretty often because no one else seemed to pay attention to it.
Widow was surprised that Abby would allow for it, but that’s the world today. The younger generations use smartphones like their accessories they’re born with, and the older generations tried their best to avoid them, but now, they are everywhere.
Besides the children and Widow, five other people sat around the table, making eight total. All eating, talking, and enjoying their breakfasts. Seven of the eight were members of the White family. Widow was the odd man out
; only he didn’t feel that way. They made him feel welcomed and comfortable and included, which he appreciated.
The oldest branches of the White family tree, Abe and Abby, had two children, a brother, and sister—Walter and Foster White. Foster was a doctor, as mentioned by Abby several times. She seemed to be trying to pawn Foster off on Widow as a potential wife for him. Both Foster and Widow noticed. And neither mentioned the obvious tactic.
Foster was Walter’s younger sister. She was an attractive woman, Widow thought, but he wasn’t in the market for a wife, obviously. Where would he fit a wife into his life? But there was no reason to tell Abby that.
Foster was the last one to come out to the family room while Widow was in there with the rest of the Whites minus Abby who was still prepping the table.
Foster must’ve just stepped out of a morning shower. She came down the stairs with her hair damp, looking just washed. She wore blue jeans and a white button-down shirt, tucked in. She was clean and smelled of lavender and rosemary that must’ve been from a fifty-dollar bottle of shampoo that promised its wearer that it would make an impression. It was truth in advertising because Widow noticed.
He shook her hand politely, gently. He respectfully called her doctor.
She corrected him instantly with, “Call me, Foster.”
Abby stepped out of the dining room and into the family room and announced breakfast, acting like a member of the queen’s staff.
They all gathered around the table. Widow waited to sit last so he could find the seat meant for guests. People are sometimes finicky about where they sit at their own tables. Humans fall into routines and patterns by nature, which was one of the reasons he loved the open road. Nothing was ever the same. No chance of falling into a stagnant life.
Walter sat next to his wife, Maggie. Their two children, Dylan, and Lauren, the eight and sixteen-year-olds, sat on the other side of them.
At the opposite side, and to Widow’s right, were Abby and Abe. Widow sat at the head of the table on the south end of the dining room. No one matched him at the other head of the table, near the kitchen.
This posed a problem for him in a way because he was the farthest from the kitchen and, therefore, farthest from the coffee pot. The only plus of sitting there was that his back was to the wall, an old habit involving the advantage of keeping his eyes on all possible breaching points in the house in case a band of terrorists invaded, an unlikely event, but better safe than sorry.
He didn’t tell them about the seating angle or his paranoia about bad guys storming their home. He felt stupid for having that fear, but it was based on sixteen years in the Navy and NCIS. Being an undercover cop gave him plenty of paranoia. At this point in his life, it had become normal, like breathing. A healthy amount of paranoia was a good thing. He preferred to think of it as being cautious and staying alive.
Ten minutes into breakfast, Abby saw Widow stirring in his seat, staring into an empty coffee mug. She saw the look of defeat on his face, which reminded her of a documentary she saw once about apes. She recalled seeing a smart gorilla being tested by stacking children’s blocks, all different shapes. The ape painstakingly tried to piece them together into a table with different holes, each corresponding to the shape of the blocks—circle, square, and triangle.
The gorilla had the same look on his face after spending twenty minutes getting the circle wrong that Widow had as he did at their table.
Abby said, “Mr. Widow, do you want more coffee?”
Widow’s turned his face toward her. The smile that stretched across his face was like Dylan’s on Christmas morning when he was finally able to begin the most important part of Christmas, opening presents.
“I’d love more, ma’am. Thank you.”
“You like coffee, huh?”
“It’s the oil of the human body,” he said. Then he thought that blood was more like oil in a car engine than coffee. But why correct his statement?
Widow sat at the White’s dinner table with a full belly. He had eaten two plates of scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage and one breakfast roll and drunk coffee and left a glass of orange juice full and untouched.
Abby had served up a big breakfast for them and not the Christmas dinner that Widow was promised, but the breakfast was such a grand affair that he could picture a stranger walking in from off the street and thinking that the whole scene was an official family Christmas breakfast.
Widow scooted his seat out and started to stand.
Abby smiled, waved a hand for Widow to stay where he was, and got up out of her seat and turned to the kitchen.
Widow said, “I can get it, ma’am.”
“No. That’s okay, Mr. Widow. You stay seated.”
“I feel bad making you get up for it.”
“That’s perfectly okay. You’ve done enough already.”
Widow stayed seated. He wasn’t about to ignore a direct order from her. Abby went into the kitchen. She came back out with the whole coffee pot and walked around the table, circling past her grandkids, and refilled Widow’s cup like a waitress in a diner. He thanked her.
She stepped to one side and leaned on the back of his chair with her free hand so that she could reach around his shoulders, which was hard enough. Instead of refilling his mug and returning the coffee pot to the kitchen, she set the pot down on the table next to the bacon, a tactical decision.
“There, you can help yourself now.”
“Thank you.”
Abe asked, “Won’t that get cold sitting out?”
Widow said, “Don’t worry. I’ll drink it before that happens.”
“You’re gonna drink that whole pot?” Dylan asked.
A grin cracked across Widow’s lips and everyone knew he was serious.
Dylan stared the hardest. With a stranger at his family home, Walter had ordered him to be on his best behavior ahead of time, before they sat at the table. Which he was. But now he saw an opportunity to mess with the stranger, to put some entertainment into his morning.
Dylan finally spoke to Widow instead of just staring at him.
He said, “Mr. Widow.”
The family continued speaking to each other.
“Yeah?” Widow asked.
“You know what a dead fish is?”
“Like a fish that’s dead?”
“No. It’s a handshake.”
“A handshake?”
“Yeah. Anyone ever give you a dead fish?”
Maggie started listening in.
“Mr. Widow doesn’t want to hear about dead fish, son.”
“Awe, mom. He might.”
“It’s ok, ma’am,” Widow said.
Dylan smiled and Maggie went back to eating.
Dylan slid off his chair and walked around to Widow. He held his hand out.
“Here. I’ll show ya,” he said.
“Ok,” Widow said and he put his hand in Dylan’s for a handshake.
Dylan squeezed so Widow could feel the handshake, and then he let his hand go completely limp.
Widow shook it and smiled.
“That’s a dead fish,” Dylan said, taking his hand away.
Walking back to his seat, he continued explaining it.
“I do it to new kids I meet all the time. It freaks them out. It’s funny sometimes.”
Widow nodded and said, “Dead fish, huh.”
“Yeah. You should try it next time you meet someone new.”
Widow said nothing to that. Instead, he followed his instincts which was to stare at the coffee pot. It wasn’t filled to the brim. He had already drunk one cup. Abe drank another. And Walter also drank two himself, but his seemed to be half creamer, making his share only equal to one Widow-sized cup of coffee.
The pot in front of him was big, unlike any he was used to seeing. He always thought they came in a standard size, but this one was a little bigger, a little more bulbous, like an old southern tea pitcher, like a decanter, only it was made from glass instead of ceramics. Judging by the de
pth and size and the amount of hot coffee left, he figured it had enough for him to get three or four more mugs from it.
“Mr. Widow, you okay?” Foster asked.
Widow realized that he was staring at the pot of coffee like a brain-dead, catatonic patient stares at a light bulb.
“Sorry. Yeah. I’m okay. Just enjoying the aroma of coffee.”
He looked up at the table. The whole family stared at him, wide-eyed, as if he showed to breakfast with no clothes on.
“Sorry,” he said again.
“Okay. Leave him alone. The man loves coffee. So, what?” Abby said.
Widow nodded at her.
“It’s a legal drug more powerful than cocaine, they say.”
Foster said, “Just worried for a second.”
“Foster’s a doctor, you know?” Abby asked, putting exorbitant effort into hooking her daughter up with a hitchhiking stranger, which Widow thought was weird.
After watching them interact, after a while, he figured it out. Abby was more trying to nudge Foster into finding her own mate than she was serious about Widow as a potential suitor. She was teasing her daughter, dropping hints as if asking, “Hey, when you going to settle down, Foster?”
Foster’s eyebrows furrowed, a combination of embarrassment and annoyance. She must’ve heard all the jokes and teasing before.
“He knows that, Mom,” she said.
“I just thought I’d mention it.”
Silence for a moment, except for Dylan who moved on with his plans to eat another handful of bacon, and Lauren, his sister, who was making slight noises of angst with her breathing, like quiet sighs. She stared at her phone screen and reacted to whatever was happening on her screen. Seemingly, it was some kind of big drama.
“Lauren, put the phone down,” Maggie White demanded.
“Mom! It’s important!”
“I said, put it away.”
Walter said, “Not at breakfast, Lulu.”
Lauren dropped the phone on the table linen with a THUD! The act itself was an alternate method to backtalk without actually talking back.
She continued to stare down at it even though she was no longer holding it—a loophole in her mom’s choice of words, put the phone down . Technically, she had put it down. But her mom, knowing exactly what her daughter was doing, wasn’t having it.
