Cold Blooded

Chapter Six

Road Trip

“Bring him in, Nick.” Joe beckoned from the counter as Nick poked his head in after holding the door to the Monte Cafe open for Rachel and Jean. He held Deke within sight on his leash. “It’s a slow morning, and a good thing, too, since Nancy’s still out. Where’d you pick up the strays, Hemingway?”

Nick chuckled. “Up North, along the side of the road. This is Rachel Hunter, her daughter Jean, and Deke the dog. I don’t want you to get into trouble for having Deke in here, Joe.”

“Glad to meet you, Rachel, Jean, and of course, Deke.” Joe gestured at the first table by the window. “I’m the owner of this establishment, Joe Montenegro. Now, if you see anybody come in, act like Deke’s your seeing-eye dog, Hemingway.”

“I have my sunglasses right here,” Nick agreed instantly, holding them up. “Two coffees and a hot chocolate, please Sir.”

“Coming right up.” Joe left to get their order.

“Another friend?” Rachel needled Nick.

“Any more out of you, Kimmy, and I’ll have Deke herd you up to the house.”

Deke gave out a short ‘grumphf’ in agreement and on cue.

“Okay, for you, Hemingway,” Rachel retorted as Jean giggled.

After collecting an application from an eager Joe, who offered to hire Rachel on the spot, the four walked up 12^th Street to Nick’s house as sunlight streamed through the dissipating clouds. Nick saw that Rachel kept glancing over her shoulder at the ocean’s colorful transformation under the sun’s rays.

“It’s gorgeous when the sun comes out,” Rachel noted, as they stood on Nick’s porch.

“Yep, it’s nice. We can go up on the balcony. I’m working on my outline for Diego’s next adventure.” Nick disabled the alarm system, propping the screen open, and kneeling down to check over Deke. “You didn’t collect much sand, Deke. I guess we don’t have to give you a bath this time.”

Nick opened the front door. Jean skipped over the stoop and a huge hand grabbed the little girl up. Nanoseconds later Deke clamped onto the wrist with snarling ferocity. Morris cursed, dropping Jean, while pivoting to the right, swinging the attached Deke with him. Rachel scooped up Jean and Nick stomped his booted right foot into Morris’s left Achilles tendon. Morris collapsed, gritting his teeth against the blinding pain while trying to swing his silenced automatic toward Nick. With Deke out of the way, Nick swung his left boot up in a roundhouse kick which smashed into Morris’s face like a jackhammer. Morris’s weapon clattered to the hardwood floor. Morris pitched over on his back, blood gushing from his shattered nose. Nick had the automatic pointed at Morris in the next split second. He kicked the front door closed.

“Take Jean and Deke upstairs, Rachel.” Nick directed, watching Morris roll around in misery.

Rachel carried the stunned Jean upstairs, pausing only to call Deke.

“Go on, Deke. Thanks for the save, mutt.”

Deke gave out a sharp bark and ran after Rachel and Jean.

Nick waited, keeping his distance from Morris. Morris coughed up blood after rolling to his hands and knees. He tested his left leg, falling on his right side with a grunt of pain. Getting back to his hands and knees Morris looked up at Nick sullenly.

“You’ll hav’ to call. The tendon’s busted,” Morris said nasally.

“What the hell are you doing here? Frank and I have a deal.”

“You ain’t got a deal with me. If not for that Goddamn dog, I’d -”

Nick fired two shots into Morris’s right temple and one more into his forehead after tipping the shuddering man onto his back. Nick went into the kitchen and pulled out two black plastic garbage bags and his duct tape. After pulling Morris into a sitting position, Nick covered the head and upper torso with doubled black plastic bags, duct taping them tightly into place. It took Nick twenty minutes longer to clean up the blood spatter. He retrieved the satellite phone and made initial contact. Fifteen minutes later the phone vibrated.

“Clean up on aisle seven.”

“What the hell did you do now?”

“Morris went rogue on you, Frank.”

“Did you have to kill him?”

“That was rhetorical, right?”

“You’ll have to find a way to speed up the flash drive retrieval, Nick. I’m going to have some trouble fixing this without them.”

“I talk to the Marshalls tonight. I’ll try and get them on board with a family trip within the week.”

“The best I can do is two hours for clean up.”

“Call me before they get here. Morris is next to the front door. It’s strange, Frank. If Morris wanted me dead, why didn’t he send a long range postcard? He knew we had a deal; but he tried to get leverage against me like he wanted to barter. You wouldn’t know what he would’ve been bartering for, would you, Frank?”

“You could have asked him.” Frank’s nonchalant tone was not fooling Nick at all.

“He was bleeding all over my hardwood floor. It would’ve been a noisy question and answer session. As you know, I have company.”

“I’ll ask around.” Frank disconnected.

Sure, you’ll ask around. Nick put the phone and weapon up on the hutch inside his dining room. He walked upstairs and knocked on Rachel’s door.

“Come in.”

“We have a problem,” Nick stated, seeing Rachel, Jean, and Deke huddled up on the bed together. There’s an understatement. “I don’t think my insurance is enough. I may have overestimated my value. The man downstairs was trying to get you and Jean. If not for Deke, he would have. I played dumb with my boss, but we need a new plan.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Road trip.”

“All of us in your Chevy? How soon?”

“We have an hour. Any longer and we’ll be cutting it close. I have something a bit more comfortable for us to travel in. Sorry we didn’t get much time to rest up. We’ll call Grace and Tim after we’re on our way. I’ll tell them we had to leave because we spotted trouble. I think we may have to use your nest egg to deal with them, Rachel.”

“You’re screwed, aren’t you?” Rachel wrapped her arms around Jean.

Nick shrugged. “Hey, new choices mean new gambles.” You sell this, you should get into the movies next, killer. “Grace and Tim will not be happy with this decision, especially since they’ll have to stay in the dark until we finish our scavenger hunt.”

“Are…are you going to stay with us, Nick?” Jean asked.

“I’m stuck, Jean. Deke saved my bacon. A life for a life, little one. If your Mom and me manage to find the right owner for your nest egg we might even make it back here soon.” Right after I kill a few people. “Get packing if you want aboard Nick’s Adventure Express. Otherwise, we call Grace and I deliver you three to them right now.”

“I want to stay with Nick.”

“This won’t go away,” Rachel said. “They have the Marshalls under surveillance. They know where we are and apparently the identities of the ones hunting us down may be on those flash drives. Did I miss anything?”

Yeah, how the hell I managed to get myself into this.

“You forgot about my boss getting in the game and deciding a high value asset with very high blackmail potential takes second place to what’s on the flash drives. This goes beyond the network you compromised. Someone has managed to get into a position of power who knows what’s on the drives. Some players in this want you dead before anything surfaces, and others want the drives as leverage. My cavalier remarks about making people-adjustments according to what I found on the drives triggered somebody’s survival instinct – either my boss, or someone in on briefings he gives.”

“Gee, you have it all figured out.” Rachel grinned up at Nick to take the edge off her sarcastic tone.