The Long Road Home Job
Chapter Three
Eliot pulled into the hotel parking lot and parked in front of the room Nate and the rest of the team were in. He opened Kenna's door and helped her out. Parker was waiting to open the door. The hitter had seen better days and the paramedic didn't look much better.
"Heads up." Kenna said to Hardison and threw him her phone. "I got some pictures of the BMW and the driver. I can't promise anything but then again I was a little busy." She went to Nate who had her medical bag. He sat her down on the bed. She didn't flinch as he took the t-shirt off the wound.
"Nothing like taking one for the team Hawks." He smiled at her. She looked at the long jagged cut on her arm. Sophie left the room.
"It wasn't by choice. This is what I get for playing with Eliot's toys." Eliot clenched his teeth and snarled at her.
"How long as he been like that?" Nate whispered.
"His whole life." Kenna grabbed an ice pack from her bag and cracked it. "Here, put this on your head." She threw it at Eliot. He caught it in one hand and put it on the bump forming on his head. Hardison loaded the pictures from Kenna's phone and putting them up on his screen. Eliot looked over the hackers shoulder.
"Holy…Kenna are you seeing this?" She looked up at the computer screen. Kenna stood. Nate moved and let her pass by. She pressed the t-shirt against her wound.
"It can't be. No. Eliot…" Kenna looked at him.
"Who is it?" Nate asked from behind Kenna.
"Simon LaForce." Eliot said as he turned to Nate.
"Simon LaForce is dead Eliot. Jackson Mann found the file about his death in Mexico. Kenna killed him and you hid the body. I was thinking that that would be something you wouldn't forget." Parker said as she looked at the computer screen. Kenna went back to the bed and took out some supplies.
"Kenna, you lost a lot of blood." Nate went back to her. He looked at the wound. "Are you going to be able to take care of this?"
"Oh yeah. You find out why the hell Simon LaForce is still alive and still trying to kill me." She looked at Eliot. "He was dead when I left him, how about you?"
"As a door nail." He looked at Kenna's wound for the first time since she took the t-shirt off. "Holy crap Kenna you need to go to the hospital." He looked at it as she cleaned the area. "Really, you need to go to a hospital."
"I'm fine." She took out a needle and some sutures.
"You're going to stitch up your own arm?" Parker wrinkled up her nose.
"Unless someone else is in the mood to do it." She looked at Eliot. "I need you hold it together or it'll be gaping." He kneeled in front of her.
"I'm sorry." Eliot didn't look her in the eye. "I should have been more careful."
"Eliot come on. If it is Simon, he was after both of us." She expertly stitched up her arm. "It'll give me character." She smiled. He didn't.
"We should have never come here."
"We need to settle this and make this town right again."
"You can't make something right that was never right in the first place Kenna. Corrupt politicians, dirty cops who beat their wives, mother's who pimp out their kids. Winchester isn't worth saving." Eliot ground out.
"Are they going fight again?" Parker asked Hardison.
"I think so." Parker made a hasty exit. Hardison looked at Nate. He nodded and Hardison headed for the hills to.
"Okay, I know there is a lot of bad blood between your families and you but this town has good people and good people need to be saved." Nate looked at them both. "And a dead man has to be found."
"Okay." Eliot conceded. "We help whatever good people are left and I'm gone and I'm never looking back. I don't even have to worry about Jodi."
"You two get some rest and we will hit this again in the morning." Nate looked at Kenna. "Do you need anything for the pain?"
"No, I'm good. We should check on the crash. That car flipped three times that I saw before it landed in the ditch."
"Hardison will keep me posted." He handed Eliot a key. "Room five." Eliot grabbed Kenna's first aid bag and waited for her at the door.
"Go easy on him Kenna. He looks like he lost a few years tonight." Nate looked at his hitter at the door.
"I almost had him convinced that being happy now and then was an okay thing." She hugged Nate and headed out the door.
/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o
Kenna lay on the couch listening to the sound of Eliot in the shower. She knew his routine by heart. He stood under the shower for two minutes just letting the water cascade down his body with his back to the shower. He spent three and a half minutes shampooing, rinsing and repeating. Then he spent another five minutes lathering from head to toe and the next four minutes rinsing off. Eliot was a creature of habit. Unless she was sharing his shower he spent he spent fifteen minutes from beginning to end in the shower. It was the little things like that she cherished on the days they both woke up mad at the world. She knew today was one of those days. Even though they hadn't gone to bed yet she knew tomorrow would be one of those days. Snuggling deeper into the blankets Kenna fell asleep wishing for a day without regret.
Eliot got out of the shower and wiped away the steam off the mirror. God he looked like hell. If heeifi didn't at least trim his two day beard he would probably scare Kenna half to death. 'The hell with it.' He thought. His day had been an emotional roller coaster and he didn't much feel like worrying about Kenna or anyone else. He slid on his jogging pants and opened the door. The bed was empty. Kenna must have sensed his needed a little space. He got into bed and looked over to the couch. She was sleeping. He knew every level of her sleep patterns from drifting off to the deep sound sleep she would fall into after a hard night. They were slipping into a routine of fighting and making up so often he didn't know where the fighting started and the making up ends. Closing his eyes he tried to shut the last twelve hours and maybe tomorrow things would look better. He doubted it but it was worth a shot.
/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o
Kenna woke up with her arm throbbing and sweat poring off her skin three hours later. She reached for her bag under the coffee table and got a syringe of morphine and jabbed it in her shoulder. It was something she tried not to do but the pain was too intense.
"Can I get you something?" She heard Eliot from the bed.
"I stiff drink would be nice." Eliot got up and went to the mini bar. He came back to the couch and handed her a bottle. "Thanks." She chugged it and lay back down.
"You need to see a doctor."
"I'm fine. It hurts a little but I'll be fine."
"Did you take some antibiotics?"
"Yeah.
It'll be okay in a few days." Eliot sat on the arm of the couch and brushed the hair out of her face.
"We don't have to do this Kenna."
"Yes we do. For your mom if not anyone else. She worked hard to keep that land in your family. Even if you and Jodi don't want it maybe Kyle will." Kenna laid her head on Eliot's knee.
"You have the power to pull the plug on this one."
"So do you." Kenna closed her eyes. Eliot kissed to top of her head and headed back to the big empty bed and tried to get a few hours of decent sleep.
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/oo/o/o/o/o/o/o/o
Three hours later Eliot left the bed and checked on Kenna who was sleeping soundly. He went outside to find Sophie sitting on the bench between their rooms.
"You're up early." He sat next to her.
"I can't seem to find a comfortable temperature inside." She looked at the hitter. "How's Kenna?"
"She resorted to morphine so I'm thinking she's not doing so well."
"Kenna's a smart cookie Eliot. She'll tell if she needs to do more."
"But she's so damn stubborn."
"But she knows you have her back Eliot. No matter how much you fight you both know that."
"I guess."
"Today is going to be a long day if you're up at four in the morning."
"I don't need more than an hour of good sleep."
"Then go in there and make sure you get that hour. I'll have coffee at seven." Sophie stood up and headed into her room. Eliot looked out into the dark Kentucky night and thought about what was in store for them today. Not liking where those thoughts were going he got up and went back into his room. Kenna was still sleeping peacefully. He went to the couch and lifted her gently and carried her to the bed. He lay down next to her and she snuggled next to him.
"You okay?" She asked drowsily.
"I am now." He answered. Closing his eyes he fell into a deep dreamless sleep.
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o
Kenna was up at six and out of bed wondering when she had crawled into bed with Eliot. She really didn't care. She wrapped her arm in plastic and took a quick shower. Booting up her lap top she starting looking for something that would make it possible for Simon LaForce to still be alive after all this time. An hour later that's where Eliot found her. On the floor with papers spread out around her on the coffee table.
"Morning." He looked at her. "What's going on?"
"I'm trying to find a reason that Simon LaForce is still breathing."
"Isn't that Hardison's job?"
"I know but I felt a little helpless." Her hair was wet and she was in her robe. She never looked more beautiful to him.
"Sophie promised coffee at seven so I'm going next door to get some."
"Okay." She kept reading the screen in front of her. He left and went next door. Nate and Sophie were sitting on the bench outside.
"Sleep well?" Sophie asked.
"Yeah. Hardison up?"
"Yeah, he's in the room." Eliot nodded and went into the room.
"He seems better today." Sophie commented.
"A little." Nate answered. He needed his hitter a hundred percent. "Maybe he needs a pep talk."
"I think a cup of coffee and explanation on the whole Simon LaForce things would work nicely."
"Let's hope Hardison has both." Nat got up and headed back into the room.
/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0
Eliot poured two cups of coffee and went to the fridge and grabbed a soda for Hardison. He was sitting at the desk tapping away at the keys at his lap top.
"Anything yet?" Eliot asked as he set the soda down next to Hardison and tossed the three empty bottles that were next to him.
"I found some possible relatives." Hardison brought up the photos. But nothing that looks like him. Nate came up behind Eliot.
"We'll figure this out." Kenna rushed though the door.
"I found him." She put her lap top next to Hardison's on the table.
"What, you're hacking now?' He looked at Kenna
"No, just research." She hit a button. "Simon dated like a million woman including my mom. I figure the guy to be about the age Simon was when he died so I looked up the state birth records." A picture popped up. It was Simon LaForce…or someone who looked exactly like him. "Storm Broderick was born July fifteenth nineteen sixty-eight. His mother was Ruby Broderick."
"She was a waitress down at the Rolling Ace's." Eliot remembered the older woman. She was always letting him and his friends in Ace's to shoot pool.
"Yeah, her and my mom hung out for a time. They partied like there was no tomorrow in the eighties. If Broderick thinks I'm coming to claim his birthright it might have made him plenty mad." Eliot looked at the man and his record which Hardison had brought up on the screen.
"Well the man does have a temper. He's been arrest several times for assault and battery." Kenna looked at the screen.
"By Deputy Billy Callahan." Kenna looked at Eliot.
"And did any of those charges stick?" Kenna shook her head. "Billy liked taking bribes. Might still like taking them, given the right motivation."
"Billy Callahan might be intimidated with the man you've become Eliot." Kenna said as she stood. "I'm going to get dressed." She knew she needed to leave the group to let them talk out the plan between them and she still wasn't quite sure they trusted her with all the technical stuff. When Kenna left Eliot looked at the four people left in the room.
"This isn't what we signed up for." Eliot said.
"You want to pull out?"
"I want to be sure this thing is by the numbers. I don't want to mess this up so killers and dirty cops go free."
"Didn't Kenna say your sister's boyfriend worked for the Lexington Police Department?" Nate asked.
"As a mechanic. He used to work for the sheriff's department here but Billy never quite forgave my mom for divorcing him and when he found out Charlie was dating my sister things got a little…awkward.
"Okay, we're going to find out why this town is so important to the big business that's buying it up, find out if the mayor is corrupt, if the police department is corrupt and figure out why they aren't buying up the land surrounding Eliot's mom's farm all without Eliot and Kenna losing their sanity or their lives." Eliot looked at Nate and shook his head.
"Nate this isn't one of in and out cons man. This is real life, hard core; we need to get it right the first time kind of job. There is no plan B, C, D or F."
"So we get it right the first time."
"When was the last time we got it right the first time?" Eliot looked at his team.
"Well there was…or the… oh I know…." Parker said but then shook her head. "How do we do that Nate?" She looked at the brains of the group.
"Very carefully." He said pouring another cup of coffee. "First stop…Eliot's mom." Eliot took his coffee and headed back to his room.
"Don't sound so damn happy about it." Eliot said as he slammed the door behind him.