Chapter Thirty-Five
Don't Get Too Close
It's Dark Inside
It's Where My Demons Hide
It's Where My Demons Hide
-Demons By Imagine Dragons-
Same time same day
"Besides what?" Eliot questioned, tilting his head curiously at Kat.
Kat, startled away from the images she'd just had in her head, shook herself and turned to look confusedly towards Eliot. He was still standing in the doorway of the bedroom watching her. He was still wearing the blue scrubs she'd given him that morning and he was still leaning slightly on the door frame in an effort to keep himself upright. She'd just had the most amazingly vivid image of the man, and... oh, crap, she was more embarrassed than a teen girl fantasizing about the school quarterback.
What in the world had she been thinking? She could feel her face flaming as she turned a deep shade of pink and she couldn't stop it from happening. She'd just turned back around at his griping about being cooped up and she'd taken one look at him... and she'd had the best and most embarrassing daydream of them...together. All the way together.
"What? Nothing. Forget it." She quickly turned back to the cutting board so she could try to desperately hide her beet red face from his all to seeing eyes. Those damn blue eyes of his saw everything and she so did not need him seeing what she'd just fantasized; especially what she'd been thinking about him.
Eliot felt slightly dizzy, but knew he was getting it semi under control; so, when he moved from where he stood to walk over to her, he hid the fact well that he was still shaky on his feet. He reached her and carefully reached around her to grasp her hand holding the carving knife in his own grip. He gently pulled the knife from her hand and turned her to face him.
"Are you okay?" He asked as she tried hard to avoid looking up at him. She felt like a blushing teenager with him standing there so close to her and that only made her more embarrassed.
"I'm fine, Spencer." She pulled her hand away a bit too roughly and turned away to walk back to the refrigerator for the mayo. As she reached in and pulled the jar from the shelf, she turned slightly to look at him, and she was surprised to see that Eliot had moved to stand in her place at the cutting board and he was now doing the carving of the ham.
He was still swaying a bit, he really wasn't that great yet at hiding it from her, but for the most part he was doing a good job of standing upright by himself. She carefully set the jar next to the carving board within his reach and watched as he used the same carving knife to scoop some mayo out of the jar and spread over a couple slices of the bread.
Kat couldn't help the slow smile that spread over her lips as she watched him work. He was nice to watch. He worked with such efficiency that no matter how much pain he was in, it told Kat everything she really needed to know about the man. He pushed everything he felt down so he could do what he had to do. Just like her brother had, or how Quinn did; or how she did. She'd learned from the best, and she'd discovered that they had learned from the best too. She pushed so much crap down and out of sight, she tried hard to forgot about everything she'd gone through in her life.
There was always someone out there more important than herself and she always put herself on the back burner to make sure she did what she needed to do. She wished sometimes she could be the one front and center getting the attention of a nice-looking man, but she'd made peace with the fact she'd never give her heart to someone ever again. Or at least she thought she had.
After meeting Eliot Spencer and fighting to save him, she realized she'd forgotten who was doing the saving and who exactly was being saved here. Just like in her fantasy, she realized that this man had slowly, but effectively wheedled his way under her guard and now he not only had her wrapped around his little finger, but he also had a tight hold on her heart; damn him.
She blamed herself for letting him in. No, she blamed those damn sky-blue eyes of his. Him and his eyes had taken her down with just one look. Damnit, Eliot Spencer. You are so getting your butt kicked when this is all over. Right after I kick my own for letting you in.
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Quinn jerked as he felt the now familiar weight of Missy as she threw her small body on the couch next to where he was half sitting while resting his leg. He'd grown tired of being cooped up in bed the last two days, so Libby had graciously allowed him the supreme privilege of moving from the bed to the couch. He was so lucky, he thought with a wry smile.
He was pretending to sleep as the little girl tried desperately to gain his attention. During the last couple days, he had learned that Libby was a widow and worked as an ER physician's assistant at night at the local county hospital while her brother Eric ran the family flower store during the day. Their apartment was located directly over their store near downtown Boston.
Normally Missy would be in school, but she'd been allowed to stay home the last few days to help with Quinn's care while her Uncle worked, and her mother slept during the day.
Quinn hadn't really gotten their routine down till Saturday when he'd been awake the longest since arriving at their apartment. He'd lost a lot of blood after finding the bullet in his leg had nicked an artery and he'd been lucky that Eric and Libby had found him when they had. Another two or three minutes and he'd have bled out; he owed them his life.
He'd tried to find out who Albert was, but the couple had been close-mouthed when he'd asked how this mysterious man knew how to find him. Quinn put it down to the fact whoever this Albert was, he most likely knew what kind of life Quinn led; if he knew Eliot, he must know what the score was.
Quinn had thought about contacting Vance and Whitmore but decided against it right now. He knew they'd be upset with him, but he couldn't let them run after Kat. He'd been calling Kat's phone every half hour, but it kept saying that the party he was trying to contact was outside the plan area, whatever the hell that meant; and he couldn't trust Vance or Whitmore to not scare her into running. If he couldn't contact her to tell her about them, she would take Eliot to ground and not even he would be able to find them. Kat was good at what she did, and he knew she'd go deep under to protect her charge even if it was Eliot Spencer; even if she knew all about Eliot and his involvement in Luke's death. Quinn needed to get back on his feet and take them to her, but that just wasn't possible right now.
He'd had a lot of questions for Eric and Libby, and between the three of them, they'd learned as much as possible about each other that thy were willing to share over the past couple of days and Quinn knew he could trust them. Eric had promised that tomorrow he would take Quinn to Vermont if he wasn't running a fever and Libby approved for him to travel. When Quinn had told them Kat was a nurse, they felt better about leaving him with her once they got him there; and in truth Quinn didn't like dragging them or Missy into this whole thing. He didn't want Evan to hunt them down and since the couple hadn't given him any info on Albert, Quinn didn't know if they were even aware of Evan Chapman.
He sighed deeply as he felt Missy pick herself up and throw her small body back down on the couch in another attempt to get his attention. This time she'd came dangerously close to his leg with her elbow and he knew he couldn't feign sleep any longer or the child just might get the idea to torture him by actually launching her next body toss directly onto his wound, so he turned over to face the girl.
He nearly yelped when he opened his eyes and found the child's deep green eyes staring directly into his. She was so close he could feel her breath on his face now and he couldn't help feeling that either he was losing his touch, or this child was going to grow up to be a freakin' ninja princess.
"Are you awake, Mr. Quinn?" The little monster asked as she continued to stare into his eyes.
Yep, he thought, freakin' ninja princess, for sure. He slowly smiled as she continued to stare at him. "No." He muttered, pretending to be grumpy with the girl.
Missy narrowed her eyes at him, and he couldn't help the laugh that burst from him at the girl's struggle with whether he was being honest with her or not. She slowly smiled as she realized he was teasing her, and she pulled back from him.
"You're funny, Mr. Quinn." She got up off the edge of the couch where she'd been resting her knees to get closer to his face. "Mamma said to tell you she has lunch ready and you should get up off you're behind and walk to the table, so your leg doesn't get stiff if you expect to travel tomorrow." She smiled at him and then she reached for his hands and began pulling him up. "Come on lazy bones."
"Hey what happened to Mr.?" He'd tried several times to get the girl to stop calling him Mister, but she'd been adamant that her mamma wouldn't like that, so he'd given up.
The girl ignored him as she worked to get him up on the crutches she had with her. "Uncle Eric said it was okay to call you by your name now that you're my friend, but I don't know your first name, so he said lazy bones would do for now." She looked up at him with serious written all over her face, until she broke out that smile of hers. "Do you even have a first name? Uncle calls you Quinn."
Quinn couldn't help the smile that this girl brought out of him. He hadn't smiled this much since... well since before losing Luke. "Quinn is the only name I go by, so just Quinn is fine." He struggled across the room towards the kitchen where he could see Libby putting something on the table and watching their progress.
"Okay, just Quinn. Well, it's lunchtime. Uncle Eric is coming up too because he wants to talk to you. He said his friend, Mr. Albert would be coming by today to talk to you, so you gotta be up and around."
Quinn's smile at her just Quinn comment slowly subsided as he took in that little tidbit. Th mysterious benefactor was coming over to visit. How nice. Maybe now he'd get some real answers.
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Patrick Bonanno had witnessed many strange things during his police career, but as he looked down at the age enhanced photograph that his CSI guy, David had faxed over to him, he realized this was probably going to one he would never forget. He really didn't know for sure what he'd expected when David had finally found a partial finger amongst the human remains that had been blown up at Eliot's place, but this had never even crossed his mind.
David and Les, the medical examiner had sifted through every single piece of evidence and even though they already knew the remains were supposed to belong to a male relative of Eliot's, this file he held in his hands was not what they'd expected to find; so the two had worked tirelessly the last few days and discovered there had been some kind of computer mix-up.
The computer had given them the results of the man being Daniel Thomas Wright, possibly Eliot's long missing grandfather, but when David had tested the fingerprint, he came up with someone else entirely. So, they had run new tests on all the samples and started from scratch.
The person in the morgue was in no way related to Eliot, but he was related to one Viola Watson-Wright, her brother to be exact; and Viola had been the name of the woman that had been married to Daniel Thomas Wright. The woman had supposedly been killed and as far as the detective knew, it was possible her husband, Daniel had been her killer.
None of that was really all that earth shaking considering there was nothing the detective could do; but the photo that David had pulled from Huntsville prison when Daniel Wright had served time for robbery there, well, now that was something else entirely. David had run the photo through an age enhancing program and sent the results to Patrick and it was this picture that had Bonanno more confused than ever.
He picked up his notebook to find the phone number he needed. He had only spoken to the man the day of Eliot's disappearance, but now that he had this picture, he knew he'd need to have a talk with the man again. It was kind of ironic that a man who was first thought to be dead and thought to be Eliot's lost grandfather was in fact very much alive and living across the street from the guy using the name Albert Wilson. He was Eliot's elderly neighbor who had called in the crime at Eliot's; and Patrick would bet money he didn't have that Marion Wilson was in fact the not so dead Viola Watson-Wright.
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Matt was getting more than just angry at this wild goose chase he was on. He'd been all over the major parts of the greater Boston area looking for Quinn. Hardison hadn't been able to give them anymore on where to find the man, but he had been able to locate the number that Quinn had been getting calls and texts from that they suspected was for his friend Kat.
The only problem now was Hardison couldn't tract that phone because it was not working. The phone was out of the range of his tracking abilities and so they'd gone back to tracking Quinn's trail from the airfield where he'd landed. Vance and Matthew both, were right now following the same trail they suspected Quinn had taken from the airfield in his escape, but once they exited the freeway the trail ended and there were too many possible places he could have ended up.
Nate and Mykel were working one end of the city, while Emma and Sophie were working somewhere in between the two of them. Hardison and Parker were back at the airfield using the satellite communications to try and track Evan's trail after they'd managed to find a cell phone that had been dropped by someone who appeared to be sent by him.
They'd been able to disable the two SUV's that had been posted at the bar to surveil them, and right now, Evan was probably just realizing his men were missing. The six men split between the two cars were currently on a military transport to DC where the DOD had a few questions for them. Vance had called in some help and between the two men and the reinforcements, they'd managed to subdue all with no attention drawn to anyone. Eliot would have been proud of them, Matt thought with a smile.
That had been last Friday, and they'd started working on tracking Quinn after that by heading to the airfield they knew he'd landed at. The field was abandoned by the time they arrived, but they'd found blood and after a very thorough search they'd located the cell phone. The man who had owned the phone must have thought a lot of himself, because his phone was loaded with selfies. Matt wasn't sure what was worse, the fact that the guy was obviously very much in love with himself, or the fact that the man also had photos of Quinn and Eliot on the phone. It was a hit list and they had no clue if the man had been successful.
They'd found some blood in the grassy area and lots of tracks in the dirt road, but that was it. So here they were tracking every street and every building within a ten-mile radius of the highway. It had taken them all of Saturday and Sunday and here there were back at it today, Monday; and Matt was getting really frustrated that they couldn't find Quinn who was the only one who could help them find Eliot.
He was so going to strangle the man when they did find him. Even if he was already dead, he was still gonna strangle his corpse. The man was a giant pain in the ass for keeping Eliot's location from them and Matt knew that while Eliot's team was having a hard time, it in no way compared to the torture Emma was going through. Vance had given Hardison code clearance to search the military satellites that would give them surveillance information and pictures of the airfield, but they hadn't been able to find the Jeep that they now knew Quinn had taken when he'd left the airfield. They didn't have clear enough images of the other men, but they did have the vehicles and Hardison had worked hard all weekend tracking them down to the last one, none had been found. Once they'd left the airfield it was as if they'd all vanished.
Matt heaved a huge sigh as Vance steered their SUV down the deserted alley, they'd already been down probably ten times. This was useless, they weren't going to find anything. And just as he was about to comment on that fact, something caught his eye ahead of them. Vance was moving at a crawl and it was something about the abandoned building ahead that gave him a feeling that he needed to check it out.
"Stop. There, that building. It's an antique store, isn't it?" Matt asked as he pointed to the building.
Vance stopped next to the back door of the building which was propped open. "Yeah, I think so. And that's what Quinn said, some kind of old store."
The two men stepped out of the car and inspected the outside of the building. It was faint, but Matt could see there had been a red smear on the door. It had rained a little yesterday so it may have washed some away, but he knew blood when he saw it.
Together the two drew weapons and prepared to enter the building. Just as they pulled the door open to peer inside into the dusky interior, something halted them dead in their tracks.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." And they both heard the unmistakable click of the hammer of a shotgun being pulled into place. Both men knew well enough how to handle this situation, but both were not prepared to face the fact that the voice halting them belonged to an obviously very mature very female voice.
As both men turned to face the person who belonged to the voice, they were surprised to see that the older woman was not alone. There was also an equally mature gentleman standing just behind her also holding a shot gun.
Vance looked at Matt who returned the look. "This just got way too interesting." He replied softly as the two faced the couple.
"You have no idea." The older man remarked as he raised his gun to eye level. "Drop the guns and walk inside. I think it's time we have a little talk, Colonel."
Vance raised an eyebrow at the comment but refrained from replying as he carefully placed his gun on the ground. Matthew followed suit and the two men turned to walk into the abandoned building.
"I'm very fond of that gun, so I'd hate to see anything happen to it." Matthew said over his shoulder.
The man chuckled loud enough for all to hear. "I wouldn't worry too much about that right now, Major. We have more important matters to discuss."