Nelson, page 12
part #21 of SEALs of Honor Series
He nodded. “I get that you’re terrified. But maybe if King realizes why you did what you did …”
“Are you kidding?” she cried out. “You’ve just signed my death warrant.”
“And I should cry why?” Elizabeth asked. “You came prepared to shoot me. Prepared to kill me while I slept. And now I’m supposed to be worried you might get the same punishment you planned to send my way?”
Chelsea looked hopeful for a second, and then, as if her history had piled in on her, she knew what would be. Nobody would save her. She sagged against the wall again. “Oh, there’s no help for it. It’s been a decent run, but I always knew it would come to an end.”
The door opened behind her, but she didn’t appear to notice as Taylor came in.
“In what way did you figure it would come to an end?” Nelson asked.
“King is always after younger, prettier women,” Chelsea said sadly. “There is no such thing as love or longevity. The minute my looks fade, which I presume is happening now …” She rubbed her face tiredly. “I’m gone. I’m replaced. That’s why he’s looking at her anyway.”
A harsh voice rattled through the room. “Cut the bullshit,” King said. He stood there in the hallway, glaring at Chelsea.
Chelsea backed up, then dropped to her knees.
He looked at her in disgust. “You came here to shoot Elizabeth because we played piano together?”
“Of course not just because of that. You want her.” Chelsea looked up at him. “What else was I to think?”
“You were to think with your brain, not from your fear.”
Nelson raised his eyes at the phrasing.
King crossed his arms over his chest and said, “What the hell am I supposed to do with you now?”
Elizabeth piped up, “Forgive her. Make her feel like she’s appreciated and cared for. Not that you’ll replace her at the drop of a hat.”
King looked at Elizabeth and laughed. “Damn, I wish you were somebody I could pick up and keep in my parlor,” he said, “if for nothing else, you always make me laugh.” He reached down for Chelsea’s arm. “Chelsea, get out.” He marched her to the door, then turned to look at Taylor, who now stood beside them. “Thanks.” And he walked out, shutting the door firmly behind them.
Silence settled.
Chapter 10
“Do you think he’ll really hurt her?” Elizabeth hated the guilt sitting inside her gut. She felt terrible about Chelsea’s future.
“If he’s a regular kingpin, yes, he will,” Nelson said. “But we really have no choice. She had to be stopped, and King can stop her. The last thing I want is to constantly make sure she’s not coming after you. We’ve got enough trouble on our plates without that.”
“Do you think this will stop her?”
“I can only hope so,” Nelson said quietly. “We don’t really have a lot of choice.”
Elizabeth sagged on the bed, shuffling farther back so she could lean against the headboard. “I don’t even know what time it is. But that was a hell of a midnight awakening.”
“Sorry about that,” Nelson said. “We heard the footsteps come down the hallway.”
“And you both woke up?”
Both men nodded.
She couldn’t believe it. “That’s just a little too bizarre. I’d have slept through getting shot.” She stared out at the half light creeping in through her widow. “Is it morning already?”
“It’s five-thirty,” they both said.
She wrinkled up her nose. “I doubt I’ll sleep again, but I’d like to try.”
Nelson and Taylor turned and walked toward the connecting door.
“Get some sleep,” Nelson tossed back. “Who knows what today will bring.”
He closed the door between them.
Elizabeth hopped up and opened the door. “If you don’t mind, I’ll leave this open,” she called out.
“Don’t mind at all,” Nelson said. “See if you can grab another hour or two.”
Elizabeth crawled back into bed and lay here. But her mind kept spinning. She wanted to plead with King to not hurt Chelsea. But neither did she want to feel the back of his hand. He could likely go from the really nice piano player to a killer in a heartbeat. She didn’t know how to help Chelsea or if she even wanted to help. Elizabeth couldn’t imagine being raised in the streets, having that be her normal world. It was so foreign to her that it didn’t bear thinking about.
“Sleep,” Nelson called through the doorway. “You’re keeping us awake.”
She frowned and sat up. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re thinking too loud,” Taylor said. “That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”
She snorted and lay back down again. Still, just because they told her to shut it off didn’t mean the fountain of thoughts would comply.
As she lay here, she wondered if they could do anything about King. And then she realized just how much he had been a help already. And, when she started down that path, she knew she wouldn’t sleep after all.
She tossed and turned for a few more minutes, then gave it up. She got up, figuring the other two would be sound asleep, and sneaked over to the window, where she looked out into the alley below. It was definitely not a nice part of town, but, with the sunrise, it was surprisingly beautiful. When she heard a sound, she turned to see Nelson standing in the doorway, wearing just his boxers. She looked him over appreciatively. “I didn’t realize you were into wandering around without your clothes on.”
“I have as much on as swimming trunks,” he said easily. He walked to the window and looked outside.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked him.
He dropped a glance her way.
She shrugged. “So there’s lots not to like, but there is lots to like. I can focus on that happily enough.” She checked her watch. “Honestly, I did try to sleep. But I couldn’t.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ve been working on my laptop for the last hour.”
She turned to him in outrage. “Really? You mean, I could have been there on my laptop too?”
“Sure, why not?” he asked. “Taylor and I are working.”
She glared at him. “If you tell me that you have coffee, I’ll really be pissed.”
He chuckled. “We were letting you sleep.”
She growled. “Don’t bother. I never did go back to sleep. I’ve been tossing and turning the whole time.”
“You look like you need more sleep,” he said bluntly.
“Whether I look it or not”—she glared at him—“doesn’t matter because I can’t get back to sleep. Maybe later this afternoon I’ll lie down for a nap, but I doubt it. I’ll wait until tonight to sleep. But what I am is hungry.” She darted into their room. “Is there leftover food?”
Taylor nodded. “But it’s cold.”
She snatched up the taco and shrugged. “I’ve eaten worse.” She had several bites and then put it back down again. “I really would rather have coffee.”
“We can head out for breakfast if you want.” Taylor closed down his laptop and stood.
She noticed he wore just jeans. Both men had the lovely muscled bodies of men in their prime. “I don’t want to disturb you though,” she protested.
“Already disturbed,” Nelson said cheerfully. “Besides, I’d like something other than cold tacos for breakfast.”
“They should have microwaves in these rooms,” she said. “We could heat this up.”
“Maybe,” Nelson said. “A coffee shop is a couple blocks away. I suggest we go there.”
“Any word from anybody yet?”
“No, nobody has gotten back to us. NCIS is running the photos from King’s place through the navy database. If this guy we’re hunting is a seaman, it should pop.”
“Doesn’t mean NCIS will tell me much. I don’t think they consider they owe us anything,” Nelson said. “They’re a bigger bureaucracy than any governmental body.”
She sighed. She thought about breakfast and perked up. “Okay. I’ll get changed. Be ready in five.” She dashed back to her room, sorted through her meager selection of clothes, grabbed a few pieces and went into the bathroom where she washed her face, braided her hair, brushed her teeth and got dressed.
When she came back out, she packed up all her stuff so it was easy to grab, just in case. She returned to their room with her tote bag on her arm and her carry-on bag in her other hand. The two men looked at the bag and looked at her, and she shrugged. “Figured we should probably keep everything together. I don’t know if my stuff is safer in your room or mine, but it obviously wasn’t very safe where it used to be.”
Nelson grabbed the bag, putting it with his. “Is anything valuable in here?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I’ll take my laptop with me this time. If we’re at a coffee shop, who knows what we might need it for.”
“Okay, give us a chance to grab our stuff.”
Within a few minutes they stood in the hallway, locking both doors. They walked down the stairs instead of taking the elevator. Outside, Elizabeth took several deep breaths. “I’ll never forget this trip,” she said heavily. “There hasn’t been a whole lot good about it yet.”
“It’s the yet that we have to worry about,” he said. “There’s an awful lot of leeway between now and when we leave.”
“Isn’t there though? I was really hoping my brother would contact me.”
“At least you know he has money, and he can get food and a ride, if need be.”
“I guess,” she said moodily.
They walked up the block to the restaurant. It was early enough in the morning for the place to be empty.
She glanced around and smiled. “This is probably the nicest time of day for this area.”
The men both nodded in agreement. They walked into the coffee shop, spotted a table in the back and headed right for it.
“Any reason not to tank up?” Taylor asked. “Don’t want to do that if I’ll have to do a ten- to twenty-mile run.” He had a big grin. “But I admit to being really hungry.”
“What about the tacos and chicken last night?”
He looked at Elizabeth with an injured look. “But that was last night. That has got nothing to do with now.”
She sighed and sagged in the closest seat.
Just after they ordered, Nelson’s phone rang. He checked the number, looked around, and saw the place getting busy. He answered it, whispering to Taylor, “I’ll walk outside and take this.” He stepped out in the front where they could see him, but at least he could hear and have some privacy.
Just then the waitress brought over their dishes.
When Nelson returned and took his place, Elizabeth asked, “Good news or bad news?”
“Any news is good news,” he said. “In this case, we’re getting some confirmation of what’s going on.”
“It’s the seaman?”
“Recent ex-seaman Private Hogarth,” Nelson said. “He already had several black marks on his record and is currently under investigation from his time on active duty. Suspected of doing some smuggling, some thefts of navy property from the supply rooms, that kind of stuff. Now we track him down.”
“That would be good,” Taylor said, “because NCIS definitely wants to talk to him.
“So navy seamen were involved in smuggling whatever, and maybe Peter witnessed this, so they killed him to save themselves?” Elizabeth’s look of horror said it all.
Nelson nodded. “It’s hard to swallow that some of our own have gone bad. But that is our working theory at this point.”
“Maybe Hogarth knows where my brother is,” Elizabeth said.
“NCIS also wants to question him about Peter’s murder,” Nelson added.
“So they did find evidence he was murdered?” she asked.
They both nodded. “Yes, blunt force trauma. But they haven’t found any forensic evidence on the body.”
Elizabeth sagged in her chair. “I figured he was murdered, but something about hearing there’s evidence made it more vivid in my mind.”
“Exactly,” Nelson said. “But now we need to find Hogarth. That’s our first priority. As soon as we do, NCIS wants to know.”
“What about local law enforcement?”
“It’s possible they might get a second phone call,” Nelson said, “because we’ll need a place to keep Hogarth hidden until NCIS gets down here.”
“How do we find him?”
“Apparently he hangs around this area a lot, if that video we saw on TV is anything to go by, so we’ll see if we can throw stones at anybody who knows him.”
“Does he have an address?”
“No fixed address,” Nelson said. “A point of contact was family out of Hawaii.”
“Really?” Elizabeth shook her head. “There’s gotta be more to the story than that.”
“There probably is,” Nelson said, “but we need to find him before we can get him to talk.”
“Even more than that,” Taylor said, “we need to find him alive because dead men don’t talk at all.”
*
Apparently the navy had been looking for Hogarth for a long time, calling him a slippery lying weasel, able to wiggle out of too many bad circumstances he found himself in. The chances of shaking him out of thin air weren’t very good. Nelson needed a moment to tell Taylor that.
NCIS was more than a little anxious to put their hands on Hogarth. And he was considered armed and dangerous, with special weapons training. In other words, he would be a bad case and ugly to take down. But it was what it was. If he was involved with her brother though …
NCIS didn’t appear to be too surprised that Hogarth might have been involved in Peter’s murder. At the same time, they weren’t willing to commit that he’d had anything to do with the murder until they got more evidence. Nelson couldn’t blame them for that. A court-martial within the military was different than civilian law enforcement. But they still had rules they must follow. And apparently this asshole Hogarth didn’t like anyone’s rules, was a slippery lying weasel.
Nelson dug into his breakfast, his mind spinning on what they could do.
“What do you think? How will we find him?” Elizabeth asked. “We never did ask King about that, did we?”
“No, and we’re not likely to ask him now either,” Taylor said. “The less contact, the better at this point.”
“I agree,” Nelson said. “There’re other bars around. There’re other people around. We need to just keep asking.”
“Or,” she said, “we could just trip across Hogarth.”
The two men looked at her in surprise.
Nelson put down his fork and shoved his empty plate back. “What are you talking about?”
She gave a slight head nod toward the window.
Nelson turned to look behind him and damn if it didn’t look like the man they were hunting. He shoved his chair back and, in a hard voice, told Taylor to stay with Elizabeth. And he walked out the front door.
Hogarth walked quickly down the block. He had his head tucked low, wasn’t looking where he was going. Obviously he knew the path well. Or he was trying not to be recognized.
Knowing Taylor would look after Elizabeth, Nelson fell into step behind the guy. This was Nelson’s one chance to figure out where the hell Hogarth was going. If Nelson surprised Hogarth now, he would run, and they’d lose him forever in this mess.
Keeping a decent distance, Nelson followed Hogarth for the next ten to fifteen minutes. Hogarth took a left and then a right and went up an alley. That made it a little harder to follow him unnoticed. But Nelson managed it.
When he saw Hogarth coming out of a building, heading out of the alleyway, he picked up the trail again. He ended up going into the back door of a bar. Nelson stopped, quickly texted Taylor as to where he was and looked up to see rented rooms were above.
He opened the rear door to find a stairwell. He crept up the stairs, seeing five different doors. He frowned, not knowing which one he was looking for. And likely nobody here would help. Five doors would be too many to search without being caught or giving Hogarth notice.
Just as Nelson crept up to one door, another of the doors opened, and a woman came out. She looked like she rented her apartment by the hour. She gave him an appraising look. He smiled and said, “I don’t need your services, but I will pay for information.”
Instead of being delighted, her gaze narrowed. “About who?”
He pulled out a photo of Hogarth.
She snorted. “That asshole? He owes me money for the last couple jobs I did for him.”
“I followed him in here, but I’m not sure which one of the rooms is his.”
She motioned up to the next flight of stairs. “Top door on your right.” And she marched past him.
“Thank you. Don’t you want payment?”
“Nah. He never paid me, so you got this one for free. Go kill the bastard.” She sauntered out the door.
Almost laughing, Nelson went up the second flight of stairs. There he found another set of five doors, but the one on the right was the one he cared about. He put his ear to the door and could hear somebody walking on the other side. With a quick text updating his location, he knocked on the door and waited. Instead of somebody coming to the door, it sounded like somebody scrambling, then there was dead silence. Nelson’s mind flashed through what Hogarth could be doing, anything from loading a rifle to packing up and leaving out the fire escape. And that made Nelson mad because he’d forgotten to check if there was one.
On a sudden hunch, he grabbed the knob and opened the door. It opened easily under his hand. He stepped off to the side in case shots were fired, but there was nothing. He pushed the door farther open and walked in. “Hey, Hogarth, you in here?”
No answer.
Nelson went through the small space and saw a living room window had been opened. He pushed it up and stared out. Hogarth jumped from his railing to the railing below it. Nelson stepped onto the railing, grabbed the man’s hand and said, “No, you don’t.”
Hogarth pulled back hard to get free, but Nelson hung on tight. The position he was in was awkward because the guy’s hand was under the railing, and he was hanging off the deck itself. Somehow he had to lift Hogarth up and over.
