AllFreeNovel
Share Us
52
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA
WAREHOUSE DISTRICT
FRIDAY, EARLY AFTERNOON
Savich, Sherlock, and Ruth stood over a sleeping Justice Cummings. Dougie sat cross-legged beside him. Sally was leaning against a rotted wall nearby, rubbing dirt off her elbow, her long flowered skirt covering her legs, and Major Hummer was behind them.
Dougie looked up and gave Ruth a sweet smile, fitted his towel closer around his head. “Ruth, I’m real glad you came so fast. I didn’t force Justice to see you, I swear. He said you could come. But I don’t know about these two. Who are they? Do you know them?”
Ruth came down on her haunches beside him. “I trust them completely, Dougie. This is my boss, Agent Savich, and Agent Sherlock. They’re both very smart and very kind and they want to help. Agent Savich, Agent Sherlock, these are Dougie, Sally, and Major Hummer, friends of mine.”
Dougie gave Savich and Sherlock a suspicious look, then looked toward Hummer, who slowly nodded. Then Dougie stared up at Sherlock. “Pretty hair,” he said. “Not really red as fire, but a different sort of red. I think my daughter had red hair like yours, but I’m not sure anymore, it was a long time ago, you know?”
“Yes, I know.” Sherlock went down on her knees next to Dougie, handed him her creds, watched him look at them a moment. Did he see well enough to read? Then he took Savich’s creds, gave them a longer, harder look. “Looks real official, both of ’em, but it’s what Ruth thinks that matters and Ruth says you’re okay.” He handed back their creds. “Like I told you, I wouldn’t ever have called Ruth unless Justice said I could. That wouldn’t be right. He’s a good kid, Justice is, but he’s a mess, doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s hurt, and he’s scared spitless. I told him he could trust you, Ruth, everybody here knows you’re straight, even that day the FBI ran all around our neighborhood to find Manta Ray, carrying guns and wearing those Kevlar things. You made sure none of us got hurt.” He frowned. “Ruth, that wasn’t that long a time ago, was it?”
“Not long ago. You remember it just right.” She patted his arm.
Savich went down on his haunches beside Justice Cummings, pressed his fingers to his wrist, took his pulse. He laid his palm on his forehead. No fever. But he looked a mess, his nose obviously broken, stuffed with Kleenex. His shirt was torn and bloody. A surprisingly clean blanket was pulled up to his waist. Savich lifted the blanket and looked at the paper towels wrapped around a wound on his leg, hoping there was sterile gauze under them. He looked up at Major Hummer in his army fatigues and black boots up to his calves. “What can you report, Major? How bad is it?”
Hummer came smartly to attention, cleared his throat. “The boy made it here, I don’t know how, showed lots of grit. He deserves one of my Purple Hearts.” He paused briefly, a sort of mental reboot, Savich thought. “It was Tuesday afternoon, around six o’clock, I believe. I remember I was hungry. I found him huddled in on himself, pressed against that far wall, just inside the door, near to where Sally’s sitting. He was in a lot of pain. I called Dougie and we peeled off his pants. I saw the cut wasn’t too bad, could do without stitches, but I was worried about infection. I bought some butterfly strips and bandages from Elmwood Pharmacy over on Gleason Street and some antibacterial cream, the kind you get over the counter. Fixed him up. He’d be awake now, but Dougie encouraged him to drink some of his Wild Turkey because the aspirin wasn’t doing the job. The Wild Turkey sure did the job, knocked him right out.”
Dougie said, “Ruth, I told Justice the broken nose would look good on him, make him look a bit tougher. He liked that. He said someone is after him. He’s scared, did I tell you that? You’ll take care of him?”
“Yes, we will. Thank you for calling me, Dougie.”
Dougie reached out, touched her arm. “Really, Ruth, he’s scared, more scared than I was when the FBI came hunting for Manta Ray, even though I gotta say they didn’t roust any of us.”
Justice Cummings opened his eyes, saw three strangers staring at him. His heart stuttered. They’d found him.
Dougie leaned over him. “It’s all right, boy, you don’t want to try to run, you don’t have any pants on. And your boxers have blood on them from your leg. These three folks are FBI agents. That’s Ruth, I told you about her. She’s my friend and I’m her snitch. Remember, I asked you if I could call her? Did I tell you that? Anyways, she brought them with her, swears they’re gonna help you. This here’s Ruth.”
Justice looked up into Dougie’s dirty face, at the Marriott towel on his head, at his vague, kind eyes. He felt a spurt of hope, swallowed. His voice sounded scratchy. “You’re really an FBI agent, Ruth?”
“Yes, I am. Agent Ruth Noble. And you’re Justice Cummings. It’s a pleasure to meet a friend of Dougie’s.” And she shook his hand, like everything was normal, like he wasn’t lying in a derelict warehouse wearing bloody boxers. “Dougie and I go way back to my days in Metro.” She introduced Savich and Sherlock. They all pulled out their creds and held them close so Justice Cummings could read them. He slowly nodded. “You’re not CIA, and that’s a relief. That might sound crazy, but somebody set me up, they knew where I’d be. I don’t know who, and that’s the problem. I don’t know anything.”
Savich said in an easy voice, “Do you remember running into the street? You hit a spinning car, flew over the hood?”
“I see it over and over. I was running, and looked back to see how close they were, and wham. I thought I was going to die.”
Sherlock took his hand. “I was driving the car, Mr. Cummings. I know, that’s quite a coincidence. I’m very pleased we’re both going to be all right. Dougie and Major Hummer have taken very good care of you. We know you took an Uber here to Alexandria, and you were dropped off not far from here, and you smashed your phone, right?” At his nod, she said, “That was well done. Why did you come here to the warehouse district?”
“I remembered passing by this area several years ago. I knew nobody would come here to look for me. I didn’t know what else to do, who I could trust, so like you said, I had an Uber drop me off three blocks over and walked here. I managed to get inside this building and knew I couldn’t go any farther. Major Hummer found me. He and Dougie have taken care of me. And Miss Sally sings show tunes to me. Major Hummer says the wound on my leg doesn’t look infected what with all the antibacterial cream he’s smeared on me. It looks like I’m going to live.”
Savich said, “Yes, you are. You’ll be fine in a couple of days. You’ll need to get your nose looked after, and your leg checked out. We will help you with that. We have a lot to discuss, Mr. Cummings. You up for it?”
Justice grabbed Sherlock’s hand, held on for dear life. “You won’t tell anyone, will you? You’ll keep them away from me?”
“Don’t worry. We won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“You found my cell phone? How did you know it was mine? I really smashed it but good.”
“No, we didn’t find it, it went offline so we figured you’d destroyed it. Justice, we haven’t located your wife and kids, either. Where are they?”
“My—oh, Melissa—Mellie—she and the kids are in the Poconos, at her aunt’s cabin. There’s no cell service, so you have to know to call Aunt Josie’s landline to reach them. I was supposed to be with them, but then she got really pissed at me. She wants me to quit the CIA and get a real job. And that’s the problem. I really like being an analyst. I think I’ve helped our country. She called this a time-out—sounds stupid, it’s what she says to the kids. She got pregnant my senior year at MIT, her senior year at Boston College, and we eloped. We had another kid two years ago—Nate’s his name, his older sister is Annie, and I’m sorry, you don’t care about that.”
Ruth said, “Trust me, Mr. Cummings, we care about everything you care about. Go on.”
