B01M7O5JG6 EBOK Read online

  “Want me to toss this in the trunk or in the backseat?” he asked.

  That was the first time Widow took a gander at the symbol on the car. It was a Mercedes, which he wasn’t sure came in lime green. The paint job must’ve been custom. He didn’t look long enough to see the model, and he honestly didn’t care. Even though he was a good driver, cars weren’t really his thing. He’d been trained by NCIS for tactical urban and country driving, but he’d acquired his off-road driving abilities from growing up in Mississippi many years ago.

  “In the backseat. I don’t want it rubbing up against the dirty old tire.”

  Widow shut the trunk on the remains of the old tire and the cheap car jack and set the suitcase down in the backseat. He laid it down on its side and tucked it nice and snug between the passenger seat and the rear bench because the front passenger seat had been pushed back farther than the driver side. She had the driver seat pulled all the way up as far on the track as it probably could go, most likely because of her small size. He couldn’t imagine her being able to lean back and drive safely at the same time.

  Widow stayed about ten feet from her, giving her a safe distance.

  He said, “Well, you should be on your way.”

  “Thank you so much,” she said, pausing a beat.

  Widow could see the wheels turning in her head, like she was feeling guilty. Questioning whether or not to offer him a ride.

  Right then, Widow looked back over his left shoulder at the oncoming cars, which were sparse now. He saw a white truck with a big chrome grill on the front. It was one of those trucks with more than four tires. There were two in the front and several in the back. What was that called back in his home state of Mississippi? A dualie?

  The truck’s engine droned, whined, and rattled in a low manner. He figured that was normal because every one of those types of trucks he had ever been around had that same light rattling sound, like the engine inside breathed heavily.

  Sunlight reflected off the windshield and into his face. He squinted his eyes. The truck slowed, and tires crumbled over the blacktop and then over the gravel on the shoulder. It stopped about ten feet behind the convertible.

  “Who are these guys?” the driver of the convertible asked. She walked forward, closing that ten-foot safety gap, coming closer to Widow’s side like she had suddenly accepted him as her protector.

  Widow said, “Probably just want to help.”

  The truck stopped, and both the driver side door and the passenger door creaked open. At first, two big guys stepped out, but then one more slumped out after.

  They wore white painter overalls with white shoes, white hats, and white T-shirts. They all had paint stains on them—on their legs, on their torsos, and even on their arms.

  Widow stepped two paces to the left and craned his head to the side. Down the side of the truck was a sign with big black letters. The first word he couldn’t read, but the second and third were clearly Carpenters and Brothers.

  He saw two different ladders attached to the back of the long bed for the truck. He imagined it was full of carpentry tools and big steel cans of paint and probably a variety of used and unused paint brushes and those big roller brushes. He also pictured that the cabin of the truck was full of old McDonald’s or Arby’s bags or whatever other fast food these guys liked. He pictured this because all three were heavy—and not in the slightly overweight kind of way but like they were fighting a losing battle.

  The two in the front moved along the sides of the truck, past the engine, and stopped just in front of the tires. The first passenger to step out stopped and leaned on the truck’s hood in a gesture that said, “We’re all friends here.”

  But somehow Widow doubted the gesture was genuine. He doubted it because he had been in similar situations. Sure, the world was full of Good Samaritans who might be concerned with a couple who broke down on the side of the road, the kind of good people who would stop and check, but something way back in Widow’s barbarian brain doubted these three guys were Good Samaritans. They looked like the definition of trouble. They looked like they’d been typecast by an out-of-touch Hollywood casting director to play the roles of three Arizona roughneck brothers who drank too much, smoked too much, and liked to force themselves on women. Especially women only a fraction of their size.

  Widow tried to stay positive. He said, “Hey guys. Thanks for stopping, but I just finished putting on the spare tire, and we’re ready to go. I’m sorry, but you stopped for no reason.”

  The driver stopped walking at the tip of the truck’s nose, right in front of the headlights. His belly hung out a good six inches from where it actually belonged on a healthier man.

  The guy asked, “So ya two don’t need any help or a ride or nothin’?”

  Widow shook his head, but the girl said, “Thank you for stopping, but my friend here already fixed me up. As you can see.”

  Better to let me do the talking, Widow thought.

  At first, she didn’t seem aware that these guys weren’t interested in helping them or in their wellbeing, but it was obvious by her demeanor that she seemed to get onboard with the realization of that danger pretty fast, about as fast as anyone Widow had ever seen before.

  The driver asked, “Yer friend?” He looked at his brother, and then he asked, “So ya two don’t even know each other?”

  Widow stayed quiet.

  The woman walked up closer to Widow and leaned into him and placed her arm around his waist, only she couldn’t reach around it, but they got the idea.

  She said, “Of course, we know each other. We’re off to Las Vegas right now. We’re gonna get married. You know, at one of those thirty-minute wedding chapels. Like Bon Jovi did?”

  The third guy had been inching toward the rear of the truck. Widow assumed his actions were intended to go unnoticed, but he was about as obvious as Hitler’s mustache.

  Widow kept his eyes forward between the front two guys, his hands down by his sides. In this situation, with a good ten feet between him and the two front guys and about fifteen from the last guy, his biggest concern was that the back guy was going for a gun, but that wasn’t a reasonable fear because you don’t keep a gun hidden in the bed of a truck. You keep it in the cabin. If these guys had been armed, they would’ve brought a gun out in the first few seconds.

  The second guy asked, “Bon Jovi? Did he get married by Elvis?”

  The first guy said, “Ya know what? I’m not all that sure about that story. I honestly never cared for Bon Jovi. He’s a faggot.”

  The second guy said, “That’s right. He’s one of ’em queers. He probably did get hitched in Vegas. They got a lot of queers out there. Men dressed as women and all.”

  The first guy said, “You from Vegas, little lady?”

  She said, “Yeah.”

  The second guy said, “No shit! We can see yer plates say Nevada. And with that body and that fake rack ya got, well, ya must be from Vegas.”

  The first guy said, “Ya one of dem showgirls? The kind dat dance around on stage?”

  Widow said, “Come on, guys. That’s enough.”

  He craned his head again and watched as the third guy reached his hand into the back of the truck. His hand stayed down and hidden from view. Whatever he was reaching for, he had it already and was just keeping it out of sight until he needed it. Widow figured it was a blunt weapon because he could’ve pulled out a knife and concealed it quickly without Widow seeing it. Most knives were small and foldable and easy to hide, unless it was a machete. Which wasn’t likely because there wasn’t much need for a machete in Northern Arizona. They were available online, certainly, but he couldn’t imagine a hardware store carrying one. No, he was sure the weapon the guy had was a blunt object—a baseball bat or a shovel or even a big hammer.

  The first guy said, “So ya two from Vegas. Then does that mean yer one of dem guys who dress like a woman?”

  The second guy started laughing, and the third looked back at the road, and th
at’s when Widow knew he had made a big mistake. Because the third guy was checking to make sure that no one could see what he had in his hand. When he saw that the road was empty, he stepped away from the truck. Widow had been right about them not keeping a regular gun in the bed of the truck, but he had been dead wrong in assuming two important details.

  The first was that these guys were normal and had brains and acted like regular truck drivers, who did keep their guns inside their trucks. But these guys weren’t normal…they were dumb. That part he knew, but he had underestimated just how dumb.

  The second mistake he had made was discounting hunting rifles. The kind that are hard to store inside a cabin when you have three fat guys riding in there already. And if the third guy sat in the backseat, he’d probably move to the center so that he could be a part of the conversation in the front seat. Therefore, he’d store a hunting rifle in the back on the bed. Perhaps he’d even store it hidden in a case or a toolbox. That way, if they got pulled over in a traffic stop, it wouldn’t be out in the open to be seen by police officers. Maybe another reason they didn’t store it inside the cabin was because they didn’t want customers to see it on display. It might unsettle some people who’d called a random number from the internet to get their houses painted.

  The third guy moved about as fast as he could and pulled out a Thompson/Center Encore Pro Hunter Rifle, which is a scary-looking rifle. It looks like a Smith & Wesson 500 Magnum and a regular hunting rifle had a baby.

  The third guy came forward so that the girl and Widow could clearly see the rifle, and he pointed it right at them, held down low at the hip.

  The second guy said, “I sure hope ya are one of dem queers. ’Cause I ain’t like my brothers. I ain’t into those skinny type girls.”

  CHAPTER 3

  WIDOW STARED at the grisly rifle that was about ten feet from him now. It had a hammer, a scope attachment, and a stock that was built to last because this particular rifle had quite a kick to it. The stock was black, and the under grip was customized with hunter camo colors. The rest was a chrome silver like the grill on the front of the truck. This was not a gun that Widow wanted pointed at him because it was more than deadly. It was catastrophic. And right now, it was pointed about two inches south of his center mass, at his abdomen. Which was right up there among the last places he ever wanted to be shot. A round in the gut was never fun, from any gun. It wasn’t a guaranteed fatal shot, but it would be under his current circumstances because he was on the 161 freeway, out in the middle of nowhere, and far from the next small town, which may not be equipped with a hospital with an emergency room that could handle a gunshot wound that caused the stomach and intestines to spill out. And he doubted they had a medical chopper on standby to pick him up.

  Widow shifted his eyes from the gun barrel to the second guy who was still talking, only he had stopped listening as soon as the guy started suggesting that he wanted to basically have his way with Widow. He stopped listening because this was not a serious threat, not because the guy wasn’t serious. The guy was completely serious, but Widow didn’t take it seriously simply because it was not going to happen.

  The first guy said, “Now, little lady. Why don’t you be polite and toss your keys over here? Right at my feet will be fine. No need to throw dem at me.”

  The woman’s grip on Widow’s back tightened, and she pulled at him like a shield she wanted to hide behind.

  The guy said, “Now don’t ya make me repeat myself.”

  She looked down at her keys and then tossed them over to him, but they landed only halfway between that massive chrome grill and where she stood.

  Widow said, “You intend to shoot both of us with that thing?”

  The third guy said, “I’ll shoot ya both.”

  “That’s a muzzleloader, right? I never fired one. Not like that. Not personally. But I know it only holds one round at a time.”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “So there’s two of us. I’m sure you knew that because I’m sure you’re just the best at math.”

  “I don’t need more than one bullet. I only need to shoot you.”

  “Is that right? Just me? And what makes you think that?”

  The guy said, “’Cause she’s a girl.”

  Widow said, “A girl that can kick your ass.”

  “Nah, she can’t.”

  “Oh yes, she can.”

  The first guy said, “Shut up! Go stand over there!”

  He pointed over to the side of the truck, which blocked the two of them from the view of passing cars. If any cars were passing, that was, which at that moment they still were not.

  Widow stayed where he was. He said, “No. We’ll stay right here. Where cars passing by can see us.”

  The third guy kept the rifle pointed at Widow’s midsection. He said, “You better do as he said, boy!”

  Widow said, “You ever shoot that thing before?”

  “Of course I has.”

  “You sure? Because it looks brand new.”

  “We clean it good. Dat’s all.”

  “You know that thing has a hard kick.”

  “Yeah, I know. So what?”

  Widow said, “So you’re holding it down by the hip. You fire that thing, sure, it’ll kill me. If you hit me. But it’ll knock you on your ass.”

  The first guy interrupted and said, “Don’t you worry about that. You’ll be dead. The kick’ll be his problem. Now, get over there. By da truck.”

  The girl whispered into Widow’s ear, “What the hell are you doing?”

  Widow stayed quiet.

  The first guy said, “I’m not going to ask twice. Billy here will shoot you where you stand.”

  Billy asked, “William, why did you tell him my name?”

  Widow smiled and said, “Billy? And William? You guys’re brothers?” He pointed at the second brother and asked, “So what’s your name? Willie?” He chuckled.

  The second brother said, “It’s Robert.”

  “Well, Bob, Billy, and Willie, we really gotta get going. So if we’re done here, you heard the lady. We got plans in Vegas.”

  Widow started to back away with the girl behind his back. He knew that even though these guys were pretty stupid, they were bluffing. They wouldn’t shoot them, not when any moment a car could come sweeping over the hill and drive right by. Including a cop car or state trooper.

  Billy said, “Stop, or I’ll shoot ya!”

  Widow paused a beat, stared him down, and then continued to back away. He shifted to the right and herded the girl out toward the road, figuring if he could get out in the open, Billy would be forced to hide the rifle. No cars came at them from their side of 161, but he could hear a pack of them coming from behind him in the other direction.

  He knew they would see the rifle if it came out from behind the truck, and certainly they would hear that thing if he fired it, which he wouldn’t.

  Widow calculated the seconds. Oncoming cars. Exposure. Twelve steps to get the girl in the car.

  Billy said, “I’m warning ya! I’ll shoot!”

  Widow and the girl had moved over about three feet from the line to the road, and the next best thing that Widow wanted to happen—happened.

  The best thing would’ve been for a state trooper to pull up and stop and ask if they were doing okay. But what happened was William got tired of letting the situation get away from him, and without warning, he came charging at Widow.

  William ran out toward Widow like a fat, lazy bull charging a stranger, but the guy was slow. It all felt rehearsed, like maybe these guys had done this before or planned different scenarios and acted them out, because another brother came running at Widow at the exact same time. He figured they had a playbook somewhere that they created to show the different types of moves they could do to put down the boyfriend in case he tried to play hero.

  The second brother came faster than the first, and Widow figured in that split second that they’d reach him at about the same time.
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  Widow pushed off his toes and used his back to shove the girl backward. It was just enough to get her moving. Her legs reacted and carried her away from the charge. He didn’t shove her hard, just used his body weight and her one hundred pounds against her. She half-slipped and half-ran back toward the convertible. She ended up on the passenger side. Her two hands clutched the side mirror, and she stopped and balanced herself.

  Widow used the slight momentum he had gained from moving backward to catapult himself forward in a violent rush like a two-hundred-fifty-pound football player rushing the quarterback, only with no one blocking him.

  He rushed into the first brother with a sidestep to the right and a left elbow strike right into the throat—perfectly executed. The three brothers had rehearsed this scenario in every way they could think of, but they hadn’t planned on a guy trained to fight by the US Navy SEALs. They hadn’t planned on a guy who didn’t have to rehearse because he wasn’t the kind of guy who planned for things. He was the kind of guy who experienced things. Widow called audibles. For him, there was no need to plan for what might happen in combat. Fighting was all about acting and reacting. And when you’d been in as many street fights as Widow had, it was all natural.

  The three brothers should’ve taken a closer look at him before they acted. If they had looked at him closer, they would’ve seen that his knuckles were covered in rough patches of skin that would never return to normal. They were rough and black and would stay that way. This was a guy who punched—a lot.

  If these three brothers had a copy of Widow’s Navy medical records, they’d see that he’d had almost every bone in his body broken, cracked, fractured, or battered at one point or another, like a title holder in the MMA. Being an experienced fighter didn’t come without a price. More than that, Widow had broken thousands of opponents’ bones in the past.

  If the three brothers had asked Widow to take off his shirt, they would’ve seen a nightmare. He was a naturally big guy, and his body was half-covered in tattoos and knife wounds. There were three bullet wounds on his back, arranged in a triangle. They were scars from a time when he’d been shot three times while undercover and left for dead. Widow had a long, dark past. But these three brothers would have no way of knowing that. They had expected a run-of-the-mill boyfriend, and they had acted accordingly.