“Ready?”
“Yep. All done. I’ll meet you at the end of the street.” Nick disconnected. He checked on Naseer’s wife. Her breathing sounded normal. Before leaving, Nick took his mask off, pulled on a ball cap with the bill over his eyes, windbreaker hood in place over it, and hands jammed into his jacket pockets. He walked at a brisk pace to the end of Naseer’s street where Gus picked him up with headlights off. Gus didn’t turn on his lights until four blocks down the long, steep hill.
“How we doin’?”
“Naseer was bribing the janitor to keep an eye on Dimah.” Nick yanked his hood back, and ball cap off. “When Heredia stops getting paid, he’ll stop watching. We weren’t so lucky with how he knew we were at the Point. My neighbor lady, Selma, was working in her garden when Naseer and Saif checked my house. She revealed our penchant for frequenting Otter’s Point. Naseer also checked at the Café after Selma mentioned Rachel worked there. That means we couldn’t take out Saif tonight even if we did think it was a good idea. A mysterious Father/Son demise would attract way too much attention. Maybe Saif won’t be so motivated with his old man dead.”
“You don’t believe that, do you?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter, Gus. We’ll have to wait, and keep an eye on Dimah. The funeral services and mourning time will take a while for poor old Uncle Naseer. If you come along walking Danger tomorrow, you can hold onto Deke for me while I go in and check on Dimah. I’d like to get a look at this Santino Heredia too.”
“At least we’ll get a few hours of sleep before the school walk,” Gus said. “Was Jean fast asleep when you left the house tonight?”
“Yep. Rachel was fast asleep too, which is good plausible deniability if anyone asks her whether I was home last night. She saw me at home, and then she saw me in the morning.”
“Did Uncle Naseer have an alarm?”
“Who? The big bad have an alarm? I don’t think so. Uncle Naseer figured he was so scary he only needed a single bolt lock, not that it would have mattered.”
Gus stopped in front of Nick’s corner lot. “Call me at seven if you still want me with you in the morning.”
“I’ll call for sure, otherwise Deke will hound me all day because he missed his walk to school. I’m not too whipped, am I?”
Gus was still laughing as he drove away. Nick sighed. He went into stealth mode for entry into his house. The moment he opened the door, all senses go, he smelled strawberry, and there was no Deke. “Damn it, Danger! You’re supposed to be in bed. C’mon out you little minx. Do you know what time it is?”
Jean walked past the corner of the entryway where she had been lying in wait. She was anything but pleased. “I was stock still. I didn’t even breathe. How could you know I was stalking you, Dad?
Nick considered telling her he felt the displacement of the air inside the house, but decided it would be best to train her no matter what she decided to do later in life. He wasn’t in charge of that, and he knew Jean would take his lesson seriously so she would not be detected easily again. “It’s the strawberry shampoo you use, kid. If you’re stalking or hiding, you have to mask everything, including your smell.”
Jean listened intently, nodding when Nick finished without a hint of angst. “I’ll remember that. Thank you. I figured you’d give me some crap story with the code of the Ninja warrior or something.”
Nick grinned. “I thought about it. You do know your Mom will kill me in my sleep if she ever hears a peep you want to insanely do what I do, right?”
“Mom can’t stop me once I’m eighteen.”
“No, but your Mom could boot me out of your lives, blaming me for doing stuff behind her back, which puts me in a bad spot in my aging years. You could be a great novelist. I know you could because you’ve had so many life experiences already at nine years old, you’d rock doing fiction.”
Jean hugged him. “Don’t worry about that now. I’ll keep anything you tell me between us. I know you don’t feel things like other people. You love Mom and me. I sure couldn’t miss that fact when you saved us. Did you get him?”
Uh oh. Nick racked his brain, trying to appear or sound innocent of any ‘get him’ scenario, but he gave it up. The moment Jean heard the news Uncle Naseer died, it would all be on him no matter what he said or did. Put that on top of the fact Rachel couldn’t fool her daughter with eyewitnesses and a court judge, and Nick didn’t bother with a doomed ruse.