Kin of the Child, chapter 7 (Patreon)

“Thank you for the invitation,” Tony said. He was standing in Jack Kelso’s spare room. Jack Kelso. His book was the unofficial inspiration for at least three movies. True, Kelso’s book was dry and in need of a good editor, but Tony had mainlined it when he’d been a uniformed officer in Philly. Kelso had stood up against the whole corrupt CIA system, and Tony respected the hell out of him.

“Not a problem. Any friend of Blair’s is a friend of mine,” Kelso said with a warm smile. He looked like a college professor, which apparently he was now, but Tony still thought of him as the wronged CIA agent who blew the whistle on a dirty system.

“Are you Jim’s family, too?” Tali asked. She had a death grip on Tony’s neck, and she was still acting a little weird, but watching her father nearly get arrested would freak any kid out. After she’d been around a while, she’d realize that Tony had some weird karma and people did tend to arrest him. The only difference was this time was that he had committed the crime. Sort of. He hadn’t intended to impersonate a federal officer, and he thought that DA was a dick, but at least he wasn’t framing Tony.

Kelso looked up from his wheelchair. “I sure am. I’ve known Jim Ellison a long time.”

Tali felt silent, but her hold on Tony’s neck loosened. 

“Well, I owe you and them a big one,” Tony said.

Kelso smiled, but there was something guarded in that expression. Tony suspected that Kelso was going to investigate Tony two seconds after the bedroom door closed. That was fine. Tony was going to do a few background checks himself. “If you need me,” Kelso said, “I’ll be in my study. It’s on the other side of the family room. Sodas and snacks are in the fridge. You have the run of the house.” He rolled his chair backward.

“Thank you.” The fact that Kelso was such a good guy was a nice surprise. Plenty of cops blew the whistle on dirty departments because they wanted to be the center of attention. Maybe that was why Tony walked away from Danny Price rather than pressing charges against his ex-partner. Tony liked being the center of attention when he put himself there. He hadn’t been willing to give Danny that power over him—the power to define him as a snitch.

Tony wondered if that meant that Kelso was a better man or if the injury that had forced him out of the field made it easier for him to blow up his career in law enforcement.

Kelso rolled away down the hall, and Tali tugged to be allowed down. “Stay in the room for now,” Tony said as he let her down.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you getting into Mr. Kelso’s things.”

“Why?” She hopped up onto the bed and gave Tony such an earnest look that he swallowed down the urge to pull out the old ‘because I said so’ line. He definitely wasn’t going to tell her that Kelso probably had weapons hidden around the house and assumed a precocious child couldn’t find them. However, Tony knew better. Tali had a nose for heavy weaponry. She was her mother’s daughter. It didn’t help that the wheelchair meant that Kelso’s best hiding places were probably at Tali’s eye level. Yeah, he was not trusting her to wander the house alone.

“I need to call a friend, and you should not wander strange places alone.”

“Mr. Kelso is a friend of Blair and Jim.”

Tony sighed. He had no idea when Detective Ellison and Agent Sandburg had become Jim and Blair, and he didn’t like it. “Sweetie, they are good people, but you can’t trust someone you just met. We don’t know Jim and Blair, and I know about Mr. Kelso, but I don’t know him. I don’t want you to wander alone, not until we know them better.”

Tali searched his face. Just went Tony expected an argument, Tali nodded. “Okay, Daddy. Can I take a bath?”

Tony gave his girl a hug. “Of course you can. It looked like Mr. Kelso had bubble bath in there.” Tony wondered if Kelso had gotten some when Agent Sandburg had called ahead or if he had grandchildren who liked strawberry bubbles. Either way, it suggested Kelso went out of his way to make kids feel at home, and that was another mark in his favor. And even better, bubbles were one of the few childish pleasures Tali would indulge in.

Her face lit up, and without another word, she raced for the guest bathroom, her shirt coming off and flying across the room before she even reached the door.

Tony closed the bedroom door and stomped down on an urge to search the room for hidden cameras. Given Kelso’s background, he very well might have some, but as a guest in his house, it felt rude to search them out. Part of him desperately wanted to call Gibbs. He wanted to hear a gruff, “Stay right there” before Gibbs hung up and rode to Tony’s rescue, but that was a fantasy. Tony had a daughter to protect, and that meant keeping his feet on the ground and his head out of the clouds.

Instead he sat on the edge of the bed and called the one person he knew would answer her phone for him, any time and for any reason. It rang twice before she picked up. 

“Tony!” Abby’s enthusiasm surrounded him.

“Abby.” He tried to sound cheerful, but the long silence the followed suggested he’d failed.

Eventually, she asked, “Okay, mister what's wrong?” 

“That is not fair. You should not be able to read me from the other side of the country.”

“I have known you for fifteen years. You cannot tell me that everything is okay because I hear it in your voice. It's not. What's wrong?”

He decided to focus on the part that was bugging him the most, and sadly, that was not his impending arrest. “There are a couple of cops that have shown an interest in being particularly kind to me and Tali, and it's making me nervous. I was wondering if you had any contacts and could check them out.”

“Have you called Gibbs?” she asked, her voice hesitant. Yeah, even she knew that relationship was broken. If they had parted in anger, Tony would believe Gibbs would get over it and invite Tony back into his life and into NCIS. However, they had been painfully cordial when Tony left. Gibbs had wished him well, which felt a lot more permanent. And while Abby had recovered from the worst of her Gibbs worshiping days, she still had a bad habit of assuming that he had some supernatural power to save everyone. And she assumed that Gibbs would want to save him. Tony listened to Tali laughing in the bathroom, and the water stopped running. She was his life now.

“Abby,” he said wearily.

“Okay, okay. I get it.” For a half second, Tony could hear an echo of Agent Sandburg's I hear you. “Right so I assume you have names for me.”

“The first one is Agent Blair Sandburg, CID.”

“The CID? I thought you were in Washington state?”

“I am,” Tony said. He was glad he wasn’t the only one who found that suspicious.

“Hinky. What is a CID agent doing in that area?”

“Apparently he hangs out with the Cascade Police Department as a liaison.”

There was another long silence. “That passes hinky and lands on freaky.”

“Yeah, kinda like NCIS having a Mossad liaison. Completely freaky.”

That made Abby go silent for a long time. At least she didn't poke his Ziva buttons anymore. There was only so much self-deprecating humor Tony could engage in before his real feelings started floating to the surface like decomposing bodies.

“Okay, Agent Blair Sandburg. Got it. So, who else am I doing a deep dive on?

“Detective James Ellison. He's also a Deputy Captain for the Cascade Police Department.”

“E-L-L-I-S-O-N?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“Okay. I'm on it. Now will you explain to me what’s going on up there? I could come up if you need me. I wouldn’t mind at all. You’re my friend and you’re always going to be my friend.”

“Abby, it's fine. In fact, there is every chance that I am being overly paranoid.” At least Tony hoped so. Hopefully these two men were strange, not dangerous. Hopefully the DA would decide it wasn't worth pursuing a case against him. After all, if the prosecutor discredited Tony, he was not going to have his primary witness on the stand during any trial of the bank robber. Earlier Tony had assumed that the terrible conviction rate around here was due to police incompetence, but it was possible there were multiple factors at play.

“So how is Tali?” Abby asked.

Despite everything going on in his life, Tony smiled. “She's good. She actually likes Detective Ellison, and she is decided that she's not going to be a tiger girl anymore. She's a wolf girl.”

“Wolves are awesome! I'll send her some jewelry. So, what brought on that change?” Abby sounded amused, but then she knew how stubborn Tali was. Once she made up her mind, she didn’t change easily.

“Agent Sandburg convinced her that the wolves’ ability to hunt in packs made it a more effective predator.”

Abby was silent for two seconds before she started laughing. “That is such a Tali reaction. And you are such an awesome father that you don't try and convince her to be something she's not. Have I told you how awesome you are lately?”

“You have,” Tony said. For all her flaws, no one was a better cheerleader than Abby and nobody could cheer him up faster. “She is such a unique child. It turns out when I said that I hated kids, I just hate other people's kids.”

“Totally!” Abby said. “But Tali is so much better than other people’s kids. So, when do you need this background information and how deep do I need to go and are you somewhere safe right now, and don’t you dare lie to me, mister. I will come up there and hurt you, and you know I will.”

Tony smiled. There was something wrong with him because it felt good to have someone threaten him. “I need this in the next day or so, I need you to go Abby levels of special deep, and I am safe. Believe it or not, I’m holed up in the spare bedroom of one Jack Kelso.”

“Who?”

“Jack Kelso. He wrote that expose of the CIA after he was injured in an off-books mission. His book was the inspiration for that movie we went to together—Spies and Conspiracies.”

“Really?” Abby’s voice went up. 

“Oh yeah, and his book is so much better than the movie.” Tony leaned against the headboard and telling Abby all about Kelso’s book, or at least the interesting part. This was comfortable. The knot between Tony’s shoulder blades eased somewhat. He didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but today he had Tali splashing in the tub and Abby making happy noises over the phone. It was enough.