Page 7 of Shadow Games

When she and Ken had first gotten married, things had been idyllic. He had doted on her and they’d had sex all the time. He’d told her he loved her and bought her expensive gifts, but she knew now that had been a lie as well. It had all been a fabrication. A carefully constructed house of cards.

Rowan rolled onto her side and tucked her hands beneath her cheek, her anxiety spiking as she thought about the decline of her marriage. Her dad had told her something was off, but she hadn’t listened to him. She thought she’d known best.

Ken was like lightning in a bottle. Vibrant and so full of life. But he had a dark side, too. When he drank, his demons came out. And in general, if he was off duty, he was drinking. Whiskey was his preferred drink. And the more of it, the better.

That was also when he became talkative. Navy SEALs were known for their secrecy. Ken was too much of a narcissist, though. He told her about the people he shot and the things he’d gotten away with. Stories that had turned her stomach. He bitched about his teammates, the men he relied on to protect his life, telling her how much better at his job he was.

And he bitched about her. Cutting things like calling her a stupid cow, and why had she put on weight. Her ass was so big. She hadn’t put on weight in her marriage, but he seemed convinced she had. He complained about her not being there to welcome him like the other women. She didn’t always get notification when they were flying in, though. And if she was at work, they didn’t like to let her leave.

At first, when he sobered up, he apologized. Then he stopped apologizing, calling her a fucking liar when she told him what he’d done the night before. So, she’d started recording him in his drunk rages. He hadn’t liked that, either, destroying her phone twice. Rowan could see the degradation of her marriage, but she didn’t know what to do about it. She ended up planting hidden cameras to record all the time. Though he’d never physically threatened her, she knew if she approached him at the wrong time, he could seriously hurt her.

Then, last week after the funeral, she’d been attacked. A young Hispanic man had dragged her into an alley near a coffee shop she frequented, punched her, and told her that if she didn’t return their belongings, she was going to be the one to pay for it. He’d stuffed a business card into her bra, pinching her nipple with the backs of his fingers as he left it. At the time, she’d had no idea what he was talking about, so she’d started investigating. She'd always left Ken his own privacy. That night, after filing the police report on the attack, she'd gone to her former home and torn apart the house, looking for clues. She'd found more than she'd ever wanted to.

Rowan was surprised that the cartel hadn’t gone through her home first.

In a snap top box in the garage, she’d found wrapped bundles of something. She’d unwrapped the layers of trash bags, worried she was going to find a dead body in parts, or something. It stank to high heaven, and it was like peeling back layers of an onion. When she got to the odd brown substance inside, she knew it had to be some kind of drug. Snapping a couple of pictures with her phone, she rewrapped the stuff, very careful to make it look like the rest of the bundles in the box. Then she restacked the box and set it back exactly where it had been.

There were three boxes in the garage. She opened the lids to confirm that the same wrapped bundles were there. Taking video the entire time, she documented everything she did and everywhere she looked. Then she moved inside the house and began going through the office. Nothing obvious popped out at her. Turning, she eyed the gun safe. Ken had given her the combination on the off chance she would need a weapon at some point, but she’d never had reason to get into it. Paging through the notes section of her phone, she found the combination and keyed it in.

The scent of gun oil greeted her. Ken had more than a dozen long guns, and at least that many pistols stacked carefully on the top shelf. There was a set of keys hanging inside the door on a little hook, and she wondered what they went to. She looked around, wondering if there was a trap door in the bottom of the safe or something. Or was there another safe somewhere? Catching a flash of blue down below, she bent down, going to her knees. In the back of the gun safe was a small, bright blue box. Reaching through the forest of guns, she tried to pull it out, but there were too many obstructions. Sitting back, she took a picture of the way the gun safe was set up, then began removing rifles.

It took her several minutes to get enough moved to get to the little box. It was a small fire safe, and the key glided into the lock smoothly.

Rowan opened the box and gasped. There were four large stacks of one-hundred dollar bills. “What the hell…” she breathed, fingering the bills. She thought about the bills she’d been balancing between their paychecks. This would pay everything off, and so much more.

It was drug money, though. Of that, she had no doubt. She had no business touching it.

So, what did she do now that she believed her husband had been dealing drugs? Call the cops and file a report, even though he was already dead? Go to the Navy and have him brought up on posthumous charges? She had no idea. The cops would probably hand it off to the Navy, but what was to say that the Navy, or someone in it, wasn’t on the take? Somebody had to have been helping him.

It took her two hours of mulling over implications before she decided to go to the DEA. The man she filed the report with had eyed her incredulously. She could still remember the look on his face as she’d presented him with the pictures of everything. Within an hour, they were at her house collecting the drugs, the guns and the cash.

They interviewed her for hours, then let her go. When she mentioned she thought she might be in danger from whoever he was dealing with, the Agent in charge had given her a business card. “If you have issues, give me a call.” Yeah, she would do that. Right. She stuck it with the cartel’s business card.

Rowan rolled over again, staring up at the ceiling. She could recall the way fury had lit his eyes. What would he have done if she’d had him arrested? Probably killed her as soon as he got out…

She’d gone through hours of footage she’d taken of him without him knowing and found even more incriminating evidence. Information about drug deals he’d done. People he'd paid off. And then the whole mess in Afghanistan with Wyatt. That one had been huge. She'd made copies of the recording and it had been what she’d dropped off to her lawyer here, for him to disseminate to the DEA.

Rowan lifted her head. She thought she'd heard something. No, it was probably just one of the women in the room. Mel shifted on her chair at the door. Had she heard something, as well?

Rowan’s heart began to race. Swinging her legs to the side of the bed, she sat up, slipping her shoes on, ears straining.

Then there was a distant crash.

3

The Suburban waiting for him at the airport was typical government. Non-descript, black, it would fade into traffic perfectly. He parked at an all-night coffee shop downtown and started walking. Charlie had said that Rowan had been on foot, so that was the best way to retrace her steps, if he could. Echo paced beside him, her tail wagging.

Wyatt got to the Cuyahoga County courthouse at about 9:00 PM. It was dark, of course, other than a few office lights. He and Echo circled the courthouse twice, looking for clues. There was nothing to be found. Though there had been a murder inside the courthouse, there was no evidence of it outside. They were probably trying to keep it quiet.

On his second trip around, Wyatt noticed a large cardboard box in an alley. It looked like a shelter. Had the homeless person noticed anything from a few days ago?

Wyatt kneeled down near the box. “Hey buddy,” he called.

There was rustling from inside the box. Eventually, a head popped out, half covered by a black knit cap. The man wasn't as old as Wyatt had expected, maybe mid 40s. His eyes were clear, blue but wary. Wyatt didn't blame him. He probably had a right to be wary. The streets were a dangerous place.

“What do you want?” the man snapped.

Wyatt held up a hand. “I'm sorry to bother you. Did you hear about the murder over here the other day?”

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