Page 8 of Shadow Games

“Of course, I heard about it. Everyone in Cleveland heard about it.”

“I wasn't in Cleveland at the time, so can you recap me?”

The man looked at him incredulously. “You woke me out of a damn good dream for gossip?”

Wyatt shrugged and pulled out a hundred dollar bill. “Does this make it easier to remember?”

The man snatched the bill out of his hand. “Of course, it does. What do you wanna know?”

“Tell me what you heard.”

“Some young buck got himself stabbed with a pair of scissors from his own drawer. They think the guy that did it was Mexican. The one that stabbed him, I mean. Not sure what the motive was.”

Wyatt thought he had some idea. “Any chance you saw a woman that day? 5’4”, reddish hair, curvy.”

The man cocked his head. “Maybe.”

The man fingered the hundred conspicuously. Wyatt knew what he wanted. He pulled another bill from his wallet and held it up.

“You know, I do think I remember seeing a woman like that. She passed by here a couple times. Looked kind of scared. I think there were a couple of men chasing her. Last time I saw her, she was running that way.” He made a motion over his shoulder.

Wyatt handed over the second bill. “Thank you for that.”

Echo moved forward, nose to the man. He smiled slightly and reached out to pet her. She allowed the man to stroke her, surprising Wyatt. Usually, she was more reserved.

“I used to have a dog,” the man murmured, before he drew back into his shelter.

They moved down the alley in the direction the man had pointed. Cleveland was a big city, and he doubted he would magically run into Rowan. So, where would she go that she could stay for a while? Hotels were expensive and he doubted she had a lot of spare cash if she was on the run. Would she hang out at a bus station or something? Or a shelter? Pulling the phone out, he scanned the area. There was a Greyhound bus station six blocks away. It was worth checking out.

He and Echo headed in that direction. There were people hanging out in the station, but not the one that he was looking for. He went up to the ticket counter. A young woman looked up at him. “Can I help you?”

“Any chance you've seen a woman about 5’4”, reddish colored hair getting a ticket somewhere?”

The woman looked at him incredulously. “Are you serious? We have several hundred people through here a day. Do you think I can remember one woman?”

It would have been easier if he’d had a picture of her, but he didn't. He'd forced himself to delete them long ago. “Thanks.”

He and Echo wandered the station for several minutes, but there was no sign of her. She'd disappeared two days ago. She could literally be anywhere in the country. Hell, she could be out of the country by now, if she had the means to do it.

They went back out onto the street. Pulling the cell phone from his pocket, he paged through the information that Charlie had given him. It was pretty sparse. There were some details about the attorney that had been killed, Chance Carmichael. But nothing he could use.

Wyatt slipped the phone into his pocket, glancing around. There was a billboard across the street. Safe Harbor Shelter. It was only a few blocks away. The information on the Billboard said that it took in abused, sick, pregnant women. Would Rowan have gone there?

Wyatt turned and headed back toward downtown, but the billboard stuck with him. If it only took in women, then it would keep out the men chasing her, right? If they even found the shelter. Pulling out the phone again, he looked it up. Eight blocks away. It was worth checking out.

* * *

A woman screamed,her voice shrill and high. Rowan thought it was one of the girls asleep in the room. But she looked around and realized that it wasn't. It was Melissa. The woman had her hands up and was fighting off an attacker. The other women began to wake and scared voices filled the room. Rowan knew she needed to get out of there.

If they were at the front door, though, there was no way to get around them. She grabbed her backpack from beneath the cot. The gun that she'd been carrying was in the administration office up front. How the hell did she get there? Mel grunted, and there was a crash, then a sharp crack of sound. Rowan had a feeling she had just gone down. Had that been the sound of a gun going off? She was too far away to see the attackers. But she had a feeling they were Hispanic. If they were, the cartel had found her. And they’d just killed Melissa.

The other women in the room were running around like idiots. She felt bad thinking it, but that's how it was. They had to be just as terrified as she was, but she knew that the men were here for her. When she stopped and looked through the moving crowd, she could see that there were two men at the gym door, both dark haired.

Her fear spiked. She had to get out of this room now. To her left was the big door to the old locker room. It was where the women showered and kept their spare clothes. She ran in that direction. A lot of other women did too, though. On the one hand, it was cover for her. On the other hand, it was drawing attention to where she was going. Whatever. She slammed into the locker room then had to wait for other women to get inside before she could shoot the deadbolt home. It wouldn't keep them out for long. She turned, scanning the room. There were windows above the lockers, but they'd been blacked out long before and she had no idea what they led to. They might be her only option though. She bolted around the room, looking for hidden doors she hadn't seen before. She'd scanned the area extensively when she first got here, paranoid, but maybe she’d missed something. Nope. It was a dead end. Catching the eye of another woman, she made a motion with her hands.

“Give me a foot up.”

The woman looked above Rowan's head and saw what she was doing. She nodded and clasped her fingers together. Rowan stepped into the cradle of her hands and let herself be boosted up. The lockers weren't wide, but it was wide enough for her to sit on. Setting her backpack aside, she turned to the window. Painted over and sealed, as she'd suspected. She twisted the lock lever and it moved, at least. But the window had to open in and she was in an odd position, reaching over to it. She tugged and pulled, but it didn't give. Reaching into her bag, she found her old lock blade. Dad had given it to her years ago and she never left home without it. She dragged the blade through the seams of the window, cutting at the paint. She made it all the way around the seam of the window when there was a bang at the door. Several women were at the door, leaning against it, trying to keep it closed. A couple of the girls had found themselves weapons. Mop handles and tennis rackets. It wouldn’t keep the men out if they had guns, though.

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