Page 95 of Wandering in Darkness
“I’ll get plates out. And what does everyone want to drink?” he asks as he hurries off to fulfil orders.
Once I have the pancakes done and Grayson has served everyone their drinks, we all sit at the table.
“I guess if this really is about Lt. Allen, I have to start at the beginning,” I say, giving them a brief recount of events. When I get to the part where I shot Eddie, I’m left unsure of what to say. It was one thing telling Grayson, who’d been involved, but it’s harder telling others. My stomach tightens at the very idea of admitting what I’d done. But I need them to understand how far these people will go to accomplish what they set out to do.
It’s rough, but I manage to tell them. I definitely don’t give them as many details as I’d given Grayson, but I still make them aware of everything that took place on that horrible day. As soon as I’m finished talking, I hold up my hand. “I don’t want to hear about it again. I don’t want pity. I don’t want to be told it’s not my fault. I don’t want to hear any more about it.”
“I understand,” Lane says as Felix watches me closely but remains silent. Antonio just stares at the table.
“But now… it’s Grayson’s turn because Ned is obviously tied to this in some way; I just don’t know how.”
Grayson nods. “Lt. Allen’s reach goes deep. I’ve spent months trying to figure out how deep this all ran. When I looked into the operations we’d done, it all seemed legitimate from the outside. The only thing that was never mentioned was them pulling Cal in. I found very little record of Cal’s involvement. But the rest of us were on active duty and during those times, Lt. Allen had permission to do what he did… or so it seemed. Because once I finally got access to the actual reports and compared them to what really transpired, it was vastly different. Our involvement was never supposed to go beyond monitoring. We were never supposed to engage with those groups.”
Honestly, I’m not surprised by this. I feel like I would have questioned it if I hadn’t been so desperate for a chance to beincluded again—and if I hadn’t put so much trust in Devon and Lt. Allen.
“After it was over, I began to wonder if it was legal for me to be there,” I say. “At the time, he made it seem so legitimate that I never asked questions. The papers I signed, the way I was paid, everything seemed fine… until it wasn’t.”
“Right,” Grayson says. “He has others covering it up. I don’t know how many people are involved with him, but I believe Audrey is.”
“Audrey?” I ask.
“There were just… things Audrey signed off on that were different than what we’d done. It made me question if someone else forged it or if she really was on Lt. Allen’s side.”
“I just… whydidDevon have you kill Eddie?” Felix asks. “And during such an important operation? Couldn’t it have fucked up everything he was working for?”
Grayson takes this one because I’m honestly not quite sure but have had my theories. “The people they were there to see… yes, they weren’t the most upstanding men, but they weren’t off trafficking like we were led to believe. I’m not saying they weregoodguys. They were still moving product, but Lt. Allen was feeding us misinformation to make it seem like they were the bad guys when all along, we were. What I believe was happening was that Lt. Allen was trying to get established within this group as a buyer with the idea of taking them down from the inside. But again, I have no proof of this. And I’m not quite sure why. Did he want their product? Did he want to control them and their territory? I have no idea.”
I nod. “I believe Grayson’s right. Like… when the people we were there to deal with came in and found me over Eddie’s and Devon’s bodies, they didn’t shoot me on the spot. They disarmed me and tried to get answers out of me, but I didn’t have any. Once it was quite clear that I didn’t know what the fuck wasgoing on, they let me go. I’d shot one of their men, but I hadn’t killed anyone of theirs and… they seemed quite forgiving of what I’d done.”
“But why did he have Eddie killed?” Antonio asks.
“I think Eddie knew,” I admit. “I’ve run it through my head again and again. Eddie being off when he arrived at the airport was my first clue, and then Devon taking my earpiece seems to cement it. There were channels on the earpiece so Eddie could talk right to me… Devon took mine and then once Eddie was inside, I think Eddie tried telling me it was a setup. I think he realized that what we were doing wasn’t some special op like we’d been led to believe it was. So when he thought he was telling me, Devon heard and knew that if Eddie told the others or told the people we were there to see, he would ruin everything Devon and Lt. Allen had established.
“Devon knew there was only one way to silence him. He had to have been suspicious from the beginning. It’s why he didn’t tell me they’d planned for Eddie to change clothes. He probably even insisted on Eddie wearing the hat to throw me off. I always pay close attention to what my team is wearing before they go anywhere so I can’t make a mistake. I have to know so I can quickly identify them from far distances. Devon didn’t care about losing those two. He wanted to keep using me and was going to take his chances because replacing a sniper is much harder. While Tate was a great guy and good at what he did, he could have been replaced. If Devon could keep Eddie from revealing anything to the others or me, he thought he could keep using me. He didn’t expect I’d run in after them and find out what happened.”
“So what kind of deal did Lt. Allen want to make with the group at the hotel, then?” Lane asks.
“I don’t know,” I admit, looking at Grayson. “Do you understand it better than I do?”
“Honestly, I’m not fully sure. I’m still wading through things myself. When I started to look into him, I found that Ned used to serve with Lt. Allen. There was a rumor that Ned was trying to accuse Lt. Allen of trafficking illegal weapons and drugs, but it died down quite quickly… I’ve since learned that it died down because Lt. Allen took Ned’s fiancée and killed her to silence him, along with a threat that he wouldn’t stop there if he spoke about it again. But Ned’s not the only one in his group who has been fucked over by Lt. Allen.”
“Wait… is Allen’s first name Leonard?” Felix asks. “Because that’s who Ned was talking about dealing with when I was hiding in that huge cupboard in his office.”
“It is,” Grayson says.
“What does Ned hope to accomplish?” I ask. “If Lt. Allen already killed his fiancée… he must be holding something else over him?”
Grayson shakes his head. “Maybe he thinks Ned values his life enough to stay out of it, or maybe he told him he’d move on to his parents or something. I think if we go talk to him, we might have a better understandingandpeople on our side. I know our opinions of Ned are not too favorable after his stunt with Antonio. To me, he feels like a desperate man who has made a very fucked-up mistake out of grief.”
“I want to use Ned,” I decide. “I’m not going to forgive him, but I’ll happily use him. But I want it clear that none of you have to be involved in any part of this. We’re only here to explain what we’re doing.”
Antonio’s eyebrows rise as he points a thumb at Felix and another thumb at Lane. “Can you seriously look at their faces and evenconsiderthe idea that neither of them is going to be involved?”
“Huh, us? These are very normal facial expressions we wear upon our very normal faces,” Felix says. “Right, Lane?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“Explain to me which part of any of this is normal?” Antonio mutters. “Whatever. I guess if you’re all going, I’ll come along. Just like… to see if I need to tell you all that this is a horrible idea and to come home.”
