by A J Rivers
“They aren't the most pleasant details,” I tell him.
“Will you tell me anyway?” he asks. “I want to know who this guy is and what's going on with him.”
I stare into the dancing fire, finding the shades of color in the flames and against the dark wood turning to pale ash in front of me.
“The Dragon is a man named Darren Blackwell. He was already under investigation by the Bureau for quite a while before I got involved. They had a lot on him, but not quite enough to be absolutely sure of a conviction. He was linked to major drug running and a seemingly never-ending stream of violent crime. There were indications he led organized crime syndicates and instigated street wars to boost his own income. As you can imagine, the Bureau was very interested in not only stopping him but also finding out who was working with him," I explain.
"It could lead to stopping a major vein of drugs and crime," Sam says.
"Exactly. But in order to do that, they needed to get to him in a way that would be unexpected. Just a normal sting wouldn't work. They couldn't send in a fake buyer or somebody pretending to want to work for him. He would figure that out too fast. This guy was smart and influential. Smooth, respected, and feared. They needed something he wouldn't be suspicious about, something he would have to work for. So, they sent me.”
“Why you?” Sam asks.
“I was new. I had only been working in the Bureau for a short time, and my face wasn't known in criminal circles yet. That's an unfortunate side effect for some agents who frequently go undercover. Of course, most stay undetected and can do multiple assignments without ever being noticed. But there's always a possibility of criminals from one investigation crossing over into another. They wanted to make sure the person they sent in was a fresh, unrecognizable face.”
“And a woman,” Sam notes.
“Yes,” I say. “That was the point. He already had an army of men ready to do anything he wanted of them. He didn't need anybody else. And he wasn't interested in new customers unless they were highly recommended and came with mind-boggling amounts of money to throw at him. So they came up with a different approach. Dangle something in front of him he couldn't have. He wasn't used to that. He was used to always getting exactly what he wanted, when he wanted it. The only way to get the information the Bureau needed and get close enough to him to bring him down was to earn his trust and loyalty.”
“That doesn't sound easy,” he says.
“Not at all. And not guaranteed. There was always a possibility he wouldn't be interested. Or he wouldn't be willing to go along with it. Sending me in was a risk, and everybody involved knew it wasn't going to be fast. This wasn't something that I could just do in a few days or a couple of weeks, and it would be over with. That became my life. And I had to live every minute of it,” I say.
“What does that mean?” he asks.
“I got a different apartment. A whole new wardrobe. They gave me an acting coach to change my voice and the way I walked. Different makeup. A different car. A fake job. I constructed an entirely separate life, so if he looked into me or had his men follow me and try to find out something about me, there wouldn't be anything unusual for him to notice. That meant I did a lot of the case alone. I didn't have the rest of the team around me all the time. That would have stood out too much.”
“You said it was the first case you worked on with Greg,” he says.
“It was. They moved him into the building I was living in. A couple of floors down. That way, he was at least in close proximity. We could communicate without its being detected by any of Darren's people. The information I gathered was transferred to Greg, who took it back to the team.”
“How long did it take you?” he asks.
“Months. At first, it was all about catching his interest. I made it clear that I wasn't interested in him. I didn't fall for his charm or his lines. I had to make him want me. That was the only way I was going to gain his trust or get into his inner circle. It was far too easy for him to get the attention of pretty much any woman he even looked at sideways. They were disposable to him. But if I could make myself desirable and make him interested enough to work to get me, then I was in.”
“And you did,” Sam notes.
I nodded, turning back to look into the flames. “It took me a long time. There were days when I thought I'd lost his interest. When he didn't pursue me and was with other women. But he always came back. And then he tested me.”
“What do you mean, he tested you?” Sam asks.
“He brought me out with him one night. He never told me who he was or what he did. That was part of his game. I was supposed to be impressed by him just because I was impressed by him. Not because I knew he had power or because of his crimes. But he had to make sure I could be trusted. That I wasn't going to panic and run away at the first sign of something shady.”
“What did he do?”
“He brought me along on a drug deal,” I say, my throat tightening as I get deeper into the recollections of that night. “He showed me his product and let me test it so I would know how pure and high-quality it was. Then I watched him murder a man.”
The words tumble out of my mouth without emotion or filter. I can't try to stop them or pretty them up, or they won't come out. It's a cold reality, a dark spot I carry with me in the inner recesses of my being. It will never go away. Nothing I ever do will change it or absolve it. It is done.
“You couldn't do anything?” Sam asks, reaching a hand to squeeze my thigh comfortingly.
“No,” I shake my head. “I had no idea what was coming. I didn't know he was going to try to push me over the edge like that. I was expecting the drug deal. That was a given. One day he was going to show me his business and see how I reacted to it. It would be perfectly easy to just dispose of me if I showed any signs of discomfort or seemed to be a risk. I didn't think he would go as far as murder. It was one of the hardest lessons I ever had to learn.”
“What did you do?” Sam asks.
“I went along with it,” I say. “What else was I supposed to do? I acted as if it didn't bother me, as if it excited me. If I hadn't, I would have been in that alleyway beside the victim. The next morning, the newspaper probably would have had an article about a prostitute and her john getting mowed down because of a drug deal gone bad. I did what I had to do to survive, and to bring back the information the Bureau needed to take him down.”
“What happened to him?”
“The day I met him at the bar, he was planning to take me to the house he bought for us and ask me to marry him. I pulled my gun on him and got him to his knees. The rest of the team came in and arrested him. One of his men had tried to warn him. In the last seconds, his lieutenant had figured out who I was and tried to get him out of there. But Dragon wouldn't go. He chose me over his man. He just wanted to be with me. Or who he thought I was. He was taken to jail, tried, and convicted. Sentenced to multiple life sentences. I had done my job.”
“And then?” Sam asks.
“And then, several years later, he was being transferred to a different prison. There was a horrific crash, and when it was all said and done, a corpse was found in the prison transport vehicle. Crushed and burned beyond recognition. He was the only prisoner being transported that day. He was declared dead, and that part of my life was closed,” I say.
“It wasn't closed before that?” Sam asks.
“It's hard knowing there's somebody in the world who feels about you the way I knew Darren Blackwell felt about me.”
Chapter Eight
“I have to go to work,” Sam whispers in my ear and kisses me on the temple.
Groaning my protest, I roll onto my back, then onto my other side to swing my arm over him.
“No,” I whine. “Not yet.”
“That's what you've been saying for the last hour,” he chuckles. “I really have to go. But I promise I will be back this evening. As soon as I get off work.”
I pull myself up so I can press my nose against his and look
into his eyes.
“Come home early?” I ask.
“If I can,” he says. “Sherwood does still need a sheriff, you know.”
I let out a dramatic huff, and he laughs, giving me a sharp, playful smack on my butt. He pulls himself out from under me, and I flop onto the mattress.
“So dramatic,” he says with a laugh and heads into the bathroom. "I'm going to take your car into the shop this morning. See if they can figure out why it's making those weird sounds."
"Thank you," I call back.
I reluctantly throw on a bathrobe and shuffle into the kitchen so I can at least make him a travel mug of coffee before he heads out into the chilly autumn morning. I fully intend on spending my day in a sweatsuit and thick socks. Possibly up to my eyeballs in pumpkin tea.
My plan is to go over all of Greg's papers and the pile of stuff in the attic again. I'm not exactly optimistic about getting anything out of that, but it will at least be a warmup for the next part of the plan. That involves pulling out my laptop and opening up the file of old archived emails I never really thought I would look at again.
I kept them because that's what I do. There's really no other explanation than that. Sam hates that my inbox is overflowing. It makes him twitchy. But it's part of my routine. Every couple of weeks, I sit down and organize the countless messages that fill up the inbox day after day. Most of them get deleted, but others are sifted into individual folders and tucked away, where I can't see them, but I know they're there.
These are the emails from my friends and family. Details about cases that I've worked or even just the ridiculous memes Dean insists on sending to me. Some of them, I have to admit, are funny. Others are confusing, and I don't really understand what they're supposed to mean. And then there's that third category, where I can only hope he didn't actually mean to include me in the email list.
What matters is I don't need the vast majority of them; there's really no point in their existing other than the fact that they exist. I don't go back in and read them or revisit them. But I know they're there in case there ever seems to be a reason I would need to read them again.
Like now. I open the folder labeled “Greg” and stare at the pages of communication between us that span the years we worked together. There's a point somewhere in those pages of messages, a fault line, where our relationship shifted. It was never deeply sexy and passionate or even playful and silly. It wasn't like Sam and me.
But it was steady and comfortable. We knew each other well and had fun together. I felt secure around him and knew if there was a future for us to have, it would be just as steady and comfortable. Maybe nothing that would move mountains, but enough to keep moving forward if the ground moved under us.
A strange kind of emotion settles over me as I scroll back to the very first messages we exchanged. Most of them are brief. Some just a couple of words. Some nothing more than attachments. But there are others that chronicle our slowly growing relationship.
Those are the messages I'm after. I'm several months into our knowing each other when my phone rings. I reach over to it without taking my eyes off the screen and answer.
“Hello?”
“Emma?” Bellamy says.
“Hey, B,” I say. “How are you doing?”
“Doing okay. What are you up to?” she asks.
“Believe it or not, I am sitting in my office room reading through all the emails Greg and I ever sent to each other,” I say.
“Greg?” she asks. “Greg Bailey?”
“Do I know any other Gregs?” I ask, laughing despite the sadness.
“It's just that…”
“There's a reason behind it,” I reassure her. “I'm not just wallowing, and I haven't snapped and started up an email correspondence with myself. He left me this key; there has to be a reason for it. I've gone through every one of his possessions that had a lock on it, but the key doesn't fit any of them. I know it's not to his apartment because it doesn't look like a regular house key. So, I'm at a loss. I figured maybe if I went back through and read all of our emails, maybe I would find something he mentioned.”
“Like what?” she asks.
“I'm not sure. Just something. Maybe a property he owns that he forgot to leave a deed for with his lawyer, or a locker in an airport somewhere. I really don't know. But the thing is, there has to be a very important reason he wanted to make sure Lydia gave me this key. He said, “just in case”. That meant he was expecting something bad to happen. Or, at least thought it was a strong possibility,” I say.
“Do you think he was going to meet with Jonah?” she asked.
“No,” I say. “I don't think so. He would tell me about that. There would be no reason for him to go meet with Jonah without letting me or some of the other members of the task force know. The notes that Lydia sent are pretty vague. They just say that she was tracking somebody once referred to as the Dragon and that he might have been responsible for a cold case murder she was looking into.”
“What murder? Someone you investigated?" she asks.
"No. Somebody named William Chappell. I never even heard the name. But obviously, she found out something about him that interested her and was looking into it. She stumbled on some association with the Dragon and kept digging. She found out enough to catch Greg's attention and for him to tell her not to get any closer," I say.
"Did he tell her why?" Bellamy asks.
"Not according to her or her notes. She said they were planning to get together later, and she figured they would talk more about it then. Obviously, he never got a chance," I say.
"He knew something. He had the same information the rest of us did. That Darren Blackwell died in that prison transport crash years ago. Why would he be worried about her looking into a potential cold case murder involving him? Unless he knew there were still people associated with Dragon lurking around,” she says.
“Or Dragon's not dead,” I say.
“How could that be?” she asks.
“I don't know. But it's something to think about. And Greg wanted to make sure I had this key in case whatever he was going to do didn't work out for him. I highly doubt Darren Blackwell was wandering around DC. His face is far too recognizable. He would have been identified immediately. But Greg was meeting somebody out on that beach. And he didn't know if he was coming back.”
“Let me know if I can look into anything for you,” she says. “I know you're really busy with the investigation in Harlan.”
“I will, thank you,” I tell her. “But don't get too excited. I highly doubt it's going to be like the last time I asked you to look into things for me, and you got to go on a vacation to Florida.”
“Hey,” she defends herself. “I got a lot of valuable information during that trip.”
“And several lovely pictures of you drinking cocktails with little umbrellas,” I say.
“Part of the job,” she says. “I was undercover as a tourist.”
“You are very convincing,” I say. “So, what are you doing for Halloween?”
“Halloween?” she asks.
“I'm ready to just get my mind off all of this. It's only a few weeks away. We should think about doing something fun.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” I say.
She makes a sound that is close to a squeal, but as if she's holding it back with her teeth.
“I have so many ideas,” she whispers.
“For what?” I ask, already cringing. I love Bellamy to death, but once she gets an idea for some wild project or party or something, there is absolutely no stopping her. I’ve had to learn to give her a wide berth when she gets into event-planning mode.
“Group costumes!” she says. “Now that Eric and I are together, the two of us and you and Sam can dress up as something.”
"We should include Dean, too," I say.
"Alright. How about the guys wear all black, then you and I can wear sparkly green sweaters and skirts with ornaments on them, and we can go
as the night before Christmas."
"That seems like it would require some very rigid walking procedures to keep up the theme," I point out. “Anyway, wouldn’t that be better if we were doing the Tim Burton version?”
"True," Bellamy says. "Okay, how about the Beatles?"
"There are five of us. What will Dean be?" I ask.
"...a tambourine?"
"I think we need to work on this idea-generating thing a little bit."
“All right. I'll get on that. I'm just excited to think we get to hang out soon,” she says.
“Me, too,” I say. “It's been a long couple of months.”
“I just wanted to check in with you. I actually have to go. Creagan has this super fun way of looking at work that says if he's out in the field doing an investigation, he thinks the rest of us can do three times as much work as we do when he is here at headquarters,” she says. “And I don’t even work here! I’m just hanging out in Eric’s office!”
“That I remember distinctly,” I say. "I'll talk to you soon."
Just as I'm hanging up the phone, I hear a crash near the front of the house. It's the distinct sound of breaking glass.
Chapter Nine
I pause, my hand hovering over my phone as I listen. I'm in the back of the house, set up in the small room I converted into an office. The crashing sound came from the kitchen, like the glass pane on the back-door smashing.
I get up quietly and move to the door of the office, wanting to check what's going on before I overreact. Of course I’ve left my gun in the bedroom, and that’s across the hall from where I am now. There’s no way I can get to it without drawing attention to myself. Opening the door, I step out into the hallway. This would be the point in every horror movie when the person calls out into the empty house, “Hello? Is someone there?”
Never in the history of existence has shouting something like that actually ended well. So, I don't do it. Instead, I open my phone and dial the nine and the one. That way I'm prepared but haven't called emergency responders for another incident of a squirrel throwing a rock through my window. I think the construction was to blame for making them angry.