by K. M. Hodge
Sometimes David doesn’t defeat Goliath.
At least she had inflicted some serious wounds on her way down.
“That’a girl” he said. “Show ‘em how a girl from the neighborhood does it.”
As the elevator opened up into the lobby, they walked beside each other like a united front. Before they got to the front door, Sally turned to Quinn for her final request. “Light a candle for me at St. Sebastian’s.”
Quinn nodded. “Ya got it, Sal.”
“You’re a true blue hero, Quinn.” She tapped and twisted her watch. It was all out of her hands now.
***
His heart hammered in his chest as he watched her walk out the double doors with her head held high. He couldn’t watch.
He turned on his heels to walk back to the elevator, and the sound of a gun firing rang out before the doors closed.
Quinn crossed himself and said a quick prayer for Sally.
***
Church Hill Neighborhood
Richmond, Virginia
July 24, 2025
7:00 AM
~~~
Manny stood on the porch staring at the heavy oak door. He’d been staring at it for a long time, trying to work up the courage to knock. He placed his hand across his mouth as if to hold in all the words and emotions that were threatening to spill out.
Enough of this!
He lifted his hand and knocked.
The door opened a minute later, and Ellie stood wearing a robin’s egg blue bathrobe that she’d tied tightly around her waist. She cleared her throat to speak, her voice sounding like he’d awoken her. “Manny?”
“I’m sorry to wake you, Ellie. I need to speak with Jason. Is he here?”
Ellie regarded him curiously. “Yeah, come on in. I’ll go wake him.” She stepped aside to let him in. “Take a seat. I’ll be right back.” She hid a yawn behind the back of her hand.
Manny tugged on his pant legs and sat down on the living room sofa. He wiped his sweaty palms on his dress pants. He couldn’t stop fidgeting with his hands, which seemed to be at a loss as to what to do with themselves.
The sound of Jason’s heavy footfalls on the stairs made his heart jump. He stood up to greet Jason as he stumbled over in just his boxers. Manny’s mouth went dry and his heart raced. This wasn’t the kind of information you wanted to give to someone when they were in their underwear. Thankfully, Ellie tossed Jason a t-shirt, which he put on with only a minor mumbled protest. Manny motioned for him to take a seat before he, too, sat back down.
“Jason, there is no easy way to tell you this.” As he spoke, Jason’s face fell. He could see the other man easily putting together the pieces.
“Sally....” Jason cupped his mouth with his hand.
Manny’s heart reached out for Jason. His own loss was still so fresh and raw. “She was shot outside the police station last night. She’s gone.” He swallowed hard.
Jason’s face twisted in on itself as the loss began to sink in. “Did they catch ‘em?”
Manny nodded. “Several officers and I witnessed the shooting and took after the suspect on foot. The uniformed police officers apprehended the man and took him into custody. His name is Jean Morel. He was the one who framed Charles MacAvoy and worked under Scott Mitchel.” said he paused to swallow again, and sighed. “He... uh... hung himself in his cell last night.”
Jason stood up from the armchair, stalked out the sliding glass doors and onto the deck.
Manny hung his head.
“Manny....” Ellie sat down beside him and reached for his hand.
The two sat side-by-side as they listened to the faint sounds of wailing coming from outside.
“Ellie, he’s going to need you, even if he says he doesn’t.” His voice cracked as he struggled to say the words.
“Oh, Manny.” She squeezed his hand.
Chapter 19
St. Sebastian’s
Ocean City, Maryland
July 27, 2025
11:30 AM
~~~
After the service, Jason lit a candle for Sally; it was what you did.
Henry walked up and lit one as well. He leaned over to Jason and spoke softly. ”It’s a shame about losing that manuscript you worked so hard on. I guess I forgot to tie off the saddlebag. Craziest thing to see all those papers flying off in the wind.” He tapped Jason on the shoulder and walked away.
Jason hadn’t had a drink, even though it was all he thought about some days.
Manny had taken him to his first AA meeting and made it a point to take him every day since he’d told him the news of Sally’s death. It had surprised him that Manny was also a recovering alcoholic—he always seemed to have it all together. Before The Syndicate, Manny had been clean and sober for fifteen years. During the trial, he said he fell off the wagon hard. His wife and daughters helped him to get back on the wagon.
The meetings and Manny’s support certainly helped, but his promise to Sally kept him sober more than anything else.
Once everyone left, Jason stood at her gravesite, where her ashes lay inside a crematorium. He squatted down on the freshly cut grass and placed a bouquet of blue roses on her grave. The new blue rose tattoo over his heart hurt as much on the outside as it did on the inside.
Sally Ann Ride, the letters on the stone marker read.
Ann... her middle name was Ann.
He covered his mouth with his hand and sank down onto the grass. The grief gnawed away at his insides. For a moment, he thought he might be sick again, but the moment passed. He reached inside the jacket of his suit, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and started to read.
She had always been the one to read to him. Now it was his turn. He read to her a short poem, which encompassed his grief and the love he still had for her. He’d remembered it from their readings. It had been new to him at the time, but a well-read favorite of hers. It spoke of the heart and the pain of loss, comparing it to an ever shrinking pool of water.
When he had finished reading it to her, he folded it back up and tucked it in beside the crematorium. He closed his eyes and replayed in his mind the sweet memories of their short time together. She wouldn’t want him to break down like he had when Katherine died.
No, he would honor her by living, and by moving forward a little bit each day.
***
Richmond Police Department, First Precinct
Richmond, Virginia
August 11, 2025
1:00 PM
~~~
Jason pulled up to the police station on his motorcycle. He’d stopped by to take Mari out to lunch and celebrate her first day back to work, even if was indefinite desk duty.
She’d been getting squirrely being at home, and it would be good for her to return to some semblance of her normal life.
Though he and Mari had agreed not to get back together, he had insisted they remain friends. It was an adjustment that had its ups and downs. A few times, they had fallen back on hold habits and found themselves locked in a kiss. Those times always ended in an awkwardness that made them both question if they could really be just friends. But they kept trying.
Halfway up the walk, a detective stopped him in his tracks. His tag read Quinn O’Mally. He’d been one of the arresting officers and had even gone to Sally’s funeral.
“Just the man I wanted to see,” the detective said, handing him a small envelope. “It’s against regulations, but I thought you might want to keep these. We made a couple copies. Anyways, you didn’t get these from me.”
He walked away quickly, leaving Jason standing there confused.
He opened the envelope and pulled out the contents, and his heart dropped when he saw what it contained—photographs he’d taken of Sally in bed, and some old ones of he, Katherine, and Scott when they had been working on the cabin years ago. His breath caught in his throat as he looked away into the distant blue hills.
His grief some days was palpable. It would wrap around his chest and squeeze u
ntil it felt he might split into a million pieces. His eyes slipped closed and he tried to remember the day they had taken the pictures of Sally—how happy he’d been, and what it had felt like to make love to her. A single tear slipped passed his tightly shut eyes before he decided he’d felt sorry for himself long enough.
He swallowed hard and walked back to the bike to put the pictures in his saddlebag. Then he took a deep breath and went back toward the station. He would take his friend out to lunch, and he wouldn’t break down. That was the goal of the moment, and he focused on that one thing.
***
Chapel Hill Neighborhood
Richmond, Virginia
August 12, 2025
10:00 AM
~~~
Jason lay in bed not wanting to get up. He didn’t see the point in going through the motions of his pointless day. He didn’t have a real job, something that would force him to rise and shine each morning and face the day in spite of the pain he felt. He had nothing planned for the day; it was a pointless Tuesday, and he felt himself slipping into one of his morose moods. He knew he should drag himself to a meeting but he couldn’t get himself out of bed.
When the doorbell rang for the third time, he briefly thought of answering it, but changed his mind. From downstairs he could make out the muffled sound of people talking.
Ellie must have answered the door—crisis averted.
He snuggled into his down pillow and closed his eyes tight.
The echoed sound of footfalls on the stairs awoke him. A sharp knock at his bedroom door meant that any hope of going back to sleep was going to be dashed away by the ever insistent Ellie.
The aforementioned didn’t wait to be told to come in, but simply opened the door and walked right in. “Jason, there’s someone here to see you.”
“Go away,” Jason said, grumbling into the pillow.
“Jason, it’s me, Tami.”
He rolled over and sat up to face his literary agent.
What the fuck does she want?
In her hands, she held a post office container filled with packages and letters.
“I’ll leave you two alone.” Ellie turned to leave.
“Jason, you haven’t picked up your PO Box mail in ages, so I pulled some strings and was able to get it for you. It was overflowing.” Tami brought the box over and sat it on the edge of his bed.
“Thanks.” He rubbed his blurry eyes.
Tami looked over the room for a brief moment, and her gaze stopped on a photograph of him and Sally. “I wanted to tell you in person that I’m sorry for your loss, and that I’m taking care of all the business with your books so you can take your time in getting back to writing.”
“Thanks, Tam.” He looked away from her, away from the pity that hung on her like an ill-fitting suit.
“Well, I had better be going. I’ll call you later or you can call me, whatever.” She stumbled out the door and down the steps at super speed.
Jason sighed and pulled the box closer to him. He had always loved getting mail from his readers. Many of his readers sent emails or messaged him through social media, but the true diehard fans would write him handwritten personal notes. He had kept quite a few of the really heartfelt ones.
Inside the box were two manila envelopes with the same chicken scratch writing on the front. He pulled those out first. He ripped open one heavy envelope and tipped it slightly so that the stack of papers inside fell out neatly. They started to slide out, and his breath caught in his throat when he saw what they were. A small scrap of paper came fluttering out last.
The paper had a watermark print for a copy company. In a blue pen script it read, “Plan C.”
He carefully placed the stack of papers on the stand beside her picture before he ripped into the second envelope. This one had the second half of the manuscript and a familiar medallion, like the one Sally had worn around her neck. It was slightly different in that it was shiny and new. Inscribed on the back were the words, “Impossible dream.”
After wiping away a single tear, Jason added the second stack of papers on top of the first, unclasped the necklace, and put it on. The feel of the cool metal against his chest comforted him.
He opened up the rest of the mail in record time. When he was done reading all the kind letters from readers, he put them away and took out his trusty red pencil. He picked up the manuscript and started to read, notating in the margins as he went along.
Tami would be getting a call back much sooner than either one of them had initially thought. He had a novel that needed to be published. Tami had mentioned months ago about him self-publishing the Syndicate book. He hoped that her offer to help still stood.
As he got further and further into the manuscript, he found notes written in blue ink. His heart ached as he read Sally’s notes on his work. She was poignant and thoughtful in her notations. Several passages were underlined like her book of poetry, and sometimes she would draw a smiley face next to a passage.
Jason swiped away at the tears, which made reading difficult.
He worked all day and into the night. The next day he scanned the script that included both his and Sally’s notes, and mailed them to his agent. He detailed to her a plan that would include the use of his new hacktivist friend Ashton. Ash would follow through with the original plan to self-publish the book through the hacktivist protection channels. It would be under the hacktivist imprint. Once it hit, there would be no stopping the truth from getting out. It helped that the remaining members of The Syndicate would be too busy trying to rebuild to pose much of a threat.
Tami messaged him back right away, thrilled about the new turn of events. She began planning out a three-month tour to promote the book both online and in the real world, in brick and mortar stores.
***
Chandler High School
Richmond, Virginia
September 25, 2025
7:00 AM
~~~
Ellie stood in the back of the crowded gymnasium awaiting the arrival of her soldier, who she hadn’t seen in three long and event-filled months. When the doors to the gym opened, the buzzing crowd started to bustle and bump each other, each person trying to get a better view. Ellie didn’t move, she was too afraid to look.
The soldiers began to file into the room, and the group dispersed as each person ran to reunite with their loved ones.
When she finally mustered the courage, she looked up in time to see her loved one hobbling in on crutches—the last man into the gym. Ellie ran to him—nearly knocking him over.
Chris exhaled loudly from the force of her embrace and widened the stance of his crutches to help him regain his balance.
Ellie leaned away to look up at him. “What happened? Are you okay?”
Chris smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, I’m all right, just stupid. I’m a little embarrassed to tell you what I did.”
“What did you do, Chrissy?” She let go of him—her hands on her hips.
“It’s been a long time since anyone has called me that.” He smiled.
“What did you do?” She glared at him.
He sighed. “I was playing ball with the guys the other day—”
Ellie couldn’t believe her ears. “Christopher Bo Forester, did you hurt yourself playing basketball?”
Chris shrugged. The corner of his mouth twitched as he suppressed a smile. “Yes.”
How can he be smiling? This isn’t funny!
She swatted his arm hard. “What is wrong with you?”
He smiled, leaned on one crutch to reach for her, and covered her mouth with his.
He was home and they had a lot of catching up to do, she thought, as she gave in to his tender kiss. Her anger quickly dissipated as he deepened the kiss.
***
The Marque Hotel
Toronto, Canada
January 30, 2026
11:00 PM
~~~
Jason paced back and forth outside Room 304. He was on the last leg of his book tour
in Canada and the Northern United States. The tour had been a busy one, where he had spoken at colleges and for civic organizations. Today he had given a talk at one of Toronto’s largest brick and mortar bookstores. His agent had set up a book signing after the talk, which Jason always loved to do. There was nothing he loved more than talking with his readers face-to-face.
By 9:00 PM the line had begun to dwindle. The last person in line, a leggy blonde wearing a University of Windsor t-shirt, handed over her book for him to sign. When he opened the book, a single note slipped out with a hotel name and number.
When he looked up at the young woman, she smiled and winked at him. He had never been propositioned before. This was uncharted territory for sure.
He told himself he wasn’t going to go to her room, but sometime after dinner he left the comforts of his own room and wandered around the third floor. Just as he was about to turn around and go back to his room, the door to her room opened and she reached to pull him in.
It was one more step on the road to moving on.
***
Virginia Peninsula Region Correctional Facility
Williamsburg, Virginia
May 1, 2026
9:00 AM
~~~
Charles walked out of the prison, tilted back his head, and took a long, deep breath of the cool morning air. He relished the cold because it reminded him he was still alive. He had a lot of work to do, but first he wanted to go home and sleep in his own bed.
He needed to remember to have his assistant send something nice to his lawyer for her tenaciousness.
Maybe some nice stockings and a tailored suit?
If she was going to continue to be his lawyer, she needed to look the part.
Two armed guards guided him to the prison transport that would take him home to serve out the last leg of his original sentence—even though he figured it should have been cut out after they wrongfully imprisoned him. Also, he was the reason so many Syndicate members were behind bars. He was a hero, as far as he saw it.
Hell, he’d even reassigned Katherine’s security detail to cover Jason and his friends.
***
Henrico County Courthouse
Henrico, Virginia
