In Shadows

by Sharon Sala

  He wanted a body, or the man’s real identity. If the bastard was still alive and hiding out somewhere, Adam knew the incentive it would take to get him into the open, but first things first. They needed an apartment, and in a part of the city where people could easily lose themselves.

  * * *

  Adam pocketed the room keys as they walked into their new apartment. He’d just set his bag down on the floor when Yuki gasped, then cursed in Japanese.

  At the same time, the smell and the condition of the room hit him.

  “Are they serious?” he muttered, staring at the sagging furniture and the dirty carpet.

  “I will not stay here,” Yuki said.

  “Wait here,” Adam said, and, still carrying his bag, walked into the kitchen. One burner worked. The refrigerator light was on, but it wasn’t cold and it smelled bad.

  The bathroom was functional. The shower dripped and must have been doing that for some time to produce a rust stain like the one around the drain.

  The linens consisted of five towels and two washcloths. A used bar of soap was on the shelf inside the shower and there was no bath mat.

  He turned around and walked into the bedroom across the hall and grunted in shock. The mattress was a good five inches lower in the center than it was on the sides. There was what looked like a bullet hole in the headboard, and when he pulled back the sheets, bedbugs abounded.

  “Oh hell no!” he said, and stormed out of the apartment with his brother right behind him, making haste back to the manager’s office.

  The door slammed against the wall as he entered, and it slammed again as Yuki followed, but the clerk was already wearing a look of defiance.

  Then Adam started shouting. “I wouldn’t stay in this hellhole if it was the last place to live on earth. Give me back my money!”

  Obviously this wasn’t the clerk’s first displeased renter. He already had the rejection down pat.

  “Hell no! This ain’t no money-back-guarantee place and—”

  Adam leaped over the counter. His hands were around the clerk’s neck and squeezing before he saw it coming.

  “Either you give it back, or I break your neck and take it,” Adam whispered.

  Yuki was stunned. He’d never seen his brother act this way and suddenly realized this had nothing to do with keeping books, and how out of place he was going to be on this side of their business.

  The man’s face was turning purple and he was trying to break Adam’s hold.

  “Talk or die,” Adam said.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” he said.

  Adam turned him loose, and when the man turned around to open the cash drawer, Adam took the gun he saw beneath the counter, and then pocketed the money he was given.

  “You’re taking my gun?” the clerk cried.

  “So you can’t shoot me in the back,” Adam said. “If you want it back, it’ll be in the Dumpster at the end of the parking lot.”

  “Shit, man, they don’t pick up trash here no more! There ain’t no tellin’ what’s in there.”

  “Matches your accommodations, then, doesn’t it?” Adam vaulted the counter, picked up his bag and looked at his brother. “Get,” he told Yuki, and he didn’t have to say it twice. He stopped in the doorway on his way out and pointed the gun at the clerk, who ducked and ran.

  Adam smirked.

  The brothers got in the Jeep and started out of the parking lot, pausing long enough for Adam to toss the gun into the Dumpster before he drove away. The incident taught him a lesson. He’d do what he had to do, but he wasn’t going to hide in hell to do it.

  By the end of the day they were in a nicer complex in a decent part of the city, with a furnished two-bedroom apartment on the ground floor at the back of the building. He’d had to sign a six-month lease, but at this point, he didn’t care. The place was clean, although meager in accommodations, and the location of the apartment was perfect for staying under the radar. All he had to do was drive up to the door and they’d be inside in ten seconds, calling no attention to themselves.

  “I’m starving,” Yuki said.

  “So am I,” Adam said. “But I have to shower first. That apartment was so terrible that I feel like bugs are crawling on me.” He knew a shower was the only way he could get the stench from that dump out of his nose. Afterward, he ordered food, and while he was waiting for it to arrive, he called around to see what he could find out about Judd Wayne.

  Newton Rhone was the first person Adam called with his burner phone.

  “This is Rhone.”

  “And you know who this is. Do you know anything more about the subject we discussed?”

  “What I do know is they called off the search in the bay. No one’s had a funeral or a memorial service. There’s been no obit in the papers, and no mention of a dead Fed on TV. I can’t say that means anything, but it’s what I know.”

  “Interesting,” Adam said. “One other thing, I now know he was in my crew under an assumed name. Is there any word on the streets about who he really was?”

  “None of that. Sorry.”

  “No need to apologize, and thank you for this.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Rhone said.

  Adam disconnected, then thought about his inside contact on arms shipments. Right now, he wouldn’t piss him off by calling tonight, but he’d call early tomorrow morning when he was on his way to work, and so he moved down the list of names, but with no success.

  Their food arrived, which gave him an excuse for a break. Yuki ate without conversation, which reminded Adam of home, then he was immediately angry with himself. Home did not exist anymore, thanks to their father.

  When they finished, he carried their garbage outside to the Dumpster a few yards from the car and then hurried back inside to resume making calls.

  By the time he gave it up for the night, he was tired and frustrated, and Yuki had long since fallen asleep in bed with the television on. Before, the power he held over people meant his problems had immediate solutions. Now, it seemed, problems were all he had.

  * * *

  Jack eventually found a furnished apartment less than ten minutes from his and Shelly’s neighborhood. He could be close enough to keep her safe, while maintaining just enough distance to remain undetected. He would shop for groceries and the like at night, when he knew Shelly wouldn’t. And he didn’t think anyone else in their area knew him well enough to recognize him in this disguise.

  He ordered chicken wings, coleslaw, and got a couple of cans of Pepsi from the dispenser in the lobby, then went back to his room to wait for the food delivery.

  While he was waiting, he thought of Shelly finding the note and was glad he’d made that decision. At least tonight she would not sleep in grief. He wanted to call her but didn’t trust that the Bureau would not tap their phone, since his body was still missing.

  When the knock came at his door, he had cash ready and gave the delivery man a good tip. As soon as he’d eaten, he went to the nearest supermarket and gathered up enough food for a few days, then took the backstreets to his new home.

  * * *

  Charlie brought Alicia and their son home from the hospital late in the afternoon. They were both excited, but neither one of them had expected the panic they were feeling about how to take care of him.

  Alicia knew that, as a newborn, baby Johnny was supposed to sleep a lot, but after two hours of sleep, they both began to panic that he hadn’t woken up. She checked in with the New Mommy group she belonged to on Facebook, and once she realized that was both normal and a blessing, she quit worrying.

  And then when Johnny did wake up, new fears arose. How to stop the crying? A change of diapers and a warm bottle solved all that. Charlie was so in love that when she put Johnny back to bed, he just stood over the crib and watched him sleep.

  Alicia had to come get him by the ha
nd and lead him out of the nursery.

  “Come talk to me.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her soundly, then kissed her again.

  “The first kiss was because I missed sleeping with you by my side, and the second was for giving me our wonderful son.”

  Alicia smiled. “I don’t know how I got so lucky, but you and Johnny are the best things that ever happened to me, and I’m so glad to be home. We’ll get this baby stuff figured out. In the meantime, I’m starving and the baby is asleep.”

  Charlie grinned. “I got your back, darlin’. There’s cold fried chicken and potato salad in the fridge.”

  Alicia smiled. “My favorites! Thank you!”

  Charlie kept his arm around her shoulders all the way into the kitchen, then urged Alicia to sit while he got everything on the table. He didn’t have to say it twice.

  They were through with their meal and just finishing up their Rocky Road ice cream when they heard a tiny, high-pitched squeak on the baby monitor. They looked at each other and grinned.

  “And so it begins,” Charlie said.

  * * *

  Shelly was sitting alone in the kitchen eating her evening meal, but tonight she could actually taste it. She did dishes with joy in her step. When she sat down to pay bills later, she pulled up the accounts online and paid them with a happy heart. She tried watching TV but couldn’t concentrate for the overwhelming joy of knowing Jack was not only alive but on the move.

  She got ready for bed, and when she pulled back the covers to lie down, she just sat on the side of the bed instead and put both hands over her heart.

  “Oh, Jack... I don’t know what’s happening, but I will never complain about you being gone again. Just knowing you’re alive is all I need. And thank You, God, for the blessing.”

  * * *

  Jack didn’t sleep much. He needed to know if Adam Ito had surfaced anywhere, and only someone in the system—most likely the CIA—would know that.

  The agencies almost never worked together, and when they did, it wasn’t always successful. But he needed help, and right now he trusted them more than he did his own people.

  As soon as the sun was up, he took the bag he’d gotten out of the safe and removed a small notebook. Names were all in code only he would be able to decipher, and when he found the one he wanted, he reached for his phone.

  The number rang and rang, and just as Jack was ready to hang up, a man answered in a breathless voice.

  “Whoever this is, how the hell did you get my number?”

  “Lamar, don’t talk, just listen. This is Jack McCann.”

  Jack could hear Lamar gasp.

  “You are shitting me!” he said.

  Jack’s voice deepened. “No, I’m not, but I don’t want anyone to know I’m alive.”

  “What about the Bureau?”

  “Not even them,” Jack said.

  “But why not? What happened?”

  “One of my snitches just happened to show up with Dumas’s crew on delivery and showed no surprise when he saw me. Only people in the Bureau knew his connection to me. Someone there obviously wants me dead.”

  “Dammit,” Lamar said. “So what do you need from me?”

  “I’ll never be safe and neither will my family until Adam Ito is behind bars. I need to know if anyone on your team has eyes on him. If he’s out of the country, then I need to know where. If he’s snuck back into the States, I need to know that, too.”

  “Give me an hour. I’ll call you back... Is this number good to use?”

  “Yes,” Jack said.

  “For the record, I am damn glad to know you’re still in the world.”

  “Thanks,” Jack said. “I’ll be waiting for your call.”

  Jack took the phone into the bathroom with him as he showered, and as he was drying off, he glanced at his new look again. It was one of the few times he was grateful for how fast his whiskers grew. He was sporting a true beard that was as black as his hair.

  He ate cereal while waiting for Lamar to call back, and again, he thought of Shelly. The urge to take her and run was strong, but gut instinct told him Ito would find out and they’d be running again, and then again, until someone was dead. He’d considered his own death as a possibility many times in the past year. He wasn’t afraid to die, but he was concerned with protecting Shelly at all costs. But if she was on the run with him, then she’d be in just as much danger.

  He finished his cereal and was sitting on the sofa watching TV with the sound on mute when his cell finally rang.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” Lamar said. “Facial recognition at the Laredo, Texas, border caught Adam Ito reentering under the name Lee Tanaka. He’s with a Japanese guy named Soshi Yamada, but we think it’s his brother, Yuki Ito, although they don’t look anything alike. If you have an email address, I’ll send you the pics.”

  Jack gave him the info, then asked, “How long ago?”

  “Day before yesterday. He’s had plenty of time to get back to Houston...if that’s his destination.”

  “Oh, it’s his destination, alright. In his eyes, I brought him down. He needs to see a body, and there isn’t one, so he’ll be looking for me. Thanks for the info. Now I have to find him, before he finds me.”

  “Good luck,” Lamar said, and disconnected.

  Nine

  Knowing Ito was back was one thing. Finding him and his brother in a city the size of Houston without any starting point was another. It would take time he and Shelly didn’t have to waste.

  He needed the Bureau. They wanted Ito. But who could he trust? Charlie was his best friend. For sure he could trust Charlie. But once one agent knew, they would all know, and it seemed pretty obvious that someone there was leaking secrets.

  And then it hit him. He could sic the Bureau onto Ito anyway by sending them this information about his whereabouts on a flash drive. They didn’t have to know where it came from or who sent it.

  He dug through his stuff for an empty flash drive and, when he found one, uploaded the file that had been sent to him and dropped the flash drive in his pocket on the way out the door.

  A quick ride down to an office supply netted him a small padded envelope that he addressed to Special Agent Charlie Morris, then he added the word Confidential. He wiped his fingerprints off the flash drive and sealed the envelope. The next stop was Houston’s Courier, a service he’d used before. It was all the way over on Alabama Street, but he wanted this delivered today and trusted them to do it.

  It took almost an hour through traffic to reach the courier office, and when he got off his bike, he tucked his helmet under his arm and kept his sunglasses on. He walked in and slipped into the shortest line, patiently waiting his turn.

  One man kept changing his mind.

  The next customer couldn’t find the address in her purse.

  Jack was trying not to fidget, and finally patience won out.

  “Next,” the clerk said, and Jack moved up to the counter.

  “This is a rush, as in within the next hour,” Jack said.

  The clerk glanced at the address, quoted a price and then said nothing when Jack counted out three hundred dollars in twenties.

  “A little something extra for the courier,” Jack said. “And I’ll know if it doesn’t get there on time, so don’t screw this up.”

  The clerk paled. “No, sir, we wouldn’t do that. I’ll instruct the courier myself.”

  Jack nodded, then turned around and walked out.

  * * *

  Morning arrived before Adam was through sleeping, but there was too much to do to give in to the urge to sleep all day. Yuki was still asleep when he got up, but after he walked into the kitchen, he remembered they hadn’t shopped for food, and there was nothing for their breakfast, not even tea or coffee.


  He grumbled beneath his breath about what Judd Wayne had cost him in lifestyle and respect, but before they went out to eat, he needed to call the go-between who always set up the arms deals. He knew people. He had connections. He would also have the answers Adam wanted, but he wasn’t sure if he would divulge them. Selling arms was one thing. Selling out a specific man was another. He pulled up the number on his phone and hit Dial, then waited for someone to answer. When the man did answer, it was with shock.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  Adam’s eyes narrowed. “What happened to hello?”

  “What the fuck do you want?”

  “I want the mole...the spy...the man who gave me up. He called himself Judd Wayne, but we both know that wasn’t his real name. I want to know what it was, and where he’s at.”

  “You mistake my presence within our deals as someone who works for you, and we both know I don’t, so don’t go there. Why would you assume I would have that kind of knowledge?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me. We both know why. I want his name.”

  “That’s not part of our deal.”

  “It is now,” Adam said. “It’s up to you. If I can’t have him, then I’m coming after you and yours, so don’t lie to me about anything, because I can find you far faster than I can find Judd Wayne.” The silence was long and telling. “Are you still there? No matter... I’ll just invite myself over to dinner one night. It’ll be a surprise. Is your wife a good cook? Oh...wait...here’s a thought. Just give me the real name of Judd Wayne, and give me the address of his wife. I’ll dine with her instead,” Adam said, and then waited. When the man spoke, the rage in his voice was unmistakable.

  “You are despicable,” he whispered.

  Adam smiled. Now he was getting somewhere. “Well, yes, I know that, but it’s obvious you’ve been kidding yourself about your part in our business association. This is not my country, it’s yours, and you sold her out.”

  “Get a pen and paper. I’m only going to say this once.”

  Adam grinned. “Start talking. I have a good memory.” He listened intently as his go-between unloaded. “Is that all?” he asked.