TWO MONTHS LATER
Summer was over and the first cool nights came to Michigan. It was the time of year plenty of people loved. Football season, leaves on the trees changing color, fires in the fireplace.
Standing over Monroe’s grave, it didn’t feel good at all.
Selena Monroe, it said just above the dates of her birth and death.
Simple, but elegant. Just like the woman herself.
This wasn’t my first time coming to see her, so I had already told her about what I’d done to the people who’d put her here. I provided plenty of detail, maybe too much, but I wanted her to know their departure from this world had been very, very messy.
I set a bouquet of flowers next to her headstone and told her goodbye.
As I walked back to the Maverick, I thought about what I’d read in the paper this morning. A stunning news story revealing a massacre in Iraq years ago, perpetrated by a rogue group of ex-Iraqi Army special ops soldiers. The article went on to provide details on how the fallout from that fateful event had bled over into Detroit, quite literally.
The story was a sensation, and it was only the first installment.
The writer, a now famous reporter named Gretchen Mercer, promised there was much, much more of the story to tell.
My name would not be mentioned as I had requested.
Something told me she would keep her word.
It was a story that would probably captivate readers for many months, and then would quietly fade into the background.
Not a bad thing.
Sometimes, that’s all I wanted to do.
Fade into the background.
THE END