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  Their courtship had been almost like a fairy tale. Romantic evenings, passionate sex, and bonding in that way that added layers of richness to a relationship. They shared everything about each other. This was normally the period when you decided that the other person is not right for you, but it only seemed to draw them closer.

  Even then, Chemin was an unusually strong and independent woman. She never complained and was always ready to fix any problem herself. Marshall liked that, up to a point. A man wanted to feel that his woman needed his help. And as much as he tried to lie to himself, Chemin did not need him. But he loved her, and that was all he could see. Everyone walked on air when love hit them, oblivious to what lay below their dangling feet.

  They were married two years after they met. Danny Cavanaugh stood as best man, and Marshall could have sworn that he saw his brother leave the service early even though he was not invited.

  Marshall thought that his life could never get any better. The first few years were just an extension of that otherworldly courtship. But soon things started to go bad. He realized that people changed after marriage, or perhaps the way you perceived them changed. To be a girlfriend was one thing, but to be a wife was a different, more powerful thing. He didn't know exactly how or why it happened. All he knew was that the woman he married was different from the one he was now married to.

  Chemin was a great person but an unhappy wife who escalated the stress of his already pressured life. And the worst thing was, he knew why. Children. She wanted them. He didn't. Chemin was about to turn thirty, and she felt that it was time to start a family. Marshall, however, was unsure. He'd had such trouble with family. The idea of starting one terrified him. She stopped using birth control and screamed at him when he bought condoms. These days, they did not have sex at all. She refused to do it with him as long as he did not want kids. So they both suffered. Mad and sexually frustrated, they were having a standoff of epic proportions.

  They fought constantly about everything, and through bouts of reconciliation, he felt the trouble deepen to critical. Now they just stayed out of each other's way, too in love to get a divorce, and too proud to change. The strong, independent woman he'd married was now a fierce, and beautiful, enemy.

  Marshall pulled the box in the door and waited. He didn't want to close the door while she was outside. Chemin would think of that as some kind of negative action. So he waited for her. Chemin parked her car and got out. Marshall's heart quickened as he saw her long legs extend from the door. Her skirt was short and tight, and for a second, he remembered the passion he had for her.

  Chemin got out of the car. Her eyes were large, light brown, and always seemed to have something behind them, some mystery that you might never know. Her hair was black, and cut short, and she had a dazzling smile, when she did smile, which wasn't much lately.

  Chemin glanced at him, then took out her cart. Because Hallogent sold information, Chemin always carried around a little handcart filled with papers, computer disks, and videotapes.

  "Hey," said Marshall, trying to break the ice.

  "Didn't expect you to be home," said Chemin. She walked to the door. Marshall moved out of her way, and she stepped inside. She was wearing perfume, something new.

  "I needed a rest," he said. "The case—"

  "Yes, I know. The case is taxing you, you're tired, stressed. I know the routine, honey."

  "Can we have a
minute
of civility?"

  "Sure." She walked into the kitchen.

  Marshall turned toward his office. This was where he usually locked himself away. Or he went out to see Danny, but he knew he had to do something about this. The Douglas case was going to be a bitch, and he did not need trouble at home.

  "I think we need to talk about this some more," said Marshall as he entered the kitchen.

  "Why?" said Chemin. "We're diametrically opposed. I want a baby, you're still maturing."

  That was another thing, Marshall remembered. Chemin had a cutting, sarcastic sense of humor. She knew it, and she used it whenever they argued. It was part defense mechanism, but it always stung.

  "There's no need to be insulting, Chemin. I know where we stand. But I think we can compromise. As soon as my case is over, we can explore this."

  "No," said Chemin, turning to him. "I've put off jobs, vacations, and friends for your cases. I am not going to put off life for it. No more, Marshall."

  "Then, I don't know what to do." He shrugged and walked off to the other side of the room, looking out of a window.

  "We need help, Marshall. We should go to that doctor I told you about."

  "No," said Marshall, almost yelling. "I'm not going to some stranger to solve my problems. If we need a third party to talk to each other, then maybe we shouldn't be together."

  "You're so afraid that she'll think you're wrong, aren't you?"

  "You'd love to get me in a room with another woman, so you two can gang up on me, wouldn't you? Well, it ain't happening."

  The counseling issue was their latest battlefield. Chemin was convinced that marriage counseling would save them. Marshall detested the idea. He had always been a man who fixed his own problems. Buford had always said that. "A man takes care of his shit."

  To Marshall, it was like admitting defeat, like he was not a man any more, but some whiny, henpecked fool who couldn't control his woman or his life. The very thought of it made his blood heat up.

  "This is not about women ganging up on you. It's about what we mean to each other, if anything."

  "No counselors. You can sign up, but you'll be sitting on the couch by yourself."

  "I already am, in case you forgot. My psychologist told me to seek help—with you."

  Chemin had been seeing a shrink for about half a year. She was a strong woman, but also had a bad temper. After so many fights at home, she had gone to a shrink and things had gotten better, for a while. Now, it seemed the psychologist was trying to get him into therapy, too. That's all they knew, he thought. That was their answer to everything. From death to a hangnail, the solution always cost a hundred bucks an hour.

  "Let's just talk, you and me. That's how we got into this relationship, why can't we fix it the same way?"

  "Because you're unreasonable, Marsh. You don't listen to me."

  "We don't need other people to solve our problem."

  "Okay, you want to fix this between us. Fine. Either we get pregnant, or it's over, we divorce."

  Her words stung him for a moment. She stood before him with her arms folded defiantly in her smart business suit. She never looked more beautiful, and that made her statement hurt all the more for some reason.

  "You don't mean that."

  "What did we get married for, if we're just going to live without a family? We're just dating and fucking with wedding rings on."

  "We're wearing rings, but we ain't fucking. Not for two months now."

  "You don't get any unless you mean business," she said. "It's hard on me too, women do like it in case you haven't heard. But I'm fighting for something bigger than us, so if we have to go without, so be it."

  "Is that all our commitment means to you, that you can be so callous to me?"

  "Apparently, that's all it is, Marshall. Unless you want to make it more. A baby makes it more. It's on you now." Chemin's eyes narrowed a little, and her face took on a determined expression.

  He knew that look. Chemin was the type of woman who liked to draw lines in the sand. She had given him a deadline on proposing to her, and had told him to warm up his cold feet two weeks before their marriage. When she drew one of her lines, she meant it.

  "Our marriage is more complex than that, and you know it," he said.

  "Fine, then I'll just have to do what I have to do," she said. She turned on her heel. And in a lower tone, he heard her say: "Like always."

  Chemin walked out of the room, and Marshall could hear her footsteps as she ascended the stairs. He felt a weight lift from him. This was not what he had hoped for when he got married. How could he tell her that he couldn't go to counseling because he feared starting a family, that the uncertainty of life was terrifying to him?

  He'd had too much hardship in his own family to jump into one. Beautiful, innocent babies grew up to be evil children who broke their parents' hearts and drove them to an early grave. Or they were born retarded, like his niece, a testament to the folly of trying to have them.

  He could not shake the feeling that his family was doomed, destined to end in this generation.

  Chemin could not see this because her family was perfect: parents with a forty-year marriage and close relationships among all her siblings. She had no idea of the poison he carried inside of him.

  Marshall went back into his office. He ripped open the box Sommers had given him, and looked at the collection of tapes. He picked up the one marked CNN first and popped it into his VCR. There were twelve tapes in the box, and he'd probably be up all night searching them.

  He looked at random footage. People in the crowd scenes, preparations for the commencement. He went through tape after tape, and then he saw it.

  On the cameras of a local station, he saw a man who looked like the one who had been shot. He stood in the overflow in the lobby of the building. People randomly blocked his vision, but he could see that after the commotion started when Douglas was shot, the man had a case. He then passed it to another man, who disappeared from sight.

  All of the men were black.

  "Yes!" Marshall cheered quietly. This was something. He was going to check the tapes for more images. Maybe someone caught some faces.

  He picked up the phone and called Ryder, Nate, and Sommers. He filled them all in. Each of them sounded happy, except for Nate, who immediately talked about doing video enhancement.

  He heard the doorbell. He was going to get it, when he heard Chemin come downstairs. He heard female voices that didn't belong to his wife.

  Marshall peeked out of his office door and saw Chemin and two other women. One was tall and pretty with brown hair. The other was chubby with a head of long black hair.

  "Oh, shit," he cursed. It was his wife's friends Rochelle and Devonne. Chemin had gotten into the habit of having them over a lot lately. He hated them. Both were single. Rochelle was divorced and Devonne had never been married. They all sat around and talked about men. He knew Chemin had told them all about their situation, everything they did and didn't do. He could already feel his ears burning.

  He had to get out. He packed up his things and headed toward the back entrance. He was in the kitchen when Rochelle stepped in.

  Marshall saw her eyes flash when she looked at him. She knew, he thought. She knew everything.

  "Hey, Marsh," she said in her husky voice.

  "Hello, Rochelle," he said.

  "Leaving?"

  "Yes, I have some work to do at the office."

  "Kinda late, isn't it?" she said. The look on her face was positively evil.

  "Yes, but us feds are always on the clock." He wasn't fooling her, but it was all he would give her the satisfaction of hearing.

  "Oh. Well, you gotta keep busy."

  He walked out of the door and got into his car. He saw the blinds on one of the windows swing to the side. They were watching him. He cursed. Thrown out of his own house. He drove away. He reached down and dialed his cell phone. He'd page Danny and meet him at a bar. He definitely needed a stiff drink or two.

  He headed toward the Lodge Freeway. All the way, he kept seeing his wife's hurt eyes, and the men on the tape, handing off a case just big enough to contain a highpowered rifle.

M
oses was a little nervous as he clipped the red wire. He didn't go out himself much, but this was a special job. The electrical wires were inside a long pipe running on the side of the house. The alarm wires looked like a water pipe, and most people would have mistaken it for such, but not Moses. He knew what was inside: the keys to yet another kingdom.

  Moses separated the ends of the wire, then cut the last one. The lights on the alarm box inside the house flickered, then went out.

  "All right," he said. "We can go in now."

  Dake and Nita were behind Moses as he moved over to a pair of big glass doors. They were all dressed in black, and their faces were covered. There were security cameras, but when he disabled the alarm, the camera system went off too. Stupid move on the owner's part to connect them.

  Moses carefully cut the window to the large back door of the big house. He reached in and lifted the latch. Then he removed the steel rod that was placed at the foot of the door to stop it from opening. He tried the door, but it still wouldn't open.

  "Top latch," said Dake.

  "Fuck," said Moses. He reached into his black bag and pulled out his glass cutter. Then he cut another hole at the top of the glass door. He reached inside and found a long metal rod had been placed between the sliding doors. He pulled it out and then slid the doors open. They went inside.

  The mansion was dark, but he could tell it was spacious and ornately furnished. Big pictures hung on the walls, and in the middle of the room was a spectacular glass chandelier.

  "We should get a truck for all this shit," said Nita. She laughed softly.

  Moses passed all the lovely decor, going to the stairs. "This is it," he said to Dake and Nita. "You two see what else is in this place we can use, while I go upstairs and find the safe. Don't turn on any lights, don't take anything big, and don't take off your damned gloves and touch anything."