“We are sorry for not telling you all of this, but you deserve the truth”, Martha continued. “Now we realize she never left the country because some psycho took her life”.
“Susan would want you to take this bastard down”, Mark Hammon added. “We take care of our own, Sean”.
Sean moved briskly towards Mark Hammon, pointing his finger right into the man’s face and scowling baldy, “Don’t you ever think you know what she wanted! You knew all along and you told me nothing!”
Mark Hammon walked away, rounding the table and picking up the file to have a brief look at it with saddened eyes.
“You both knew the rule about having any romantic relationship within the agency and how it compromised things”, Mark Hammon spoke silently. “I am sorry I didn’t tell you everything though and I feel guilty for it too”.
Sean simply reached his arm out, received the file and jet out the room.
Martha waited few minutes before turning to Mark Hammon. “Do you think he will be alright?”
Nodding his head in assurance, he replied, “Sean Stein is a nightmare even I wouldn’t want investigating me”.
“But he has a record for falling off the rails. Wouldn’t he just slip back into old habits?” she sounded in skepticism.
Mark Hammon took his seat and relaxed himself into it perfectly. “He will do anything for Susan… she was the reason he stopped the drugs in the first place and more so, he is the best we’ve got”.
There was no doubt to it; Mark Hammon knew something his assistant didn’t; the fact Sean Stein was meant to be the Director of CIA had his wife not gone ahead to reveal his drug problem forehand during an internal review and her worry that the pressure associated with the work could make things worse for him.
“I hope you’re right on this, or we might just open ourselves to a shit storm”, Martha sighed and walked out of the room.
Mark Hammon drowned himself in thoughts and stared blankly at the wall clock ticking away on the opposite wall from where he sat.
“Time will tell” he thought to himself.
***
Cutting through the next turn to his right in dangerous speed, Sean put the car into gear and pushed down hard against the throttle until he could feel the wheels threaten to go off of his car. The adrenalin seemed to numb the pain coursing through his veins but nothing could quench the trauma he had received by hearing all he did from his one-time best friend and now boss.
“How can you do this to me?” he asked himself before making another dangerous turn around a parked car just opposite his destination as the driver within the car yelled and cursed with disgust.
He had not thought of her in years or at least, he had tried hard not to. She remained the one person he knew Susan was loyal to and would be able to shed some light on all he had just heard. Pulling into the driveway to the old looking house, Sean Stein stormed out the parked car and headed for the front porch immediately.
“Anna!” he screamed. “Come on out you lying piece of shit!”
A frail looking lady with shaven head emerged from the side of the house with a frown across her face and her eyes narrowed in focus on the source of the disturbance.
“What are you doing here?” she spoke in weakened tone. “I don’t want you around here”.
“You lied to me about Susan! You claimed she left town… moved to another country and sent you post cards!” he yelled at her immediately. “Is that true now?”
Anna slowly approached Sean with a convicted look on her face. “She did send me post cards of her travels but then she got a job as a police officer over in New York”.
Sean gasped, swallowed down hard and stood akimbo. “How sure are you of this?”
She nodded with certainty. “I’m pretty sure. I even got a picture from her once when she newly resumed the post there”.
Anna walked past him and disappeared into the house, leaving Sean to battle damning thoughts in his head as he struggled to believe everything he had learnt of his wife that morning. He assumed she went to some extra length to keep away from him but everything he had heard so far didn’t make any sense. To make things worse, he couldn’t stomach the courage to have a look at the images of her dead body in the file handed to him.
Anna returned, holding a picture with a smiling and happy looking Susan just the way he remembered her to be in it.
“Did she ever mention the fact she was pregnant?” he looked up to her and inquired.
Anna shied away from the question but found Sean’s staunch gaze unshakable until she nodded briefly.
“Jesus Christ!” Sean bellowed. “Why would you all keep this from me? I had a right to know!”
Anna shot right back. “Forgive me for not informing you during your periods of crazy drug binge that your wife was pregnant so you could exhaust your madness on her”.
The stinging words brought back memories of the last night they shared together in discomforting flux. The details forever remained blurry but he could tell he had struck her, and Susan packed her things that night vowing never to return.
“Why are you even interested in her all of a sudden? Years passed and you never for once cared to return my calls or even my mails and now you are… “, she halted, upon noticing the beads of tears rolling down his cheeks.
Sean sniffed, ran his fingers along the picture before speaking. “Susan is dead… someone chopped her into bits few months after she left here for New York I’d assume”.
Anna looked on in horror, barely able to keep to her feet and she slumped into a crouch and clamped her hands over her mouth. Sean walked back around and headed for the car with the picture of his wife donning a New
