Hidden Motives — James A. Rozhon

Mike Wainwright's life is about to change radically. It starts when he is laid off as the Assistant Editor of the Riverside Post. He has worked for the newspaper for twenty-five years and it is all he knows. He goes home, tries to find something to do and winds up walking around his home. He picks up an index card, more out ennui than anything meaningful. As much as he wants to ignore it, he can't because the name is familiar. Ibrahim al-Sehedrin. He Googles the name and is reminded of a story that went national not quite a year before. He had strapped a bomb to himself, walked into a Las Vegas casino and killed himself and thirty-six people besides himself died. It would have ended there had not Harlyn Bentley, his ex-wife, not showed up for no other reason than his ex-boss, Randy York, asked her to check on him. She did and found him drunk and passed out on the floor amidst broken furniture and a smashed TV set. She screamed at him names that were all familiar to him and when she tried to leave, saw the index card with that name on it. That was when his life started to change because she admitted that Ibrahim hocked some stuff in her pawn shop for just enough money for him to buy a ticket to Las Vegas where he self-destructed in a casino. The issue becomes crystal clear to Mike at that point. Harlyn is scared because no one from any police agency ever came to her and asked her if she knew Ibrahim and a year has passed since it happened. Another issue is the items Ibrahim hocked. Besides a Coptic Christian bible that tended to prove he wasn't a Muslim as the media portrayed him is an encoded note that Mike is able to decipher with the help of a website that does such stuff. In it, Ibrahim names the next two bombers, both of whom subsequently did the same thing he did. One self-destructed in San Francisco and the other self-destructed in Seattle. The last issue is the next person that Ibrahim named in the note worked for Harlyn in her Las Vegas pawn shop. That starts Mike and Harlyn on a quest to find that person, stop them and somehow turn the story over to the police, all without the legal trouble both of them see in their futures. As events continue to pile one on top of another, Mike and Harlyn fight all their old demons and find new ones to replace them. Their two children become issues in their own right â€" and not just became their daughter is dating a cop. Their children want to know what they are doing and didn't like either Mike's or Harlyn's answers. Throw in the odd fact that Mike sees a new relationship forming with his ex-wife and it becomes possible to see how much Mike's life is changing. On top of those things, names begin popping up, names that Mike believes tie these events to something else. The last name he discovers is his ex-boss, Randy York. What reason would The editor of The Riverside Post have for being involved in these things? Read Hidden Motives to find out what ties everything together and learn if Mike can even live through it.