by Jodie Bailey
With her.
“She was in danger because of me, because Meyer thought she was me.”
“But now his organization knows she’s not.”
Amy laughed, a sharp bark that sounded as though it came from the darkest well of her fear. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? The killers know Grant got the wrong girl so now they’re coming after the right one?” She shoved his chest and turned away, her shoulders a rigid line.
Sam didn’t know what to do. Naturally, in trying to make it all better, he’d made everything worse.
But then her shoulders slumped and she breathed deeply, turning to him. Her gaze remained on his chest. “Okay, so the fact that Eve is safe now does help. Or Jenna is safe. That’s what she’s calling herself now?”
“Yes. Jenna Clark. You’ll have to get used to that one. She’s not going back to the old name.”
“Why not?”
“She wanted to cut ties with who Eve Brady was and what she stood for.” Maybe he shouldn’t have said it, but Amy seemed to put a premium on honesty.
Amy sank to the couch, burying her hands between her knees. The way she looked up at him was so plaintive and weak. “This is all my fault.”
“That’s not true.” Sam dragged the heavy wooden coffee table closer and sat in front of her, their knees nearly touching. “She left El Paso because a man she thought loved her tried to kill her. And that—” he held up his hand with his palm toward her to stop the argument she was about to pitch his way “—that was not your fault. You had no idea who Logan Cutter really was or what he was capable of. You met a seemingly nice man and introduced him to your sister. According to her, you tried to warn her about what Logan Cutter was doing when you found out, but she was in so deep by then that she cut you off and wouldn’t listen to anything you had to say. He had her brainwashed, believing he was all she needed. Amy, that is nowhere near your fault. It’s the fault of a man who preyed on your sister and sought to destroy her.”
Her chin lifted, and her eyebrow arched over those clear green eyes of hers. “How do you know all of those things? There’s no way they were in the mysterious file about me that you keep mentioning.”
“I talked to Jenna a number of times when I was searching for you. She was worried about you. She wanted to see you, but WITSEC rules—”
“No.” Amy stood and brushed past him. At the kitchen table, she collected their dishes and scraped the food into the trash can, then went to the sink with the plates. “Never. Not even if I get my life back.”
“Why not?”
“Because my choices caused her pain. They nearly got her killed more than once. She’s better off without me in her life. You said so yourself. She’s keeping her new name because she wants to cut ties with the old one. The best thing for us to do is to move on.”
She was completely misunderstanding everything he was saying. It was probably deliberate, a defense mechanism. He’d done the same thing with Lindsay at one time. “Okay. You don’t have to see her until you’re ready.”
“I said never.” The ceramic plates she’d been holding clattered into the sink. Amy wrapped her fingers around the edge of the counter and stared out the window.
There was more to this than she was saying. This was bigger than her sister. She was in pain, spiritual or emotional; it radiated from inside her and tugged at Sam’s heart. Forget professional. He cared about her, there was no denying it, and he couldn’t stand to see her suffer. Sam slipped around the table and laid his hands on her shoulders. “What’s really going on?”
“Stop it.” Amy ducked away from him and backed toward her room. “Stop being nice to me. Stop caring about me!”
“Why?” He shouldn’t care this much, shouldn’t hurt this much, but he did. All he wanted was to rescue Amy, not only from a faceless killer but from herself.
“Why?” She shook her head, stared at the ceiling, refused to meet his eyes. “Because I’m a murderer.”
THIRTEEN
The entire world seemed to hold its breath in a moment frozen in time.
There, she’d said it. She’d said it out loud and Sam could hate her now. He could stop looking at her as though he wanted to kiss her again or to care about her or whatever that look was that was slowly killing her inside. She dared to peek at him.
Sam held her gaze. His brown eyes narrowed slightly, as though he were trying to read the true meaning of her words. His lips were drawn tight, but it was more like in patient waiting than shock or anger.
Amy couldn’t tear her eyes from him. If she confessed to all of her sins, explained herself, said the words banging on the door, begging to be let out, he would never look at her the same again. The beginnings of interest he’d shown her before would die, murdered by her sins.
It was what she wanted...and what she feared most. Because Sam Maldonado had managed to reach into her heart and make her feel again. Had managed to make her dream that someday she could be someone again.
That someday she could love, not with the disastrous twisted thing her mother had called love, but with real devoted love.
And she didn’t deserve it, not after what she’d done not only to her sister, but to so many other young women just like her.
With one last look of longing at Sam, she made her decision. Sam needed to know the truth, because he deserved so much better than her. Amy swallowed the last of her pride and her hope, the last of the dreams she’d never even realized she’d dreamed. She drew her shoulders back. She was ripping off this bandage no matter how much pain it caused her.
She wanted to yell, but when she tried, the words were forced out past a swollen lump in her throat, the pain driving them to a hoarse, frightening whisper. “You don’t know what I’ve seen.”
Sam stepped forward. “I—”
“Worse, you don’t know what I’ve done.” Amy held up a hand to block him. “You have no idea. None. It can’t be forgiven. It can’t be swept under the rug. The federal government—your people—protected me, called me a witness and a hero but I’m just as guilty as the rest of them.”
Sam’s head swung back and forth, denying the truth. A blind loyalty she didn’t deserve.
“I ran the office at New Horizons. I signed off on every shipment that arrived. I handed out every paycheck to every employee, and most of them turned around and handed those checks right back to the company, because they weren’t getting paid. They thought they were working toward paying off a debt, but Grant and Logan never intended to set them free.” She flipped her hand out and called the words like she was PT Barnum himself. “I even worked the weekends, recruiting women and men to sign up for a free week at the greatest spa in the world. And they signed up. And they were photographed. Blackmailed. Some of them were...were...” The words wouldn’t come. Trafficked. They were trafficked. Ripped into a twisted world where human beings were commodities.
Every muscle in her body, every thought in her mind screamed for her to meet Sam’s eye, to see his reaction to her confession, but she couldn’t. His disgust would destroy her.
Instead, she jammed her thumb into her chest, emphasizing each of her next words with a distinct, sharp jab. “I’m as guilty as they are.” Her hand dropped to her thigh with a slap, her gaze landing on the floor at her feet.
“You didn’t know.” Sam’s words were low, filled with compassion. “You did the job you were paid to do. Nobody told you the truth. And when you found out...” A rustle. Footsteps. Sam’s boots appeared in front of her, then his hands were on her shoulders. “And when you found out, you made it right. You did everything you could to make sure Grant Meyer and Logan Cutter never harmed another person ever. Because of you, dozens of people are free. Amy...” Something in Sam’s touch forced Amy to lift her head and meet brown eyes that held only understanding and another emotion she didn’t want to analyze. “You did nothing wrong.”
“I did everything wrong.” Amy threw her hands up and tried to break Sam’s hold on her, but he didn’t let go.
“I’m not going to let you keep believing this. Not for another second.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, his touch bringing the sting of tears to her eyes. “You have to forgive yourself.”
“God can’t even forgive me for—”
“Stop it.” He slipped his hands up her neck to her cheeks, gently cradling them in his palms and forcing her to look at him. “That’s silly talk and you know it. You need to hash this out with Him, but I can promise you He’ll forgive you. I promise. It’s the whole reason grace exists.”
She dropped her gaze to his neck. He didn’t understand. She should have known sooner what was happening right in front of her at the day spa. Should have stopped Grant and Logan sooner. Should have seen what Layla was going through before the other woman had had to tell her.
“And the second part is, you have to forgive yourself. You can’t keep beating yourself up over this. You did what was right as soon as you found out what was going on. How could you have known sooner what Meyer and Cutter were up to? And even if you did...” He lifted her chin to force her to meet his eye. “You’re not responsible for the actions of other people.”
No, he didn’t understand. He never would. As much as Amy wanted to believe him, wanted to sink into what he was offering her, both from God and from himself, she couldn’t. In the end, he’d see her for who she really was, how she continually hurt the ones she was supposed to care for, and he’d either get hurt or he’d grow disgusted and leave.
“Forgive myself?” She stepped back, the words she was formulating slicing her own heart before she could even say them. “Don’t give me advice you aren’t willing to follow yourself.”
Without looking back, Amy walked into her room, shut the door behind her, slid to the floor and cried.
* * *
Sam banged his fist against the countertop, the sting of the impact racing up his arm into his shoulder. It almost felt good, a distraction from the deeper pain working its way through his body with every beat of his heart.
“You know, if you break your hand you really aren’t going to be doing anybody any good.”
Flexing his fingers, Sam rolled his eyes to the ceiling but didn’t turn toward the voice at the front door of the cabin. Go figure, the way his day was going. He should have known Rich would have managed to wander into earshot in time to hear him crash and burn with Amy. “You heard everything?”
“I heard enough.”
“Figures.” Fabulous. Not only was he losing Amy, but one of his oldest friends had been witness to his failure to make her feel safe and protected.
“Is there any coffee left? You dragged me out at all hours last night and set me up on guard duty today. Even the army offered up caffeinated sludge to take care of the lack of sleep.”
“There’s some left. Mugs are above the coffee pot.” He probably already knew that, but Sam needed something to say.
The floor creaked as Rich walked into the room and crossed into the kitchen. From the sound of it, he poured two mugs and thunked them both on the table. “You look like you could use some more yourself. Either that or you need to trust me enough to keep an eye on things while you hit the rack for a bit. I’m pretty sure you threw that pillow and blanket over there on the couch for show and didn’t sleep a wink.”
This was the danger of working with a team. For the last years of Sam’s army career, Rich had been the teammate he’d been closest to. They’d developed a rhythm, able to read one another’s thoughts in their actions, on and off the battlefield. With the murder of Rich’s fiancée the year prior, it seemed the man had only grown more introspective and intuitive. He was definitely quieter. He used to be the life of the party, the first to crack a joke or to suggest a last-minute weekend at the beach or in the mountains. With Amber’s death, Rich had matured, even aged a little.
He was right. Sam needed sleep. But between the nightmares and the constant need for vigilance in order to keep Amy alive, he knew sleep wouldn’t come or, if it did, it would only make everything worse. “I’m good, but I’ll take the coffee.” He pulled one of the wooden chairs away from the table and slouched into it, reaching for the mug with one hand and letting it warm his palm.
In his peripheral vision, Rich sipped his coffee. “What’s your plan?”
Straight to the point. It was the question Sam wished he could answer. “I’m supposed to get Amy to DC as soon as I’m cleared. It’s the safest place. In fact, I should probably be headed that way with her now.”
“Except that’s the direction they’d expect you to head.”
“Precisely.”
“And you can’t call in air support and chopper her out because...”
“Because I’ve been ordered to stay dark.” Sam outlined the hack in the system and the complications it presented. “If I reach out and I give our location and someone on the inside is involved, we’re in trouble, even over a secure server. Because I promise you, the way things have been going, whoever is out there is probably closer than help is.”
“And this hack is the same reason I can’t call in for you.”
Sam tapped his nose and pointed at Rich. “You’re on it. We’ll lay low here for forty-eight hours and if they don’t reach out by then I’ll have you reach out for me. I’m not quite ready to tip off that I’ve got another burner in my go-bag.” He’d packed that one himself months ago as insurance, tucked into a side compartment, no one on the inside or the outside knew he had it.
“I’m here for you, brother. You just let me know what you need.”
“Manpower, mostly. What you’ve been doing. Combing the woods, being my eyes on the outside. Between you during the day and Riley’s fiancé, Zach, at night, we should be able to keep Amy out of the line of fire.”
Rich swigged his coffee and stared into the cup, making a face. “She’s right, you know.”
“Who’s right?”
“Amy. You really shouldn’t be handing out advice you aren’t willing to follow yourself.”
“Hmm.” There was the turn in the conversation he’d been expecting when Rich first settled in. For a minute, he’d thought Rich was going to let him off without bringing it up. Sam tapped his index finger against the mug. “Nothing like gossiping over good coffee, huh?”
Rich chuckled. “Get real, Maldonado. No one on the planet would drink the sludge you call coffee. Not unless they were desperate. You might be long done with the military, but you still make it like Fitz always did. The spoon stands straight up in the mug before it dissolves.”
Amy had drunk part of her coffee, but she was also probably desperate so there was really no argument to be made there. In fact, there was really no argument to be made at all. From experience, Sam knew Rich. And Rich was going to say his piece whether or not Sam wanted to listen. So he waited, hot mug burning his palm, afraid if he let go he’d have nothing left to hide behind.
“So, you met Jenna, Amy’s sister?” Rich asked.
Sam’s eyebrows lowered. This wasn’t the direction Sam had expected the conversation to go. He nodded. Whatever Rich was getting around to, he’d get there eventually.
“You met the guy she’s engaged to? Wyatt Stevens?”
Once. The Mountain Springs police officer had been present the one time Sam had met face-to-face with Jenna. A prior service man himself, Wyatt Stevens had seemed like a squared-away cop who loved Jenna with the kind of fierce love Sam envied, the kind he wished he could feel for another person.
The kind he felt for Amy. His mind seized on the thought and refused to let go. His hand dropped to the table, and he pulled it back as though the coffee mug had suddenly caught fire.
He was in love with Amy Brady. Had been for as long as he’d known her, when he’d realized the depth of her bravery and h
er loyalty. It was the reason he’d asked to work with Edgecombe. In his mind and on paper, he’d convinced himself and Deputy Marshall Watkins that it was to make sure Amy didn’t take off again, to protect her in the event her identity had been compromised by her flight out of Georgia. But in his heart...
In his heart, it was because he couldn’t imagine never seeing her again. And the more time he’d spent with her, the more he was drawn to her. The more he knew he’d die to protect her, not because it was his job but because he couldn’t fathom this life without her, because she was everything he’d always wanted and she made him believe he could be the man he’d always imagined himself to be.
Rich simply sat back in his chair and sipped his coffee, his gray eyes holding slight amusement, the kind he seemed to have been missing when Sam had met with him a few months ago after Grant Meyer had tried to murder Jenna Clark. After a long enough dramatic pause, Rich settled his coffee mug onto the table and made a show of squaring it in front of him. “You’re in love with her.”
“Say that a little bit louder next time, why don’t you?” Sam looked over his shoulder to make sure the door to Amy’s room remained closed. “And I can’t be.”
“There’s no reason you can’t.” When Sam started to argue his point, Rich held up a hand, then crossed his arms over his chest, settling in his chair as though this were a normal day and they were about to have a normal chat. “I asked if you’d met Wyatt. Here’s why. Back when Meyer was coming after Jenna, I told Wyatt he needed to back off, not to let his feelings for Jenna get the better of him or else he wouldn’t be able to protect her. Fact is, I was wrong. Dead wrong. If he’d listened to me, he’d be a miserable man right now because he’d have pushed away the woman God intended him to be with. It would have been my fault.”
“Which has nothing to do with me.” Sam shoved away from the table and poured the rest of his coffee down the drain. He was edgy enough already, his insides bouncing like they were receiving electric shocks. More caffeine wasn’t going to help. He glanced at Amy’s door, then lowered his voice as he stared into the sink. “Being in love with Amy is out of the question. She’s going to move on to a whole other protected identity in WITSEC. I’ll move on to another mission. We’ll never see each other again once this is over.”