Love Against the Law

by Justine Klavon

  Kodi was onboard with Sammi’s ideas, but she only wanted Howard on the team if Shay was completely out of his life. She hadn’t quite forgiven Shay for trying to shoot her or wanting to kill Sammi. And she wasn’t ever going to.

  *

  At the hospital, Howard was looking even better than the night before and was happy to see both Sammi and Kodi. Kodi told him about Sammi’s promotion so Sammi took out her new detective badge to show him.

  “I thought you didn’t want to be a cop anymore,” Howard said as he sat up more in the hospital bed to get a better look at the shiny badge.

  “I didn’t ask for this,” Sammi replied and shrugged. “Hey, have you been in touch with either of the psycho siblings lately?”

  “Nah,” Howard told her. “Shay hunted me down when she got out of jail, but I closed the door in her face. She always thought I was a coward anyway.”

  “You’re not a coward,” Kodi stepped in, putting her hand on Howard’s shoulder.

  “We might be putting a team together again,” Sammi told him, “just the three of us.”

  “I’d like that,” Howard said with a smile.

  After Sammi and Kodi left the hospital, they went out for a late lunch before Kodi drove Sammi all the way home. Mack wasn’t going to be home for several hours and Sammi didn’t want to make Kodi have to just turn around and drive back to the city, so she invited her inside. They decided to watch a movie, but while Sammi made popcorn, Kodi gathered notebooks, pens, and Sammi’s laptop instead of choosing a movie.

  “What’s all this?” Sammi asked, entering the sunny loft with a large bowl of fresh popcorn.

  “You’re never going to commit to being a thief again unless someone pushes you,” Kodi explained. “So, consider this your push.”

  Sammi put the popcorn bowl on the coffee table and picked up a notebook before taking a seat next to her best friend on the couch. She and Kodi conspired, planned, and plotted for two hours before Kodi decided to head home. They had made enough progress that Sammi was finally fully confident in her decision to change careers again.

  It was still a little while before Mack was expected to get home so Sammi cleaned up the popcorn mess then headed back up to the loft. She began gathering all the heist-planning evidence with the intention of hiding it all from Mack’s sight until after they had their inevitable argument. But she heard a car pull into the driveway and, wondering if Kodi had forgotten something or Mack was home early, she left the notebooks on the coffee table to go see who was there.

  Taking one step outside the front door, Sammi realized right away that the car in the driveway was neither Kodi’s nor Mack’s. She had a clear view of the vehicle from the front porch and could see that nobody was in the strange Buick, which made her wonder if it was just somebody visiting one of the neighbors. With a shrug of her shoulders, Sammi headed back inside and closed the front door behind her.

  Forgetting about the notebooks, Sammi removed her cellphone from her back pocket as she walked into the master bedroom. She dialed Mack’s number, wanting to give him a heads up about the weird car in the driveway, but Mack didn’t answer the call. As she brought her phone down in front of her to type out a text message, Sammi saw a shadow in the bedroom doorway and chills shot up her spine.

  The little hairs on Sammi’s arms stood on end as she remembered the parking garage and the stranger in the mall. She silently rolled off the bed, on the side further from the door, and crouched behind it. Peeking around the corner of the mattress, Sammi watched the shadow move away from the door and listened intently for any noises that would give away the intruder’s location before making her next move. Moving slowly so as not the make any noise herself, Sammi turned to the window behind her and, opening it as quietly as she could, used the nightstand below to give her a boost through it.

  With a heavy thud, Sammi landed on her back on the ground outside the window. She lay in the grass for a moment, trying to catch her breath from having the wind knocked out of her before jumping up and running around the front of the house to the garage. There was a side door into the garage from the side yard that Sammi was able to slip through without making any sounds. She screamed with joy inside her head seeing that her car key was on the hook by the door that led into the kitchen, where it was supposed to be instead of when she lazily left it in the kitchen, so she dashed over, grabbed it, and let herself into the passenger side of her car. Popping the glove compartment open, she reached in and snatched up her off-duty pistol.

  As Sammi backed herself out of the car, she heard the front door open and close. Hoping Mack hadn’t just gotten home, she hurried back out the side door and toward the front of the house. She kept her gun in both hands and pointed it at the ground as she snuck around the corner of the house to the driveway.

  The intruder had gotten behind the wheel of the Buick and started the engine. Sammi couldn’t see their face clearly enough through the slightly tinted windows to recognize them, so she took a step toward the vehicle with her pistol aimed at the closed driver side window.

  “Police! Shut the car off!” Sammi yelled, standing her ground.

  The driver side window rolled down a few inches and Sammi got a bad feeling in her gut. She darted for cover on the front porch just as she heard gunfire. Landing hard on her back on the cement porch, her gun bounced out of her hands and landed a few feet behind her. Searing pain shot up her left leg and she sat up to see blood flowing out of a hole in the meaty part of her calf.

  Before Sammi could even attempt to get to her feet, the intruder was out of the Buick and standing over Sammi with a handgun aimed down at her face. Sammi threw herself backwards, away from the familiar suspect, reaching out desperately behind her for her own gun.

  “Why, Shay?” Sammi grunted, struggling to catch her breath as her old teammate kicked her gun away before kicking Sammi hard between her eyes.

  Sammi lost consciousness for a second, lying helpless on the cement. Shay put one foot on Sammi’s chest and knelt over her to keep her down as she started to come around. She rolled up Sammi’s beige dress shirt from the bottom in order to uncover the scar on her side from where Eli had shot her years ago. Getting herself even closer, Shay put the barrel of her gun directly over the gruesome scar.

  Going into panic mode, Sammi shoved Shay as hard as she could, throwing her completely off of her. She lunged at the crazy woman, keeping all of her weight on the right side of her body and ignoring the pain in her left leg, and wrestled the gun free from Shay’s grasp. Remaining on top of Shay and bearing down all of her weight to keep her still, Sammi removed the magazine from Shay’s Glock and emptied it. She tossed the pieces of the gun into the front yard and sighed in relief.

  As Sammi took a deep breath, Shay easily threw her off of her and rolled Sammi over onto her back, sitting on her legs as she pulled a second handgun from her waistband. Without giving Sammi a chance to even react, Shay uncovered her side scar once again and fired the weapon as the barrel touched the disfigured skin. Sammi made a strange squeaking noise only once as her body convulsed from the force of the shot.

  Shay stood up, gun still in hand, and stood over Sammi. She enjoyed watching as Sammi hopelessly covered the gushing wound with both of her hands, unable to apply enough pressure to make a difference. Once the light in Sammi’s eyes started to dim, Shay finally ran to the Buick and sped away from the house.

  After Shay had gone, Sammi weakly but desperately patted her pockets, feeling for her cellphone but it wasn’t on her. With one last effort, she tried pulling her body to the door with just the use of her arms. But her blood loss had drained her strength and her energy, so she collapsed only inches from where she had been shot.

  Having nothing left to fight with, Sammi laid back on the cold cement and let it soothe her sweat-soaked body. She placed her hands over her sticky, blood-soaked side again and just closed her eyes.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Home Movies (II)

  It was two years
previously, only weeks before Sammi’s and Mack’s wedding, and Kodi, Mack, and Sammi had just arrived at a busy bar in the city to celebrate the incarceration of Shay Krik. They had just attended her sentencing hearing and, although displeased with the sentence length, they were glad she’d be off the streets for a little while. No one else was charged in the case of the robbery of the four banks, but Eli was still a wanted man on the run.

  As the three roommates got a couple of drinks in them, they finally loosened up and smiled for the first time in months. They hadn’t had the easiest time recovering from the traumas of the past year and readjusting to all living together again. But they had made progress and Kodi and Mack had really bonded over their concern of Eli or somebody on Shay’s behalf coming after Sammi. Everything regarding the old band of thieves had been left unresolved and it was unnerving that everyone was still out there with their unsettled feelings and their grudges.

  Sammi sipped on her third margarita, sitting between Mack and Kodi at the bar. Mack sat on her right with his hand on her bare knee while he chatted over her with Kodi on her left. They were talking about the wedding while Sammi’s mind was elsewhere. She was thinking back to when she had first met Shay and wondering how she hadn’t seen how unhinged that woman was back then. But then again, she never would’ve imagined Eli was going to try to kill her when they had first met either.

  “You okay?” Mack asked, rubbing Sammi’s thigh.

  “Yeah, it’s just been a weird day,” Sammi replied and smiled at her fiancé to reassure him that everything was fine.

  “Anything you want to talk about?” Mack continued to question her.

  “Not really,” Sammi told him. “You just gotta realize it was weird watching someone go to jail who I’ve broken the law with many times.”

  Kodi nodded in agreement as her face fell. Both girls knew how unbelievably lucky they were to not be in the same situation as Shay. And they both knew that Mack was the only reason behind their luck. But Mack didn’t quite see it that way, though, because he knew they were both good people and they deserved their second chance, regardless of whether Sammi was his bride-to-be or not.

  “Sammi, that psychopath wanted to kill you,” Mack reminded his fiancée. “Please don’t put yourself in the same category as her.”

  Sammi smiled at the kindness from the man she loved. She put her hand sensually on Mack’s leg and looked into his sensitive eyes as happiness and warmth washed over her. Mack leaned forward and brought his hand up to the side of her face to brush her hair away, but she flinched and pulled away.

  “I’m so sorry!” Sammi panicked, realizing what she had just done.

  “I think we need to talk,” Mack replied in total seriousness, trying to hide how upset he was.

  The soon-to-be-married couple had yet to be intimate with each other and they were running out of time to address the issue once and for all. Sammi had been doing everything she could to avoid the conversation, but the hurt look on Mack’s face told her that it was time to bite the bullet and open up to him. So, she nodded in agreement at his last statement and suggested that they head home.

  *

  Kodi, Mack, and Sammi all finished their final drinks before Mack paid the tab and they all piled into a taxi. Sammi was being considerate and giving Mack some space after hurting his feelings at the bar. It pained her to be the reason he was upset, and she was scared that their upcoming discussion was going to push him away for good.

  At the apartment, Kodi made herself scarce and quickly disappeared into the guest bedroom. Sammi had actually spent more nights sleeping in that room with her best friend than she had spent sharing Mack’s bed since the girls had moved back in. They had been more shaken by the events of the past year than they were willing to admit and relied on each other for comfort.

  Sammi was practically hiding by the front door to the apartment so Mack walked over and gently took one of her hands in his. He guided her upstairs to his bedroom and calmly closed the door before taking a seat on the edge of the bed. Too nervous to sit down, Sammi remained standing and facing the door, ready to bolt through it at any second.

  “So, what’s going on with you?” Mack asked with complete sincerity, making eye contact with Sammi to show his concern.

  “Look, you know most of the story,” Sammi began and started pacing the floor in front of Mack. “You know all about Eli and everything involving the team. But only Kodi knows what I’m about to tell you.”

  There was fear and sadness in Sammi’s eyes as she stopped pacing and looked directly at Mack. Mack swiftly reached out and pulled Sammi to his lap. He wrapped his arms tightly around her body and held her to him, wanting to take her pain away. Sammi let the comfort of his love surround her as she told him about her past with her mother and her mother’s much-too-friendly boyfriends.

  “Sam, I am so sorry, I had no idea,” Mack said quietly as a single tear squeezed out of each of his eyes and he hugged his fiancée tighter.

  “I know you didn’t because I didn’t want you to know,” Sammi informed him, seeing the pained look on his face. “I don’t want you looking at me any differently.”

  “And I don’t want you to ever feel uncomfortable or in danger ever again,” Mack told her. “I will protect you for the rest of my life, but if you ever feel like I’m putting you in a bad spot, please just tell me you need space.”

  “No, Mack, I know you would never hurt me.”

  “We both know that, Sammi, but I’m dead serious. There are going to be bad days, just like there are in any marriage, and we’re both going to get mad. But I am telling you right now that I can’t bear the thought of ever causing you to be afraid. So, whenever you ask me for space, I will drop whatever I am saying or doing with no questions asked.”

  Mack could feel the tears on Sammi’s face as she passionately kissed him. He kissed her back as he slowly brought his hands up to either side of her face and wiped the tears away with his thumbs. Sammi repositioned herself on Mack’s lap so her entire body was facing his and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “Are you okay with this?” Mack whispered against Sammi’s lips after she pulled his shirt off over his head.

  “More than okay,” Sammi replied, breathing heavily. “I love you.”

  *

  Two weeks later, the night before their wedding, Mack and Sammi sat down to eat some pizza after a day of unpacking boxes in their new house. Mack had taken the week off from work for the move and the wedding, and the following week as well for their honeymoon. Kodi had assisted them with the move the day before, but she had her own redecorating to do now that she had Mack’s big apartment all to herself.

  While the happy couple ate their dinner, both of their cellphones began ringing almost simultaneously. As this never happened, Sammi and Mack gave each other surprised looks before looking to see who was calling them. Mack told Sammi his call was from work and went up to the loft to answer it, but Sammi didn’t recognize the number on her screen so she was cautious as she answered. By the time Mack came back down to the kitchen, Sammi had already been off the phone for a few minutes.

  “Anything important?” Mack asked as he put his phone down on the table.

  “I actually have some pretty exciting news,” Sammi told him, grinning. “I got accepted into the police academy. I start training when we get back from our honeymoon.”

  “Wait. You’re going to be a cop?” Mack replied, confused and not impressed.

  “Yeah, I thought you’d be proud of me. I’ll finally be one of the good guys,” Sammi explained.

  Mack was speechless as he sat down across from his soon-to-be wife, who had never even once mentioned having any desire to be a cop. Sammi watched the torn expression on his face and couldn’t believe that he wasn’t being more supportive. This moment had played out so much differently in her head and she couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

  “What did your job want?” Sammi asked, clearly annoyed and avoiding eye contact.
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  “They got a call from a unit down in Florida. There has been a string of robberies that they think they can tie to Eli,” Mack informed her.

  Sammi’s eyes widened at the mention of Eli’s name. Not a day had gone by that she hadn’t wondered what had happened to him. She couldn’t bring herself to hate him after their last nights together in that hotel room before their final heist, and she always hoped he was okay wherever he was.

  “Did they give you any details?” Sammi tried sounding casual to mask just how interested she was in this conversation.

  “Not yet,” Mack told her. “Florida is faxing the case files over to the precinct so I’m going to head over early in the morning just to take a quick look and give them my opinion.”

  “You?” Sammi laughed. “What makes you an expert on Eli or his crime style?”

  “Maybe the fact that I’m marrying his ex-girlfriend and ex-teammate,” Mack challenged, growing frustrated by Sammi’s sudden spark of interest in Eli’s situation.

  “Why does it sound like you care more about putting my ex behind bars than you do about becoming my husband?”

  “How can you say that?”

  “You’re going to work to read case files on our wedding day!”

  “You don’t want him to get caught, do you?”

  That was the last straw for Sammi. She got up from the table and went into the master bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Mack was right; Sammi didn’t want Eli to get caught. But Mack would never be able to understand her reasons for feeling this way.

  Sammi wandered into the bathroom and filled the large, round bathtub with hot water as she undressed. She slid into the steamy water and relaxed with her eyes closed. Allowing herself to think about Eli and miss her life as a thief, she began to cry.

  Mack, who hadn’t given himself enough time to calm down, burst through the bathroom door. Seeing Sammi cry only made him madder and he clenched his fists at his sides.