“I don’t answer to you, Councilman, and I do not have to state my intentions to you concerning Sabrina.” The whole room was as silent as a graveyard. “She knows my intentions. You don’t need to know.” He took two large steps and put his face right up in Peters’ face. He whispered a final parting comment Sabrina didn’t hear.
Murphy watched Jake’s face and his eyes fairly popped out of his head at whatever Jake told the councilman. Peters blanched a little and then took his leave without saying another word to anyone.
“What did you say to him?” Sabrina asked.
“I’ll tell you when I pick you up for lunch.”
“You saved me. That’s enough. You don’t actually have to take me out to lunch.”
“Sure I do. I need to make sure you know my intentions, especially now that I have to fight for your honor.”
Sabrina shook her head. “I’ll see you tonight. I have some catching up to do, but thanks for the rescue.”
Jake sighed and looked deeply into her eyes. “You look beaten down already, babe. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. Stop looking for things that aren’t there, Jake.” He nodded, but his face didn’t look like he believed her. He kissed her cheek before leaving.
Hennessey walked up and smiled. “Congratulations. You are back on the investigation. Councilman Peters accepted your apology and I begged for you to be let back on the team.”
“And he agreed?”
“So far.”
“Then let’s get to work before he changes his mind again. What about the bomb squad?”
“Not yet. One thing at a time, Sabrina.” Hennessey gave her a pointed stare she recognized which said, behave. He returned to his office, leaving her with a smiling Murphy.
“Okay. What are you working on today?” she asked, and crossed the room to where the investigation was set up. She approached the table with reports scattered across it and picked up a random manila folder.
“We are re-examining everything today. The investigation is sort of at a standstill since the Hollingsworth angle didn’t pan out. If the diary yields more unique information it would give us a direction to explore, but so far zip. The techs are working on it.” Murphy shrugged and crossed his arms while she finished reading the report she held, which happened to be the one with limited information on the diary. She didn’t see anything new either. Sabrina sighed and dropped the folder on the table, mentally cracking her knuckles to ready herself for a long afternoon of looking for a needle in a haystack.
When Brian arrived the three of them looked over all the evidence again, painstakingly. The logo was the last thing they looked at. It was yet to be identified, but seemed familiar to everyone.
Meanwhile, the lab felt like they were on the verge of a breakthrough with the diary, but not yet. They went over details of all the bombings, including the one from twenty-three years ago, looking for similarities. With the exception of Sabrina and Suzanne Forrester eventually being at all of them, there were no clear connections.
“I still say Suzanne Forrester has something to do with this.” Murphy crossed his arms as he stood next to the table spread with files.
“I was there too, Murphy. Stop looking at Suzanne as the bomber. She couldn’t have done the one from before she was born.”
“Maybe she is the key,” Murphy countered.
“But I’m the little pumpkin, right?”
“What are we missing?” Brian said.
“I think my brain is disconnected. I need caffeine.” They had been at this all day and had nothing to show for it.
“I’ll get this round,” Murphy said and stepped out of the room to get some coffee.
Brian left to make a phone call. Alone in the room, Sabrina laid her head down on the table. She could hardly hold her eyes open. She just wanted to rest them for a minute. Why was she so tired? Lately in the afternoons, she could hardly keep her head up. After fighting it off and failing, Sabrina dozed off for a moment in the quiet of the late afternoon and found herself dreaming. She dreamed about bombs. She snapped awake when Murphy came back with three Styrofoam cups.
“I have an idea.” Sabrina rubbed her eyes. “Didn’t I see somewhere that there was some evidence of the bomb housing from the Fireside Inn bombing from twenty three year ago?”
“Yeah, it’s in lock-up. The report says it’s just fragments.”
“Let’s get them sent over and look anyway. You never know.”
“Okay. I’ll have them bring it up tomorrow.”
Brian came back and after making plans for the next day, they adjourned.
* * * *
Sabrina entered Jake’s apartment that night with a load of trepidation resting on her shoulders. She hadn’t heard from him all day and wondered if he was miffed that she turned him down for lunch. Sabrina couldn’t decide how she felt about the earlier confrontation. Jake as the macho fireman didn’t sit well with her. It seemed out of character for him, but maybe she was making up reasons for why she needed to move back into her house.
Jake took an aggressive approach to protect her from Peters. At the time she’d been so glad to not have to turn down the smarmy councilman she was pleased about his interference. Later she wondered at her attitude. Usually she didn’t like that sort of testosterone-filled action one single bit. Maybe because it was an alien feeling for her. She never had anyone stick up for her before. She always took care of troublesome guys all on her own, but today she’d been panicked.
Today she had nearly prostituted herself for her job. She hadn’t wanted to give up all the earlier brown-nosing, but in the end, having Jake come to her rescue had been the best ending for her. She wondered if she would have accepted a lunch date with Councilman Smarmy to get her bomb tech job back. Maybe. Thanks to Jake she would never know, but at least Councilman Peters couldn’t blame her for bad behavior. He could just blame her boyfriend. The guy she still shacked up with blatantly without the sanctity of marriage. The horror.
“Jake?” she called as she passed through the front door.
“In here.” His voice came from the direction of the kitchen. Sabrina followed the sound of his sexy voice.
Jake sat at the table outside on the patio. His feet were propped up on the balcony rail, only two rear legs of the chair he sat on touched the ground, and in one hand nestled in his lap rested a bottle of beer. He stared out at a lovely view of the sunset as she stepped outside. Jake turned his head and watched her approach.
“Nice view.” She dropped a chaste kiss on his upturned face before sitting down at the table opposite of him.
“Yeah it is,” he said still staring at her. “How was your day?”
“Unproductive. How was yours?”
“Lonely.”
“Do we need to console each other?” she asked smiling.
“Maybe. What did you have in mind?”
“We could order in pizza, make some loud noises for your neighbors, and then you can help me pack.”
Jake smiled at the pizza remark, gave her a wolfish hot gaze at the words loud noises, and then finally looked at her sharply and with hurt in his eyes. “Pack? Why?”
She shrugged feigning nonchalance. “I think I should move back to my place.”
“Okay, I’m on my fourth beer here, because I pouted all day about Peters staring at your breasts, which I consider a sole and personal privilege accorded only to me, but did you say you were moving out? Please tell me I’m drunk and I didn’t hear you right.”
“I need some time to think about things, Jake. I told you that before my house got destroyed. This was just a…a break from the norm…like a vacation.”
“Great. Am I only ‘Club Jake’ to you?”
“No. I need to think some things over before we get any further involved.”
“You can think here. You don’t need to move. I won’t bother you. Besides, how can I convince you to marry me if you’re all the way over at your house?”
“Jake. We d
on’t need to get married.”
“What if you’re pregnant?” Jake spoke aloud the words she’d dreaded. Body blow. Sabrina took a sharp breath in. I’m never going to be pregnant Jake that’s the problem, she thought morosely trying to catch her breath. Her lungs hurt. “I’m not.”
“You know that for sure?” Jake pegged her with a look that was half angry at the possibility it wasn’t true and half hopeful she might be wrong.
“Yes. I do.” Sabrina didn’t look at him. She should be experiencing her monthly curse right now. She realized she was late by several days, but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t get pregnant. She was late because of all the stress in her job lately along with this unexpected temporary relationship she wasn’t sure what to do with.
“Well then how am I going to get you pregnant so you’ll marry me if you’re not living with me anymore?” Jake chuckled, and pierced her with a lip-licking gaze that made her want to start flinging clothing over the balcony rail. His words sank into her subconscious. Again she felt the words ‘get you pregnant’ as if they were a physical blow. He wanted to get her pregnant and he wasn’t going to be able to. It was time to stop this right now.
“Jake…” Her heart pounded in her chest. This was just too painful. She wanted to escape. You can’t get me pregnant Jake, she thought, stop saying you want to try. It kills me. “What if I told you I didn’t want to have any kids? I mean, it’s not like my job is conducive to it anyway,” Sabrina said, surprised at how evenly her voice sounded.
“Whoa. What?” Her remark got his attention. “You don’t want to have kids?” His chair crashed to the ground as his long legs slipped off the balcony stomping in front of him.
“I grew up in an orphanage—an unwanted child. Why would I want to bring a new child into the world when there are so many who already need homes?” How about because he would have Jake’s green eyes in a sweet baby face you would love forever? She could almost see this imaginary child she would never have.
Sabrina wanted to have Jake’s baby more than she wanted to take her next breath, but it wasn’t possible. Her eyes filled with excess moisture. She turned away to hide her face and the tears she knew would fall. The pain of her infertility choked her. I do too want kids, darn it. I would love to have a bunch of my own and then adopt a whole bunch more from an orphanage until my house is like the movie ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’.
Except that was a pipe dream. She didn’t get to have that life. She’d chosen a different path long ago. Her life was not set up for happy family mode even if she could have kids, and she couldn’t. If Jake had his heart set on getting her pregnant, she had better leave this instant. She didn’t need to think about it any more. It was time to go.
Jake leveled a look at her she couldn’t identify when she finally had the courage to glance over at him. “Why do I feel like you’re picking a fight with me, Sabrina?” he asked, watching her closely.
“I’m not picking a fight with you. You just don’t know me as well as you have decided you do. I need my own quiet space to figure out what to do.” She looked away from him and blinked rapidly to keep her eyes from spilling her tears.
“What’s to figure out? Moving back to your lonely house won’t solve your problems.”
“Staying here in your lonely apartment while you run out to save the world won’t solve them either.”
“Why not?” Jake asked. “You’ll have quiet time to think. Besides, you can’t move out. Peters will take your going back home as permission to begin his courtship of you.”
Sabrina took a breath. She had been thinking about a particular idea all day, since Jake had come in this morning in all his macho glory. She put on her game face and got ready to tell the second big fat lie for the evening.
Sabrina realized during the past several days, that she needed some time away from Jake’s intensity. She couldn’t think clearly when she was with him. He made her all quivery and she kept forgetting about her secret.
She needed Jake to back off a little. All she’d done thus far was play happy couple together and get more attached. She wouldn’t ruin his life with a marriage. She should tell him the truth. Get it over with and go, and yet she hadn’t found a way to say the words. She would look at Brian and think of Jake and weigh the pros and cons of getting in deeper versus telling him the ugly truth. She was at the bottom of the quicksand pit as it was.
Sabrina could have moved out a week ago, but she enjoyed living with Jake. He was quick to wake each day as was part of his training, but he wasn’t a morning person. She was also not a morning person, so each day they battled as to who had to get up out of bed first.
The mock shoving matches trying to push each other out of bed to make coffee each morning usually led to lovemaking matches, which was a great way to start the day. Her time with him had been idyllic, but if she couldn’t tell him the truth, then she needed some distance to come up with a better plan.
What she was about to do was probably a mistake. A big one. The words, “Liar, liar, pants on fire,” danced furiously through her brain. Jake was never going to buy this, but she plowed ahead anyway.
Sabrina took another big breath before saying, “I just don’t know if I can stay with you and worry every night if you are coming home alive. I know you love being a fireman, but thinking about you in danger every single day bothers me more than I thought it would. I’m sorry, Jake, but I don’t want to be with a fireman.”
* * * *
Jake was about to swallow his beer bottle whole. She didn’t support his career? She didn’t want to be with a fireman? That couldn’t be true. He looked at her face very intently. She looked sincere. She also looked sad and determined. So she didn’t want children and she didn’t like that he had a risky job? That just sucked the big one. Maybe he was drunk and hadn’t heard her correctly. Up until now, he’d thought he was only a little tipsy.
“I don’t believe you.”
Sabrina face became a sudden mask of determination. She wasn’t backing down. She looked beautiful and he wanted her. He wanted to change her mind about having kids and supporting his career.
“It’s true.” She didn’t look at him. Maybe she couldn’t look at him. He must be drunk. She wanted to extricate herself from his life…But why?
“Noted, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you. I want you to stay here. I love you, and I want to marry you,” he said quietly after a long pause, watching carefully for her reaction.
Sabrina’s eyes widened slightly, but that was the only reaction he got. She acted surprised at what he’d said, but she sighed deeply as if in regret and stood up, leaving him on the balcony alone.
The not wanting kids thing threw him the most. He’d watched her play with Kyle. She seemed fascinated by his baby smiles. Perhaps he’d been just seeing what he wanted to see.
Sabrina always seemed a little withdrawn in the social situations he had thrust her in at every opportunity. He couldn’t help it because he had a big family and they were always going to be popping up. Maybe she was intimidated. Maybe she just wasn’t used to a big demanding nosy family. Maybe he should get his drunken ass up and go talk to her to see what this was really all about. He just didn’t believe the fireman thing. He’d seen her face when he came out of the apartment building. The look she speared through him that night was of pure pride. He’d almost felt the physicality of her love and pride for him wrap around him like a belt of steel.
Jake stood up to go see where she was. He swayed on his feet and cursed the foolish fourth beer he’d drank on an empty stomach. His anger burned a hole through him all day from “Mr.” Peters, the fancy pants councilman eyeballing Sabrina’s cleavage like it was his personal domain. He’d wanted to rip Peter’s eyes out of his head when he’d entered her office and seen the pervert ogling her. When he’d leaned in and whispered his final threat at her office this morning, he’d threatened eyeball extraction followed by castration involving a rusty pocketknife if he ever saw Peters looking a
t her breasts again.
Brian explained some things to him later about her rocky conditional reprieve and Jake was glad she hadn’t been pulled off her case because of him. It sounded like Sabrina could get herself thrown off a case all by her lonesome. He smiled. God, he loved her.
Time to go make nice and see where her head was. He wasn’t buying the dangerous job crap. Hell, her job was just as dangerous and maybe even more so than his. He came out of the kitchen in time to hear the front door close.
“Sabrina!” he called out to his already empty apartment.
* * * *
Sabrina walked out Jake’s front door as the tears spilled from her eyes. Life sucked, and then you had to tell someone you loved a big ugly secret or run away. She was running away.
She rounded the stairs to the parking lot, taking them two at a time, and hit the ground floor at a trot. She was such a big coward. She should tell him her final terrible secret and get it over. The thought of his disdainful face stopped her. She didn’t want to give Jake up. In order to protect herself, she’d have to hide the truth.
She didn’t pack anything up from Jake’s apartment. There was plenty of stuff with new tags already waiting at her house. Sabrina could come back when Jake was gone to get the rest of her things or simply leave her meager belongings as souvenirs. The cold hard bitch also known as The Blonde Bomber slept here once; Jake could have her t-shirt to prove it.
She realized as she spoke to him on the balcony he was not going to be easy to lie to or to leave. Drunk or not, he was not going to let her go. He loved her, he’d said. Well, she loved him too, but that didn’t solve everything.
Sabrina wouldn’t be able to look at his gorgeous green eyes and lie to him again. So she ran.
“Sabrina.” Jake’s voice penetrated her physically from the direction of the stairs as she slipped into her car. She shut the door, turned over the engine, and pretended not to hear the hurtful concern in his voice. As she struggled to get the gear shift into reverse she heard a solid rap on her window. She jumped at the sound and looked out the window. His face was level with hers as he was bent at the waist. He made a motion for her to roll down her window. She buzzed the window down less than an inch, not wanting to be able to touch him or let him touch her. She’d lose her nerve if any part of their skin came in to contact.
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