by Marie Force
Sam caressed his face, taking note of the deep, dark circles under his eyes. “When was the last time you slept?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You can’t go on this way. We need to talk to Harry about getting you on something.”
“He told me to try melatonin.”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Too late. Did it help?”
“Not that I could tell.”
Sam sighed in frustration.
He pulled her in closer to him. “Don’t worry, babe. I’ve always had insomnia and managed to soldier through.”
“It’s worse now.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Definitely.”
His soft chuckle made her smile. “Always have to have the last word, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. It’s one of many things you love about me.” She wrapped her arms around him and urged him to rest his head on her chest. “Close your eyes and try to sleep for a while. In this moment, everything is okay. I’ll be right here.”
“Promise?”
“Always.”
Sam ran her fingers through his hair in what she hoped was a soothing caress. She loved that his hair was thick and soft at the same time. She also loved the weight of his body resting against hers. Breathing in the familiar scent that she’d missed so much while he was gone, she was almost able to relax.
A few minutes later, Brant came to the door Nick had left open. Sam held up a hand to stop him from speaking. Instead, he held up three fingers on one hand and made a zero out of the other hand. Then he pointed to his watch.
Sam nodded in acknowledgment that they had thirty minutes before the FBI would be there to talk to them.
Brant walked away.
She continued to caress Nick’s hair, hoping he’d rest for the half hour they had before they once again had to face reality.
By the time Brant reappeared at the door forty minutes later, Nick was sound asleep. Sam moved carefully to extricate herself and to settle his head on a pillow, hoping he’d stay asleep. She snuck out of the room and closed the door behind her. “He’s not to be disturbed for any reason.”
“Yes, ma’am. The FBI is here to speak to you both.”
“It’ll have to just be me. He needs to sleep.”
“Right this way.”
Sam followed Brant through the common area where Tracy, Mike, Spencer, Angela, Leo and Stacy were watching an action movie. Her appearance caught their attention, and she waved to them as she followed Brant down a corridor that led to the area where the agents were holed up.
The others were getting cagey too. Spencer was on the verge of closing a huge deal and was stressing out about what he was missing at work. Leo, who had a blue-collar job in Baltimore, was equally concerned about missing so much work. The Secret Service had assured them that they’d gotten word to their employers and their jobs would be safe.
Sam didn’t blame them for being skeptical. Who knew what she’d return to at work or how she’d explain where she’d been to the inquisitive detectives who worked for her?
Brant gestured for her to go ahead of him into a conference room where FBI Special Agent in Charge Avery Hill was waiting for her. Of course it had to be him. Didn’t the FBI have anyone else they could’ve sent? His odd fixation on her had been a source of problems for her, and he was about the last person she wanted to talk to about Peter.
“I’d say it was nice to see you, Avery, but that doesn’t seem appropriate under the circumstances. Being held prisoner doesn’t bring out the best in me.”
Avery made a sound that might’ve been a laugh but sounded more like a grunt. “I can only imagine. We were told you may have a lead for us.”
“I’m not sure if it’s a lead or a reach.”
“At this point we’ll take whatever we can get.”
“Does that mean you’ve got dick to go on?”
His expression never changed. “That means we’re interested in whatever you’ve got to say.”
Sam took a seat across the conference table from him. She folded her hands in front of her, forcing herself to conjure up a dream she’d much rather forget. “I had a dream that included all my best friends—Ramsey, Stahl and my ex-husband, Peter Gibson. In the dream, Peter said I needed some humility.”
Avery sat up a little straighter when he heard that. “And when you were together...”
“That was one of his favorite things to say to me.” Sam held up her hands to stop him from commenting. “I know what you’re going to say. I should’ve thought of it before now, but after he tried to kill me a couple of times, I put him so far in the past that he no longer exists to me. I was rattled by this entire situation and off my game. Those are my only excuses for missing this before now.”
“Those are good reasons. I wouldn’t call them excuses.”
“It’s all right. You don’t have to give me a pass. It should’ve rung a bell for me.”
“Where would we find him?”
“The last I knew he was living on Seventh Street.”
“As in two blocks from your place on Ninth?”
“Yep, but he’s since moved from there. I have no idea where he is now. I haven’t heard anything from him since last winter when I was notified as his next of kin after he tried to off himself.”
“And did you go?”
“Hell no, I didn’t go. I’m not his next of anything anymore.”
Avery pondered that for a moment. “I would think, if a man has a woman listed as his next of kin and she doesn’t come running after he tries to kill himself, that might make him mad.”
“Everything I do makes him mad. Why do you think I’m not married to him anymore?”
“How do you think he feels about you being married to the vice president?”
“Seeing as how he went to enormous lengths to keep Nick and I apart when we first met and then tried to blow us both up when we got back together, I’d say he probably doesn’t think too much of it.”
“How did he keep you and Nick apart when you first met?”
Sam sighed. “Rehashing this ancient history is almost as fun as being stuck in an underground cement bunker with no access to the outside world.”
“Humor me.”
“I first met Nick at a party eight years ago. Some guy spilled beer on me, and Nick came to my rescue with a smile and a handkerchief. We left together and had a great time. A really great time.” And the best sex of her life, not that she could tell Avery that in light of his strange fixation on her. “We made plans to see each other in a couple of weeks, when he got back from a work trip to Europe. Except I never heard from him again and assumed he’d blown me off.”
“He hadn’t?”
“Not even kinda. My roommate at the time, none other than my now ex-husband, Peter Gibson, had failed to give me the many messages Nick left for me at our house. The only cell phone I had at that time was department-issued, so I hadn’t given him that number. When I never called him back, he thought I was blowing him off and gave up.”
“When did you find this out?”
“Six years later, the day Nick found his boss and best friend, Senator John O’Connor, after he’d been murdered. We compared notes, put two plus two together to confirm what I already knew—that my ex-husband was a controlling bastard who’d manipulated the situation to his benefit.”
“How so?”
“Whose shoulder do you think I cried on when I never heard from the guy I liked so much?”
Avery snorted. “I can’t picture you crying on anyone’s shoulder.”
“Well, I did that summer,” Sam snapped. “I was crushed, and Peter was right there to pick up the pieces. I spent fo
ur miserable years married to him. He wanted to control my every thought and move. Needless to say, that was a bit of a problem for me. The final straw was when he claimed I was spending ‘too much time’ taking care of my recently paralyzed father. I left him, moved back into my dad’s house to help out with his care and stayed there until I married Nick.”
Avery’s hand flew over a yellow pad as he made notes. “Tell me about how he tried to kill you.”
“Do I really have to? The whole world knows about that.” Thinking about the miserable years she’d spent with Peter was like picking at a scab that wasn’t fully healed. It was painful and humiliating to recall how he’d emotionally abused her for years, not to mention all the ways he’d tried to derail her second chance with Nick.
“I’m fuzzy on the details.”
Sam wasn’t sure if she believed that, but she wanted to get this over with, so she humored him. “The first week I was back together with Nick, Peter tried to blow us up by strapping crude bombs to my car and Nick’s. Mine detonated, thankfully while I was outside the car and not in it. I was knocked off my feet and smacked my head on the outside of Nick’s townhouse in Arlington. He was actually more severely injured than I was because the glass door he was standing behind shattered in his face—and he walked over broken glass with bare feet to get to me.”
Sam shuddered remembering the horror of that day. It’d been a long time since she’d given Peter a thought, and the sick feeling that turned her stomach was an unwelcome reminder of the ordeal he’d put her—and Nick—through.
“Did you know right away that it was him?”
“No! It never occurred to me that he’d do something like that. At first we thought it was John O’Connor’s killer trying to throw us off his or her trail. We were entirely focused on that angle until my dad connected the dots and turned our attention toward Peter. As soon as my dad suggested him, I knew he was right. Me getting together with Nick would’ve infuriated Peter because he knew how much I’d liked Nick the first time around. He had to know we would’ve put together that he was the one who’d kept us apart.”
Thinking about the long, lonely years between when she first met Nick and when they finally had their chance to be together made her sad for what they’d missed out on. They’d more than made up for lost time in the eighteen months they’d been back together, but they’d never get back the six years they’d lost to Peter’s manipulations.
“Of course, you know the rest, how my squad found bomb-making materials in Peter’s apartment and how he got off on a warrant technicality. Other than him accosting me on the sidewalk outside my house on the night before my wedding, he’s been keeping a pretty low profile.”
“What’s your hunch about whether or not he’s behind this latest threat?”
“If you’d asked me that two years ago, I would’ve said he lacked the balls to threaten the sitting vice president. But after he tried to blow us up, I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
“The good news is his prints are on file after his arrest on the bombing, so if he touched that letter, we’ll have him.”
Her heart sank. “There won’t be prints.”
“Why do you say that?” Avery asked.
“Because he’ll have learned that lesson with the bombs. I called him out on it in interrogation. Like, how could you be so stupid? Didn’t you learn anything from living with a cop for four years? He wouldn’t make that mistake again.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t get him in other ways.”
“He won’t make it easy.”
“Who are we talking about?”
Sam whirled around to find Nick standing in the doorway, his face lined from the pillowcase and his hair standing on end. He hardly resembled the handsome, debonair vice president the rest of the world knew. She held out her hand to him. “Do you feel better after getting some rest?”
He stepped forward to take her hand and sat next to her. “I did until I realized I’d been left out of this conversation.”
“You didn’t miss anything other than a trip down unpleasant memory lane.”
“You’re talking about Peter, then.”
“How’d you guess?”
“What’s your take?” Nick asked Avery.
“It’s as good of a lead as we’ve gotten. Often when someone threatens the president or vice president, they like to crow about it. In this case, there hasn’t been anything. No claim of responsibility. No chatter. No nothing.”
“Which means we’re stuck here indefinitely?”
“We’re doing everything we can.”
Right then and there Sam reached her breaking point. “I want out of here. I’m not under Secret Service protection, and I shouldn’t have to be here if I don’t want to be protected. Everyone here should be given that choice. You can’t hold us indefinitely.”
“That’s not up to you,” Nick said in a tone that told her he didn’t appreciate her doing this in front of Avery, of all people.
For once, Sam didn’t care what he appreciated. “You can’t hold me here against my will.”
“Yes, I can.”
“I’m your wife, not your prisoner.”
Avery stood and gathered up his pad, phone and other belongings from the table. “I’ve got what I need for now. I’ll be back if I have other questions about Peter Gibson.”
“You know where I’ll be.” Sam glared at Nick, who glared right back at her. “Be sure to give Shelby our regards and let her know she’ll still get paid even if she’s not able to assist us with anything at the moment.” Shelby, their faithful assistant, was engaged to Avery.
“I’ll pass that along. She’s so pregnant she’s probably relieved to sit with her feet up and do nothing.” At the doorway, he stopped and turned to look at them. “I know this is hard on you guys. We’re doing everything we can to figure it out as fast as we can.”
“Try harder,” Sam said, aware that she was being a jerk but unable to work up the fortitude to care.
“I’ll be in touch.”
“You’ll have to stop by since you can’t call us down here.”
“Right,” Avery said before he left them.
“Do you really have to pitch a fit in front of him of all people?” Nick asked when they were alone.
“Pitch a fit? Is that what you call expressing my disbelief that an American citizen can be held by her government without her permission for days with no end in sight?”
“You’re being a little dramatic, babe.”
Sam’s brows shot up to meet her hairline. “I’m being dramatic? Don’t you think ordering a dragnet over a letter was a little dramatic?”
His expression hardened. “Not even kinda. You tell me what you would’ve done in my place if you’d been out of the country and found out everyone you love had been threatened with kidnapping and dismemberment.” As he spoke, his voice got louder and his eyes got darker, the way they did when he was turned on. Except now he was furious rather than turned on. “You would’ve done exactly what I did with the resources I have available to me.”
“As vice president—a job you claim to hate until it comes in handy.”
“You’re really going to throw that back in my face?”
“Yeah, I guess I am. I get why you did it, and I agree that I would’ve done the same thing in your place when I was out of the country. But you’re back now and we’re all safe. How long can you reasonably expect to keep us here, Nick? What if it takes a month to find the person who sent that letter?”
Sighing, he looked defeated when he said, “I don’t know. How do I let everyone out of here and go about my life with full protection while hoping whoever made the threat doesn’t make good on it with someone who isn’t protected?”
“Are you guys fighting?” Scotty asked in a small voice from the
doorway.
Nick said “no” as Sam said “yes.”
After a second, the three of them laughed.
“I love how you fight about whether or not you’re fighting,” Scotty said, seeming relieved that they were at least laughing.
“This is a stressful situation for all of us, buddy,” Nick said. “No one wants to be stuck in this dungeon, least of all your mother.”
Scotty snorted with laughter. “She’s like a toddler in situations like this.”
“Um, excuse me, the toddler is in the room.”
His smile lit up his face and made his eyes dance with mischief.
Sam loved him so damned much. He always made everything better, even shitty situations like this one. “You know what I need right now?”
“Am I allowed to hear this?” Scotty asked.
“Ewww, knock it off, brat!”
“Well, I do have to witness an awful lot of kissing in my house. I’ve learned to be wary.”
“How does he know words like wary?” Sam asked Nick.
“It was your idea to send him to school,” he replied, making Scotty laugh again.
Sam rolled her eyes. “What I was going to say is I want to play one of those video games where I get to shoot people. I really need to shoot someone.”
“I can set you up,” Scotty said. “Step into my office.”
“He’s too smart for our own good,” Sam said to Nick as they followed their son into the common area where the Secret Service had placed Scotty’s game station. They knew what it would take to entertain him in the underground bunker.
“He’s perfect,” Nick said, his lips close to her ear.
She shivered from his touch. “He sure is.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
MUCH LATER, AFTER having had the satisfaction of shooting thousands of bad guys, Sam lay awake next to Nick, thinking it through from all possible angles. At times like this, it was nearly impossible to turn off her detective’s brain. Her dad always advised starting from the beginning when a case stalled out, so that’s what she did.
After months of having the agents close by at all times, one thing was clear to her—they didn’t overreact unless they had a damned good reason to. In the course of a week, they must get all kinds of threats against the first and second families. What had been so different about this one to warrant a reaction like this?