by Marie Force
“And it all struck very, very close to home. Think about it—Brooke, Gonzo, Elin, Lori, all of them people you love or connected to people you love. That’s going to throw off your concentration under the best of circumstances and this was anything but the best of circumstances.”
“Everything you’re saying makes perfect sense.”
“You might be the first woman ever to say so.”
Sam laughed. “I doubt that.”
“You’re going to have to air this out for the department shrink before you can get cleared to go back to work, and you should take all the time you need to make sure you’re totally ready to do that. Until then, I really wish you’d stop blaming yourself and start blaming Stahl. Allow yourself to get really, really mad at him and at Marissa for getting into bed with him. But give yourself a break, will you please, Sam?”
“I’ll try. I think I know what I need to do now. Thank you, Harry.”
“Happy to help whenever you need me.”
“You might’ve missed your calling as a shrink.”
“Funny you should say that. I’ve actually thought about changing specialties but never seem to get around to it. The thought of more school is rather revolting when you’ve spent as much time in school as I have.”
“I bet.” She stood and looped her purse over her shoulder. “I’ve taken enough of your time. Thank you again for squeezing me in.”
He stood to hug her. “Anytime. Call me day or night if you need me. I’m always here for you guys.”
“You’re one of the good ones, doc. We need to find a nice girl for you.”
“Ugh, you and my mother.”
“I’ll see you at the parties next week?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’m so damned proud of my friend—and his wife.”
Sam gave his arm a squeeze and headed out the door and down the long corridor that led to the waiting room. As Sam entered the crowded room, a woman gasped.
“Oh my God! You’re, you, Mrs. Cappuano! You’re the second lady!”
Sam wanted to expire on the spot when all eyes in the room landed on her. All she could think about is that her face must be a red, blotchy mess after crying her eyes out all over Harry.
“Could I have your autograph?” the woman asked.
“Um, sure. I guess.”
While the woman riffled through her purse for a piece of paper and a pen, Sam was forced to stand there like a museum exhibit. A flash exploded to her left, making her jolt. It was a reminder that she was still jumpy and skittish, two things she’d never been before that day in the basement with Stahl.
“Ah, here we go.” The woman thrust a used envelope and a pen at Sam. “Can you make it out to Janice?”
“Yeah.” She wrote, Janice, nice to meet you. Sam Cappuano. She’d been about to write Holland when she caught herself.
“Could I get one?” the lady next to her asked.
Oh for fuck’s sake, Sam thought. “Of course,” she said with a gracious smile. They couldn’t see that her teeth were gritted, could they?
“Your husband,” a third woman, the youngest of the three, said with a salacious grin, “is so hot.”
“Um, thank you. I think so too.” Sam wanted to poke out the woman’s eyes so she could no longer leer at her hot husband, but she somehow managed to contain the urge to get violent.
Before she left, she signed autographs for six other people in the waiting room as well as the office staff. At some point, Harry came out to see what was going on and had silently mocked her with laughing eyes. She would take that up with him when she next saw him.
She left Harry’s office and drove directly to HQ, anxious to get this done before she lost her nerve. After parking outside the morgue, she hustled into the building, the bitter January wind cutting through her coat and sweater. Inside, she took a moment to fix her hair and encountered the Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Lindsey McNamara, in the hallway.
“Hey, Doc,” she said to her close friend and colleague. “How goes it in the morgue?”
“Busier than usual with this knife-wielding freak on the loose. How are you? It’s good to see you here.”
“Good to be seen.”
“Are you back on the job?”
“Not quite yet but getting closer.”
“Glad to hear it. We’ve missed you.”
“Nice to be missed, and thanks for the calls, the visits, the food and all the support. It’s been greatly appreciated.”
“It was the least I could do. I still can’t get over everything that happened.” Lindsey stopped herself. “But you don’t need to talk about that.”
“Actually, I do,” Sam said with a chagrined smile. “Until I air it out with Trulo, I can’t come back. I’m heading up to air it out.”
“Good luck with that. You’ve been down this road before. You certainly know how to give him just enough to get him to sign off.”
“That’s the plan. I’ll see you on the way out.”
“I’ll be here.”
Sam went straight upstairs without cutting through the detectives’ pit where she was sure to be waylaid. If she put this off, she might not do it, and it had to be done. If not for herself then definitely for Nick and Scotty who’d spent enough time stressing out about her.
Outside Trulo’s office, she marshaled her courage and raised her hand to knock. If he were with someone, he wouldn’t answer, so she waited.
The door swung open, and the doctor wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “Sorry, Lieutenant, I was just downing some lunch. What can I do for you?”
Oddly enough, the thought of the impenetrable doctor eating lunch made him more human than he’d ever been to her. “I’m ready to talk.”
Trulo stared at her for a long moment before he said, “Come in.”
Chapter Seven
Freddie and Elin drove until they ran out of land at the Gulf of Mexico in a little town near Pensacola, Florida, called Perdido Key. They rented a room in an oceanfront hotel and took to the beach. Though it wasn’t quite warm enough to swim, it was a hell of a lot warmer than it was at home.
He sent his mother a text to let her know where they were and left his phone in the room, determined to punch out as much as he could and take full advantage of the rare opportunity for a getaway with the woman he loved. They had things to talk about before they could head back to their real lives, and this was certainly a beautiful place to kill a week.
“Will you rub sunscreen on my back?” Elin asked, holding out the bottle.
“I’d love to.”
She smiled at his predictable response. He was never shy about how badly he wanted her all the time. They’d yet to make love since she’d been hurt, and he was hoping they’d get back on track in that area this week as well.
As he smoothed the sunscreen over her soft skin, Freddie thought about how close he’d come to losing her. During his career as a cop, he’d seen punches to the face kill people on more than one occasion. She could’ve been killed when she hit her head on the way down or choked to death on her own blood. In so many ways it could’ve been worse.
“Why’d you stop?” she asked.
“Sorry. I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
“How grateful I am that you’re okay—or that you’re on your way to being okay again. As bad as it was, it could’ve been so much worse.”
“I know.”
He finished applying the sunscreen and handed the tube back to her, rubbing what was left on his face and then sitting back in his chair, trying to relax. They were hundreds of miles from DC, but the stress had come with him. So many thoughts circled around in his mind, making him crazy as he tried to reason his way through what’d happened. The way Stahl had set them all up and how he needed to tell Eli
n that before Stahl went to court again and the whole mess was broadcast to the world.
“Hey, baby,” he said.
“Hmm?”
“So there’s some stuff we need to talk about.”
“Didn’t we just talk for two days in the car?”
“Other stuff, about work and the case against Elliott and Stahl and all that. There’re a few things I’ve been wanting to tell you, but it never seemed like the right time, what with your injuries and how you were in so much pain. I didn’t want to add to it.”
She sat up in her chair and looked over at him. “Add to it how?”
“So the thing with Elliott coming to the gym and stalking you and getting physical with you.”
“What about it?”
“It was all part of Stahl’s set up. He hired Elliott to pursue you and to bring things to a head that day because he wanted me out of the picture when he went after Sam.”
Her mouth fell open in shock. “Are you kidding me? The whole thing was a big plan?”
“Yeah. From what I’ve been told, Stahl figured I’d do exactly what I did when you were attacked and run to your side, which left Sam shorthanded and alone that day.” Freddie reached for her hand, and she gave it willingly. “And then I did something that I probably shouldn’t have done, but I’m not sorry I did it.”
“What did you do?”
“I went into the jail and beat the shit out of Elliott.”
“Freddie! I told you I didn’t want you to do that. Oh my God! That’s why you’re off this week, isn’t it? You got in trouble.”
“Yes.”
“Freddie… Why did you do that? You know better.”
“After what he did to you, you have to ask me why?”
“Yes, I’m asking why! He was in jail, facing charges. Why couldn’t that have been enough for you?”
“He laid hands on you. He hurt what’s mine after terrorizing you for weeks. There was no way I could let that go.”
“You should have.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“And now you’re suspended for a week, presumably without pay that we need. So what’re we doing here?” She gestured to the sand and water. “We can’t afford it.”
“Yes, we can. I have money put away. We’ll be fine.” He picked up a pile of sand and let it spill through his fingers, nervous about what else he needed to say to her. “We never talked about the rest of what happened with Elliott.”
“What do you mean?”
“The stalking and all that. Before the assault.”
“Oh. That.”
“Yeah, that. Ever since that day, I can’t stop thinking about how you kept that from me, and maybe if you’d told me…” He didn’t want to say they might’ve caught on to Stahl’s plan, saved Lori’s life and Sam from the hell that she went through. He’d never put that on Elin.
“It’s all my fault,” she said softly. “Everything that happened to me and Sam and Alex’s mom.”
“No, it’s not your fault. None of it is your fault. That’s not why I told you. But the thought of any guy hassling you and me being oblivious… We can’t operate that way. If you’re in trouble, I’m in trouble. If someone is hassling you, they’re hassling me. I don’t want you keeping stuff like that from me.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. You were so stressed out after Gonzo got shot, and I didn’t want to add to it.”
“See, that right there, what you just said. You wouldn’t be adding to anything. You’re everything to me. It hurts me that you kept something so big from me. I thought we were better than that.”
“We are better, and I wanted to tell you. I’m sorry I hurt you by not telling you, but I was afraid of what you’d do. Turns out I had good reason to be afraid.”
“I’m not sorry I confronted him.”
“What did you do to him?”
“I punched him in roughly the same place he punched you, and I kneed him in the balls.”
“Don’t they have cameras in there?”
“Covered it with my hoodie.”
“You shouldn’t have done it.”
“So I’ve been told, but I don’t regret it.”
She pushed up her sunglasses and looked over at him with the piercing blue eyes that had captivated him since the first time he met her. “You want me to tell you things, but if I do, is this what you’re going to do? Go after someone, assault them, endanger the career you’ve worked so hard for? Is that who you’re going to be?”
For the first time since he confronted Elliott, he experienced the slightest pang of regret for what he’d done. If it meant she’d hold out on him about important things in the future then maybe he shouldn’t have done it. “It’s not who I want to be, but you can’t expect me to just sit on my hands and do nothing when someone attacks you.”
“That’s exactly what I expect you to do. Can you see? What you did made it worse, Freddie. It got you in trouble at work, and I’m sure this incident will go on your record, which could mess up future promotions. It’s not worth it. Can’t you see that?”
“Felt worth it at the time.”
“Do you hear yourself? What happened to the good Christian boy you used to be who was so devoted to his faith that he waited to have sex until he was almost thirty?”
“He met you, fell in love and discovered he’d kill for the woman he loves.”
“Even if she doesn’t want him to do that?”
“Even then.”
She shook her head in obvious dismay.
“I’ll make you a deal. If you promise to never again keep something big like this from me, I’ll promise you that I’ll never again be violent on your behalf.”
“I’ll take that deal.”
He looked over at her and took the hand she offered to shake on their deal. “You know, you really ought to marry me one of these days so we can make our deal a lifetime arrangement.”
“Are you asking?”
“What if was?”
“Do it and find out.”
Freddie felt like he’d been shot again. The burst of adrenaline that fired through him felt almost the same as it did then. Only instead of unbearable pain, there was only joy.
He got down on his knees in front of her. “Elin…” There were, he discovered, no words to properly tell her what she meant to him. Forced to take a moment to collect himself, the next time he looked up at her he saw tears in her eyes. “I love you more than anything, and I always will. When you hurt, I hurt. When you’re happy, I’m happy. There’s nothing I want more than to be happy with you forever. Will you marry me?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” She hurled herself into his arms, knocking him back into the warm sand that cushioned their landing.
“Whoa, careful. I don’t want you to reinjure anything.”
“I don’t want to be careful. I just got engaged.”
“I hate to be a stickler for details, but ‘I thought you’d never ask’ means yes, right?”
“Yes, you knucklehead,” she said, laughing, “it means yes. A thousand times yes.”
“I only needed one yes, but I’ll take a thousand.” He pushed the hair back from her face and brought her in close enough to kiss, taking it easy in deference to her injuries.
“Let’s go back to the room,” she whispered.
“What do you want to do there?”
“You.”
“Oh, well, um, okay then.”
Laughing at his bumbling response, she got up and held out her left hand for him.
“We’ll be putting a ring on this finger as soon as we find one you love.”
“I don’t need a ring. You just got yourself suspended. You can’t afford it.”
“You do need a ring, an
d I can afford it.” If it took him five years to pay for it, he was getting her the biggest, best ring he could find. He wanted the whole world to know she was his—and permanently off the market.
“You should call your mother.”
“I will. Later. My fiancée wants to do me. I’m not thinking about my mother right now.”
The sound of her laughter was one of his favorite things, and it had been far too long since he’d heard her laugh. Inside their room, he directed her straight to the shower to wash off the sand. Freddie turned on the water and followed her in, both still wearing their bathing suits. He loved her all the time, but the sight of his gorgeous woman in a bikini was another of his favorite things.
She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. “Did that really just happen out there?”
“Yeah, it really did. I’ve been wanting to ask you for a while now.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. The timing never seemed right, and then after everything happened…”
“This was perfect—on the beach, on vacation, away from everything. I’ll never forget it.”
“Good,” he said, his voice rough with the emotions only she had ever roused in him.
She went up on tiptoes to kiss him, pressing her sexy body against his.
He’d been so careful with her for weeks now that he was officially dying for her. But he’d never do anything to cause her pain of any kind, which was the only reason he broke the kiss. “You’re still recovering—”
“I’m fine. I want you, Freddie. Right now.”
“Here or in bed?”
“Here. Now.” She looked up at him as she reached behind her to untie her top. The bottoms followed, and then she tugged on the waistband to his bathing suit.
Watching her strip, he’d gone stupid in the head as he often did when she was naked. How such a total goddess could’ve chosen him would be something he’d still be asking himself on his deathbed. But she was his goddess, and judging by the way she pressed against him, she meant it when she said she wanted him right now.
His foot slipped, and he held on tight to her so they wouldn’t fall. The last thing they needed was any more injuries. “Not here,” he said. “In bed.” Reaching behind him, he turned off the water and guided her from the shower with a hand to her back.