by Mary Calmes
“Where am I going?”
“To Sam, downstairs,” Chaz reiterated. “Where’s your coat?”
I went and grabbed the first thing in the closet, my trench coat, pulled it on over the jeans and sweater I was wearing, along with my sneakers. I normally walked around the house in only socks if I was planning on staying in.
After Chaz locked the door behind me, I headed down to the elevator to find Sam.
He was outside with, as far as I could tell, his entire team of marshals, more men in suits, and then some uniformed patrolmen. As I reached him, he looked up and gave me a faint smile.
I knew it pained him not to be able to grab me, put an arm around me. I knew the guys who worked in his office were cool with Sam living with me, or at least they said nothing to his face, but this was a professional situation, and in front of our building, there were a lot of people who didn’t know me or Sam.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” he told me, his eyes locked on mine. “It turns out that the guy I shot, and the other two, both work for Salcedo.
They were looking to pick you up tonight because they got a tip that I was out of town. Who would know that I was out of town, Jory?”
I cleared my throat. “Kevin Dwyer.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “He saw you the other night at Dane’s party without me. When he asked, he was told that I was out of town, and when he asked Dane when you were expecting me back, he told Kevin that he didn’t know.”
“And you know this how?”
“From the planted bugs in Dr. Dwyer’s residence, and it was confirmed from text messages he sent from his cell to others. We cloned his phone at the same time we bugged his apartment.”
“Okay.” I took a breath. “But why am I out here in the cold instead of upstairs with my children?”
“Salcedo doesn’t know that he didn’t acquire you yet.”
“You mean he thinks his guys are still on the way with me.”
“Yes.”
“And so what?”
“And so in exchange for being allowed to turn state’s evidence, Mr. Morelos, who’s in the car—the man who was driving—has agreed to escort you back to the rendezvous point with Salcedo. We need you to go in with Mr. Morelos, wearing a wire, to draw Salcedo out so we can arrest him. None of us have ever seen the man. Even me. I heard of him. We were even supposed to meet once, but it fell through. So nobody knows what he looks like. If you go in, he should be easy to identify.”
“And if I don’t go?”
“If you don’t go, they’ll know we popped their guys and they’re back in the wind. We need you to be the bait.”
I saw it then, the quick cording of muscles in Sam’s neck, a slight narrowing of his eyes, and understood this was not his call and not his idea in any way.
“Mr. Harcourt?”
Turning, I found Clint Farmer in front of me.
“We find ourselves in a unique situation. Obviously Mr. Salcedo sent Dr. Dwyer here to keep tabs on Sam because they felt he was getting too close to finding Andrew Turner. They tried to kill him twice in Phoenix and now, tonight, tried to acquire you. So we need to stop this before they come at him again. The problem being, of course, that we have no idea what Mr. Salcedo looks like.”
I nodded.
“I need to slap a wire on you and I need you to walk into that warehouse in the shipyard and meet with these people.”
“Okay.”
He took a breath. “We would never ask this if we thought they truly wanted to do you any harm. You were being kidnapped for leverage and that was all. It is our understanding that no one actually wants to hurt you.”
“Sure.”
“That being said, there is always a danger that something could go wrong.”
“I understand.”
“Unfortunately you’re the only one who can do this.”
“Yeah I got that.”
“Okay so, are we good to go then, Mr. Harcourt?”
I couldn’t for the life of me answer. Yes, I wanted this whole thing to go away, but on the other hand, it wasn’t just me anymore. Me being dead affected the man I loved and the two short people who lived with me.
He waited a moment and then took hold of my arm and walked me out of the circle of the other men before he turned and looked at me.
“Three years ago my wife, Maggie, got in the middle of a mob hit.”
He had all my attention.
“I’m still a bit fuzzy on the details, but she works in PR, and her firm was putting on an event, and this dear sweet old man gave her a letter to pass on to his son. I mean how Breakfast at Tiffany’s can this get, right?”
His tone, the reference—I was liking him.
“Okay, so all of a sudden, we have hit men following her, trying to kill her, and she had no idea what the hell’s going on, and then one night when I’m trying to decide whether to lock her up or kiss her, she says, ‘Oh yeah.’” He paused. “I think that old man gave me a letter that I forgot to deliver. It’s filed under F for ‘favor’ in my file.”
I smiled at him.
He made the international sign of strangulation, and I understood that his wife was driving him insane. “I love her, but I was going to throttle her.”
“What happened?”
“I had to send her alone and wired for sound into a room with men I didn’t know or she was going to be running for the rest of her life. So I get it. I get what we’re asking of you, of the marshal, of your family. I understand, so the choice is yours.”
“Was she okay? Your wife?”
He lifted his phone and showed me a picture of a woman smiling at him in the midst of what looked like a demolished kitchen. There wasn’t a part of her not covered in baking flour.
“Cookies for my daughter’s third-grade class this afternoon.
There’s no telling what it looks like currently.”
I took a breath. “If its crap, it’s really good crap you just laid on me.”
He lifted his hand so I could see the thick band of gold. “It’s not crap.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” he sighed and motioned with his fingers. “We’ll come running in a heartbeat, Mr. Harcourt.”
“Call me Jory.”
AN HOUR later, we drove in silence toward the warehouse district.
“Would you please talk to me?”
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I’m wearing a wire, Marshal; I don’t think that right now is the appropriate time to be asking me questions.”
He growled at me.
I crossed my arms.
“Why are you mad at me?”
“Oh I don’t know,” I said snidely, “what could it be?”
I read it on his face when he got it, the heavy sigh before he turned to me. “It was nothing.”
“Your boss seemed to think that a man trying to kill you was, in fact, not nothing.”
“Yeah, but—”
“This is just like you and Rico having to shoot your way out of something, this is like you having to go to work every day and take your life in your hands and then coming home like nothing happened and asking me what we’re having for dinner!”
“Jor—”
“You killed a man tonight, Sam, because of me, and—”
“Listen,” he said, grabbing hold of my chin and yanking it sideways so he could see my face. “I shot that man because he turned and fired on me. I was terrified of hitting you, but I was not letting him put you in that car. But anyone in that same situation, I would have fired, do you understand? You being there did not change the use of deadly force. Do you get it?”
I tugged free and leaned back. “Yes, Marshal, I got it. Anyone there and you would have acted the exact same way. I hear you loud and clear.”
We rode in silence.
“You’re not listening at all,” he muttered under his breath.
“I would be listening, but you never say anything. You need to tell me what’s—” I reminded myself I was wearing
a wire. “—never mind.”
The car finally stopped close to the docks, and I saw a light halfway down a small pier on the left. The driver, Mr. Morelos, got out first, and I was about to follow when Sam grabbed my wrist tight and dragged me off my seat and into his lap.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
He knotted one hand in my hair, wrapped the other around my throat and tipped my head back. That quickly, that easily, I was at his mercy.
“I will kill anyone who ever tries to hurt you, do you understand?”
My eyes met his and I saw the heat there, the possessiveness, and understood. I listened. “You’re thinking I feel guilty about that man you killed, but I don’t.”
He let me go and I turned, sitting up, straddling his thighs.
“If the man had thrown down his gun and put up his hands, you wouldn’t have killed him. You think you might have because the guy’s intention was to take me with him, but Sam, you would never hurt an unarmed man.”
His hands went to my hair, pushing it back from my face.
“I know if the guy had surrendered that you wouldn’t have killed him. But he fired back at you, there was no choice. You had to save me and you had to save yourself. You have kids, Sam. You have me, so there’s no question if you come home, there’s no question if it’s you or someone else. It’s you.”
“I know you’re pissed that I don’t share enough of this crap with you, but when I get home I’m just so happy to be there… I have you and the kids and the stupid cat, and honestly I feel so different that my head just isn’t in that place anymore.”
I stared deeply into his gorgeous eyes.
“I swear, I will tell you more. I will work on it, I will. But just walking through the door and seeing all your sweet faces—fixes me.
Do you get it?”
“I do now, you big dumb jerk,” I sighed, smiling at him.
He pulled me forward fast, violently, and the kiss I got was ravaging but fast, and then I was outside the car, standing there, dazed, and wobbling just a little.
Fortunately the driver had seen nothing and so grabbed my bicep tight as he walked me down toward the door marked fifteen.
“How did you first embark on a life of crime?” I asked him, trying to draw him into conversation. “I have kids, so I’d like to keep a lookout for the warning signs.”
After a moment he turned to look at me. “This is your banter? You’re trying to insult me?”
“Well, I was just saying to my best friend the other day that I think everyone’s life can either be an example or a lesson, don’t you think?”
“Best friend? Who talks like that?” he asked as he opened the door and shoved me through it.
“You don’t have a best friend?” I asked, making a mental note of that, turning to look over my shoulder at him.
“I—”
“No, it’s fine,” I said absently. “God, I wish I had my phone so I could make a list. My memory’s not quite what it used to be.”
“Who the fuck are you?” he asked as he got out his gun from the holster under his jacket and pointed it at me before we walked toward the light.
“I’m just trying to stay calm. Aren’t you nervous?”
He didn’t answer.
“Man this light I’m walking toward is bright,” I said to Sam and everyone else listening to me. “And that’s not supposed to be a good thing, ya know?”
It was a huge warehouse, but we didn’t go in that far. When we stopped, there were five men there, and I knew one.
“Dr. Dwyer,” I said.
He tipped his head sideways and squinted.
It took me longer than I would have liked, I prided myself on being quicker. “Oh,” I breathed out. “You’re Salcedo! That’s brilliant.”
He said nothing.
“And even talking about yourself to yourself? You’re a genius.”
“Where are the others?” a man asked Mr. Morelos.
“I have no idea. I did my part and we got outside, and there was nobody there. No car, nobody. They both bailed.”
“You were supposed to be driving.”
“Javi changed the order. He decided to drive, and Cranston was backup in the car.”
Silence.
“Cranston was a marshal. He wouldn’t have bailed.”
“The marshal from Vegas,” I clarified. “The dirty one.”
“Shut up.”
“We took him at the—”
“What the fuck is this?” a guy asked, moving forward into the light.
“Mr. Turner,” I said because I recognized him from the photographs Sam had shown me that day at our house.
His eyes met mine. “Who are you and why are you here?”
“I’m here, supposedly, as leverage to make Marshal Sam Kage back off, but I suspect what’s really going to happen is that I’m about to die and you’re about to die, because I’ll bet you Salcedo’s dead.” I said, pretending I didn’t know who Salcedo was so the wire I was wearing would get it all, every confession, every truth. What was the point of everything that went on around me being recorded if it wasn’t incriminating.
“He’s not dead, you dumb prick!” He pointed at Dwyer. “He’s right there, and—”
“Ah-ha!” I yelled. “You, Kevin Dwyer, are Salcedo! How the hell did you do that?”
“Of course he’s Salcedo. What the hell is—”
“You’re so dead,” I told Turner. “Salcedo is gonna die, and there will only be Dr. Dwyer, and so whatever you have, or think you have, on Salcedo—is it video? Porn? Anyway, whatever it is, it won’t matter because he’ll be dead and he gets to start a whole new life here, with my marshal, after you die and I die right here.”
Turner pivoted around to look at Dwyer/Salcedo. “Is that true?
You’re going to disappear into the life of the doctor you created?”
“Are you actually a doctor?” I asked.
“Yes!” he yelled at me, and I saw the gun.
“Did you have sex with Randall Erickson the other night?”
Why that was the most revolting part of it all, I had no idea, but God, it so was.
“DEA!” came the first yell as there were flashlights and lots of feet pounding across concrete. “Everybody down!”
I dropped to the floor.
“Hands behind your head!”
Doing as I was told, I laced my fingers behind the back of my head and waited. It occurred to me that Salcedo had been in Dane and Aja’s loft and that he had used Randall to make that trip just so he could ask my brother if he knew where Sam was. I hated that he had used Dane to get to me and to Sam. Even worse, he had used Randall.
That would be quite the ego blow.
“What the hell is going on?” I heard someone yell. “Why do I have US Marshals outside and Chicago PD?”
It was confusing because there were too many people with too many agendas. I ended up in a small room, handcuffed, sitting on the floor across from Dwyer/Salcedo, who was sitting between the driver and Mr. Turner.
“So what do you have on him?” I asked Turner. “All the documentation that he and Dwyer are the same person?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I have everything that proves he’s the same guy.”
I looked over at Dwyer. “And so because you didn’t want to go to prison, you busted him out of WITSEC.”
He was just staring at me.
“But what I don’t get is, why didn’t you just go into witness protection too?”
“Because that was never on the table for me.” He made a face.
“What does… I don’t understand.”
Men came in then, and I saw the DEA badges, and everyone was taken out except me and Dwyer/Salcedo.
“Before,” I began, “when you started to say you didn’t understand, you meant me and Sam, right? You don’t get us, how we’re together or why.”
His eyes narrowed with hatred. “Yes.”
I understood. He was a gorgeous man himself.
“He doesn’t think there was ever anything between you two. He thinks you used him that entire time.”
He started nodding. “He’s right.”
But it was crap, and my proof was right there on his face, in his eyes. “He’s wrong. Tell me. It was new back then, this identity. You went to medical school. Come on, tell me the story.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be my path. But the others weren’t smart, and it came time to step up or step aside… and then we had to get information from an idiot Chicago Police detective working undercover with a federal task force. He had information because he ended up busting a friend.”
Dominic. “So you and Sam… you talked.”
He shrugged. “He was broken then. His closest friend, everything was a mess, he drank so much, and then when he got hurt and came to the hospital….”
“What?”
“Once I had my hands on him… there was more I wanted.” He exhaled.
I needed to hear it all from Sam, not this man. “So now everything you were afraid of ended up happening anyway.”
“Yes, it did.”
“You had a lot of people on your payroll, your own marshal, even—that Cranston guy from Vegas.”
“You have no idea.”
“And for what?”
He shook his head.
“Were you done with Sam, or were you always planning to reappear in his life?”
“When he left he was very specific about what he wanted for his life and who… and like he told you, it was never anything at all.”
I shook my head as the door opened. “You’re both liars.”
“I suspect some truth in that,” he said as he looked up at Sam’s boss.
“You know you’re still wearing a wire right?” Farmer gave me the same pained expression I got from Sam quite a bit.
“But you’re gonna erase everything from once the bust happened, right?” I smiled up at him.
“Consider it done.”
“Thanks.”
FOR the second time that night, I was home alone without my man.
After I relieved Chaz and Pat, I took a long hot shower and washed away the day. I tried to wait up for Sam but finally passed out sometime after two. I had to get the kids up for school in four and half hours.