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Sam screamed, but there was no one to save her.
“You always were so cocky and mouthy,” Peter said spitefully. “I always said you needed some humility.”
With a thick arm around her neck, Stahl dragged her down another dark corridor. “This time I’m going to finish the job.” He pulled her into a room where one of Sam’s enemies, Sergeant Ramsey, stood with blood running down his face from where she’d punched him and the bodies of Mitchell Sanborn and little Quentin Johnson had been left to rot. The smell was horrific.
Sam screamed for Nick, and then he was there. She could hear his voice and tried to get to him.
“Samantha, wake up. Babe, wake up.” His lips were soft on her face as she breathed in his familiar scent.
She opened her eyes and blinked him into focus. Then she sat up and hurled herself into his arms.
“Baby, what’s wrong? I could hear you screaming from the other room.”
“I was dreaming.” She shuddered. “They were all there. Everyone who hates me. They were after me. Ramsey and Stahl... He had me by the throat, and Peter said I need some humility.”
Nick froze. “He said that? In your dream?”
“He used to say that to me all the time.”
“Samantha... The threat. That’s what it said. That we needed some humility.”
She pulled back from him and ran her hands over her face, still trying to shake off the disturbing dream. “I never thought of it. I’ve blocked him out. You don’t think...”
“I don’t know, but it’s certainly worth passing along to the Secret Service and the FBI.”
“Only if I’m there when you pass it along. I’m tired of sitting on the sidelines while others investigate a threat against us. Let me do what I do best, Nick. I need to be involved in this.”
“I’ll talk to Brant. You’re sure you’re okay?”
“I’ll be a hell of a lot better when we can get the fuck out of here.”
“Me too, babe.” He kissed her and got up to leave the room.
Sam watched him go, noting the unusual slump to his shoulders. The ordeal was taking an added toll on him because he felt it was his fault they were in this predicament. She wondered when the last time he truly slept had been. Stress made his issues with insomnia a thousand times worse, and his stress level had to be through the roof.
As soon as they got out of here, Sam was going to talk to their doctor friend Harry Flynn about getting Nick on something to help him sleep. There had to be something he could take to ensure he got a good night’s sleep without leaving him groggy and out of sorts the next day.
Nick returned a few minutes later. “The Secret Service is notifying the FBI that we want to talk to the agents in charge of the investigation. They’ll be here shortly.”
“And they’re going to let me be in there?”
“I told them you’re the one with information.”
Sam smiled and held out a hand to him.
He came over, took her hand and let her tug him into bed with her.
“Nicely played, my love,” Sam said.
“It certainly can’t hurt to have you involved in figuring out what the hell this is about.”
“I completely agree.”
He snorted with laughter. “I figured you might.”
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 four 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.”
