Chapter Eighteen
Long after Sam fell asleep, Nick lay awake watching over her.
He twirled a long strand of her hair around his finger, thinking about Peter’s mother taking a piece of her for something that wasn’t her fault.
Despite the tough exterior she showed the rest of the world, Nick knew that she’d take her ex-mother-in-law’s words to heart even if she’d never say so.
Maybe it made him a bad person, but he was glad the son of a bitch who’d done so much to cause them trouble was dead. He wouldn’t wish death by torture on anyone, even Peter, but it certainly didn’t break Nick’s heart to know that Peter could never again hurt her.
Nick ruminated over Sam’s theory that Peter’s death could somehow be related to the threat. Whether any connection could be made remained to be seen, but if one was there, Sam would find it.
In the meantime, he could only hope that Peter—and his mother—had hurt her for the last time.
As always, sleep was an elusive bitch for him.
At least watching her sleep gave him something to do besides think about the meeting the president had requested in the morning.
He hadn’t been told the agenda, so he was left to speculate.
Most likely they’d again cover the subject of security and President Nelson’s request that Sam accept Secret Service protection.
It had been a frequent refrain between the two men since the inauguration.
But Nick wasn’t backing down. He’d made a promise to his wife when he accepted the job, and he intended to keep it even if he agreed with Nelson.
Maybe the president wanted to talk about the threat that had spurred such a huge reaction by the Secret Service.
Or perhaps for once, Nelson would want to talk to him about issues and policy. Wouldn’t that be something?
Before the summer, he’d made some progress in his plans to spend time with kids in middle and high school, encouraging them to think big and aim high.
He’d visited twenty schools in the DC metro area and had twenty more on the schedule for the fall.
He was always thinking about ways to connect with young people, especially through social media, where they spent so much of their time.
Devoting his time to kids made him feel less useless and irrelevant since the president rarely gave him a passing thought. He’d had to figure out his own path to staying engaged in a job that had caused him more headaches than anything else since he accepted the post last November.
The meeting tomorrow was yet another on a long list of things to worry about.
After battling insomnia for most of his life, he recognized the futility of trying to sleep while his brain was racing a mile a minute.
Maybe it was time to let Harry give him something new to help him sleep.
Nothing he’d tried on his own, including melatonin, had worked, and the prescription meds he’d tried in the past had left him groggy the next day.
Nick settled Sam on her pillow, got out of bed, pulled on a pair of sweats and left the room.
He nodded to Darcy, the agent positioned outside Scotty’s door, and went into the room they used as an office.
Rather than lie awake wondering what the president wanted with him, Nick decided to review the briefing books that arrived in his office on a regular basis, even if no one ever asked him to do anything.
At the very least, he kept up on what he needed to know if the worst should ever happen.
He prayed every day that would never happen.
Though everyone expected him to run for office in four years, he was beginning to think that was the last thing he wanted to do.
He was finding the confining life surrounded by Secret Service to be stifling.
No one could tell you what it was like to lose the basic ability to move around freely until it happened.
He’d discovered he hated being a prisoner in his own home, his every move subject to the approval of his detail.
Wouldn’t it be something when the rest of the world heard he was losing interest in eventually running for the highest office in the land?
Laughing to himself at the thought of that story getting out and the Democratic leadership having an apoplexy, Nick opened the first of three binders and began to immerse himself in details he hoped he’d never need.
Sam dreamed of torture, of fire singeing skin, of nails ruthlessly torn from fingers and punches raining down on her when she was powerless to defend herself. Then Stahl was there, wire bale in hand, a maniacal expression on his chubby face as he prepared to wrap her in razors and set her on fire.
Then she was screaming, fighting to break free, thrashing and battling with everything she had.
“Babe, wake up. Samantha, wake up. You’re dreaming again.
” Nick’s voice dragged her out of hell. He scooped her up into his arms and held her close while she sobbed for Peter, for herself, for the sheer senselessness of his murder and the awful way he’d suffered.
“It’s okay, baby.” Nick stroked her hair and back as she cried it out. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
Sam wasn’t proud of the way she clung to him, but she desperately needed the comfort only he could provide.
In the past, before him, she would’ve powered through on her own, even if it meant quaking with fear by herself late at night in her bed.
It was so much better to let him wrap her up in his sweet love.
“I’ve been waiting for this to hit you.” He continued to soothe her with one hand in her hair and the other on her back. “It’s totally normal for you to be undone by what happened to someone you once loved. It doesn’t matter what he did or failed to do. None of that matters right now.”
No, it didn’t matter. She’d never forget the wicked things Peter had done to both of them. But Nick was right—none of that mattered in the wake of Peter’s gruesome murder.
After a while, Nick eased her back to her pillow but kept his arms wrapped around her. “You want to talk about it?”
“I…I was dreaming that what happened to Peter happened to me.” Her skin felt clammy, and her heart still raced.
“Aww, baby.” He held her closer, his body snug against her back, their legs intertwined, his arms tight around her.
“Stahl was there with the razor wire. It was a mishmash of horrible things. I keep thinking that this thing with Peter is going to blow up into a big deal. We’re missing something.”
“Whatever it is, you’ll figure it out. I know you will.”
“Part of me is afraid of the truth. If it leads back to me in some way, I don’t know how I’ll live with that.”
“You’ll live with it by knowing there was absolutely nothing you could’ve done to prevent what happened to Peter. There’s going to be an explanation, eventually, and no matter what it is, we already know it had nothing directly to do with you.”
“Even if he was killed because of me?”
“Even then.”
Sam released a shuddering deep breath and relaxed into his embrace.
“That’s it, sweetheart.” He ran his hand down her arm and linked their fingers. “Try to go back to sleep. I’ll be right here.”
“That helps. Thanks.” She squeezed his hand. “Where were you?”
“In the office reading.”
“Couldn’t sleep?”
“Nah.”
“You could hear me from there?” she asked.
“Darcy heard you and alerted me.”
“Well, that’s embarrassing.”
“Don’t sweat it, babe. Try to relax and get some sleep.”
“You don’t have to stay if you’d rather read.”
Kissing the back of her shoulder, he said, “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than wherever you are.”
“Even when I’m a hot mess?”
“Especially then. I like being needed by you.”
“I like needing you, and I like that I don’t even care that I said that out loud.”
Nick laughed. “That’s progress, my love.”
“Mmm, sure is.” After a long moment of quiet, she said, “I could never be this person with anyone but you.”
“That’s good to know. I feel the same exact way.”
Sam took the edgy, disturbed feelings from the dream to work with her the next morning, more determined than ever to find whoever had killed Peter.
As always lately, reporters surrounded HQ and lined the street with satellite trucks, ready to broadcast the latest salacious details as soon as they were made available. They disgusted her.
She walked into the pit, where Freddie told her she had a visitor.
“Detective Green from Fairfax looking for anything we can tell him about the floater.”
“Ugh, how did a case that we off-loaded end up back in my pit?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“You’re no help at all.”
“What?” he asked with a laugh. “He didn’t want to talk to me. Only you.”
“Awesome.”
“I can’t help that your reputation precedes you.”
Sam left him with a glare that did nothing to dim his smile and went into her office, where Detective Green was immersed in his smartphone while he waited for her.
He jumped up when she walked in and managed to nearly drop his phone in the process.
Tall, blond and muscular, he had the look of a guy who spent a lot of time at the gym. His blue eyes were warm and welcoming.
“Lieutenant Holland, I’m Detective Green, Fairfax County. I’m here about the floater your people pulled from the Anacostia on Friday.”
Was that only Friday? It seemed like a decade ago. Sam shook his outstretched hand. “What can I do for you, Detective?”
“Before I get into the case, please let me tell you that I’m a big fan of your work,” the young detective said with a big grin.
His name wasn’t the only thing about him that was green. “Thank you,” Sam said. “I understand you’ve identified the floater?”
“Yes, she’s Rose Samuels, a known prostitute who’s had many run-ins with our department over the years.
The thing is, though, she’d begun to clean up her act in the last year or so.
She was attending community college, had a steady boyfriend and an apartment that she paid for by waitressing seven nights a week. ”