Five #3
“Got it.”
“Do not—”
“Go without him. Yeah, I heard you the other nine times.”
“Good.”
“You know Sam won’t—”
“Anything happens to you on my watch, and Sam Kage will put his foot up my ass, so let’s not debate what he will and will not do. Just wait for fuckin’ Stiel, all right?”
“I promise.”
He took a breath, and I told him I’d see him soon and hung up. I was waiting outside when Milt found me.
“Jory, where—”
“I’m going to get Sam,” I told him.
“Yeah, but who’s with your kids?”
“Regina,” I answered. “Their grandmother. I asked her to go to the room and relieve Rachel’s kids of their babysitting duty.”
“So, where are you going?”
I explained about where Sam’s phone was and that it was the best lead I had.
“Jesus, who are you, James Bond?”
“Hardly.” I smiled at him.
“But you’re so calm about this. I mean, he could be in real trouble, right?”
“Yes.”
He gestured at me. “And you’re going to do what?”
“Get him out of whatever he’s in.”
“Yeah, but—”
The car horn startled us both—stunned, more like it.
There, in a Jeep Wrangler that had just pulled up, was Sam.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he roared at me as he got out of the car and came charging across the driveway.
“Me?” I yelled back. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Goddamn, Jory, what the hell are you doing out here?” He was seething, he was loud, and his body language was murderous. He scared the crap out of poor Milt, who scurried backward.
I just put my hands on my hips, planted my feet, and held my ground. When he reached me, I had to tilt my head all the way back to meet his glare. “You’d better fuckin’ call everybody because I scrambled the damn Marines,” I announced angrily, my own volume nothing to scoff at.
“Who the fuck did you call?”
“I called everyone,” I announced, loudly. “And I was this close to getting ahold of your FBI buddy Agent Calhoun, even though I fuckin’ hate him. But Duncan Stiel is supposed to be meeting me here in—”
“Duncan? How the fuck do you know about—”
“Because I called Chaz, and he called Pat, and Pat called him!”
“Jory, do the words secret meeting mean—”
“You were supposed to meet me for drinks!”
“I know that! That’s why I sent you a text when I—”
“I got no text, Sam! I got shit!”
He pulled his phone from his back pocket as mine started ringing.
“Fuck,” I swore when I answered it, turning away from Sam. “I’m sorry. Never mind.”
“You’re sorry?” my brother, Dane, rasped at me. “Never mind?”
“No, I—”
“You will be at the hotel when I arrive.”
“No, Dane, you don’t have to—”
“I will hear about whatever you have gotten yourself into then.”
He hung up, and when I tried him back, he didn’t answer.
“Fuck!” I yelled.
“Jory!”
I whirled on Sam, and his scowl could have peeled paint off the walls.
“So, I sent the text to the house,” he said matter-of-factly, not sounding repentant even one bit.
“And then you put your phone on silent.” I smirked at him.
“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth.
I growled at him.
“Okay, so I’m a dick, and I messed up, but—”
“Tell it to Duncan. He’s on his way.”
“Shit,” he groaned, taking a step toward me.
I took one back. “You’d better take a fucking shower because you smell like really gross perfume and cigarette smoke, and you have lipstick on your jaw.”
He let his head loll back on his shoulders in the Lord, give me strength posture that I really hated.
“That’s bullshit, Sam!” I railed at him. “You scared the shit out of me, and you know better, and you were obviously not very concerned that I was worried, or you would have done a better job of communicating with me!”
“You should trust me to take care of myself,” he thundered. “I’ve been taking care of myself a whole helluva lot longer than you’ve been taking care of me!”
I could feel my face get hot, felt a tremble run through me. “Is that so?”
“Yeah,” he said flatly. “Between the two of us, J, I am so not the one who needs saving. You get in more trouble than ten people combined!”
I was nodding fast, utterly furious but letting him get it all out, vent.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get everyone to stand down from the clusterfuck that you created.”
I pivoted and stalked back into the lobby.
“Jory!” Milt called my name as he ran to catch up with me and joined me in the elevator.
I was silent as we rode up together.
“Are you okay?”
“I will be,” I assured him through clenched teeth.
“I guess being married to a marshal can be hard sometimes, huh?”
Yes, it could.
I relieved Regina, sent her back to her room, and watched her from my door until she went inside and I heard the door lock behind her.
I bothered only with taking off my shoes before I crawled into bed between Kola and Hannah, who were, as usual, sleeping together.
I needed to calm down before I did anything else, but at the moment, I thought I would lie there all night, fuming.
The anger didn’t last; I was much too relieved.
The man had reappeared, unscathed, and I was so very thankful.
Not that he wasn’t in trouble. He’d texted the wrong phone after all and not even bothered to check, but …
he’d tried to do the right thing. His intention had been good.
Of course I was still going to rip him a new one, especially because the display downstairs hadn’t been fair, but I could possibly let him live until the morning.
Maybe.
I let out a deep breath, releasing the last of the tension, until I saw something move on the balcony.
Shadows didn’t shift without cause. There was no wind, and it was a cloudless night, so there was really only one conclusion to draw.
With my kids on either side of me, I was suddenly freezing, my whole body flushed with cold.
I had never been so terrified in my whole life.
Fear for my children was like nothing I had ever imagined.
Slowly, carefully, I muted the phone so the buttons would make no sound, keeping it tilted so the light would not be a dead giveaway, and then sent Sam the 911 call for help—or for us, what translated to it. I texted his name to him and then put down my phone and tried to breathe.
Trying to think of what I would do, I narrowed my eyes, even as I heard the glass door open and saw a man step inside the room.
“I know you’re not asleep, Mr. Harcourt.”
I didn’t move.
“Please don’t make me hurt you or your—”
“Freeze!” Sam yelled as he kicked the door open and charged into the room.
It was so fast. Kola and Hannah both screamed as they were woken up and saw the man aim his gun at us in the light that had spilled in from the outer room with Sam.
Everything happened at once. I grabbed both kids and shoved their faces against my chest so neither of them saw their father fire the gun.
The sound of the shot was loud in the small room, but it was instantaneous and followed by silence.
My children’s crying lasted longer, but I was thankful that they needed comfort, needed me, because if they didn’t, if I had been allowed even a moment to think, I would have come apart myself.
Sam stood over the dead man as Duncan Stiel—it had to be him; he was big like Sam, as Pat had said—came into the room.
Once Sam told me to take the kids out, I pulled the blanket off the bed, covered them both so they couldn’t see anything, and took them to the bathroom.
Once they both went and washed their hands, I took them to our room and put them in bed.
They were scared that Sam could get hurt—they had not been allowed to see that the intruder was dead after all—and I called for him to come in and see us.
Once Sam came in—visibly shaken from the look on his face and the slight tremble in his hands—and they saw that he was all right, they were both better.
He kissed them both, told them to snuggle up with me, and closed the door behind him when he left.
I lay there, rubbing both their backs, promising them that their daddy would never let anything happen to them.
I was very thankful when they both nodded off.
After an hour, I got up and went out to the living room, where Sam was standing with Duncan, three policemen, four marshals—everyone had helpful blue jackets on that proclaimed what division of law enforcement they were a part of in big block yellow letters—and some crime scene investigators walking in and out of my room.
Sam’s Glock, I noted, was in an evidence bag, and one of the marshals had given Sam a new gun, which he checked over before he replaced it in his ankle holster.
He had to be armed, so it made sense that they took one and replaced one.
I knew his had to be checked out, and ballistics needed to be run, and they had to investigate if Sam had been justified when he killed the man who was in our kids’ room.
I wasn’t worried about that, but any inquiry took time, and right then, I was worried that he wouldn’t be coming home with us.
Duncan was answering questions, pointing, going over what he’d seen and heard, and Sam was talking with the marshals.
After several minutes, where I took a seat on the couch, I was joined by two policemen and Duncan, who brought over a blanket and covered me with it, before taking a seat beside me and putting an arm around my shoulders.
It was nice because I was freezing, inside and out.
The blanket had been thoughtful, but his anchoring arm was best. He was big, like Sam, and when he tucked me closer, I sighed deeply.
“Mr. Harcourt”—the first policeman, in a lightweight brown suit with a really ugly tie, addressed me—“I’m Detective Ibarra, and this is my partner, Detective Sykes. We just need to ask you what happened this evening, and we need you to be as precise as possible.”