Love Against the Law

by Justine Klavon

  “I…I don’t understand,” Sammi finally spoke, looking straight ahead but not actually seeing any of her surroundings.

  “Like I said, I don’t want to get your hopes up or anything,” the nurse told her. “But I also don’t want you to get a surprise phone call with the test results and black out again. It seems that limiting stress is going to play a big role in your ability to carry a baby to full term.”

  “But…this…I have to go,” Sammi stuttered then grabbed her jacket and sprinted out of the room and out of the hospital.

  Even with Sammi’s dramatic history, this was the weirdest day of her life. Stealing Mack’s promotion out from under him was enough to deal with without also trying to explain being pregnant. Sammi wasn’t even sure how Mack would feel about the idea because they’d never really had to discuss it. He had seemed okay with her not wanting to be a mother, but that was when they didn’t know there was a possibility.

  Sammi wanted to go home but Mack had to use the car for work, so she called Kodi. Kodi picked her up a block from the hospital and Sammi told her about the promotion and the fainting but not about the possible baby. She was pale and visibly shaken so Kodi didn’t push her to talk more than she willingly offered. But she did insist on staying with Sammi until Mack got home instead of leaving her alone. They didn’t speak much once they were at the house on Long Island and Sammi disappeared to take a phone call as Mack pulled into the driveway.

  The phone call was the one Sammi had been told to expect and it confirmed the nurse’s suspicions. Sammi was pregnant and she was feeling nauseous all over again.

  *

  Mack walked in the front door and was immediately greeted by Kodi, who expressed her concern regarding Sammi. But Mack was even less interested in talking than Sammi had been and Kodi began to worry all over again. She left to give the husband and wife some privacy, but she went to see Anthony so that she had an excuse to stay in the area in case Sammi needed her.

  Once Kodi left, Mack went into the bedroom to change out of his work clothes. He had hardly spoken at all since Hobbs told him about Sammi getting his promotion and he couldn’t shake the cloud he was under. He was angry; so angry that his vision was blurred, and his entire body was tensed up. If there was a way for him to let it go, he didn’t know what it was.

  While Mack changed, he didn’t even know where Sammi was until she came out of their bathroom. She stopped and stood in front of him, looking him in the face. Mack could see that she had no color in her own face and there was a strange glimmer in her seemingly distant blue eyes. He wanted to ask her if she was okay, but his anger wouldn’t allow him.

  *

  As Sammi stood there and looked into her husband’s eyes, all she saw was indifference. He wasn’t speaking so Sammi walked out of their bedroom and sat on the couch in the living room. Her mind was racing, wondering how she was supposed to tell Mack the biggest news of their lives together when he wouldn’t even talk to her. She wanted this to be good news, she wanted to be excited about this, but it didn’t seem like Mack was going to let that be the case.

  When Mack finally came out of the bedroom, he walked over to the couch where Sammi sat and stood beside his wife. Sammi wouldn’t look at him, but she could feel his eyes burning into her shoulder closest to him. She could sense her own emotional meltdown coming and didn’t want to express that kind of display of vulnerability in front of her husband when he was like this.

  “You’re not taking the promotion, right?” Mack finally spoke. There was no kindness in his voice.

  “No, Mack, I’m not going to be your new Captain,” Sammi shot coldly back at him.

  “You just couldn’t stay out of it, could you?” Mack asked gruffly, growing angrier.

  “Stay out of what?” Sammi yelled, jumping up from the couch to face her husband. “Once again, I didn’t ask for this!”

  “You have taken everything from me!” Mack screamed, only a foot apart from Sammi. “You weaseled your way into my life with those bullshit blue eyes and became my reason for existence. The only thing I had left of myself was my job, but you had to go and take that too!”

  Those words hurt worse than a punch to the gut and tears began to flow freely down Sammi’s ghost-white cheeks. Her stomach was knotted and heavy with queasiness. Her head was light enough to make her question her ability to remain standing and her legs weakened under her.

  The next thing Sammi knew, Mack was walking away from her while shaking his head. Sammi hit her knees as her tears came twice as heavily and the uncontrollable sobbing began. She couldn’t believe Mack was acting this way and she really didn’t understand what she had done wrong.

  Sammi cried as she fumbled her phone out of her pocket and called Kodi. Kodi couldn’t understand anything that Sammi was trying to tell her, but she knew her friend needed her.

  “Please, Sammi, calm down,” Kodi said calmly as her best friend continued hyperventilating. “Go pack a bag and I’ll be right there to pick you up. We can leave in the morning for our crime tour.”

  Sammi forced herself to calm down enough to tell Kodi she would be ready in half an hour. She was still crying as she got off the phone and returned to the bedroom to pack a few bags. Mack wasn’t in the room, so she took a minute to write out the team’s already planned-out schedule of theft across the country.

  “What are you doing?” Mack asked, appearing in the doorway, and staring at Sammi’s luggage on the bed.

  “Letting you have your life back,” Sammi mumbled with her back to her husband as she slid the schedule onto the nightstand.

  “You have got to be kidding me!” Mack shouted and tossed her luggage to the floor in a blind rage before cornering her on the side of the bed.

  “Space,” Sammi whispered, backing away from him with fear in her eyes. It wasn’t like him to raise his voice like this.

  “Take your damn space,” Mack growled, taking a step closer to his terrified wife. “Run away like you always do.”

  Mack then turned his back on Sammi and walked out of the room. Sammi started crying again as she picked her luggage up off the floor. She checked the time to see how much longer she had to wait for Kodi, desperate to get out of there, and was relieved to find she only had a few minutes to wait before she could expect her friend. Collecting her things, she headed out to the front porch to await her getaway car.

  Kodi picked up her best friend and drove them to her apartment in the city while Sammi told her everything that had happened with Mack. Being Sammi’s best friend, Kodi was going to take her side anyway, but she was sincerely upset with Mack’s actions and wasn’t holding back sharing her opinion of disapproval with Sammi. They agreed that Mack couldn’t separate work from his personal life which explained why he was taking his disappointment out on Sammi.

  Sammi was quiet all evening, even though Kodi kept trying to cheer her up. She told Kodi she’d sleep on the couch because she needed the television on to keep her mind off everything, but she didn’t sleep that night. It was making her sick to her stomach leaving things the way she had with Mack and it was taking all of her inner strength to keep herself from reaching out to him.

  In the morning, Howard met the girls out front of the apartment building with the black Tahoe from the old days with the original five-person team. Being a gentleman, Howard loaded their luggage into the back of the SUV while Kodi and Sammi stood on the sidewalk and chatted.

  “Got room for one more?” came a voice from their right and everyone turned to see Eli coming down the sidewalk with luggage of his own.

  “Eli! What are you doing here?” Sammi cried out as she ran to hug him.

  “Kodi called me,” Eli told her. “She said you might appreciate the extra company.”

  Sammi hugged Eli, appreciating him so much in that moment. Even though they weren’t together, Sammi loved Eli and was more comfortable around him than she was around most other people. And he was especially good to have around when breaking the law.

&n
bsp; While the guys finished getting everything into the Tahoe, Sammi pulled Kodi aside and they walked down the sidewalk until they were out of earshot of the guys. Sammi was smiling for the first time in no less than twenty-four hours.

  “Thank you,” Sammi said, looking directly into Kodi’s eyes so she would know she was sincere.

  “You were right,” Kodi told her. “We need the muscle. And I figured you could use another friend.”

  “Did you tell either of them about Mack?” Sammi asked, quiet from shame.

  “No, but they’re going to be able to put it together. They’re not stupid,” Kodi replied.

  Before Sammi could respond, Eli had approached the girls to let them know they were ready to head out. Kodi walked toward the Tahoe first, leaving Eli and Sammi to walk together. Eli smiled warmly at Sammi as he opened the back door of the Tahoe for her. Kodi had already claimed the front passenger seat so Eli climbed in next to Sammi in the back.

  “Are we ready for this?” Howard asked from the driver seat as he started the car.

  “I live for this,” Sammi replied confidently, buzzing with excitement for the first time in years and wearing a huge smile on her face.

  As the four friends made their way out of New York, Sammi was quiet. She felt guilty about how happy she was to be a thief again and about walking out on Mack the way she had. But she was surrounded by three people who she loved and who loved her back, and who felt more like a family to Sammi than anyone else ever had.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Light On

  Sammi jerked awake in a complete panic, gasping for air, her ears ringing violently. She coughed several times out of desperation to clear the pressure in her chest, but her lungs remained heavy and she quickly realized she had oxygen tubes going into her nose. It was hard to turn her head because she was wearing a neck brace and when she tried reaching for it, she discovered that her right arm was in a sling.

  As her panic grew from her inability to move freely, the spike in her heartrate alerted a nurse who came running into the room. The nurse tried to get Sammi to calm down and explained that she had smoke in her lungs from the explosion and needed to relax in order to breathe properly. But Sammi was way past the possibility of relaxing and the nurse had no choice but to increase her morphine and get her to go back to sleep.

  *

  When Sammi woke up again, she had no idea how much time had passed. But the morphine was doing its job this time around and Sammi remained calm as she stared at the ceiling, feeling as if she were under a heavy cloud. She couldn’t stop the tears from falling as she thought about her friends still being in the car when it exploded.

  “Samantha?” someone asked as they stood over Sammi’s hospital bed and looked down at her.

  Sammi used her left hand to wipe the tears from her eyes as she looked into the face of the lovely brown-haired doctor beside her bed. She was scared to try to talk so she just nodded to let the doctor know that they had indeed identified her correctly.

  “My name is Doctor Gloria. I’m really sorry about your friends,” the doctor said calmly, resting her hand on Sammi’s injured shoulder.

  “Are they…?” Sammi choked out, already knowing the answer. The doctor sadly nodded and Sammi completely broke down, thrashing her head back and forth with tears pouring down her cheeks and onto her pillow. She was inconsolable so Dr. Gloria had no choice but to help her sleep with more medication.

  *

  The next time Sammi woke up, her neck brace had been removed and she tried to keep her mind blank with her head turned to the side to watch out the window. There was nothing she could do trapped in that hospital, but she was glad she was alone because she deserved to be alone. She knew her friends were dead because of her and she found peace in daydreaming about joining them. Nothing, not a single thing about her, made her deserve to live any longer than they had, and she couldn’t help but feel somewhat angry at Eli for pushing her out of death’s grasp.

  Some time passed before a police detective showed up to speak with Sammi and collect her statement about the car bomb. Wanting to be held accountable, Sammi kind of brushed over the car explosion and focused more on telling him that she was a thief and had millions in stolen cash in her hotel room. The detective wore skepticism on his face the entire time she told her story but assured her that he’d look into her confession. But he was too kind about it and Sammi knew he only pitied her.

  The pretty doctor had been standing in wait by the door for the detective to leave and immediately replaced him by Sammi’s bedside. Dr. Gloria was quiet and her actions were careful and cautious as she looked down upon Sammi. Sammi avoided meeting her eyes, not wanting to see more pity in them.

  “Samantha,” Dr. Gloria spoke softly, “is there anyone I can call for you?”

  Sammi shook her head, forcing herself to hold back tears as her thoughts turned to Mack. She couldn’t stand the idea of Mack seeing her like this or knowing that she got everyone killed and looking at her with pity like everyone else was. That was even assuming Mack would want to see her. But as she thought about her husband, her mind finally allowed her to remember the fifth person in the exploding SUV and her left hand flew to her stomach.

  The blanket covering Sammi was thick and didn’t help her find her baby bump. Sammi looked pleadingly at the doctor for answers and the woman hung her head as she shook it slowly. Every muscle in Sammi’s body fell weak as a dark cloud engulfed her. The heavy fog inside her head blurred her vision and she didn’t even see Dr. Gloria reach over to administer another dose of morphine.

  *

  When Sammi woke up the next time, she called for a nurse and asked them to send Dr. Gloria in. Heavy grief continued to weigh down on her, but her thoughts were finally clear, and she needed to get out of that hospital. But she needed the doctor to stop babying her to make that happen.

  “Please, no more morphine,” Sammi begged when the doctor arrived.

  “Are you sure?” Dr. Gloria asked. “I just want you to be comfortable.”

  “I don’t deserve to be comfortable,” Sammi mumbled, unintentionally loud enough for the doctor to hear.

  “Alright, don’t start talking like that,” Dr. Gloria told her. “Don’t make me keep you here longer on suicide watch.”

  “If I’m good, when do I get to leave?”

  “Honestly, I’d feel a lot better if I knew you had somebody to help you when you leave here.”

  Sammi suddenly sat up in the bed, using her left arm as leverage to prop herself up. She began tugging at the tube going into her nose until the doctor jumped in to help her remove it. Getting serious, Sammi straightened her back and looked Dr. Gloria directly in the eyes.

  “I don’t need anybody,” Sammi said sternly.

  Before the doctor could argue with Sammi, there was a soft knock on the open hospital room door and the detective from before let himself into the room. He was carrying a folder and Sammi’s eyes lit up at the prospect of being busted. Dr. Gloria excused herself so Sammi and the detective could have some privacy.

  “Do you know this man?” the Hobbs-aged detective asked, opening the folder, and showing Sammi a mugshot of a very familiar face.

  “That’s Christopher,” Sammi told him nonchalantly. “He was staying in the same hotel.”

  “His name is actually Logan Paulson and we believe he is responsible for planting that bomb in your vehicle,” the detective explained.

  “That wannabe thug? But why?” Sammi questioned, finding that highly implausible. Christopher had hardly seemed intelligent enough to pull off something as big as killing three skilled thieves.

  “Your two hotel rooms were completely cleaned out. I’m guessing you had something that he wanted.”

  “The duffel bags, there was millions in them.”

  “Yeah, I looked into your story and I could only find Eliot Krik in the system. Nothing else checked out.”

  “I’m not in the system because my husband’s a New York detectiv
e! I promise you that I am a thief! Arrest me, dammit!” Sammi nearly threw herself out of the hospital bed as she yelled at the detective.

  “As appealing as it sounds to arrest a fellow officer’s wife with absolutely no proof of any crime committed, I’m going to have to pass. Go home, Miss.”

  “Call Captain Hobbs in the New York Police Department,” Sammi growled through gritted teeth. “He will verify everything.”

  “You don’t mean Tyler Hobbs of the Homicide unit, do you?”

  “Yes! He has an entire file on me! Call him!”

  Exclaiming that he went through the Academy with Hobbs, the detective finally took his cellphone out. He dialed a number and asked for Captain Tyler Hobbs.

  *

  Captain Hobbs had Mack Johnson in his office when his phone rang. Mack had just told him about calling Sammi and never hearing back from her and asking his boss for advice. When the phone rang, Hobbs put a finger up to ask Mack to wait a minute while he answered the call.

  “This is Hobbs… Randy! How’s Cali?… You what–oh, yes, I know Sammi… A thief? Ha ha, no, she was actually an incredible detective in my unit just a few months ago… I’m sorry, I don’t know why she would say something like that… Oh, wow, is she okay?… Wow, yeah, I’ll tell him. Thank you, Randy. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  Mack watched and listened to the one side of the conversation with a look of concern on his face. His boss was obviously talking to someone about his wife and he had a bad feeling in his gut that something had happened. The longer Hobbs was on the phone, the sicker Mack’s stomach felt.

  “She’s all right,” Hobbs said as soon as he hung up the phone, seeing the look on Mack’s face.

  “What happened?” Mack asked seriously, wanting the most direct answer.

  “There was a bomb in their car, and she was the only survivor,” Hobbs told him bluntly.

  “Oh…no,” Mack felt dizzy with panic. “She must feel totally alone. I…I gotta go.”