by Karen Fenech
On the way to the station, Sam told Paige what he’d learned. “Johnson has a long rap sheet. He did time for assault three years back, for beating a man almost to death over a game of pool. He was paroled a few months ago.” Sam’s lips pulled tight, forming two white slashes. “He’s a violent asshole who is going to go down hard for what he did to you.”
Paige would be glad to see this man off the streets, but right now all she could think about was if Johnson was connected to Thames. She wanted to be in on the questioning, but she understood the reasons why she could not, and that’s why earlier she’d told Sam she only wanted to observe. She wasn’t a skilled interrogator, but she knew that wasn’t the reason Sam would keep her from questioning Johnson. Agents weren’t usually involved in investigations that were personal to them. Paige knew that Sam wanted this to stick against Johnson and that he was going to play it by the book.
This interrogation was personal to Sam as well. In the last few days, he’d shown her in so many ways that she mattered to him. She’d never truly mattered to anyone. As possessive and protective as Sam had shown himself to be, she was no less protective and possessive of him. She would safeguard his life as fiercely as he guarded hers.
Inside the Kirk PD station, Sam gave their names and showed his ID to the woman working reception. A moment later, Millhouse, the detective who’d questioned Paige last night at her apartment, met them in the lobby.
They exchanged brief greetings, then Sam said to Millhouse, “I appreciate you setting this up.”
Millhouse’s thick jowls wrinkled in disgust. “I’m happy to help with anything that will add more time to this asshole’s sentence. By the way, he waived his right to an attorney. This way. He’s waiting for us behind door number three.”
Millhouse showed Paige to the room next to the one Johnson was in. She stood in front of the observation window. Inside the interrogation room, Johnson sat at a rectangular table. Paige took satisfaction in the thick tape over his broken pug nose, and the large, dark raccoon-like bruises around his tiny eyes. His full lips were split and, at the moment, curled in scorn.
“Here comes the police dick and the federal rat,” Johnson said.
Sam gave the man a full-on glare and taunted, “That the best you can come up with, Johnson?”
There were two chairs at the table opposite Johnson. Paige noticed that Sam took the seat directly across from Johnson. Sam continued to glare at him. Sam’s expression became so hard it appeared carved from rock. Millhouse took the remaining seat.
Sam bared his teeth. “Johnson, you have to be the stupidest fuck I’ve ever come across to break into the apartment of a federal agent.”
Paige tensed. This would be the point where Johnson could defend himself by stating he had no idea who the apartment belonged to, that it was a random break-in.
Johnson’s mouth twisted. “Stupid like a fox. It’s all part of a plan.”
Paige’s muscles tightened.
“Some plan.” Sam goaded him. “You got your ass handed to you. Broken nose. Broken lips. Chipped teeth. Your face looks like it was run over.” Sam put his hands to his lips, mimicking a megaphone, and raised his voice. “Can you hear me okay with that busted eardrum?” Sam sneered. “And now, you’re going back to jail. Whoever cooked up this plan didn’t do you any favors.”
Johnson’s face reddened with anger. “I don’t need nobody to do my thinking for me. I make my own plans.”
Sam’s eyes went as hard as flint. “If that’s the case, then you’d better find someone else to do your thinking—someone who knows how.”
Johnson leaned across the table. Sam’s eyes glinted, and Paige could see he would have liked nothing better than for Johnson to make some kind of move so Sam could hurt him.
Johnson may have seen Sam’s look, too, because he backed off. “You all think you can get away with making up evidence where there ain’t none. Like you all did with the Thames case. We ain’t gonna stand for it. You hear me, fed?”
“All this for Thames? You’re gonna go down for Thames?” Sam’s gaze sharpened. “He order you to do his dirty work?”
Johnson jutted out his chin. “I don’t take orders from nobody! Last night was about payback on Little Miss Fed.”
Sam got in Johnson’s face. Teeth clenched, he said, “You paid Agent Carson back by landing yourself in jail. How’s that payback working for you, Johnson?”
Johnson slid his chair back to put distance between himself and Sam. “You’ll see. I’m going to shine a spotlight on this bum rap Thames and others like us got. I heard that Doctor Prudence telling us to band together. Just ’cause we ain’t New York City or DC don’t mean we don’t count.” He struck his chest with a fist. “I started the Kirk County movement. You feds are gonna go down! I’ll get me a book deal. Fuck me, a movie deal!”
Sam straightened away from the table. “A movie deal, huh? That what last night was about?”
“I’m going to tell my story to the world.”
Sam eyed Johnson. “How’d you find out where Agent Carson lives?”
Johnson tapped a forefinger against his temple and smirked. “I work dispatch at Happy Trails Taxi Service. One of our drivers picked up your girl fed all duded up in her FBI vest and shit near the railway yard and drove her home.”
The night she’d taken a cab home after the drug raid. Paige pursed her lips.
Sam kept at Johnson, questioning him relentlessly. Johnson remained consistent in his responses. Eventually, Paige saw by his expression that Sam was satisfied Thames had not sent Johnson to attack her. Johnson had latched onto the activists’ cause and had acted on his own, wanting to get his own pound of flesh from Paige. That was what his attack had been about, revenge against the Bureau in general and not Paige in particular.
Finally, Sam looked to Millhouse. “We’re finished here.”
Millhouse nodded.
Sam gave Johnson one final lethal look. “The only camera taking your picture is going to belong to the US government. Practice that smile for your close-up.”
Paige joined Sam and Millhouse in the hall outside the interrogation room. Sam thanked Millhouse again for his help, and they left.
Back at Sam’s, in his office, Paige reviewed the notes and files from the Janet Lambert investigation and the Thames murders. The pile of paper these investigations had generated was spread end-to-end on the large desk.
Paige’s thoughts went back to Johnson’s interrogation. “Thames had nothing to do with the attack last night.”
“No.”
Paige’s fingers tightened on the folder she held. “I never met Janet Lambert, and we certainly wouldn’t have run in the same circles. I’m new to Kirk County. Lambert had lived here for years. It makes no sense that there would be any connection between us, that Thames would draw a connection.” Paige gnawed her lip. “It makes no sense that Thames would change his MO and select Lambert.” Paige tossed the folder onto the desk in disgust. “All this, and nothing ties Thames to Lambert.”
“No one is infallible,” Sam said. “He has to have messed up somewhere. We’ll find where. We have one more piece of information than we did before, that Thames searched for both you and Lambert through the IRS. Let’s set aside for the moment that we can’t prove he conducted that search and see if we can leverage that information to gain something more.”
She didn’t know what that something more could be. All she could think at the moment was that Johnson was another dead end.
When she didn’t respond, Sam came around from his desk, and leaning back against it, he took her hand in a loose grip.
“We need to get Ivy from school soon, then how about we get takeout for dinner?” Sam asked. “I’ll call Ginny and see if Jonah can join us.”
Paige nodded. “Sounds good.”
They picked up Chinese takeout for dinner. Sam set the three bulging bags down on the kitchen table. Though it was a weeknight, it was Friday night. Sam would be picking up Jonah the next mo
rning anyway for their weekend together. Ginny agreed to the sleepover. While Paige got dinner on the table, Jonah and Ivy settled in the living room to do homework.
Sam rolled his shoulder as if to relieve an ache or something heavy there. “I’m going to hit the shower. If you want to call the kids in and get started, I won’t be long.”
Something had been up with Sam, Paige noticed, when he called his ex-wife about Jonah spending the night. Sam had tensed, become unusually edgy. Sam hadn’t said much about his marriage other than it was in the past, but Paige wondered now, was it completely? Paige didn’t think Sam still had feelings for his ex-wife, that wasn’t it, but there was a tension between them, a tension that had something to do with their son.
Paige didn’t want to pry. She didn’t want to overstep. Though Sam knew of her professional history with Thames, he didn’t know much about Paige’s personal history. They hadn’t come to that point. She couldn’t let herself think beyond this moment. She was afraid to open her heart a little more to Sam only to hurt when her hope was crushed.
Paige took the take-out boxes out of the bags, then set out plates and utensils. By the time she had everything set up, Sam had finished showering and was coming down the stairs. She called Jonah and Ivy.
Later, after the dishes had been cleared and when Jonah and Ivy were settled in for the night, Paige and Sam went out to the back deck. The moon was full, casting a soft shimmer over the trees and bushes. It was a warm night.
Sam came up behind her. He wrapped both arms around her, over her own arms. He held her against his chest. They stood like that while the cicadas chirped. Somewhere an owl hooted.
“It’s so beautiful here,” Paige said.
“Yeah. Open.” Sam’s body tensed. “I have a problem with small, tight places.”
It struck her again that the house and cleared land appeared carved out of the woods, and, yeah, though Sam’s place was isolated and hidden, there was a feeling of openness. She was about to turn to him, but his hold on her tightened a bit, holding her in place.
“You already know I’m not from Kirk,” Sam said. “I told you I grew up outside of Detroit.” Sam brought his mouth down to brush against her hair. Against her temple, he said quietly, “When I was a kid, I used to look out my window up at the moon and wonder if it looked the same to everyone else.” Sam drew in a deep breath. “But it wasn’t a child’s game to me. The reason I wondered that was because I thought the moon had to look different to me, living in the house I did.” His muscles tensed further. “I believed it couldn’t look the same even to the people who lived next door, in a house with a dog and regular meals and a mother who hadn’t walked out leaving behind two young sons with a father who got drunk most nights, beat the shit out of them, then locked them in a closet. You asked me about the tat on my back. My father did that one night. I was Jonah’s age. He used his hunting knife to carve the bars, then filled it in. He did some time. It was something he learned how to do in prison from other inmates.”
Paige wasn’t the only one with scars from her past. She shifted to turn to him, and this time he let her. In the moonlight, she could see his features pulled taut. Tears filled her eyes for the little boy he’d been, searching for answers in the moon. “I’m so sorry for all you went through.”
Sam met her gaze. “It’s in the past. I left it there.” He brought his hands up and held her face between his large palms. “I thought I’d left it there. Before tonight, before you, I never told anyone. Even Ginny. It was never important that I tell Ginny where I came from. It’s become important that I tell you. It’s become important that you know me, all of me.”
Paige stared up at Sam and felt her heart open wide for him. She’d tried so hard to keep herself from loving him, to hold that part of herself back, but she couldn’t hold back any longer.
Sam kissed her. Softly, almost reverently, his lips moved over her eyelids, her nose, her mouth. Then he slid his fingers into her hair, holding her tighter, and deepened the kiss. Gone was the softness. It became wild, carnal, a clash of teeth and tongues. Paige was right there with him. Sam’s hands moved again. Without breaking the kiss, he gripped her hips and lifted her off her feet. She wrapped her legs around his waist. Carrying her like that, he walked with her to a recliner in one corner of the deck, then set her down gently on the thick cushion. Paige had the fleeting thought that they were now out of the glow of the moon and in deep shadow, not that there was anyone out there to see them anyway.
Sam came down on the recliner with her, moving on top of her but keeping his weight off of her. She could feel his urgency to be inside her. She felt that same urgency. Her skin was alive with it. When he began to undress, she helped him.
Without undoing the buttons, he pulled his shirt over his head, making his hard, thick muscles ripple. She lowered his zipper. But even working together, getting skin-to-skin was taking too long.
She was wearing a lightweight dress. Sam tore it. Underneath was a sheer bra, and if not for the front clasp that opened at Sam’s first touch, she would have torn it off herself.
Sam went still. The fire in his eyes showed how desperately he wanted her, but he didn’t move. “Are your ribs okay? I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’m okay.”
Sam gently kissed her ribs.
The night air was cool on her bare skin. Sam moved up from her ribs, and his hot tongue closed over her breast. He kissed her and tongued her nipple. She moaned.
He licked lower, tracing a wet path down her now overheated flesh. He bunched her panties in a fist and, with one twist, ripped them. He separated her legs, then his mouth was on her.
Paige dug her fingers into his scalp. She was gasping, fighting for every breath. She wanted her next breath to be his breath. She clutched his thick hair and pulled him up to her.
She inhaled his air and gave him hers. She sucked his tongue and used her mouth in ways that made him pant and shake. Sam’s jeans were still on, but now down below his ass, and she could feel him against her leg, thick and hard and pulsing.
Sam pushed into her. Paige raised her hips, matching him thrust for thrust and pulling him deeper.
Sam picked up the pace. Her muscles tightened. She felt Sam tense as well. She shouted her release into his mouth and absorbed his long, harsh groan into her own.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sam shifted and rolled so he was on his back on the recliner with Paige on top of him.
Beneath her cheek, she felt his heart beating. Paige closed her eyes, counting each one of his treasured heartbeats. He couldn’t know how much he’d come to mean to her. She didn’t fully know herself. All she knew was that every one of her heartbeats was now tangled up with his.
They were damp with sweat and sticky from their lovemaking. The cool air now left a chill everywhere it touched.
Sam’s arms came around her. “You’re cold. Let’s go inside.”
She couldn’t go inside, not yet. She couldn’t be face-to-face with him. She had things to say, and if they were face-to-face, she would lose her nerve. He’d given her a precious gift tonight when he’d told her about himself, one she wasn’t worthy of. “You don’t want to know all of me,” she began, using some of the same words he had.
He sifted his fingers gently through her hair. “You’re wrong, because everything you were has made you the woman you are. I want to know all of you, but I’m not asking for that. You aren’t ready to share it all with me. That’s okay. It can wait. I can wait until you’re ready.”
His words were so full of caring and understanding that her heart tore in two. She couldn’t go on lying to him. He deserved the truth. “I know you don’t expect reciprocity. This isn’t about that. It’s about you deserving to know the person you’re fighting for. My past isn’t like yours. I’m not like you, a boy who came out of hell and became a good, strong man. I came from good people, and at every turn, I made choices that drove them away.” Paige told Sam about rebelling against her paren
ts, rejecting them and throwing everything they stood for back at them. “I couldn’t stand what I considered their simple lives. I wanted more. I wanted to be greater. I wanted glory.” She told Sam she’d left home at seventeen to go her own way. “Those choices brought me to where I am today, hunted by a serial killer. I caused this with Thames. I wanted to be the one to bring him in, to take him down. It had to be me. I wouldn’t settle for anything less. Everything that’s happened with Thames is my fault. I put myself in his path.”
Sam’s hand stilled in her hair. “I can hear you believe that.”
“Because it’s the truth.”
“No. The one responsible is Thames. For what you’ve gone through, what you’ve endured. Hearing how your boss, Lewis, abandoned you to fight Thames on your own—it makes me sick.” Sam’s grip tightened in her hair. “Somehow, you have it all mixed up in your head that you got what’s coming to you with Thames, but you didn’t ask for this. The choices you say you made as a kid and as an adult didn’t conjure up Thames.”
“I’m sorry, Sam. I’m so sorry to bring all this trouble to you.”
Sam lifted her head, forcing her to look at him. “What did you think, that telling me this would drive me away, too?” His mouth went flat and he said simply, “Because if you did, you were wrong.”
Paige’s mouth trembled. His response came so easily. How? Tears spilled from her eyes, and she burrowed into him. “You terrify me, Sam. You make me ache, make me want what I can’t have.”
Sam’s hand came up to cradle the back of her head, and he held her against him. “You’re safe with me, I swear it.”
On Monday, Paige interviewed Janet Lambert’s closest friend, Lorraine Dunne. Paige questioned Dunne at length about Janet’s life. Dunne was forthcoming and cooperative, wanting to find who had killed her friend, but bottom line, the woman said nothing that advanced their investigation. Again, they’d hit a brick wall.
