Table of Contents
Title Page
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
Eminent Danger
By Megan E. Fatheree
Copyright © 2012
Eminent Danger
Copyright © 2013 by Megan Fatheree. All rights reserved.
This title also available as a paperback.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other – except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the Author.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-300-63738-7
Printed in the United States of America
ONE
Eleven-year-old Emily Baker hugged her pink teddy bear to her chest and looked over at her father. She looked up to him so much. She didn’t want to leave him, even for a weekend. It just wasn’t fair.
“Do I have to?” she asked with pleading hazel eyes. She knew she was whining, but she really didn’t want to go.
Her father smiled slightly and nodded his head. “You have to. Don’t you want to see your mom?”
Emily just sighed. “Why can’t Lani come to our house again this weekend?”
“Because your mother wants to see you sometimes, too. I’ll grab your bags.”
She watched her father as he got out and got her pink Barbie suitcase from the trunk. He opened Emily’s door and helped her out of the car.
Emily looked up at the beige house and dead grass, and her throat tightened up. She hated this house, this yard, this neighborhood, and most of all, her mother’s new husband. She reluctantly followed behind her father to the front door. She hid behind him as he knocked and let out an exasperated breath.
The door opened and her mother stood there, hands on her hips and un-brushed blonde hair hanging into her face.
“Where is she, Mark?” she asked harshly.
Mark sighed again and reached his free arm around to hug Emily. “She’s right here. She’s scared of Lester.”
Emily’s mother snorted a laugh. “She’s just scared of him because he makes her behave. Unlike some people I know.” She glared at him accusingly.
“Can I see Lani before I leave?”
She jerked her head back and set her jaw. “She’s still asleep. Some people don’t get up before eight in the morning like you.” She snatched Emily’s suitcase from Mark’s hands and put her other hand on her hip. “She’ll see you when you come to pick Emily up Monday morning.”
Mark nodded solemnly. “Tell her I said hello and I love her.”
Emily knew her mother would not tell Lani that, but she would. She wouldn’t let anyone tell Lani that her daddy didn’t love her.
Mark turned around and knelt in front of Emily. “Be a good girl, alright? And don’t let them boss you around too much. I love you.” He hugged her.
Emily held her father close and inhaled the smell of chocolate and peppermint that followed him wherever he went.
“Love you, too,” she whispered.
Her mother extended a hand and smiled widely. “Come on, sweetheart!” she enticed like someone talking to a pet. “We’re going to have lots of fun together. It’ll be the greatest weekend ever!”
Emily looked at her dad with pleading eyes and then slowly, quietly, followed her mother into the house. The door slammed shut like a prison door behind them. Emily let out a slow breath and then flew up the stairs to Lani’s room.
Lani lay on her bed, but she wasn’t asleep. Emily could see the sobs shaking her nine-year-old sister’s body. Startled, but not surprised, she raced to the bed and lay down beside Lani.
Lani rolled over and flung her arms around her sister. Emily loved that embrace. It was so precious, so loving. Nothing would ever tear the sisters apart.
“What did he do this time?” she asked in a low voice.
Lani hiccupped out a sob and pointed to her bare right arm.
Emily sat up and looked at the bruise beginning to form in the shape of a handprint. She knew that all it would take for Lani to be out of this house was a good police investigation, but Lester threatened to hurt her, too, if she told anyone.
“Why?” she asked.
Lani sat up and let Emily push her thick blonde hair back from her face. “He said I was being a bad girl. I didn’t do anything, Emily, I didn’t! All I did was ask if we could bake cookies this weekend, like we do at daddy’s house.”
Emily nodded. “I know you didn’t do anything, Lani. Lester is just a bad man.” She engulfed her sister in a hug. “I’ll get you out of here. I promise.”
The weekend ended quickly, and Emily got in the car to go home with her father.
“Daddy,” she said immediately, “we have to get Lani out of there.”
“Why?” asked Mark, curious and concerned.
“Lester hurts her, daddy. She never gets to come say hi to you because she has bruises all over her. We have to get the police.”
Mark slammed his palm against the steering wheel, startling Emily. “I knew that man was bad news. Don’t worry, sweetheart, we’ll tell the police. We’ll get Lani out of there.”
Emily smiled a little, knowing that that was one promise her daddy would keep.
TWO
Sixteen years later . . .
Emily put down the vial of hypocalcemic blood and rubbed her blurry eyes. She knew she needed to go home and rest, but she was almost done working on this case. She just had to figure out what had caused the unusually low amounts of calcium in this blood, since the dead guy didn’t actually have hypocalcemia. Then she would quit, or so she told herself. The truth was that she didn’t really want to go home.
She cleared a small space in front of her and laid her head on her folded arms. She could just sleep here, if she let herself. Sometimes the office felt like the only place she fit in.
She heard the door slide open and didn’t look up to see who it was. It had to be someone with the pass code and correct retinas, so she wasn’t too worried that it would be someone coming to strangle her or something.
“Maybe you should go home and sleep.”
Emily recognized that voice. Her shoulders stiffened and the hair on her neck bristled. She slowly raised her head and subconsciously wondered if her hair looked horrible.
“Hello, Sam,” she said coolly.
Sam Kent gave a small salute. “Em.” He walked to the front of her worktable and carefully tossed a rotting banana peel into the garbage. “Need some help?”
Sam was one of the FBI’s most trusted agents. He and Emily were barely on speaking terms in her book, but Sam seemed to like to talk to Emily well enough. She was not particularly thrilled about that, but she lived with it. He was one of the few people who listened when she needed to talk. She didn’t want to admit it, but she needed him to listen. No one else listened to her much, simply because she had no friends to listen.
Emily set her jaw and r
aised her eyebrows. “No, thank you. I am almost done with this case and then I may consider going home.”
“Maybe you should also consider cleaning your table once in a while,” Sam suggested. His eyes twinkled in the way they only did when he was teasing someone.
Emily pushed some hair behind her ear and shoved a few piles of paper around.
“I work better in a mess. The messier, the more concentration I can give to the task at hand.” That wasn’t completely a lie, but it wasn’t necessarily the truth, either.
Sam just nodded. “You know, most of the agents, including Nate, went home three hours ago.”
“Nate” was Nate Wesley, Sam’s partner and one of his best friends. In her opinion, she would much rather be stuck with Nate as a watchdog than Sam.
“And you’re still here why?” Emily flipped open a book of chemical formulas.
Sam shrugged. “Thought maybe misery would like some company.” He gave a smirk and his eyes sparkled again.
That really got on her nerves. He should know better than to think he would get his kicks teasing her all the time. She rolled her eyes.
“Oldest joke in the book. Get a new line.”
“I’ll get a new line if you go home and get to bed.” he folded his arms and raised his eyebrows.
Emily knew that if she didn’t give in he would stand there all night. Although she debated that for a moment, she finally decided she would rather he not stare at her all night.
“Fine. But I’ll be back by eight tomorrow.”
Sam smiled victoriously. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
“I don’t need babysitting!” Emily exploded. When she was tired, she got angry. That had always been a huge issue. Her dad had helped her learn to suppress it, but it was a genetic thing and she didn’t have much control over it.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m an FBI agent; I’ve seen worse things happen in a parking garage than in a slum.” He nodded slightly as she stalked past him with her coat and bag in hand.
She couldn’t believe he was being so overprotective. It wasn’t even as if she liked him. He was being such a crazy jerk and she wished he would just leave her alone. Sure, she trusted him with her life, but she didn’t want him invading every area of it. He made it his business to be around her every time he could, and it kind of overwhelmed her. She didn’t want to admit that anything could scare her, but the fact that she might fall for someone did.
The elevator stopped at the main-level parking garage and she nearly flew to her car.
Sam, who had parked two rows over from her, nodded and headed on. “Goodnight, Em.”
“Sam,” she said in farewell.
That man was starting to get on her nerves. She started her car and drove home. A nice, calm, out-of-the-way suburb with friendly neighbors and beautiful landscaping was her partial escape from the memories that haunted her. There was only so much she could do to suppress those painful memories, and moving across town to a rich neighborhood was one of those things.
Pulling into her driveway, she looked around before getting out of the car. The area was clear. She breathed a huge sigh of relief. She hated it when random passers-by watched her. She ran to her door and nearly tripped over the white-and-pink-wrapped present in front of it.
Not again, Jesus. She thought to herself.
Sam watched her pull out of the parking garage and followed her all the way to her street. He knew that was slightly creepy, but he felt a huge need to make sure she was safe. She didn’t even notice his car driving slowly by. He shook his head, not believing that she was so unobservant, but kept driving anyway. She had made it home safely. He would have to talk with Nate about her. He just didn’t know what he was going to do. She didn’t want him around but he felt like he needed to protect her all the more because of that. Never in a million years did he want to push his way into her life, but if that was what it took to keep her safe from all the enemies they made as government law enforcement agents, he would do it.
He stopped a few blocks away and let his head rest on the back of his seat. He breathed deeply and closed his eyes to let her face play in front of them in the blackness.
“Jesus, I love her,” he prayed aloud. “Why won’t she let me under her shell? Nate and Jewel got under her shell the first time they met her. What’s different about me?”
Love never gives up, and it is always hopeful. Love is patient.
It was a whispered phrase in his spirit and he wasn’t very happy with it. One of his pet peeves was being reminded of scripture that he loved to quote to other people. However, there wasn’t much he could do about that when it was God throwing it in his face.
“But haven’t I been patient, Lord? What’s the matter with now?” Great, now he sounded like a three-year-old pleading with his daddy for something he wasn’t going to get.
Love does not demand its own way.
Sam opened his eyes and shook his head slowly. “Yeah, I get it.” He wasn’t very happy about it, but he got it. Keep doing what he was doing and hope she came around. Obviously God had an outrageous sense of humor to tell him that. He was probably up there laughing right now. Sam rolled his eyes.
He shifted into drive and headed home himself. If God wanted him to patiently work his way under Emily’s shell, he would. He admitted that he still had a long way to go until he got the love thing right, but he was trying his hardest to get it the first time.
He carefully looked in every direction before opening his garage and driving in. He needed a good bath and some food. He wondered what he had left in his refrigerator. If he had thought ahead, he would have bought some groceries so he could cook something besides leftovers.
Cooking was almost a therapeutic activity for him. His mom had taught him to cook as a child, and every time he began to cook for himself he thought of those happy times. Those had been over for her for so long.
After his dad died she had turned from God and her family. She had actually blamed God for his death last time she and Sam had spoken. How could she do that? Sam’s heart broke every time he thought of it. How could she blame a God who was good to his children? “How could God take him from me?” seemed to be her motto.
Sam rested his head in his tired hands.
“God didn’t take him from you,” he wanted to scream, almost on a daily basis.
He heated up a frozen dinner and flopped down in front of the television. Turning on the news, he tried to drown out the memories that bombarded him from all directions. His mother’s red eyes and nose, her flared temper, her running from his house in a fury. Why wouldn’t she forgive him? He just wanted her to love God again. What was so wrong with that?
THREE
Sam glanced up as a door opened and an agent pointed over to him and Nate. He smiled and glanced at Nate.
Nate smiled from ear to ear. He followed Sam’s suit and stood up.
Jewel Hanlin thanked the agent and practically flew across the room, her hair spilling out behind her and her laughter echoing like a child. As she reached Nate, he engulfed her in a hug, lifting her feet off the ground in the process. When he set her down, she ran over to Sam.
Sam stood up and touched his forehead. “Ma’am,” he said in a fake southern accent.
Jewel laughed and playfully hit his arm. “You aren’t from the south.” She hugged him tightly. “Oh, I missed you!”
Nate perched on the corner of Sam’s desk. “So, how have you been?” he asked lovingly.
Nate and Jewel had been dating for a few months now, and everything seemed to be going splendidly. As Jewel’s family encouraged her in her new-found faith, so did Sam and Nate. Her horrendous ordeal with a serial killer only months prior had brought around a complete change in her, but it was for the better. Everyone realized that now. She was different, more mature, but still the same Jewel that everyone had fallen for last summer.
Jewel’s eyes glowed with happiness. “I have been perfectly wonderful, enjoying a normal life!”
“What brings you to our humble abode?” Sam asked, turning halfway back to his work.
“I couldn’t wait to tell you!” she nearly shrieked.
“Tell us what?” Nate asked, rubbing his ear.
Jewel rolled her eyes at him and jumped right back into her cheerful persona. “Guess who is the first person to ever reach the number one spot of the New York Times’ bestseller list because they wrote a children‘s book?”
Nate stood up. “Your book made it to the top of the New York Times’ bestseller list?” he asked in disbelief.
Jewel nodded profusely and then tucked some hair back behind her ear. “Of course, that means I’ve been invited to be a guest on several different talk shows. I’m going to have to fly to New York for a week or two.” She looked pleadingly at Nate.
Sam knew she wouldn’t go if Nate didn’t want her to. She was just that thoughtful, and she had promised herself never to hurt those around her again.
Nate looked thoughtful for a moment and then he finally smiled again. “Do what you need to do. I’ll be waiting with a really nice dinner when you get back.”
Jewel squealed and kissed him on the cheek. “I knew you’d understand! I have to go pack, but I’ll call you regularly, ok?” She started back across the room.
Nate nodded as she raced out. As soon as she was gone, his face fell a little. He walked behind his desk, but he didn’t sit down. That was very unusual for him.
Sam turned to him. “You don’t want her to go.” Not that it was hard to tell from the very pained and panicked expression on Nate’s face.
Nate just stood still and looked at Sam. “And you’re in love with Emily.” Obviously, he wasn’t taken aback by Sam’s comment.
Sam shrugged. “We should start a club. Maybe we should call it ‘Your Pity Party and You’,” he suggested, trying to lighten the mood and switch the subject all at the same time. He did not want to talk about Emily right now. It would only make him madder.
Eminent Danger Page 1
