“What happened?” Angel asked him, assuming Sam couldn’t hear her talking to him across the roof of the car.
Garrett just shook his head. He was standing in front of Sam’s window.
“Well, thanks a lot,” Angel said. “Now I get to play fairy-freakin’-godmother.”
“Don’t be like that. Sam’s tough. She won’t give you any trouble.”
She’d adapted easily to her circumstances. She’d rarely complained, even when she had a right to. It was as if she always expected her life to be difficult, and just accepted it.
Angel snickered. “At least she won’t give me the kind of trouble she gave you.”
Garrett’s anger flared. “It wasn’t like that.”
“You’re lucky she kept you from being put behind a desk. That’s what happened when Donovan got caught diddling his asset.”
“We weren’t—”
“Whatever. I need to get on the road,” Angel interrupted.
“Call me when you’re situated.”
“You’re not going to spend your free time checking up on me, are you?” She raised a brow.
“No.” He stepped back from the car, looking at the woman in the backseat.
“Right.” Angel opened the driver’s door.
Garrett put his hand on the glass where Sam was sitting. She looked up into his eyes as Angel started the car. Before they pulled away, he mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”
He watched until the car was out of sight.
She didn’t look back.
Not once.
Garrett had always known this day would come—the day he’d have to turn her over to another team. The team that would work with the prosecution to prepare her for the case.
He’d expected it to be months from now. He’d thought he had time to plan a grand goodbye scene they would both remember forever.
But she hated him now. So, this had not been that scene. Their goodbye had been cold and empty. He’d never wanted that.
When he gathered himself, he pulled out his phone.
“Thorne.”
“I dropped her off at the site.”
“Everything went okay?”
Garrett swallowed before lying. “Yeah, it was fine.”
“It was for the best, McKendrick.”
Garrett couldn’t agree, so he kept his mouth shut.
“You did a great job keeping her safe. Take a few weeks off.”
“Sir, about what happened…” Garrett wasn’t sure why he would bring it up when his boss hadn’t. Maybe he just needed to talk. True, her father was probably not the best choice, but he was available. And Thorne had always been the father figure for their team.
“She told me she pursued you,” Thorne said. “I don’t have the right to play overprotective father. She’s a grown woman. I’m just glad she’s away from that Lance asshole, and if you helped her through that, then we’re good. Enjoy your time off.”
“Thank you, sir,” Garrett managed before his boss hung up. Their talk hadn’t made him feel any better.
It was just like Sam to put all the blame on herself and tell her father she had pursued him. But he’d wanted her, too. Like crazy. If he was honest, he’d wanted her far longer than she’d even known him.
When he’d been assigned princess duty, he always enjoyed seeing her smiling with her friends and listening to their conversations. When she walked alone in Paris, he envisioned walking up beside her, twining his fingers with hers, and saying something witty in French to make her smile.
He tried to keep a distance this time, too, but he’d failed.
Somehow, he’d have to find a way to move on without her, once and for all.
Chapter Sixty
“Do you want some dinner?” Angel asked Sam after they’d been on the road for a few hours.
“Sure.” She wondered where they were headed, but didn’t bother asking.
“What would you like?”
“Whatever.” Sam shrugged, not really having a preference.
“Sushi?” Angel suggested.
“That’s fine.”
The woman chuckled. “Boy, you really aren’t going to be a problem, are you?”
“I try my best. Have you ever had princess duty before?”
Angel cleared her throat. “Garrett told you we call it that?” Sam nodded, and the beautiful woman with the platinum blonde hair seemed surprised. “I haven’t covered you before. Your father normally uses Garrett, Dane, or Justin. But with Garrett off the job, and Dane with a gunshot wound to the leg—” She glanced over at Sam with an ironic smile.
Sam wasn’t going to apologize for shooting Dane. He’d made himself a target by threatening her.
“Anyway. No one ever complained that you were a diva, or anything. Mostly it was just boring.”
“I miss being boring.” Sam frowned at her reflection in the window.
“I bet. I sure hope these next three months stay boring.”
“Three months?”
“Yeah. Congressman Howe goes to trial in three months.”
Part of Sam was elated with the news. Her life on the run would be over in three months. But another part was terrified. Facing Ashton Howe in a courtroom was bad enough, but then she had to start over in a new town with a new identity.
Angel pulled into the parking lot of a sushi place, and shut off the car. “Do you have a weapon?” she asked.
“Glock.” Sam pointed to her back.
Angel nodded her approval. “Good. Let’s go.”
After they ordered, Angel rested her hands on the table in front of her and leaned in closer. “Can I ask what happened that made Garrett demand to be off your case?” she asked. She must have been hoping Sam would say something, and when she didn’t, her curiosity became unbearable.
Sam had asked her father to make it seem like Garrett wanted out of the arrangement instead of her dismissing him. She knew how people talked. And she didn’t want Garrett taking the brunt.
“Nothing in particular. He just got sick of me.”
Angel gave her a considering look. “Hmm. Weird. He didn’t seem sick of you.”
After their meal, they continued driving in silence. To Sam’s surprise, Angel pulled into an airport. Okay. This should be interesting.
“My gun?” Sam asked as she got out of the car.
“Leave it under the seat,” Angel instructed. “We can’t get it through security.”
Sam felt naked without a gun in the back of her jeans, but Angel assured her they would remedy the situation once they landed in D.C.
There was a fancy SUV waiting at the airport when they got to Dulles, and it was fully stocked. Including a new Glock for Sam. She pulled the clip and ran her finger over the first bullet, snapped it back in place, and tucked it into the glove box in front of her. Better.
From the airport, they made their way through horrendous traffic and parked in an underground parking garage. She had missed D.C., but wondered why she’d been brought back here.
Back where people got shot in alleys.
Angel picked up her phone and called someone. “We’re ready to come up.”
“All set,” said a man’s voice on the other end of the phone.
“Grab your things,” Angel told her. “We’re ready to move.”
Sam reached in the backseat to get her bag. She took her gun from the glove box and tucked it in the waistband of her pants. As soon as she opened the passenger door, she did a visual scan for danger.
Garrett had trained her well. She was ready for anything. If a nun with a lightsaber came riding up on a tricycle, she wouldn’t have been surprised.
Fortunately, that didn’t happen.
The steel doors of the elevator slid open and she automatically drew her weapon, needing it in her hand.
“Relax. I’ve got you.” Angel led her into the elevator and hit the button for the twenty-seventh floor.
Twenty-seven. Easy to remember. If Sam lived until March, she would turn t
wenty-seven.
But March seemed too far away to make any promises.
The elevator moved with a speed so fast she worried about getting a nose bleed. She winced when it came to an abrupt stop, and reached out for the rail to steady herself.
The doors opened, and the biggest man she’d ever seen took up the entire space. Holy crap. As if his mass wasn’t intimidating enough, he wore a fierce scowl on his young face. His dark eyes darted over them and then down the hall in both directions.
Shit!
Sam raised her gun in a second.
But he was faster.
Chapter Sixty-One
“Stop it! Both of you.”
Sam and the huge man froze at the same time.
Angel rolled her eyes and stepped off the elevator. “Sam, this is Deputy Marshal Marks, the other man assigned to your detail. Justin, this is Sam.”
“Gun?” he said, glancing at the Glock Sam was still holding on him.
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” She lowered it sheepishly and tucked it away.
Justin gave her a hard look as they walked down the hall. “I heard about what happened to Dane.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Don’t know,” Angel said. “Let’s get you inside.”
Justin put his hand on the panel by the door and it unlocked. He urged her in, and he and Angel followed behind her. She watched in amazement as Justin not only locked the door, but moved some kind of reinforcement panel over it.
“Bombproof,” Angel said at Sam’s raised brow.
Okay, then. Sam looked around the fancy apartment.
“So are the windows,” Angel went on. “This place is called the Bird Cage, because it’s up in the air and completely self-sustained. The president has even used this suite.”
“Lucky me,” Sam said as she took in the white leather sectional in a sunken living room with white carpet and white walls. Good grief.
She missed Garrett’s cabin in the mountains.
“Garrett said you like to read. There’s a library down the hall.” Angel pointed. “Kitchen.” She gestured to a room off the living room, all chrome and black. “Your bedroom is down that way. Second on the left. Go ahead and get comfortable while I let everyone know we made it in one piece.” Angel seemed satisfied by that fact.
So was Sam.
She checked out the library, which had more books in it than she would be able to read in a lifetime. She went to her room, which had a wall of glass that made her feel very exposed. The blinds worked via a remote on the nightstand. There was also a remote for a giant TV hanging on the wall.
She put her small bag on the king-size, pillow-top bed, and went to the kitchen to see what snack options awaited.
Angel was arguing with someone on the phone when Sam walked in. “…you’re off this case. You wanted off the case, so don’t think you’re going to order me around. She’s here. She’s safe. Beyond that, why would you care?”
Garrett.
Sam’s stomach did a little flip. She indicated the refrigerator behind Angel, who moved out of the way, still grumbling into the phone.
“I have to go. We’ve got things under control here. Enjoy your time off.”
Sam could hear Garrett yell, “I’m not taking time off. How am I supposed to go on vacation when she’s in the middle of a shitstorm?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. I just thought you’d want to know we got her secured without incident. Next time, I won’t call.” Angel hung up and huffed. “What the fuck is his problem?”
“Me,” Sam muttered under her breath, and took a sip of flavored water from a bottle she’d found in the massive refrigerator. It was big enough to store a dead body. She decided not to think about that as she rummaged around in cupboards, finding some chips.
For dinner, Justin ordered pizza from Santiago’s.
She laughed as they all sat down and each of them put their gun on the table at the same time as though they had rehearsed it.
She and Angel had a bet going that Justin wouldn’t be able to eat his whole pizza. Sam lost when he finished off the last piece of his and the last piece of theirs.
Despite their shaky start, Justin had warmed up to her. He was a natural flirt with an easy grin and funny retort at the ready. But he still wasn’t Garrett.
Angel also had a softer side, despite her assassin-like moves and the scars on her arms. Sam wouldn’t mind spending three months with these people. But it wasn’t the same.
There would be no one in bed to keep her warm at night. No one to snuggle on the sofa with to watch movies.
The next morning after she was up and dressed, someone knocked at the door. She watched as Justin and Angel disarmed the alarm to let in the visitor, then searched him as soon as he stepped inside the room.
“All clear!” Justin said.
The handsome black man adjusted his suit jacket and looked over at Sam with a pleasant smile. “Ms. Hutchinson, I’m District Attorney Hugh Harris. Call me Hugh. We spoke on the phone a few months ago.”
“Yes. I remember.” How could she forget the inquisition?
“I’m going to brief you on what’s been happening with the case, then we’ll go over your testimony. I understand you’ve had a rough time in the program over the past few months. I’m hoping things will calm down while we prepare for trial. When Howe is behind bars permanently, you’ll be able to start over somewhere safe.”
“Yes,” she said. Safe.
“As you know, Congressman Howe killed Heather Riddell.”
Yes. She’d seen it with her own eyes.
“Kenneth Holden was the person who supposedly planned to meet her from an online dating site, and was later found in the Potomac River from an apparent suicide.”
“He didn’t kill her, and I doubt he killed himself,” Sam said.
Hugh nodded in agreement.
“Howe’s four defense attorneys maintain Kenneth Holden lured Heather away from a date and shot her. When he realized he was going to be caught, he killed himself rather than face the consequences.”
She understood the theory, though she certainly didn’t believe it. Kenneth Holden wouldn’t still be hunting Sam after he killed himself.
“Problem is, the gun they found in Holden’s car—the one used to kill Heather Riddell—was the same gun used to kill a man named Adam Dresden, a few months before Heather’s murder.”
Sam scooted closer. This was new information. “And?”
“Kenneth Holden was in Germany when Dresden was shot.”
“So, Holden had a solid alibi for the first murder,” Sam said.
“Exactly. And then when you throw in the fingerprint and the computer file we found, their story is crumbling like a sandcastle during a hurricane.”
More new stuff. “Fingerprint?” she asked.
“The gun found in Holden’s car was wiped clean of fingerprints. Except for Holden’s. At least on the outside. But on the inside, we found a partial print that came up in the system as a former federal agent, Martin Roberts. Roberts had been hired by Congressman Howe twice as a bodyguard. He was shot with a large caliber rifle when he and a number of other of Howe’s men broke into the safe house where you were staying.”
Ah. That would have been her doing.
All of that sounded very good for the case…which meant it was going to be very bad for her. The more desperate Howe was to save his skin, the more determined he would be to kill her.
“Once our senior inspector testifies Roberts attacked the safe house, we’ll be able to add attempted murder, conspiracy, and intimidation of a witness to Howe’s list of charges.” Hugh smiled. “He’s so going down.”
“Senior inspector? You mean Garrett?” she asked. Her heartbeat sped. She almost looked forward to testifying now, in hopes she would get to see him.
Obviously, she still wasn’t over the man.
But…
“He’s in danger, then.” she said.
“No more than usual,” Hugh sai
d, glancing over at Angel in confusion. “You need to worry about yourself and the case for right now. Garrett will be fine.”
“Okay.” They were right. He was a seasoned federal marshal.
“Let’s go over what you remember about the shooting in the safe house.” Hugh threw questions at her and scribbled on a notepad for hours.
“Do you know why Howe killed her?” Sam finally asked. It seemed like the proof was solid, but didn’t there need to be a motive?
“Heather Riddell was a paralegal in the law office that Howe was using to set up divorce proceedings from his wife. We think she might have overheard something or seen something she wasn’t supposed to. Maybe he was planning to hide assets from his wife’s lawyers, something like that. We’re only guessing.”
Which meant Heather might also have been trying to do the right thing. Just like Sam.
“We do know she did not have a date planned with Kenneth Holden. She never mentioned it to her mother or any of her friends. She was still wearing clothes from work. All the correspondence from the dating site was uploaded after her death. It was a cover-up. Kenneth Holden’s only crime was looking a lot like Congressman Howe. We have our tech people trying to track down where the file originated. That would help the case substantially.”
“Maybe if you have enough evidence, I wouldn’t even need to testify,” she said hopefully. It was long shot.
He shook his head. “You are our key witness. You’re not having cold feet, are you?”
She almost choked. “Cold? My feet are frozen stiff, but I’m still going to do this. Howe needs to pay for what he did.”
“Then let’s make that happen.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
Over the next three months, Hugh came back to see her several more times. He became a welcome distraction from the monotony of her life in the Bird Cage.
Early on, she had taken on the challenge of trying to make enough food for dinner. So far, there was no such thing as leftovers with Justin around.
Sam’s father would occasionally call and check in. They would chat for a bit, then usually the conversations would drag a little and become awkward, so they traded off coming up with reasons to get off the phone.
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