by Linda Howard
“You think it’s possible?” Freddie asked, full of youthful exuberance.
“It’s solid, Cruz,” Sam said. “Good thinking.” She paused, thought for a moment and decided. “I want you to go to Chicago and talk to Patricia Donaldson. I want to know if her kid is John O’Connor’s son. I want the whole story. Tell her she can either spill it to you, or we’ll get a warrant for DNA. Don’t come back until you know every detail of her relationship with O’Connor. He went out there the third weekend of every month. I want to know if he was banging her. I want to know how. You got me?”
“Without you?” His normally robust complexion paled again.
“A bomb just blew off your training wheels, Detective.” Sam winced at the pain in her chest as she rose. “Get your ass to Chicago.” She grabbed the lapels of his ever-present trench coat and pulled him down so his face was an inch from hers. “You get yourself hurt in any way, and I’ll kill you. You got me?”
“Ma’am.” He swallowed hard. “Yes, ma’am.”
She retrieved the paper with her ticket information from her purse. “Be on that eleven o’clock flight and get back here as fast as you can. Report in tonight.”
“Watch your back, Cruz,” Malone added. “If they’ve got eyes on Sergeant Holland, they’re on you, too.”
“Yes, sir.” Freddie stood there for a second longer, beaming at the two of them.
“What the hell are you standing there grinning like a goon for?” Sam asked.
“I’m going. I won’t let you down. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve got anything.”
“Go!” After he scrambled through the ER doors, she glanced at Malone. “Sheesh, was I ever that green?”
“Nope,” he said without hesitation. “You came in with the sensibilities of a captain. Why do you think I’ve been watching my back all these years?”
Staggered by the compliment, Sam stared at him. “I’m sorry if I’ve let you down.”
“I’ll bet your friend is wondering where you are. Why don’t you go on back and check on him? I’ll give you both a lift when he’s sprung.”
She rested a hand on his arm. “Don’t let them take me off O’Connor, Captain. Don’t let them.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
CHAPTER 22
Sam made her way back down the long hallway, pausing just before Nick’s room to lean against the wall and collect herself. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Malone had said. Was she in love with Nick? Is that why she’d allowed things with him to progress even though she knew it was wrong and could get her into a shit load of trouble? Had she maybe always loved him? Way back to the first time they met?
With a soft groan, she tipped back her aching head. She hadn’t loved Peter but discovered that far too late. When Nick failed to call her after their night together—or so she thought—she’d been seriously depressed. Peter came to the rescue, offering a shoulder to cry on and a friend to lean on. It had been easy, too easy she later realized, to get swept up by him.
Now, on top of everything else she’d learned about him, she knew he intercepted Nick’s calls while pretending to offer comfort, proving he was an even bigger asshole than she had given him credit for being. He had robbed her of a lot more than four years of her life. He had taken her self-esteem, caused her to question her judgment, stolen her self-respect and left her confidence in tatters.
A smart woman would be leery of making another mistake after the whopper she’d made with Peter. A smart woman would go slow with Nick, would take her time, would make sure she was doing the right thing. As the clank of metal against metal reminded her she had a very angry man to deal with, she decided she clearly wasn’t as smart as she’d always thought.
Pasting a big smile on her face, she stepped into the room, her stomach aching from the tension. “Great! You’re all done.”
All but smoking with rage, Nick said, “Get these things off me, Sam. Right now.”
“I’d be happy to.” She dug the key out of her pocket and dangled it in front of him. “But before I do, let’s get one thing straight. I need you to stay out of my work stuff. Agree to that, and I’ll let you go.”
“How do you know I don’t plan to let you go once you unlock me?”
The question sent a surprising jolt of fear through her. “Well, I guess that’ll be up to you, won’t it?” she said with more bravado than she felt.
“Unlock me. Now.”
“Not until you agree.”
“I’m not agreeing to anything while I’m locked to a bed. If you want to unlock me and talk this through like rational adults, then that’s fine.”
She studied his furious, handsome face for a long moment. “You’re awfully sexy when you’re pissed.” Leaning down, she kissed the bandage over his left eye.
The kiss seemed to defuse him, but only somewhat.
“I’m sorry I locked you up.” When his face twisted with skepticism, she said, “I am sorry. But you have no idea how difficult it is to be a woman in this profession or the daughter of a fallen hero. The last thing I need is some guy on a white horse riding to my rescue as if I can’t handle things myself. As it is, I spend most of every day waiting for it all to blow up in my face.”
“Like it did today?”
“A joke?” she asked, incredulous. “You’re joking about a bomb?”
“Sorry,” he said with chagrin, “it was too good to pass up. Doesn’t mean I think it’s funny. Quite the contrary.” With his free hand, he captured one of hers and brought it to his lips. “Unlock me. I promise not to kill you.”
Knowing that was the best she was going to get and encouraged by the tender gesture, she released the cuffs.
He made a big dramatic show of rubbing his sore wrist for a minute before he got up to reach for his jeans and sweater.
Still uncertain about just how angry he really was, Sam stayed on the far side of the bed while he got dressed. She winced at the flash of pain that crossed his face as he slid his injured foot into an old running shoe the cops had brought from his house.
“Um, Captain Malone is going to take us…well…I guess to my house if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” he said in a testy tone.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she added, “I’d appreciate it if you don’t discuss what happened earlier with him.”
“What? That my girlfriend or sex buddy or whatever you are was nearly blown to bits in my front yard? I shouldn’t mention that?”
She rubbed at eyes gone gritty with exhaustion. After an almost-sleepless night with him, she’d planned to catch a couple of hours on the plane if her nerves allowed it. “I’m asking you to do this for me. He was a lot cooler about me getting caught with you than I expected him to be. It would just be better if you stayed out of it.”
He came around the bed and backed her up to the wall. “You want me to stay out of it?”
“Um, yeah, that would help.” Only her hands on his chest kept him from completely invading her space.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Samantha. I’ve been the guy behind the guy my whole career, and that’s fine with me. But if you think, for one second, I’m going to ride shotgun in my personal life, you’ve got the wrong lapdog on your leash.”
While she should have been pissed at a comment like that, she was ridiculously turned on. She looped a hand around his neck and brought him down for a kiss intended to make him forget all about being mad with her.
With his hands on her hips, he jerked her tight against him.
“I don’t want a lapdog,” she said when she finally came up for air. “That’s not what I’m asking you to be.”
“What are you asking me to be?”
“Do we have to decide that right now? It’s bad enough the whole town’s going to know we’re sleeping together.”
“Damage done,” he said with a bitter laugh that jangled her already frazzled nerves.
“That’s easy for you to say. Your job isn’t on the lin
e.”
“No, it’s not. I lost my job when my boss got himself murdered. Remember?”
“I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to be sniping with you when we’ve got so many bigger things to deal with.”
“See what you just said there? We have so many bigger things to deal with? You just made my point.”
She studied the floor for a moment before she found the courage to bring her eyes back up to meet his. “I’m not used to we.”
He laughed, but at least the anger seemed to be gone. “And you think I am? This is all new ground for me, too, babe.”
“I’m sorry we’re being forced to go public before we’re ready.”
“Something tells me that nothing about you and me is going to be simple or easy. We may as well get used to it. At least you’re calling us ‘we’ now. That’s progress.”
Ignoring that, she said, “So you’ll be cool with the captain?”
“I’ll be cool.”
With her eyes fixed on his, she kissed him softly. “You really are super sexy when you’re all steamed up.”
“Is that so?”
She loved how embarrassed he got when she said stuff like that. “Uh huh.” After patting his face, she headed for the door.
“Samantha?”
She turned back.
“You owe me twenty-six minutes in handcuffs, and I fully intend to collect.”
*
Damn him! When all her attention and focus was needed to deal with the captain and whatever was waiting for her at home, all Sam could think about was being cuffed and at Nick’s mercy for twenty-six minutes. Her whole body tingled with anticipation.
Turning to glare at him, she was rewarded with a shit-eating grin that told her he knew he had rattled her.
“You really are super sexy when you’re all steamed up,” he whispered, earning another furious glare. When he tried to hold hands with her, she tugged hers free and jammed it into her coat pocket where she encountered the cuffs and her bra. Her head pounded, and she began to believe it was possible for a head to actually blow off a neck. As they approached the waiting area, her stomach took a nasty dip that caused her to gasp with pain.
“What?” Nick asked, taking her arm to stop her.
“Stomach.”
“Why don’t we get someone to look at that while we’re here?”
She tugged her arm free. “It’s been checked.”
“It needs to be checked again,” he said, rubbing his hands up and down her arms.
“It’s better.” She stepped out of his embrace. “No PDA in front of the captain or anyone else.”
“You’re not giving me orders, remember?”
“Nick—”
“Sam.”
With a growl of frustration, she marched into the waiting room several strides ahead of him.
Captain Malone put down the Time magazine he’d been flipping through and stood up. “Ready?”
“Yes, sir. Ah, this is Nick. Nick Cappuano.” Gesturing to Nick without looking at him, she added, “Captain Malone.”
While Sam’s stomach grinded, the two men sized each other up as they shook hands and mumbled, “Nice to meet you.”
“On behalf of the department,” Malone said, “I apologize for your injuries and the damage to your home.”
“Not your fault,” Nick said. “However, I’d like to know what’s being done to find the person who tried to kill Sam.”
Sam stared at him, her mouth hanging open. Was that how he planned to stay out of it?
“Let’s get you two out of here, and we’ll talk about it on the way.” He waved his hand and two uniformed officers appeared. “We’ve got press up the wazoo outside the E.R., so Officers Butler and O’Brien are going to get you out through the main door upstairs. I’ll get my car and meet you there.”
“Thank you, sir,” Sam said. The moment the captain was out of earshot she pounced on Nick. “That’s you staying out of it and being cool?”
“What? He knows we’re sleeping together. Wouldn’t I look like a jerk if I didn’t even ask? Do you want him to think I’m a jerk? Wouldn’t it be better for you if he likes me? If he can see why you’d risk so much to be with me right now?”
“Ugh!” She stalked after the uniforms, pretending not to hear him laughing behind her.
*
By the time they had parked in front of her father’s Capitol Hill home, Nick was the captain’s new best friend. They’d bonded over their shared concern for Sam’s safety as well as their passion for the Redskins, politics and imported beer. If Sam hadn’t already been on the verge of puking, she would be now for sure.
She suspected they were using the small talk to mask the underlying tension that surrounded them all as they contemplated what could have happened that morning and the staggering array of implications they were left to contend with. For that reason, and that reason only, she decided not to kill Nick for defying her.
Her stomach clutched when she saw the chief’s car parked on Ninth Street. No doubt he and her father were in there concocting a plan to lock her up somewhere until she testified.
As they approached the house, Sam glanced at Captain Malone. “Um, sir, could you give us just a second?”
“Sure. I’ll see you in there.”
After he had gone inside, Nick turned to her. “I know what you’re going to say, but I was just trying to make conversation—”
She went up on tiptoes to plant a kiss on him.
Startled, he said, “What was that for?”
“Just wanted to.”
“Are you intentionally trying to keep me off balance?”
“It’s not intentional, but if it’s working…”
“I figured I was in for another tongue-lashing—and not the good kind.”
She smiled. “I just wanted to tell you that my dad has some feeling in his right hand, so when I introduce you…” She shrugged. “If you wanted to squeeze his hand, it’d mean something to him. And to me.”
Nick put his arms around her, drew her in close and kissed the top of her head. “Thank you for telling me.”
“He’s going to be all wound up about the bomb and stuff, so he might not even notice you. Don’t be offended by that.”
“I won’t.”
“I hope you didn’t use up all your charm on the captain,” she said, rubbing her belly, “because my dad’s the one who counts. You know that, right?”
“Of course I do. It’s going to be fine, babe. Don’t worry or your stomach will start up.”
She eyed him with amusement. “Starting to see the pattern?”
“Yep. Let’s get this over with before you work yourself into a full-blown episode.”
“Might be too late,” she muttered. Taking one last deep breath, she led him up the ramp to the front door and stepped into a room full of cops.
Celia pounced on her. “Oh my God, Sam!” Her tears dampened Sam’s cheek. Stepping back to run her hands over Sam as if to take inventory, Celia said, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She did a little spin. “See? Everything still attached and working.”
Celia raised an eyebrow. “You lied to me last night when you said you were going to work.”
Sam squirmed under her future stepmother’s stern glare. “Um, yeah, I do that every now and then. Lie, that is. Is that going to be a problem for you?”
Celia cast an appreciative glance at Nick over Sam’s shoulder and smiled. “If he’s the reason, I guess I can forgive you. This one time.”
Sam introduced her to Nick, and when she couldn’t avoid it for a second longer, she met her father’s steely stare from across the room. She went over to him and bent to kiss his cheek. “I’m sorry you were worried.”
“I went past worried about three hours ago, but we’ll get to that. Who’ve you got with you?”
Knowing her father was already fully aware of who Nick was, Sam nodded to Nick anyway. “Dad, this is Nick Cappuano.”
As instructed, Nick squeezed Skip’s right hand. “Pleased to meet you, Deputy Chief Holland.”
“Excellent sucking up. I’d say someone prepared you well to meet her old man.”
“I wouldn’t know what you mean, sir.”
Skip’s eyes danced with mirth. “That from this morning?” he asked, referring to the bandage over Nick’s eye.
“Yeah, but I’ll live.”
Sam re-introduced Nick to Chief Farnsworth.
“Detective Higgins, ma’am,” the other cop said to Sam. “Explosives.”
“I’ve seen you around,” Sam said, although she couldn’t believe he was a detective. With his sandy hair cut into a flat top over a baby face, he barely looked old enough to be out of the academy. “What’d you find?”
“Two EDs on your car.” For the benefit of Nick and Celia, he added, “Explosive devices—one on the ignition and a backup. Only one detonated. Both of them go, we’re not having this conversation.”
Sam swallowed hard and didn’t object when Nick’s hand landed on the small of her back.
“That’s not all,” Higgins said. “When we did a sweep of the other cars in the area, we found two more attached to a black BMW.”
Nick and Sam gasped.
“Registered to you, Mr. Cappuano.”
As if all her bones had turned to mush, Sam sank to the sofa. “Why?” she whispered. “Why would they target him?”
“We were just discussing that when you came in,” Chief Farnsworth said. “If it’s Johnson or their pals, the best theory I’ve heard yet is ‘you take mine, I’ll take yours.’ Revenge, pure and simple. Johnson wanted you either dead or decimated. How would they’ve known his car?”
“I’ve been in it,” Sam confessed. “Recently. And I’ve had the feeling someone was watching me a few times.”
“Detective Cruz suggested a link to O’Connor rather than Johnson,” Malone said. “Worth looking into, especially since they targeted Nick, too.”
Farnsworth turned to Nick. “Do you know of anything Senator O’Connor was involved in that had ties to terrorists or terrorism?”
“He was on the Homeland Security Committee, working mostly on the immigration issue, but he was briefed on counterterrorism initiatives. We both were.”