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Sam, sitting in the corner of her couch in her sitting room, gripped the cup in her hands and stared at the busy hallway, long having lost count of all the people who’d traipsed in and out of her house. Sam desperately wanted to take a sip of coffee but she didn’t trust her shaking fingers to get it where it needed to be without spilling.
She was a wreck and she wasn’t afraid to admit it.
Sam rested her temple against the fabric of her sofa, the last minute of Ross’s life playing on a loop on the big screen of her mind. His wild, evil-saturated eyes, his hand dropping, his shocked expression. The round, red hole between his eyes, that tiny trickle of blood.
Someone perched on the sofa next to Sam and it took enormous effort to drag her eyes open.
Sam tried to smile at Will but it would be a while before that happened. “Hey.”
Will, her hands covered with surgical gloves, sent her a sympathetic smile. “How are you doing, Sam?”
“Funny, I feel like my friend just tried to kill me. Pretty bad, actually,” Sam said, her voice thin with exhaustion. Sam plucked at her dressing gown. “Where’s Jett? And I need to change. Can’t I go... somewhere else?”
Will shook her head. “Jett and Kelby and his two guys have all been transported to the station for questioning.”
Sam felt like she’d been hit by a cattle prod. “Ross was about to hurt me! Jett saved me!”
“I know he did, honey.” Will soothed her. “But he did kill someone and we need to take his statement and, because it involves Pytheon, we have to do this by the book. Luckily, everything that was said in the house was captured by Pytheon’s bugs and cameras so everything they say will be backed up by those audio and video files. They’ll be an hour or two. No more.”
“Don’t you need my statement too?”
“Yeah, but you’re the victim so that can wait,” Will said. “As for your clothes, the crime scene tech will be with you soon. You’ll change into surgical scrubs and she’ll photograph you, take your clothes and she’ll scrape your nails and comb your hair for trace evidence.”
“He barely touched me except to grab my hair,” Sam protested.
“Let’s do it by the book, okay?” Will suggested, her eyes warm. “Are you going to drink that coffee or not?”
Sam shook her head. “I can’t get the cup to my mouth, I’m shaking too much.”
Will wrinkled her nose. “I’d offer to help you but I don’t want to touch you until you’ve been processed. And that sucks because, right now, I want to give you the biggest hug.”
Sam’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s okay.”
“Stone is on his way and I called Fern but I can’t reach her,” Will said. “Jett said to tell you that’ll he back with you as soon as he possibly can. Can you hang tough for a little while longer?”
She didn’t have much choice. Sam nodded as Will stood up. “I really want to shower, Will, and change.”
But, more than anything, she wanted Jett.
“I’ll try and make that happen, honey.” Will touched her fingers to her lips and blew her a kiss. “I’m so glad you are okay, Sam. When I got the call, my heart nearly stopped.”
“Yeah, mine too.” Literally. She was running out of lives.
Fifteen minutes later, the crime scene technician, dressed in a white overall with a white hood and a face mask and goggles covering most of her face, walked into the room. Sam understood the gloves and suit, the face mask but the goggles were usually used in situations where there was a lot of blood. Sam frowned when the woman gestured for her to stand up, thinking that Will and her team were really taking the collection of forensic evidence seriously if their crime scenes techs were treating this scene like a horror house massacre.
Exhausted, emotionally and physically played out, Sam didn’t resist when the technician gripped her elbow and led her out of the hall and into the kitchen. Sam scrunched up her face at the bright sunlight pouring through the open window that looked out onto the road and a quick glance outside told her that her yard was teeming with police and there was a row of gawkers standing beyond the yellow tape, drinking their early morning coffee and getting their morning news firsthand. Numerous phones were pointed at her house and Sam thought she might, within an hour or two, become an Internet sensation. The news trucks would be on their way.
The crime scene tech jerked her head and the policeman who was standing just inside the doorway drifted out, obeying her silent order to vacate the room. So, she was going to be processed in her kitchen. Sam hoped the tech dropped the blinds first.
Walking over to the counter, Sam stopped, wishing this day was over and felt the familiar sensation of a gun barrel being pointed into her ribs. “One word, one suggestion that you are calling for help and I’ll blow you away.”
Aw, fuck. Again?
Then the thought hit her that she knew the voice, rough with vitriol and hatred, but damn, and again, she knew the voice as well as she knew her own. The voice had sung happy birthday to her every year for most of her life, had tucked her in, sung her to sleep. The owner of the voice constantly told Sam she was loved, had attended her high school and college graduations, made her chicken soup when she was sick, had helped her with her homework.
Sam gripped the edge of the counter and tossed a distraught look over her shoulder, finally seeing the faded blue eyes behind the mask, a lock of brown hair falling out from under her hood.
“Mary? Fuck! Mary?” Sam’s voice lifted and the barrel of the gun pushed into her ribs. Damn, that hurt but not, she was sure, as much as a bullet would. Funny, she doubted a bullet would hurt as much as the knowledge that her second mother was planning on killing her.
“Keep your voice down!” Mary hissed in her ear. “This ends here and it ends now.”
Sam, now furious, whirled around and, ignoring the gun, stared into Mary’s eyes. “Then if you are going to kill me, at least have the decency to do it without hiding behind the mask and the goggles. Let the Pytheon cameras capture you in all your glory.”
Mary’s little laugh crawled over Sam’s skin. “I’m not stupid, Samantha. On the way in, I told the boys in the surveillance van that Seth asked me to tell them to shut it down, to report back to HQ.”
Sam’s heart sank.
“And then I watched them drive away,” Mary added.
So, damn, no audio and no video. Sam gripped the counter behind her, furious but clear thinking. She searched Mary’s masked face, looking for a hint of the woman she’d loved all her life. “Want to tell me what this is all about, Mary? But, first, how do you intend on leaving here after you shoot me in a house full of people?”
“Like Jett’s weapon, this one also has a silencer so nobody will hear a damn thing. And I’ll leave the same way I came in, disguised as a CSU. I’ll tell the guy on the door that you are upset, that you need ten minutes alone, that you have been through a hell of an ordeal. He’ll buy it.”
Damn, that plan would probably work too. Keep calm, Sam. But inside she was screaming “Mary is going to kill me!”
“Can you tell me why?” Sam asked, buying time.
“Because it was always the plan,” Mary replied, her voice cold and matter of fact. “I always intended to kill you and Stone, to destroy from the inside out. I plan on taking care of Stone soon, and your dreadful friend, Fern, and then I will, because I can, take over Pytheon. Fitting that their arch enemy should run the business Jasper so loved.”
Arch enemy? Who was their arch... Mary’s words were a punch to her stomach. “You are The Recruiter?”
Through the goggles Mary’s eyes glinted with amusement. Someone shouldn’t look so gleeful when they were about to kill, it went against all the laws of nature. Then again, so did Mary. How the hell had this happened?
“Why, Mary? If you’re going to kill me then give me a damn explanation that I can believe.”
Mary’s bird-like shoulders lifted and fell. “I like power. I liked holding it, feeling it, tasting it. I learned that from Jasper. I like having the power of life and death. People are like sheep, you’ve just got to prod and poke them in the right place and they do what you want them to. Oh, and I like money, very much.”
“So, you just woke up one morning and decided that you were going to become a megalomaniac, psychopathic traitor?” Sam’s voice started to rise but she dropped it to a hiss when Mary’s gun pushed into Sam’s stomach.
“Well, my training within the CIA and your father pushed me into it.”
“How did he do that?”
“I was one of the best spies of my generation and I, literally, had a licence to kill. I met Jasper in Berlin and we clicked. We shared everything; it was our dream to start up Pytheon, my idea. I worked counterintelligence and I had a knack for computers and technology. He had the resources to set up the organization. Our only disagreement was around our clientele. I suggested that he not be so patriotic, that there were many people who had a lot of money who wanted to be Pytheon’s clients but he refused to deal with who he called enemies of the US.”
“You were his right hand.”
“I was also his lover, his soul mate. We had something special but then he met and married your mother and they had you two brats. After she died, he came crawling back to me, insisting that we couldn’t let anyone know that he was sleeping with his secretary. His secretary? I was doing what Seth does now!”
Sam didn’t need Mary to continue; she’d been wanting to brag for years, possibly for decades.
“Then it all fell apart. Jasper started grooming Stone to take over Pytheon—my company!—and then Jasper told me that he was moving me to another division, that he didn’t love me anymore.”
“He went to the Met Ball with Courtney Billings. He told the press that he thought she was special, that he could see himself marrying her.”
Sam winced, remembering how happy her father had been after meeting Courtney. Two weeks later he was dead. So, really this was about unrequited love and the loss of power.
“We were in an on-off relationship for over thirty years and he thought that he could move me on? Three dates with that Hollywood slut and he’s talking forever?”
Behind the goggles, Sam saw Mary’s descent into madness and knew she was running out of time. To get more information and to save herself.
“So, you decided to take revenge on him by ruining his company and destroying his children.”
“I told him I would as I injected insulin into him. It was my last promise to him and I always, always keep my promises.”
“But The Recruiter is technologically savvy, brilliant even. You suck at computers!”
Mary’s laugh sounded like it always did, high and girly but, for the first time, Sam heard the malice underneath. “Everything I did as The Recruiter, every deal I set up, every person I contacted, every kid I lured was done from inside Pytheon. That processing power, that speed.” Mary shivered in delight. “You all think Seth is so brilliant, Cracker so marvelous, none of you realized that I could run rings around them, technologically. I helped your father set up the computer systems, I know where the loopholes are, hell, I even built some in.”
Sam felt bile burn the back of her throat. “How many operations did you compromise?”
“If they didn’t affect me, I left Stone and Seth to do what they did. There was no point in taking unnecessary risks.”
“You fired on my house, you planted that bug on my dress, you killed Raul,” Sam whispered, horrified.
“There are people out there, doing what Pytheon does but they have, luckily for me, no morals. They like money. We have a mutually beneficial arrangement. I planted the bug but they do the dirty work.”
“Why did you spare our lives that night my house was fired on?”
“I like seeing your fear, I like watching you suffer.” Mary’s answer was simple. “But since Jett won’t let anyone near you, he’s taking the fun out of the game. So, I’m going to console Stone while he mourns you and then, in a month or two, when he starts to recover a bit, I’ll move onto him. Or maybe I’ll have Fern killed first, she’s like another sister to him.”
She was diabolical. Insane. But, unlike Sam, Mary wasn’t stupid. Sam was supposed to be one of the top forensic psychologists in the country and she’d been fooled by two people, both of whom she loved.
If she happened to survive this, and that was not likely, her career was doomed. And, more importantly, Jett would never know she loved him, that she wanted a life with him.
Sam shuffled an inch to the side, trying to release the pressure of the gun pushing into her side. She moved her fingers along the counter and felt the outline of the weapon Jett taped there earlier. Holy shiiitt. She had a gun.
That meant she had a chance.
“Stone! Stone, over here! Can we have a comment?”
Sam heard the yells from the press and so did Mary, her head turning toward the window. Mary cursed, and spun Sam around, putting the gun to the base of her neck. Sam stamped down on her instep, Mary stumbled to the side and Sam grabbed the pistol, swinging it backward, her finger on the trigger. She angled it to the side, pulled the trigger and the gun kicked in her hand, heat and sound and fury filling the room.
Sam spun around and pushed Mary away. Mary screamed, touched her stomach and looked down at her bloodstained hands. Her features twisting with fury, Mary looked at her dripping fingers and, her lip curling, she lifted her gun. Sam, not hesitating, curled her finger around her trigger and pulled, again and again, not stopping until the clip was empty and Mary’s snow-white forensic coveralls was filled with holes and stained a bright red.
Dead. Sam looked down at the woman she’d loved and whom she thought loved her. Sam stared into her fading eyes, saw evil dying and knew that Mary was gone. Only then did she allow the gun to drop to the floor and her tears to fall.
Thanks to the fact Stone was connected to some very powerful people, and because they had surveillance footage of the day’s events—including Mary’s attempt on her life because the Pytheon surveillance team only took orders from Stone and Seth and lately Jett.—Sam’s house was flooded with crime scene technicians and was processed with speedy efficiency. It was released to her shortly after midnight and, over a late meal that nobody ate, Jett and Stone both promised that they would accompany her to her house in the morning.
She needed, they agreed, to walk back into the space and reclaim it as her own, to climb—their words, not hers—back on the horse. Sam agreed.
She just wasn’t prepared to wait and shortly after two in the morning, Sam slammed the door to her taxi closed and stood on the curb looking at the wood board-covered windows and the yellow crime scene tape fluttering in the cold night wind. Sam shuddered and gathered the remnants of her courage. Clutching her front door key in her hand, she made her way up to her front door, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps.
God, she wished Jett was with her.
This is just one of the many things you are going to do on your own from now on, Red, so suck it up, cupcake. His bodyguarding duties were over, he’d saved her life, and he had other priorities now. He was going to go back to running into and out of foreign countries, hurtling into and out of situations, all of which could turn dangerous on a gust of wind.
He was going back to being Jett and she’d have to go back to being Sam, but who was that person? Sam didn’t even know if she had a career anymore. Who was going to trust a forensic psychologist who failed to identify not one but two psychos in her life? She was a joke...
Oh, she had enough money to last the rest of her life but that wasn’t the point. She wanted her life back, her career, her calling. She also wanted Jett as her lover, a couple of kids sometime in the future but that was fantastical and absurd, much like her childhood wish for a unicorn.
God, no Jett and no job, what was she going to do? Who was she going to be?
Sam shivered and lifted her shaking hand to put the key in the door, missing the first time. Then a strong hand covered hers, the key found its hole, and the door opened. Sam inhaled Jett’s just showered, sexy scent and her heart settled and sighed. Stupid thing.
As the door opened, Sam looked at Jett and raised her eyebrows. She’d left him in bed at Stone’s Lennox Hill house, his skin tanned against the white sheets of her old bed. “I thought you were asleep.”
“Honey, I’m always going to know when you leave me,” Jett said in his soft, growly voice as he guided her into the hallway. Sam reached for the hallway switch and light revealed the chaos within.
“I thought we were going to do this in the morning?” Jett asked, pushing his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. His eyes were steady on her face, full of concern. “And why do you feel like you need to confront the ghosts alone?”
Because I am going to be alone, Sam silently replied. Being alone is going to be who I am, what I do. Instead of answering, Sam looked around, her nose wrinkling at the smudges of fingerprint ink covering the bannister, making obscene patterns on her wall. Sam saw the two bullet holes in her wall, remembered their hiss and their heat as they passed by her head. She felt lightheaded and extended her hand to Jett. When his hand covered hers, his strength flowed into her and her head cleared.
Jett walked over to the staircase and sat down on the third step, tugging her down to sit next to him, shoulders pressing together, thighs aligned. Sam stared at the ragged hem of his jeans, his big boots.
“Quite an interesting day, huh?” Jett said, cupping her knee with his big hand.
Sam released a small laugh. Only a Special-Ops soldier could call her day interesting. Terrifying, sad, earth shattering were better words to sum up the last twenty hours.
Sam wrapped her arms around her waist and looked across the hall to the kitchen. She had to ask him, maybe he knew the answer. “How did I miss it, Jett?”
“Miss what, Sam?”
“Their evil, the craziness.”
Jett’s fingers squeezed her knee. “What? They didn’t give out a crystal ball with those big-ass degrees of yours? Or is yours broken?”
Sam ignored his gentle sarcasm. “I’m a trained professional, Jett. Not once did I consider either of them as being a serial killer or The Recruiter.”
“Okay, let’s talk this through,” Jett said, his voice patient. “While you took that two-hour bath earlier, I read the background check that both Cracker and Seth did on Knox. It was as he said, Sam, there was nothing that suggested he was psycho. Solid upbringing, solid school record. Popular with the schoolmates, with the ladies. Smart as hell. If it wasn’t for Cracker managing to prove that he was in all cities where the murders took place, his attack on you and his confession, we’d be swinging in the wind. No DNA, nothing. Law enforcement is shocked, they can’t believe it either, his colleagues are gutted. He didn’t just fool you, Sam.”
That made her feel slightly better. “I might be forgiven for not spotting one killer but two? Every time someone considers me for a job, they are going to think that I was snowed by not one but two psychos. My credibility is shot.”
“You’re tired and overreacting,” Jett said, a commanding note in his voice.
“And Pytheon’s reputation is going to take a hit, Jett,” Sam said, leaning her temple on his shoulder. Jett turned his head to place a kiss in her hair.
“Yeah, it probably is. A world renowned, hard ass security operation who was, unknowingly, harbouring an international criminal? Yeah, they are going to take some flak.”
Sam felt the burn of tears, thinking of how hard Stone worked, how much he believed in Pytheon and the work they did. He had to be feeling gutted, like his world had ended. Sam placed her face in her hands, grief and anger rocking her.
Jett’s big hand drew comforting circles on her back. “But I think both you and Pytheon are going to be just fine. Sydney—”
“Who?”
“Stone’s bodacious Barbie.”
Ah, the brunette Stone was not dating but wanted to.
“That operation is going ahead and, as Seth informed me, if they pull it off, Pytheon’s reputation will be thoroughly restored.”
“Will they pull it off?” Sam asked, worried. She didn’t bother asking for details, if Jett had any, he wouldn’t share.
“Of course they will. It’s a risk but, hell, if anyone can do it it’ll be Kelby and Seth, with Cracker’s help.”
“Are you going to be involved?”
Jett hauled in a sigh and when her eyes looked into his she saw regret but determination. Jett had other plans and they didn’t include working for Pytheon anymore. Dammit.
“What are you going to do about this house?” Jett asked, changing the subject.
Sam shrugged. “Clean it up, paint it, sell it. I’ll probably have to take a financial hit since two people died here but I have to sell it; I can’t see myself living here again. Too many memories.”
“So where will you go?” Jett quietly asked.
“I might stay with Stone or move in with Fern. I don’t know, I haven’t thought that far.” She hadn’t thought much beyond how she was going to deal with Jett walking out of her life.
“I have a better idea. I’m renting an apartment in Harlem and it’s up for sale. We can either buy it together or we can look for another place, in the city or somewhere else, I don’t care.”
Sam pulled back to look at him, thinking he was joking but he looked utterly serious. “You want us to live together?”
Jett pushed a curl off her forehead and tried to smile. “Yeah. I want you to get your consulting practice going again, to get back to your research. I want to be there when you wake up and hold you while you fall asleep. I want to be with you.”
Sam’s heart felt like it was about to kick its way through her chest. “And what will you do?”
She saw a flicker of panic in Jett’s eyes, a smidgeon of regret. “I’ll consult. Maybe hire on as a security specialist. I’m sure there is something I can do that doesn’t take me away from you, that doesn’t put me in danger.”
Jett looked around her hallway before wiping his hand across his face. “I get it, Sam. Seeing you in danger from Knox and then nearly losing you to Mary, I get it. I get the worry and the despair and the feeling that you need a defibrillator on hand. I love you, I hope that you might feel something close for me, but either way, if you need me to be safe, I’ll be safe. If it means being with you...”
Sam didn’t say anything; she couldn’t make the cords in her throat work, so she just stared at him, trying to process this new batch of information.
But Jett, sounding nervous, just kept talking. “Maybe, in a few years, or months, we could have a kid. I heard that raising kids is like a war zone so I’ll get my adrenalin high from looking after them.”
It was such a generous offer, so honorable. Sam placed the sides of her hands to her lips, unable to believe what she was hearing. If she heard Jett correctly, he loved her and he’d give her what she wanted, a lover who didn’t put himself in danger, who was prepared to sacrifice his compulsion to serve and protect to love her, to make her feel emotionally safe.
She was honored, she was humbled...
She couldn’t do it.
“I’m sorry, Jett, that’s not going to work for me.”
Sam saw the devastation in Jett’s eyes but before she could explain, he was on his feet and walking toward the door. Oh, hell no! That wasn’t the way this was going to go!
Sam sprang to her feet, flew across the hallway, and launched herself at his back, hooking her legs around his waist and her arms around her neck. “Slow down, Legend.”
Jett started to pull her arms away from him and Sam could feel the tension in his body, the pain he was trying so desperately to hide.
“I love you and because I love you, I will not ask you to be less than you can be.” Sam spoke the words, clearly and concisely in his ear.
Jett slammed to a stop and Sam slid down his body, ducking under his arm to stand in front of him, her hands sneaking under the open flaps of his jacket to rest on his chest.
Jett looked confused. “Want to explain that statement a little more, Red?”
Oh, he sounded calm but Sam could feel his rapid heartbeat under her hand, she could see the way his Adam’s apple was moving up and down his throat. She noticed the hope in his eyes...
“I’m not going to ask you to be less than who you are and who you are is a warrior, Jett. You need to be out there, with Seth and Kelby, righting wrongs.”
The tips of Jett’s fingers touched her face. “And you? Us?”
“I’m going to trust that you will be okay. I’m going to trust that you’ll come home to me as soon as you can, as often as you can. There will be days when I am going to hate the situation, when I will probably bitch and whine but I promise that my love will never be conditional. When you decide to change careers it will be because it will be something you, and only you, want to do.”
“God, Sam.” Jett’s arms pulled her into him and he pushed his face into her neck. For the first time, Sam felt him shaking. She rubbed her hand across his back. There were just one or two things she still had to say. “If you die, I promise that I will dig you up and beat you back to death.”
Jett’s laugh pushed air into her neck. “Fair deal. But I have no intention of dying, I have far too much to live for.”
Sam nodded, feeling at peace. Oh, this wasn’t going to be easy but they’d make it. They had love on their side. “Did you mean it about loving me? About sharing a place, having babies?”
Jett stood up and held her face, gently kissing her before nodding. “I do love you, so much. Yes to the apartment and yes to the babies.”
Sam blinked away her happy tears. “I know it’s not traditional but since I’m on a roll and I’m getting all these yesses... will you marry me?”
Jett’s full, joy-filled smile chased away the last of her fears, melted the last ice chips of worry. “Hell to the yes, Red. Pick a date and I’ll be there.”
“Good deal,” Sam murmured as his mouth covered hers.
It was, Sam decided as her world held her in his strong arms and kissed her, a very good deal indeed.
The End
