Chapter 25
The Watergate lobby was mobbed, but when Nick walked in the mob went silent, parting to allow him passage to the elevator. He recognized some of the faces—his grandmother, his father, Mr. Pacheco from seventh grade science, Lucy Jenkins who’d lived next door and Graham O’Connor. Why was he here? With the vote this afternoon, John wouldn’t have time for one of their regular lunches.
Nick tried to tell him John was busy, but Graham wouldn’t listen. He just smiled, like he knew something Nick didn’t know. Behind him, was that…Sam? Sam Holland? She hadn’t returned his calls, but that was a long time ago. He’d always wanted to see her again. Reaching out, he tried to get to her.
She smiled and slipped away.
“No! Not again. Come back. Sam!”
John’s sister Lizbeth cried and clawed at him, her face red and swollen. “John’s hurt! Help him, Nick. Help him!”
Nick ran for the elevator, pushed the up button frantically, but the doors wouldn’t open. Banging on the metal doors until his hands were bruised, he finally bolted for the stairs and ran up six flights. Gasping for air, he emerged into the hallway. A woman dashed from John’s apartment carrying a bloody knife, her face covered by a knitted scarf.
“John!” Nick sprinted into the apartment.
“Hey, Cappy,” John said, emerging from the bedroom, blood coursing from the open wound in his neck. “What’s up?”
“John…” Nick pressed his hands against John’s neck, trying to make it stop. How could he lose this much blood and stay conscious? “Help! Somebody help us!”
“It’s okay, Cappy.” John’s hand landed on Nick’s shoulder. “I’ll be all right.”
Nick looked up to find John’s face morphing into a smiling skeleton. He screamed.
“Nick,” Sam said. “Wake up. Babe, wake up.”
His head ached, his mouth was dry, his eyes gritty. “What?”
Sam brushed the hair off his forehead and kissed his cheek. “You were dreaming.”
Nick rested a hand over his racing heart. “John was there. He was still alive. There was so much blood. I tried to make it stop.” His throat tightening, he closed his eyes. “I couldn’t stop it.”
She held him close, running her fingers through his hair. “You couldn’t have stopped it,” she whispered.
“The stuff I’ve found out about him…since it happened… None of it matters. He was my friend.”
“Yes.” She pressed her lips to his forehead. “That’ll never change.”
“He was the closest thing to a brother I’ve ever had. We had this…language. It was all ours. The staff used to shake their heads when we’d get going. They had no idea what we were talking about. But we did. We always did.”
Sam tightened her hold on him.
“I miss him,” he whispered. “I really miss him. I just can’t believe I’m never going to see him again.”
“I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could say.”
“You’re helping.” He raised his head, met her eyes.
She leaned in to kiss him. “I want to get the person who did this for his parents and his family. But mostly I want it for you.”
“I’m apt to be a bit of a mess for a while.”
“That’s all right.”
He rested his hand over the hideous bruise on her chest. “This is a hell of a time for us to be starting something. You know that, don’t you?”
“Worst possible time.”
“So it stands to reason we’ll be able to deal with just about anything if we can get through this.”
“I guess we’ll find out.” She smiled and caressed his face. “I need to get back to work.”
“I know. Did you sleep?”
“Big time. I didn’t think I would.”
“You needed it. We both did.” He leaned in to kiss her once more. “Are you or your dad going to mind that I plan to stay here with you until this is over?”
“No. I like having you here, and he doesn’t really care, despite the grief he might give you.”
“I need to go home at some point to get some clothes and make sure the condo association took care of getting the windows fixed.”
“We can arrange that.” She sat up and stretched. “I’m going to grab a shower. Care to join me?”
“I’d love to, but I’m not going to push my luck. I’ll go after you.”
“Wimp.”
“Yep.”
She laughed as she slipped into a robe, and the sound warmed him. He was surprised to realize she had made him feel better, even as the sickening images from the dream lingered. After Sam went into the bathroom, he sat up, gripping his pounding head. The concussion they’d called minor was making a major statement, and whatever they’d used to numb the cut over his eye had worn off, leaving a dull, throbbing ache.
He felt kind of foolish about unloading on Sam, but she hadn’t seemed to mind. Having someone to share the ups and downs with was something he could get used to—as long as that someone was her.
He stood up and groaned when his injured foot protested. Reaching for his jeans, he pulled them on and took a good look around the messy room. Sam had a way of exploding into a space, which was in direct conflict with his need for order. Beginning with the clothes piled on the floor, he went to work on the clutter. By the time she emerged from the bathroom fifteen minutes later, the place was almost livable.
Her eyes all but popped out of her skull. “It’s like you can’t help yourself!”
“Just straightening up. No biggie.”
“I won’t be able to find anything!”
“You couldn’t find anything before.”
“I knew exactly where everything was.”
“No way,” he scoffed. “You’re a slob, Samantha.” He bunched the towel she had wrapped around her into his fist and tugged her close enough to kiss. “A sexy, gorgeous slob, but a slob nonetheless.”
Pouting, she tried to break free of him. “Just because I’m not an anal retentive freakazoid, doesn’t mean I’m a slob.”
“Freakazoid? I’m hurt.” With another hard kiss he released her so she could get dressed. “This is going to be a problem when we live together.”
“Live together?” she sputtered, choking on the words. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“You don’t have to act like the idea is totally repulsive.”
She shoved her long legs into jeans. “We haven’t even been together a week, Nick. I mean…come on.”
Not wanting her to see that she’d hurt him by being so dismissive, he turned away from her to look out the window. He churned with things he’d like to say to her, arguments and persuasions she was clearly not ready to hear. As he stared out into the darkness, a shadow across the street caught his eye. Zeroing in for a closer look, he realized someone was watching the house. He ignored the screaming pain in his foot and the pounding in his head when he bolted for the door and flew down the stairs.
Sam called out to him.
Blasting through the front door and down the ramp, he was almost hit by a car as he ran into the street. The blare of the car’s horn startled him, taking his attention off the shadow for just an instant, but that was all it took.
“Watch out, asshole!” the driver yelled out the car window.
By the time Nick recovered his bearings the shadow was long gone.
“Shit! Son of a bitch!”
“What’re you doing?” Sam screamed from the porch.
“Someone was there,” he said, his breath coming out in white puffs in the cold air. “I saw him. Watching the house.”
“So you just run out half-cocked, not to mention half-dressed?”
“What else was I supposed to do?”
She had her hands on her hips in a gesture he recognized by now as her seriously pissed stance. “Um, I don’t know. Maybe tell the cop who was in the room with you?”
He limped back to the ramp and started up to where she waited for him. “I didn’t think of it. All I thought about was getting him.”
“And what were you going to do with him once you got him?”
Squirming under the heat of her blue-eyed glare, he shrugged. “I would’ve figured something out.”
“That’s exactly how civilians get themselves killed by the hundreds every year, thinking they can take the law into their own hands.”
“I don’t need you to lecture me or to keep using the word civilian like it’s some kind of vermin.”
“Vermin’s got to be smarter than you just were.”
“I almost had him.”
“You almost got flattened by a car!”
Fuming, they stood there spitting nails at each other.
“Um, ’scuse me, but ah, I’m back,” Freddie said from the sidewalk. “You said I should come here and, um…”
“Come up,” Sam said, never taking her eyes off Nick. “Go in. I’ll be right there.”
“Gotcha, boss,” Freddie said with a sympathetic smile for Nick as he went by them. “Good to see you again, Mr. Cappuano.”
“Likewise,” Nick said, still focused on Sam. “And you can call me Nick.”
“You should’ve told me what you saw,” Sam said after the door closed behind Freddie. “If you had, I could’ve called it in, and maybe we would’ve nabbed him. Instead, you go off on a Rambo mission that yielded squat.”
Nick contemplated that. “You might have a point.”
“I might? Really? Wow, thanks.”
“I’m sorry, all right?” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I just reacted. So shoot me for wanting to get whoever is stalking you.”
“How do you know they’re not stalking you?”
“Because I’m a whole lot more boring than you are.”
“You’re not boring. Stupid occasionally, but never boring.”
“Thank you. I think.”
“Did you get a good look at him?”
He shook his head. “Nothing but a shadow, but that shadow was definitely watching this house.”
“If you see him again, tell me.” She pinched his chest hair and tugged just hard enough to raise him to his tiptoes and bring tears to his eyes. “Don’t you dare risk yourself like that again. You got me?”
“I got it,” he said through gritted teeth. After she released him, he rubbed a hand over his chest. “I only let you get away with that shit because I was taught it’s bad manners to flatten a woman, even if she deserves it.”
“Whatever,” she retorted on her way back into the house where Skip, Celia and Freddie waited for them.
Skip’s sharp eyes skirted over Nick’s bare chest and feet.
“Um, I’m going to go find a shirt,” Nick said, starting up the stairs.
“Might not be a bad idea,” Skip said.
“Leave him alone, Dad,” Sam said. “He’s already convinced you’re going to have him killed.”
“Also not a bad idea. Why didn’t I think of it?”
“Dad…”
“Relax and let me have some fun with the boy, will you? I so rarely get to have any fun these days.”
Freddie smirked.
“What’re you smiling at, Cruz?”
The smile faded. “Not a thing, ma’am. Not one thing.”
“I assume you’re not just here to bum another meal. What’ve you got for me?”
“Some of the others are heading over from HQ to help out,” he said. “Want me to wait and brief everyone at the same time?”
“Give me the highlights.”
By the time he had run through it, she had paced a path in the living room rug.
“I was thinking on the plane ride home,” Freddie said, “that the other women he dated were like substitutes for the one he couldn’t have. All of them resemble her in basic features, and I’m no shrink, but maybe he turned on the kink with them because he was frustrated he couldn’t be with the one he wanted.”
“That’s probably why he freaked when Natalie pressured him about getting married. In his own twisted way, he felt like he was already married, even if he was unfaithful to her. I mean, how does he marry someone else when she’s off raising his kid in Siberia?”
Nick came down the stairs, his hair wet from the shower.
“You heard all that?” Sam asked, alarmed by his pale face and flat eyes.
“Enough to get the gist.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, surprised when he shook off her sympathy.
“Don’t protect me. Do your job. Find out who did it.”
“Okay,” she said, understanding that he was absorbing the blow the best way he knew how. Turning back to Freddie, she was interrupted when the front door swung open. In flooded most of the HQ detectives, carrying platters of food, six packs of beer and soda, and armloads of chips. Each of them paused to squeeze Skip’s hand on their way into the kitchen to deposit the food.
“What the hell is this?” she asked Gonzo.
“They take a stab at you, they take one at all of us,” he said, his chocolate brown eyes fierce. “Everyone’s on their own time. Give us something to do.”
Touched and on the verge of choking up, she said, “Thank you.”
“They posted the LT list today. Congratulations.”
“You’ll be there soon enough,” she said with a twinge of guilt over how she’d gotten there. Gonzo made detective a couple of years after her, so at least she hadn’t snagged a spot from him. “For sure.”
He shrugged. “We’ll see.”
“There was someone out there.” She gestured to the door. “Nick saw him watching the house. He went vigilante on me and scared the guy off.”
“I’ll call it in and get someone posted outside.”
“If it was just me, I wouldn’t want it. But my dad’s here and Celia…”
“Say no more. We’re on it.” He glanced over at Nick. “So. You and the witness, huh?”
She winced. “Don’t.”
Gonzo’s handsome face lit up with amusement. “I won’t, but others will. You have to know that.”
“Hopefully, the gossip mill will run its course and the story will die a natural death when someone else fucks up.”
“Not before you take some serious abuse.”
“I can handle it.”
“Sam?” Nick said. “Why don’t you come have something to eat?”
“He likes to feed me,” she whispered to Gonzo.
“Nothing wrong with that.”
Thirty minutes later, after everyone had eaten, Sam called them into the living room. “Let’s get back to work.”
“Before we do that,” Freddie raised his Coke bottle in salute to Sam, “a toast to my partner, soon-to-be Lieutenant Holland.”
As Sam glared at him and plotted his slow, painful death, the room erupted into applause and whistles. She glanced at her father and found him watching her, his eyes bright with emotion.
He nodded with approval and pleasure—more pleasure than she’d seen on his face in two years.
“All right,” she said, putting a stop to the merriment before they forgot they were there to work on a homicide. “Thanks for the food, the toast and the help. I appreciate it. Before we go any further, I need to ask if you all mind that Nick is here. He’s been very helpful to us on the investigation—”
“He’s been critical,” Freddie said.
Sam sent him a grateful smile. “Still, if anyone’s uncomfortable…”
“No problem for me,” Gonzo said.
The others mumbled their agreement.
Sam released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and turned to Freddie. “In that case, Cruz, let’s hear what you found out in Chicago.”
“You got it, boss.”