CHAPTER TEN
The next Sunday, Paige again accompanied Ivy to Sam’s for another sitting with Jonah. The expected rain never did arrive that week, and it was another bright, clear day. As Paige pulled up to Sam’s house, sunlight filtered through the trio of live oaks in front, dappling the ground.
Since the diner, Paige hadn’t spent much time with Sam, and never one on one. He’d been occupied with paperwork and out-of-office meetings that resulted from the drug raid. Paige had been glad for the time to herself. She was on edge about Thames and was letting too much slip around Sam. She was making mistakes she could not afford.
Despite Sam’s words about trusting him, he was the last person she could trust. She couldn’t let him in. She couldn’t let anyone in. Especially Sam. He was part of the Bureau. His loyalties would be with the Bureau. She had nothing to link Thames to the postcards. If she told Sam that Thames was hunting her, Sam would have no reason to believe her any more than Lewis had.
Paige had picked up her van from Bud a couple of days ago. Ivy sat behind her, tapping the arms of her chair. A glance in the rearview mirror showed Ivy’s gaze was glued to Sam’s house. If not for how much this meant to Ivy, Paige would have stayed at home today. But Jonah had called Ivy on Sam’s cell phone yesterday to invite her to go see the superhero movie, and Paige had overheard Ivy decline the invitation. Ivy wasn’t comfortable spending time with Sam and Jonah on her own. And so here Paige was.
She took in the surroundings, then parked the van. The instant she did, Jonah came bounding out of the house. It was clear he had been watching for their arrival. Ivy lowered the wheelchair platform and met Jonah in the driveway. Just like last time, Jonah launched into speech the moment he saw Ivy.
“I’ve been practicing drawing like you showed me. Want to see?” Jonah walked backward as he spoke.
Ivy’s mouth lifted in a small smile, and her eyes brightened. “Sure.”
Sam came around to Paige’s side of the van as she hoisted her purse and stepped down onto the asphalt driveway.
“Hey,” Sam said.
“Hey.”
He wore a T-shirt and jeans, and again she noticed his solid muscles and powerful legs. But that wasn’t all she saw. His piercing eyes were focused on her, taking her in, and just now they looked as hard as the rest of him.
She didn’t think it was her own jeans and top that made him study her so intently. It struck her again, as if she needed the reminder, that she had to keep her guard up around him.
“Thanks for inviting me to go to the movie, Sam.” Ivy’s gaze dipped. “Sorry I couldn’t make it.”
Sam turned to Ivy, and his hard gaze eased. “There’ll be other movies. Jonah’s making a list.”
Ivy’s shoulders relaxed and she laughed. “And thanks for the breakfast.”
Sam’s gaze softened further. “Anytime.”
Paige had stiffened at the mention of the breakfast, but Sam didn’t say anything more about it, didn’t take the opening to pick up where he’d left off in the diner.
He got Ivy and Jonah settled in the living room, then left Paige briefly to go into the kitchen. He returned with a beer and a glass of wine, which he handed to Paige, then held the sliding door open for her to step ahead of him out to the back deck.
If Sam intended to circle back to where they’d left off in the diner, it was private out here. Her grip on the glass tightened. She wasn’t going to let that happen. He’d gotten all he would from her.
She took her laptop from her purse and set it on one of the wide chairs. The only conversation she would have with Sam was about work. His absence from the office for much of the week left them with plenty to talk about.
Sam gave the laptop a glance but didn’t comment. While her laptop booted, she went to the railing. This place drew her as no other place ever had. Though she was wound as tight as piano wire, being here gave her a sense of peace. She braced her elbows on the solid, knotted wood of the railing, then leaned over as a squirrel retrieved something from the ground to a chorus of birds chirping.
Sam came up beside her. “Paige—”
“You were right about this being a busy office. I can see why you needed another agent.” She didn’t look at Sam, but she hunched her shoulders, drawing in on herself, waiting to see if he would allow the topic. Sam was silent for a moment. She felt the heat of his gaze.
Finally, he said, “Bring me up to speed.”
Paige returned to her laptop. One by one, she called up the appropriate files, then launched into a detailed accounting of progress made on their current cases. “I needed some background, and Mrs. Hendershot has everything, even older cases, on disk.” Paige’s admiration for Mrs. Hendershot was clear in her tone.
“She is the best. She’s been the only admin since the office opened.”
“You made a terrific hire.”
“She was already on the job when I came here.”
“I thought you opened this office,” Paige said.
“It was already in place, staffed by one agent and one admin. The agent was Martin Hendershot.”
“Martin Hendershot?”
“Yeah. Martin was Marian’s husband. He opened the office and brought his wife in as his admin.”
Paige had been about to say it worked out well for Sam that Martin Hendershot had chosen that time to retire or leave the Bureau to pursue other interests, but Sam was speaking of the man in the past tense. Sam’s tone was grave. “Martin was her husband?”
Sam’s mouth firmed. “He was killed. He was driving home from the Columbia office late one night. He stopped on a road in Haldonville, not the best place to be that time of day. He was gunned down. No witnesses came forward and none were found. It was never determined just why he stopped, and his murderer was never apprehended.”
Sam grew quiet, feeling the murder of a fellow agent. Paige felt it, too, as she believed most agents would. “Having her husband’s murder unresolved must weigh heavily on Mrs. Hendershot.” Paige felt sympathy for the woman.
“Yeah.” Sam’s grip on the beer bottle tightened. “That was my first investigation here. I worked it with Central. We were never able to get any answers.”
Paige could see the unresolved murder weighed heavily on Sam, too. He had a strong sense of justice. “It’s hard to accept that Martin Hendershot’s killer may never be found.”
“I don’t want to accept that. The day I accept that killers can get away with murder, I’ll turn in my badge.”
Paige twirled the stem of her glass slowly and gazed into the wine. “Justice doesn’t happen for everyone.” Paige thought of the women Thames had killed. His conviction had been overturned, and the law was clear: even if they could find additional evidence against him, he could not be retried for those murders. A shiver went through her.
Sam reached out and gently raised her chin so their eyes met. His touch—on the heels of her disturbing thoughts—startled her, and her fingers loosened on the glass. Instead of releasing her, Sam’s hand on her face tightened a bit, and his other hand that held his beer moved to grip hers and the glass. His hold was strong, steady, sure. He made her feel something she hadn’t felt in too long: safe. She’d cautioned herself to keep a professional distance from Sam, but she couldn’t step away from him and the safety he represented.
“No, it doesn’t,” Sam said, “but that can’t deter us, and I won’t use instances where justice isn’t had as a benchmark over times when it is. The people we serve need to know they can come to us and we’ll fight for them with everything we are.”
Paige could see he meant those words, that it was a code he lived by. She could see where Jonah got his admiration of heroes—super or otherwise. It made Paige want to believe in heroes, too—to believe in him. She would have, if not for Thames.
Her throat burned, and she felt precariously close to tears. She hadn’t cried in a long time, recognizing the futility of it. The urge to break down in Sam’s arms nearly overwhelmed her. “I can’t do this, Sam. I can’t do this with you.”
Sam’s hold on her tightened. “What can’t you do? I want to help you. Let me help you.”
Paige made a sound of distress. “If you really want to help me, then let this alone. Please.”
Sam’s gaze became gentle. “I won’t ask any questions. You don’t have to tell me anything. Just let me hold you. Let me do that now because you need me to. Because I need to.”
Despite her resolve not to give in to them, tears filled her eyes, blurring her view of him. “I’m not who you think I am. I have nothing to give you, Sam.”
Sam set his beer and her glass on the deck railing then raised his hands to her face. He thumbed the tears now falling freely down her cheeks. There was pain in his eyes now, too. She could see he was hurting for her.
His eyes burned into hers. “Just let me hold you. That’s all I’m asking for.”
He wrapped his arms around her and brought her against his chest. She could feel the solid beat of his heart beneath her cheek. She thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he went on holding her. She was powerless against such tenderness. She couldn’t hold herself back and wound her arms around him, holding him just as fiercely.
It was a stolen moment. For this one moment, she allowed herself the delusion that there was no Thames, that her life was her own, and that what she was now feeling for Sam might have a chance to grow.
But a moment was all she could take. She stepped out of Sam’s arms. Her body shook with the force it was taking her to keep herself together. She left Sam on the deck and went into the house, calling Ivy’s name.
Ivy looked up from her sketch. “Paige?”
“I remembered I have some things I need to do at the apartment, Ivy. We need to get going.”
Ivy said good-bye to Jonah and Sam, and then they were in the van. Sam watched from the driveway as Paige pulled away.