When it was over, Sam felt like she too had been beaten up. She couldn’t imagine how Jeannie must feel. An orthopedic doctor appeared next and got to work on setting Jeannie’s broken wrist, another agonizing ordeal. A short time later, as they were finally ready to settle her in a room upstairs, Sam noticed that Jeannie had stopped crying.
“Is there anything I can get for you?” Sam asked.
“No. Thank you so much for staying with me. I really appreciate it, but you’re probably anxious to get home.” Her new eerily calm state was almost harder to deal with than the crying. That, at least, was understandable.
“I don’t mind staying with you. They’re sending up a rape crisis counselor to check in with you.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Jeannie, you need to talk to someone—”
“Please tell them not to send the counselor. I need to sleep, not talk.”
“What do you want me to tell your mother and Michael?”
“You can send them up to the room after they get me settled.”
“Are you sure you’re up for seeing them?”
She nodded. “I want no mention of the rape to them. Do you understand?”
“Of course.” Sam hesitated before she said, “You’ll have to tell them eventually…”
“It doesn’t have to be now.”
“Okay. I’ll get them and bring them up to your room.”
“Then I want you to go home. I’ll be all right, and you need to sleep so you can get busy catching the monster who did this to me and Regina and Maria. We need you, Lieutenant.”
After hours of tears, Sam couldn’t figure out where this calm, collected Jeannie had come from. Sam squeezed the hand that wasn’t encased in plaster. “You have me. I’ll give it all I’ve got.”
“I have no doubt about that.” She looked up at Sam, her normally animated eyes dull and flat. “I’ll never forget what you did for me today.”
“I just did my job.”
“You did much more than that and I won’t forget it.”
“I wish it could’ve been more, that we could’ve found you before…”
Jeannie shook her head. “What’s done is done. Let’s not rehash it.”
“We’ll need to get into the details tomorrow. What you remember, where he took you…”
“I understand.”
“I’ll get your mom and Michael and see you upstairs.”
Nick returned from yet another fundraising dinner and hated coming home to an empty house, especially knowing Sam was at the hospital with Jeannie. He’d been so relieved to get the cryptic text from Sam, indicating McBride had been found injured but alive. Rather than spend the rest of the evening pacing the floor waiting to hear from Sam, he took advantage of the quiet to go through the thirty-eight messages that had collected on his voice mail. Number twenty-four was from Scotty.
“Um, ah, Senator Cappuano, this is Scotty Dunlap.” Nick smiled at the way the boy stammered through the message. “Mrs. Littlefield told me it was okay to call you to say I really love the jersey you sent me. That was the nicest thing anyone has done for me in a long time. If you, um, want to call me back, I can get calls until nine.” He rattled off the number. “Ok, um, bye.”
Nick checked his watch. Twenty minutes to nine. He dialed the number Scotty had given him, asked for the boy and waited while the woman who answered went to find him.
“Hello,” Scotty said a few minutes later, sounding breathless.
“Hi there, it’s Nick Cappuano.”
“Oh. Senator.”
“You can call me Nick if you’d like to.”
“Really?”
“Sure. I get tired of everyone calling me senator. It’s not like that’s my name or anything.”
Scotty giggled.
“So you liked the jersey?”
“I
loved
it. All the other guys were so jealous.”
“Maybe I should get jerseys for them too.”
“Nah, let ’em be jealous.”
Nick laughed. “So there’s this family dinner thing on Sunday. I was wondering if you might want to come along with me.”
“To
your
family?”
“My adopted family.”
“You’re adopted?”
“Well not officially. Their son John was my best friend, and when he took me home when we were in college, his parents made me part of their family.”
“What about your own family?”
“I don’t have a lot of family.”
“Just like me.”
“Right.”
“You said he
was
your best friend. Isn’t he anymore?”
The burst of pain caught Nick off guard. He ought to be used to it by now. “He died a couple of months ago.”
“I’m sorry. You must’ve been really sad.”
“Yeah. I still am.”
“It took a long time after my grandpa and my mom died before I stopped being sad every day.”
Nick cleared the huge lump from his throat. “Is that so? How long did it take?”
“A year or so. Maybe a little longer.”
“That must’ve been hard on you all by yourself.”
“It was, but you’re not alone, are you?”
“No, buddy. I’ve got my fiancée and lots of good friends and John’s family. They’re helping me through it.”
“You’re lucky.”
“I know.”
“Mrs. Littlefield told me your fiancée is a police officer.”
“She is—a detective, in fact.”
“That’s
really
cool.”
“Cooler than being a senator?”
“Ah…
duh
. Yeah!”
Nick’s smile faded as he thought about her desperate search for Jeannie McBride. “Some days it is. Other days it’s really stressful. I told her about you, and she’s looking forward to meeting you.”
“She is?”
Nick laughed. “She sure is. So what do you think? Dinner on Sunday?”
“How would I get there?”
“I have a campaign thing in the morning. Afterward, I’ll drive down to Richmond to pick you up. Then we’ll head up to the farm.”
“They live on a
farm
?”
“A working horse farm.”
“That’s awesome!”
Nick smiled at Scotty’s enthusiasm. “Have you ever ridden a horse?”
“Nope.”
“Maybe we can give it a whirl on Sunday?”
“I’d like that.”
“I’ll be there to get you about noon, okay?”
“What should I wear?”
“Jeans and a nice shirt. Sound good?”
“I can do that.”
“Then I’ll look forward to seeing you Sunday.”
“Me too. I mean I’ll look forward to it too. Thank you so much for taking me.”
He was so sweet and mature and thankful. “I have a feeling it’ll be my pleasure. See you soon.”
Nick closed the phone and sat back against the sofa. He’d spend most of the day on the road, but that was okay. He couldn’t wait to see Scotty again.
Dismayed by Jeannie’s sudden calm, Sam headed for the waiting room. While she was glad that Jeannie had stopped crying and settled down, the calm was worrisome in light of what the other woman had endured that day. When Sam entered the waiting room, Michael jumped to his feet.
“Lieutenant, how is she? Can we see her yet?”
“They’re moving her upstairs, and I’ll take you up. But you should know that her face is swollen and bruised.”
A nerve in his cheek pulsed with tension, and he looked like he could kill someone. Sam understood. She’d felt the same way most of the day. Mrs. McBride wept softly as she listened to their exchange.
“I’ll take you up now,” Sam said.
Detective Tyrone followed along as they took the elevator to the fourth floor. Sam led them to the room number she’d been given and stepped aside to let them go in ahead of her. Michael and Tyrone hung back as Jeannie’s mother rushed to her daughter’s bedside.
Jeannie hugged her sobbing mother, assured her she was just fine and held the older woman until she got herself together. Tyrone stepped up next, gave his partner a hug and brushed a hand over her hair.
“Scared the shit out of me,” he said.
“Sorry.”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about. We’re going to nail the bastard.”
Jeannie nodded. “I know you will. Go on home now and get some sleep. I’ll be okay.”
“Are you sure?”
Jeannie worked up a smile for him. “Positive.”
“I’ll be with her,” Michael assured Tyrone.
The detective joined Sam in the doorway. “I’ll be in early.”
“Take some time if you need it,” Sam said.
He shook his head. “I want to help.”
“I’ll see you in the morning then.”
Tyrone left, and Sam tuned back into the scene unfolding in Jeannie’s room. Michael enveloped Jeannie in a big hug, his broad shoulders shaking as he finally broke down.
“Thought I’d never see you again, baby,” he said between sobs.
“I’m here.” She ran a hand up and down his back. “I’m right here.”
The emotional exchange was almost too much for Sam to handle after the grueling day. Over Michael’s shoulder she made eye contact with Jeannie and was startled by the flat expression on the detective’s face. Something inside her had broken, and Sam wondered if her friend would ever be the same. She turned to leave the room to give them some privacy but Jeannie called her back.
“You must be anxious to get home to Nick,” Jeannie said.
“I can stay as long as you need me.”
“I’ll be with her,” Michael said.
“Go on home, L.T.,” Jeannie said. “I’ll be okay.”
“I need to talk to you more in-depth in the morning.”
Her face set in a resigned expression, Jeannie nodded. “I know.”
“I’ll see you then.”
“Sam?”
Sam turned to her.
“I’m sorry, I should say, Lieutenant…Thank you. For everything.”
Sam nodded and left her colleague in the hands of her devoted boyfriend. Trudging out of the hospital, every bone in Sam’s body ached and exhaustion clung to her like a wet blanket. Outside, the fresh cold air was like a wake-up call, snapping her out of the fog she’d been in for hours. The suppressed fear, emotion and horror of the long day caught up to her all at once, and her hands began to shake so violently she wondered how she would drive home. Then she remembered her car was somewhere in Columbia Heights, so she called Nick.
“Hey, babe,” he said, sounding sleepy. “How is she?”
“As well as can be expected.” Sam glanced up at the clear, starry sky as her breath came out in white puffs in the cold air. “I hate to do this because it’s so late, but do you think you could come get me? I seem to be stranded at the Washington Hospital Center.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Thanks.”
While she waited for him, Sam sent a text message to her entire squad, ordering them to a seven o’clock meeting at HQ. Fifteen minutes later, Nick’s black BMW turned into the hospital complex. He pulled up to the curb and opened her door from the inside.
Sam scurried in and released a sigh of pleasure when her aching body made contact with the heated seats. “Oh, that feels good.” She leaned over to kiss him and smoothed his mussed hair. “I got you out of bed. Sorry.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.” He shifted the car into drive. “I was hoping you’d come home.” They drove in silence for a few minutes before he glanced at her. “She’s really okay?”
“She will be,” Sam said, even though she harbored significant doubts. “Eventually.”
“What happened?”
With her head resting against the seat, she turned so she could see him. “Will you hate me if I just can’t go through it again? Not tonight anyway.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Yeah.”
He rested a hand on her leg.
Sam yearned to cover his hand with hers, but she didn’t want him to feel how badly her hands were shaking so she kept them tucked into her coat pockets.
At home, Sam headed straight to the shower and stood under the water for a long time, thinking about what had happened, what might’ve happened, what needed to happen and the threat Jeannie had brought back with her.
Sam had hoped the shower would take care of the trembling, but it only made it worse. Battling her shaking hands, she pulled on sweats and a long-sleeve T-shirt and joined Nick in bed.
“Are you going skiing or something?” he asked as he put his arms around her and drew her in close to him. Like him, she usually slept in as little as possible.
“Freezing,” she muttered, hoping he’d accept her explanation for the trembling.
“Let me warm you up.”
Sam clung to him and breathed him in, trying to clear her mind of the horror. She knew she needed to tell him about the threat that had been made against her. She’d been working hard to be more open and honest with him, but with her emotions hovering perilously close to the surface, she was afraid to move let alone speak for fear of losing control.
“Why are you still shaking like a leaf?” he asked many minutes later.
“Dunno.”
“Samantha.” He kissed the top of her head and then her forehead. “I’ve got you. It’s over. She’s okay and so are you. Everyone is safe.”
Sam would’ve been fine. She would’ve survived the bout of trembling if he hadn’t figured out exactly what had caused it. His tender words tore a sob from somewhere deep inside her. As if a dam had broken, tears streamed down her face, wetting her hair and his chest.
He held on tight but didn’t say anything. His hand moved up and down her back, offering just the right amount of comfort. Once again it occurred to her that before him, before
them
, she never would’ve let the emotion out. She would have tamped it down and found a way to power through the nightmare. His steady presence reminded her that she didn’t have to do that anymore.
Nick wiped the tears from her face and combed his fingers through her hair.
After a while, Sam noticed the trembling had stopped. She released a deep sigh of relief. The crisis had passed.
“Feel better?” he asked.
Suddenly embarrassed by the outburst, she tried to pull away from him. “Yeah.”
“Don’t, Sam.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t be ashamed of being as human as the rest of us mere mortals.”
For whatever reason, that made her laugh. She looked up at him, not even caring that he would see her tear-ravaged face. “You are exactly perfect for me, and I love you.”
“Well,” he said, clearly caught off guard, “that works out well because you’re exactly perfect for me too, and I love you.”
She snuggled back into his chest. “We ought to get married or something.”
“Or something.”
“Did you hear from Tinker Bell today?”
“She sent over her estimate.”
“And?”
He rattled off a number that made Sam sit up and gasp.
“You gotta be freaking
kidding
me.”
“That’s for everything—her, the reception at the Hay, the church, the flowers, the cars, the cake. Everything except dresses and tuxes.”
“That’s outrageous! We could sponsor a third world nation for a year with that much money!”
“We can always elope—fly to Vegas and be done with the whole thing.”
As much as that idea appealed to her, she couldn’t deny him the wedding she knew he wanted, even if he’d skip it to spare her. “We’re not flying to Vegas.” She sounded sulky, even to herself.
“Are you sure?”
She realized this was her last chance to beg off the big white wedding. Once they signed the contract with Tinker Bell, it would be out of her hands. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
He arranged her under him and gazed down at her. “I’m not convinced.”
Sam studied his handsome face as a new swell of emotion reminded her that there was absolutely nothing she wouldn’t do to make him happy. She lifted her arms to encircle his neck. “It’s
so
much money.”
He bent his head and gave her a sweet kiss. “Don’t worry about that. I’ve got it covered. I have some of my own money too.” She knew he meant in addition to what John had left him. “Back in the day, all I did was work. The money tends to add up when you’re all work and no play.”
“You’re
sure
this is how you want to spend it?”
His sexy mouth twisted into a sinful smile. “I’m very sure, but only if it’s what you want too.”
“I’ll allow it on one condition.”
“I can’t wait to hear this.”
“I get to pay for the honeymoon.”
“You don’t have to—”
Sam tugged his head down and kissed him. “That’s my final offer.”
He leaned his forehead against hers. “You drive a tough bargain, but okay. I’ll allow it.”
“You’ll
allow it? Allow it
?” As Sam started a wrestling match that would no doubt lead to lovemaking, she realized the cloud of sadness and despair had lifted. Since he was the only guy who could’ve done that for her, she supposed it was the least she could do to give him a day neither of them would ever forget.