had to face reality.
By the time Brant reappeared at the door forty minutes later, Nick was sound asleep. Sam moved carefully to extricate herself and to settle his head on a pillow, hoping he’d stay asleep. She snuck out of the room and closed the door behind her. “He’s not to be disturbed for any reason.”
“Yes, ma’am. The FBI is here to speak to you both.”
“It’ll have to just be me. He needs to sleep.”
“Right this way.”
Sam followed Brant through the common area where Tracy, Mike, Spencer, Angela, Leo and Stacy were watching an action movie. Her appearance caught their attention, and she waved to them as she followed Brant down a corridor that led to the area where the agents were holed up.
The others were getting cagey too. Spencer was on the verge of closing a huge deal and was stressing out about what he was missing at work. Leo, who had a blue-collar job in Baltimore, was equally concerned about missing so much work. The Secret Service had assured them that they’d gotten word to their employers and their jobs would be safe.
Sam didn’t blame them for being skeptical. Who knew what she’d return to at work or how she’d explain where she’d been to the inquisitive detectives who worked for her?
Brant gestured for her to go ahead of him into a conference room where FBI Special Agent in Charge Avery Hill was waiting for her. Of course it had to be him. Didn’t the FBI have anyone else they could’ve sent? His odd fixation on her had been a source of problems for her, and he was about the last person she wanted to talk to about Peter.
“I’d say it was nice to see you, Avery, but that doesn’t seem appropriate under the circumstances. Being held prisoner doesn’t bring out the best in me.”
Avery made a sound that might’ve been a laugh but sounded more like a grunt. “I can only imagine. We were told you may have a lead for us.”
“I’m not sure if it’s a lead or a reach.”
“At this point we’ll take whatever we can get.”
“Does that mean you’ve got dick to go on?”
His expression never changed. “That means we’re interested in whatever you’ve got to say.”
Sam took a seat across the conference table from him. She folded her hands in front of her, forcing herself to conjure up a dream she’d much rather forget. “I had a dream that included all my best friends—Ramsey, Stahl and my ex-husband, Peter Gibson. In the dream, Peter said I needed some humility.”
Avery sat up a little straighter when he heard that. “And when you were together...”
“That was one of his favorite things to say to me.” Sam held up her hands to stop him from commenting. “I know what you’re going to say. I should’ve thought of it before now, but after he tried to kill me a couple of times, I put him so far in the past that he no longer exists to me. I was rattled by this entire situation and off my game. Those are my only excuses for missing this before now.”
“Those are good reasons. I wouldn’t call them excuses.”
“It’s all right. You don’t have to give me a pass. It should’ve rung a bell for me.”
“Where would we find him?”
“The last I knew he was living on Seventh Street.”
“As in two blocks from your place on Ninth?”
“Yep, but he’s since moved from there. I have no idea where he is now. I haven’t heard anything from him since last winter when I was notified as his next of kin after he tried to off himself.”
“And did you go?”
“Hell no, I didn’t go. I’m not his next of anything anymore.”
Avery pondered that for a moment. “I would think, if a man has a woman listed as his next of kin and she doesn’t come running after he tries to kill himself, that might make him mad.”
“Everything I do makes him mad. Why do you think I’m not married to him anymore?”
“How do you think he feels about you being married to the vice president?”
“Seeing as how he went to enormous lengths to keep Nick and I apart when we first met and then tried to blow us both up when we got back together, I’d say he probably doesn’t think too much of it.”
“How did he keep you and Nick apart when you first met?”
Sam sighed. “Rehashing this ancient history is almost as fun as being stuck in an underground cement bunker with no access to the outside world.”
“Humor me.”
“I first met Nick at a party eight years ago. Some guy spilled beer on me, and Nick came to my rescue with a smile and a handkerchief. We left together and had a great time. A really great time.” And the best sex of her life, not that she could tell Avery that in light of his strange fixation on her. “We made plans to see each other in a couple of weeks, when he got back from a work trip to Europe. Except I never heard from him again and assumed he’d blown me off.”
“He hadn’t?”
“Not even kinda. My roommate at the time, none other than my now ex-husband, Peter Gibson, had failed to give me the many messages Nick left for me at our house. The only cell phone I had at that time was department-issued, so I hadn’t given him that number. When I never called him back, he thought I was blowing him off and gave up.”
“When did you find this out?”
“Six years later, the day Nick found his boss and best friend, Senator John O’Connor, after he’d been murdered. We compared notes, put two plus two together to confirm what I already knew—that my ex-husband was a controlling bastard who’d manipulated the situation to his benefit.”
“How so?”
“Whose shoulder do you think I cried on when I never heard from the guy I liked so much?”
Avery snorted. “I can’t picture you crying on anyone’s shoulder.”
“Well, I did that summer,” Sam snapped. “I was crushed, and Peter was right there to pick up the pieces. I spent four miserable years married to him. He wanted to control my every thought and move. Needless to say, that was a bit of a problem for me. The final straw was when he claimed I was spending ‘too much time’ taking care of my recently paralyzed father. I left him, moved back into my dad’s house to help out with his care and stayed there until I married Nick.”
Avery’s hand flew over a yellow pad as he made notes. “Tell me about how he tried to kill you.”
“Do I really have to? The whole world knows about that.” Thinking about the miserable years she’d spent with Peter was like picking at a scab that wasn’t fully healed. It was painful and humiliating to recall how he’d emotionally abused her for years, not to mention all the ways he’d tried to derail her second chance with Nick.
“I’m fuzzy on the details.”
Sam wasn’t sure if she believed that, but she wanted to get this over with, so she humored him. “The first week I was back together with Nick, Peter tried to blow us up by strapping crude bombs to my car and Nick’s. Mine detonated, thankfully while I was outside the car and not in it. I was knocked off my feet and smacked my head on the outside of Nick’s townhouse in Arlington. He was actually more severely injured than I was because the glass door he was standing behind shattered in his face—and he walked over broken glass with bare feet to get to me.”
Sam shuddered remembering the horror of that day. It’d been a long time since she’d given Peter a thought, and the sick feeling that turned her stomach was an unwelcome reminder of the ordeal he’d put her—and Nick—through.
“Did you know