Worth the Risk (13 page)

“Giant-man-handed ladies first,” Sam said.

“Such a gentleman.”

“Always, sweetheart,” he told her seriously, then touched her face. “Now go. Fast. Getting out of here puts us another step closer to Tamara.”

Something in the intensity of the statement made Meredith’s eyes fill with unwanted tears, and as she slid through the dusty hole, she felt her heart swell with appreciation. This man, whom she hadn’t known just twenty-four hours earlier, cared enough about her to go through all of this. To commit a felony. Just to save her sister—a woman he’d never even met.

Meredith knew she shouldn’t feel lucky. She shouldn’t be thinking that somehow fate had managed to balance out the toughest moment of her life with the most wonderful. She shouldn’t be thinking about herself at all. But when she made it through the hole and pushed to her feet, and Sam followed and his hand landed on the small of her back and his voice filled her ear with a murmured reassurance...she couldn’t help it.

“I
am
lucky,” she said softly.

Somehow, Sam managed to hear her over the blare of the alarm.

“Lucky?” he queried.

“Anyone else—even another PI, I’m sure—would’ve run in the other direction by now. You’ve almost died at least three times in the last twenty-four hours. God know what’s going through your head. But you’re still here.”

“Where else would I be?”

“Anywhere?”

The heat in his eyes made her want to burn up as thoroughly as the bed next door. “There
is
nowhere else, Meredith. I meant what I said about sticking by you. I meant what I said about this not being just a job. There’s just you, and me, and taking this step by step so we can get out alive and get to Tamara.”

And after that?

Meredith couldn’t help but wonder if they’d still take it step by step, just her and him and the chemistry between them.

She swallowed against the thick lump in her throat. “Thank you. But when all this is done...”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. But I’m pretty damned certain that I’ll still mean it,” he told her firmly as he moved across the room to the door to peer out the peephole. “Hallway’s empty, sweetheart.”

“Do you think it’s safe?”

“Probably not,” he admitted. “But I don’t think they know we switched rooms. In fact, since they cleared the floor so quickly, I’m guessing they
did
get into 1003 and found it empty and don’t suspect a damned thing. Not yet, anyway. Come here and have a look.”

Meredith stepped to the door and peered out into the hall. It had already filled with smoke. But there was no sign of the men who’d been waiting for them. She eased back, allowing herself a moment of relief.

“Up the hall, out the stairs at the far end,” Sam said. “We can avoid the main entrance into the lobby, then head out. We won’t be able to stop and grab the car keys from the desk, but we can take public transit. There’s a direct line that goes from downtown to Bowerville Station.”

He held out his hand, and Meredith took it, glad of its reassuring solidity as he eased open the door and guided them out. They pressed themselves to the wall and moved along slowly. Cautiously. And they had almost reached their goal—the far door—when panic hit Meredith.

No. Oh, no.

She turned on her heel and raced for the room. But when she jammed her key and opened the door, a cloud of loose smoke billowed outward. She tried to push through, but a cough overtook her. And that gave Sam enough time to come in from behind and slam the door shut. He pushed her back to the wall.

“Let me go.”

“No.”

“Sam!”

“What are you trying to do?” he demanded, sounding more concerned than angry.

Meredith’s body sagged and a sob built up in her throat. “My phone. I forgot to grab it. Now Tamara’s kidnappers won’t be able to reach us and we won’t be able to save her.”

Chapter 13

S
am reached for Meredith and his pocket at the same time.

“Hey now,” he soothed as he wiped away a single, fat tear that had squeezed from her eye to her cheek. “I’ve got it.”

“No, you don’t under—” She stopped short as she spied the device in his hand. “You grabbed it?”

“
You
grabbed it first, I grabbed it second,” he explained. “It fell out of your pocket when you slid through the closet and all I did was pick it up.”

“I dropped it?” Her eyes welled up again. “Oh my God. I’m a mess, aren’t I?”

“Stop it.” He said it kindly, and he pulled her along the wall toward the door, not wanting to waste a moment. “You’re perfect.”

She stumbled along beside him. “A perfect mess.”

“The situation might be a mess, but you sure as hell aren’t.”

They reached the exit that led to the stairwell, and Sam opened the door slowly. Empty. He kept their fingers locked and led Meredith inside.

She was silent as they moved down the stairs. Sam wanted to chalk it up to breathlessness—sure, they’d been climbing down, but it was still ten floors. He’d be hard-pressed to carry on any sort of real conversation himself. But his instincts told him something else occupied her mind. And uncharacteristically, he felt a need to know what it was. He actually found himself wishing he could stop and ask her. Except he didn’t have the luxury. They’d already reached the bottom.

He shouldered open the door carefully. The lobby was crowded with guests, employees and emergency personnel. The latter were doing their best to shuffle out the former two, and the whole scene was chaos.

Sam scanned the crowd in search of Boyd and the redheaded thug. He couldn’t see them, and he was sure that was a bad thing. Then Meredith’s voice, low and worried, guided his attention in the right direction.

“There,” she said. “By the front door.”

Sam’s gaze found them. The redhead stood to the side, his eyes fixed firmly on the entrance to the main stairs. The cop had his jacket pushed aside, showcasing the ID on his belt and looking like he was supposed to be there.

Which he damned well isn’t,
Sam thought irritably.

He curbed an urge to confront the man. To cross the room and demand some accountability. But he knew what would happen if he followed through on the urge. They’d wind up behind bars, not knowing which members of Bowerville’s finest could be trusted and which couldn’t. And the jerks in front of them now would get to exactly what they wanted. Meredith.

Not a chance in hell.

He tore his eyes from the men who were targeting them and searched for another way out. He thought he saw a hallway and an exit sign, but he couldn’t be sure. Frightened people. Frantic people. They blocked his view. They blurred together.

Which was exactly what
they
needed to do, Sam realized.

“You ready to follow my lead?” he asked.

“The first time you asked me to do that, I wound up your fake girlfriend. The second time, I wound up your fake wife. If you’re about to hand me a baby...”

Sam smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

He draped an arm over Meredith’s shoulder, tucked his head down and led her into the group of people. Almost immediately, a firefighter came their way. Sam spouted off a lie about his wife having anxiety, and in seconds, they had an emergency blanket surrounding them, and they were on their way up a hallway and out a side door. The firefighter told them to sit tight, then disappeared back into the building again.

“That was almost too easy.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Sam wished he hadn’t said them. A glance up told him things were about to get harder. The side door was opening and a flash of red hair was already visible.

Sam pushed off the emergency blanket and grabbed Meredith’s hand.

“Run!” he urged in a low voice.

He didn’t have to say it twice. In fact, in the heartbeat it took to start moving, she was the one pulling him along. Their feet smacked the ground, thump-thumping against the pavement. When they reached the corner, Sam hazarded a glance over his shoulder. There they were. A few hundred feet behind, but there nonetheless. The redhead in the lead, the detective steps behind.

Sam’s gaze flew forward again and he didn’t see an option. The street was wide and full of morning commuters, with little to no cover. He swiveled his head. The closest intersection looked impossibly far away. He whipped sideways again.

Maybe there’s space between the buildings. Maybe we can—

Meredith tugged his hand. Hard. For a second, Sam thought she was going to drag him straight into oncoming traffic. He braced himself for impact. It didn’t come. Instead, a whoosh of air washed over him and he stumbled up.

Up?

The ground jolted under him, and Sam landed on his knees solidly enough to flood his legs with pain and drive his eyes closed.

“How many zones, sir?”

The authoritative voice forced his eyes open again. And it only took a moment to figure out what had happened. Meredith had led them straight onto a bus. A bus that was moving and whose driver kept glancing down at him expectantly.

Sam grabbed the rail and pulled himself up. He flipped his stare to the window. The seconds on the bus had already quadrupled the distance between them and the men chasing them.

Sam sagged against the side of the vehicle and met the driver’s now-irritated glare. “What?”

Meredith nudged his shoulder. “I think the man just wants us to pay. Honey.”

“Right.” He fumbled with his wallet, yanked out a bill without even checking the denomination and shoved it into the payment slot.

“Sir, we don’t give ch—”

“Don’t care.”

“We only go as far as the mall on Fourth Street.”

Sam gritted his teeth. “So?”

The driver turned wide eyes his way. “That was a hundred-dollar bill.”

“Shouldn’t you be paying a little more attention to your driving and a little less to my money?”

The other man jerked his attention back to the windshield, and Sam took Meredith’s hand again and led her to the very rear of the bus. He settled her onto an empty seat, then took a look out the back window. He couldn’t see their pursuers at all. After a minute of scrutinizing the traffic behind them, he was finally convinced that they’d lost them. At least for the time being.

He let himself sink onto the padded cushion beside Meredith and pulled her into a sideways embrace. “We shouldn’t ride for long. Definitely not to wherever the hell the Fourth Street Mall is. It’ll be too easy to follow us. But they won’t be expecting us to get off just a few stops away from here. If we do that, we can backtrack and figure out which bus actually takes us to Bowerville Station and buy ourselves some time.”

She tipped her head and stared up at him. “You’re really good at this, aren’t you?”

“Bus navigation?” He heard the stiffness in his own reply. “Hardly. I prefer having a little more control over my comings and goings.”

“Not the bus, Sam.”

He looked away. “I know.”

When he didn’t add anything more, she tugged her hand away, silent again, and Sam knew he’d simply stalled the inevitable. Again. He stayed quiet anyway, not speaking when he pressed the button to get off at the next stop, and saying nothing as they exited the bus, either. But as they stood in the shelter studying the route map, he couldn’t maintain it any longer.

“Ask me,” he said without turning around.

She didn’t pretend not to understand him. “I keep assuming the bottom is going to drop out. Back there, when those men were that close to catching us... In the hotel... Then those seconds before that bus stopped right in front of us... I thought it
had
dropped out, actually. And when those things happened, all I kept thinking about was you. Not my own safety. Not Tamara. And I felt guilty about that.”

Sam’s jaw and gut clenched simultaneously. “You don’t need to feel guilty. If anything,
I
should feel guilty. I’m the one who—”

“Would you let me finish?”

“Be my guest.” He spun to look her in the eye, but his face refused to relax.

“I was worried about you because I thought you’d never get the chance to tell me what really makes you so good at this. That I’d never be able to help you unburden yourself. And I felt guilty about that because you somehow managed to trump my sister. Then I realized how ridiculous it is to feel guilty about caring about someone. You asked me to trust you. And I’ve been doing that. But the patience part you asked for, too? I don’t know. I guess I don’t have much to begin with, and even if I did, I don’t think we have the
time
to be patient. I know I’m missing something, Sam. The more times the bottom almost drops out, the more I feel it.”

Sam hesitated, preparing himself to take a leap in what he hoped was in the right direction. No. What he
knew
was the right direction. But before he could speak, a big blue bus turned the corner and came rumbling up the road. It stopped in front of them, and the bright number on the front—351—announced that it was
their
bus. The one that would take them to Bowerville Station. Sam knew there was another scheduled to arrive in just thirty minutes. But even the idea of a minor delay following through on their only lead made him blanch.

It didn’t matter anyway. Sam wouldn’t ask Meredith to wait. He’d far rather sacrifice his own emotional well-being than risk Tamara Billing’s life.

Or you’ll just finding another excuse.

He shoved aside the accusatory voice and gestured for Meredith to step into the waiting bus. She obliged, but stopped on the top stair and looked down at him.

“If you really can’t tell me now, then maybe you can’t tell me at all. But I need to know which it is so I don’t keep wondering if you’re going to leave it too late. Because if that happens, I’ll be left with nothing. Not you. Not my sister. Nothing.”

Her voice broke at the end, and she spun away and moved to the rear of the bus. Sam knew it must be an attempt to cover her tears, and as he followed her slumped shoulders down the aisle, he realized that holding in his secrets was actually harder than letting them out.

No more excuses.

He sat on the seat across from her and met her eyes. “I lost her, Meredith. I was on the other side of this equation, and I lost her.”

And the words were like a floodgate, opening up to let everything through.

* * *

As Meredith examined the hurt in Sam’s face, she knew instinctively who he’d lost. The only other woman he’d mentioned since they met.

“Kelsey,” she said.

“Kelsey,” he agreed.

Meredith’s heart slammed against her rib cage. She could feel the devastation rolling off him. Feel the pain and the shame.

It made sense. His drive. His single-minded dedication. The way every move spoke of true empathy. Only someone who’d experienced what she was experiencing right that second could truly understand.

“I was that hotshot,” Sam told her softly. “The one every police unit seems to have. Youngest detective. Most closed cases. Mile-wide pride. So when they offered me a specialty, I jumped at the chance.”

She could picture it. A younger Sam. That concerned crease in his forehead yet to make an appearance. Working just as hard for the police department as he did for his clients, his ambition dedicated to bringing down criminals. Not a stretch at all. And she knew what specialty they’d offered him, too.

“Missing persons,” Meredith suggested.

Sam nodded. “I had the personality for it, they said. I played by the rules, even if it was just barely, and never missed a damned thing. Perfect, when every detail counts. Active cases only. Suspected kidnappings. They were right. I was good at it.” He paused and looked out the window, and when he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. “I had this partner. Heely was his name. A real egomaniac who I hated. Never trusted him the way a partner should. I always thought something was off, so it didn’t surprise me at all when I found out he and my sister were seeing each other. Lecherous son of a you-know-what. She was twelve years younger than him, so saying I lost it is an understatement. Kelsey tried to convince me otherwise, but I never accepted what she told me. I kicked her out. Asked for a transfer.”

Meredith watched Sam’s face, relating perfectly to the range of emotions that played across it. She squeezed his hand and Sam inhaled.

“One day I came home and found Heely on my doorstep,” he said. “Told me when he showed up for their date, he found a note instead. Tucked under his plate. A ransom demand for three hundred thousand dollars.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

“She had it.
We
had it, sweetheart. When our parents died, they left us a generous estate. The insurance policy had a triple payout policy for sudden accidents, and the car crash fit the bill. We had enough money. For college that I didn’t go to, or for a full-time caregiver that I chose not to use. Enough that we could’ve paid. But I insisted on doing things by the book. I forced Heely to take it to our chief, who banned us from the case. He treated us like what we were. The victim’s family.”

“Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault.”

“What happened was that I listened, and Heely didn’t. While I waited for the police to do their job, he went around the proper channels and arranged a drop. A fake exchange. Kelsey for the money. Except when he got there, they somehow knew he didn’t really have the money. Or maybe they actually knew all along. Either way, Kelsey was dead already, and Heely took a bullet, too. He died on scene. And I
know
it’s not my fault. I’ve told a hundred people in this situation the same thing. I’ve told
you
that. And I believe it. But with Kelsey...”

“It feels different.”

“It really does.” He brought his gaze back to her again. “I think about it on repeat. What if I’d broken the rules? What if I’d pursued it myself? What if I’d paid?”

“You can’t think like that.”

“I know that, too. But that hasn’t made the last five years any different. I couldn’t go back to the force. Not if I wanted to stay sane. Not if I wanted to find any kind of closure. But in the end, I couldn’t stop trying to save people, either. I ask myself all the time if I do what I do to try and make up for not saving my sister. If I do it enough times, if it will give me peace.”