An Eye for Danger (31 page)

I help up my hand. "No apologies. We're evacuating, I understand." This was no different than a battlefield, where only action counted and last-minute withdrawal was common.

As I turned on my heel, I noticed magazines and books splayed on the coffee table that hadn't been there before. Next to them sat a magnifying glass, a notepad with scribbled letters and numbers like shorthand, and Sam's half-empty mug of coffee. He'd been awake longer than I'd suspected.

Stepping closer, I recognized photos of my trips long abolished from memory: skyscapes of Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Montreal. Parallel to these were images from the other book of starved children covered in dried mud on the edge of an African desert.

One boy stared up at me. He'd lost his mother that very morning, that very hour. What the camera didn't show behind his left shoulder was her body covered in flies. I slammed the book shut so the boy's wet eyes didn't see me dressed in lacy underwear under a silk robe in this luxury apartment. Even the book's title,
Warlords' Children
, made me shudder.

Sam turned over his notes. "You angry?"

I shook my head. His intentions I understood. Any journalist would have done the same. Yet I could never investigate his world equally. From the start I'd hungered to see inside him, the way I'd seen these children, the soldiers, the Twin Towers survivors. Just a glimpse of their soul, I'd tell myself. But that was never really enough. I'd been voracious in the field, zooming in on their anguish like it was caviar. And in the end, I'd felt starved.

"Thought I knew who you were till these." He reopened the book, making me revisit the children, their mothers, and I hated the sight of them. "These faces," he said. "Anyone can recognize their pain. But their beauty, that's what you made me see in them. Out of all that sorrow and injustice, all that hate. We see faces like these on the streets all the time. But you, you made them human again. You gave them a voice in a fucked-up world. That's pretty special in my book."

"I didn't make anybody anything," I said, my scratchy voice barely above a whisper. I closed the book. "And a few cheap photos didn't give them their dignity back. They sell garbage scraps for food, Sam. Or sell their bodies for medicine. They starve, they suffer, they kill for revenge. Or a day's meal. It's an ugly life. The camera just sums up their story, makes them whole for a split second of film. A human soul becomes a photo, a life becomes words on a page. Just words." Stone's phrasing came to mind, as well as his arrogance. I knew from experience how words on a page could harm or rescue. "Then they go back to being shattered, and I go back to my New York apartment and make money off their pain."

I'd come to hate the whole ugly business: The CNN wars, the
Time Magazine
profiles. And I'd felt damned for participating.

Pulling out my
Great 'Scapes
book, I flipped to a dog-eared page, curious to see what had garnered Sam's interest. My biography. Yellow highlighter streaked over the years I'd spent covering conflict zones. Who'd want such horrid details on their dossier? Then I flipped to pictures of my own city, the Twin Towers reduced to ashen piles. My hand rested on a picture of an old man standing tall, his back to my camera, holding up a young man hunched from crying. Both stared into the rubble of Tower Two days after the fall. Ash still stained the air. I'd degraded myself and become a predator photographing people pushed beyond their limits. Eventually, I'd turned to shooting buildings and landscapes only—no humans I could cheat.

"I wanted my work to count for something in this world," I said. "But in the end all I could give was the money from book sales to charity."

"They haunt you," said Sam, surprised and empathetic at the same time.

How could they not?

"You hear them, see them when no one else does. Not your camera, but you, Jules. Like you saw me in the park. That's why I chose you. Because you see beyond a man's circumstances. Beyond what people pretend to be. Christ, you looked for my soul before you ever even asked my name."

He thumbed the edge of the book as firelight made the gold flecks in his eyes sparkle, burned an aura around him, romanticizing the truth of him. "God, you looked right through me."

"Everyone wants to be seen, Sam. Even people like us." I turned my body to face him and block his view of the books. "What I don't want is for you to see me as a victim."

"When I look at you—"

"Or a survivor. I hate that word."

He raised my hand to cup his cheek. "When I look at you, I don't see damage, Jules. I see hope."

He rose, picked up the books and magazines and notepad, and set them on the fake log with real gas flames. I agreed; too much time had been wasted on the past. He closed the glass doors as flames licked and caught the pages and we watched them disintegrate.

Then he turned to me with a somber gaze. "We need to clear the air. I tried to say it earlier, but we were, well… rather distracted."

I stood and pressed against him, tugging the collar of his shirt. "Spit it out, Detective."

"About that." He rubbed his brow. "I'm not exactly a detective."

My hands dropped from his shirt.

"Or an undercover cop."

I stepped back.

"In fact, I'm not with NYPD at all."

CHAPTER 21

"Jules, just wait a minute." Sam couldn't reach me fast enough as I dove for the bedroom. When I realized all my clothes had been confiscated and I was stuck in the robe, I grabbed Sam's evidence bag containing my shoes and clothes and ripped it open.

"Listen to me." He snapped on the light. "Sit down, damn it."

He'd lived above me in this apartment, been above me in bed. Watching me, spying on me. Stalking me.

Whack
. I leapt at the explosion of the door slamming shut and jammed my toe into the bedpost. "Fuck." I hopped to the mattress, my toe throbbing in rhythm with my racing heart. He'd gotten my attention alright, but my eyes were on his weapon.

"Sit." Sam pointed to the bed. "Christ, I'm not a perp."

Scowling, he pulled his gun and set it on the nightstand. Then he pushed me backwards onto the bed, grabbed my leg before I finished a kick to his knee, and examined my big toe, feeling down the short bone and pulling it side to side till my whole foot throbbed like hell.

"Good news," he said. "You didn't break anything, despite your hysteria."

"Screw you."

I yanked my leg back, readied another kick, but he wouldn't release my ankle. Eyebrow raised, he dared me a third try. When I stalled out, he snapped my leg toward him, and I fell flat on my back, bouncing on the mattress.

Then he stepped between my legs. "If you're going to fend off a man, this would be the time." With his hands under my knees, he tugged me against his groin so I straddled him. "Any time, Jules."

I sat up, swung a hand, but he caught my wrist, my palm inches from his smug face.

"You're not even trying," he said, leaning into my face. "You know my injured spot, and you don't take a shot at it? Christ, Jules, you ain't gonna make it playing nice girl all the time. I need to know if that prick tries anything, you'll defend yourself. That you have some fight left in you."

My eyes watered. This was the man I'd ached for, made love to. Let maul me in a public bathroom. I started to shove him away, but Sam pinned my shoulders to the bed.

 "Now listen to me," he said. "Let's get a few things straight. I'm still undercover. Yes, I am, so stop rolling your eyes. I used to be local, on the force with that prick, 'till I got loaned out. That's why I still know the old crew. But I'm with the Feds on this one. And no, that doesn't change anything that's happened between us, so yes, you can be pissed all you want, but no, you are not going out with him again. Look at me, for crissake. You're not leaving this room thinking I'm a perp. We're on the same side, Jules."

 
Jesus, a Fed
. Hating cops was nothing compared to my fear of the federal officers who'd terrorized me in an interrogation room after the accident. A Fed watching me watching me all along, analyzing me, taking me into custody, convicting me. The inevitable freight train that three years of laying low couldn't stop. But the thought of Sam being the one who arrested me made me nauseous.

"Hey, now. Where's my rock?" He smoothed a hand over my cheek as wetness filled my lashes. He might as well have poured alcohol in my eyes, they stung so badly, or injected poison straight into my heart, it ached so deeply.

"You got what you wanted from me. Please, just let me go."

He allowed me to push him aside, and he sank onto the bed, dumbfounded. "Ah, shit."

I managed on the soiled clothes, climbing back into the images of Troy's attack. Shoes in hand, I hurried to the front door and kicked aside the wine glasses, which cracked in half when they hit the floor. "Max, come."

Max jumped off his bed, stretched his skinny yellow body, and then trotted toward me.

"Max, stay." Sam stepped between me and the door. "You can't leave."

"Why, you going to force me back in bed, or hold my dog hostage?"

"Of course not." He winced and held his ribs, but my sympathies had run out for his pain trumping mine. "No matter how pissed you are with me, it's not safe out there."

"It's not safe in here. Now get out of my way, whoever you are."

"I couldn't tell you without putting you in more danger." He arm-blocked the door and grunted. "Look, Jules, I know about the accident, what really happened."

"I've heard that line before. So either arrest me, or I'm out of here."

"Arrest you?"

His phone buzzed. We both blinked. Max sat at Sam's side and pawed the sleepies out of the corner of his eye.

"You'd better answer that."

"What," he snapped into the phone. "You can't be serious. No one gets a warrant at this time of night less they've got a judge in their pocket." He jogged to the window, and I unlocked the door. "Just him, or is he bringing the whole damn squad?"

I sucked in a breath. Despite my hands shaking, my toe throbbing, and my insolent dog lingering with the enemy, I was getting the hell out of this trap.

I was halfway down the first flight when Sam hooked my arm. "Jules, stop."

"Don't you ever touch me again." I met Sam's eyes with enough fury that he backed off.

As I hobbled down the stairs, he jumped ahead of me, quick-checking the halls, his gun a shadow at his side, Max trotting behind him. Sam pushed in front of me when we got to my floor.

"What the hell's gotten into you," he whispered. "You're acting like I'm the enemy."

I stared at my door, my three-year prison, dreading another lockdown. "How long have you known?"

"Shhh. Lower your voice." He rechecked the lower stairwell. "About Troy, long enough."

"About the accident. Don't play games with me, Sam, if that's even your real name."

"Not long." He pointed Max toward the freight elevator and gave him a signal to stay.

"How long, damn it?"

He finally stood still and swiped a hand over his eyes. "Since the clinic. My partner delivered a file."

"You told me you couldn't call in, that you were on radio silence."

"Exactly. I can only call at set times to a set number. My partner's undercover too."

"So let's see it." I stepped toward him, my palm out, as he tugged the back of his neck and looked back and forth down the hall. "The file, Sam." I raised my voice over his damned sighing. This was no time for his choir-boy routine.

"I burned it. Wouldn't want you to read it anyway."

"Why not, and don't give me your goddamn filtered version."

"I can't tell you. It's Eyes Only."

"You're lying." I pressed toward the safety of my apartment, but he blocked my path.

"It's for your own good, Jules."

"You wouldn't be here if any of this was for my welfare."

He grabbed my arm, his brows tanking. "You know that's not true."

"Just say it already. You've cornered me. You could've finished this weeks ago, gotten a medal for capturing me."

"What the hell are you're talking about?"

"The accident. You knew it was my fault. Just say it. You've known all along."

"Know what?" His eyes narrowed. "You're not making sense. You hit your head, baby."

"Don't 'baby' me, damn it. You read my file, and now you've got your confession. So finish this already." My fist hit his chest before I even knew I was throwing a punch. "Finish it!"

He gripped my shoulders, searched my face. "Jules, look at me. What am I supposed to know?" His rough grip made my stomach knot. "Talk to me, damn it."

My body gave in to Sam's hold, and I knew I'd sink to the ground if he let me go. Maybe I was relieved. No more running, no more lying. Truth mattered in life, even when it cut you. Bled you.

"Someone had to piece it together." Even my voice was sinking. "It might as well be you."

"Piece what together, Jules, I don't understand."

"The car, the explosion. That it wasn't an accident." I swallowed roughly, felt my face drain of blood.  "That three years ago I killed my fiancé. I killed Luke."

Every muscle in Sam's face froze. "That's impossible."

I couldn't swallow the disgust in his eyes, so I turned my head, but he wouldn't let me go.

"Tell me everything," he said. "Everything."

"The suits took my statement a dozen times."

"Who, the police?"

"Cops, detectives, FBI, ATF, Homeland Security. I don't know, I was so drugged, I couldn't keep them straight. New suits every time, asking the same questions over and over. They told me the explosion wasn't natural, that it split the car in half. That's when I realized his death was my fault."

Max whined, his ears up and alert. Sam's attention snapped toward the lower stairwell.

"You've got to trust me, Jules, it's not what you think"

"Luke wanted to go camping, so I went and filled the propane tank." I looked into Sam's eyes, waited for him to fill in the facts, but his eyes seemed to be pleading for me to stop. "I'd borrowed his car because it was smaller, easier to park. But then I forgot to take out the tank. We drove to the deli for an early-edition
Times
—one of my exhibits had been reviewed—but there was no where to park, so I told Luke to drive the circle to avoid a ticket. A lousy parking ticket. When I came out, he pulled over and the car bounced. Just a bump on the curb. Then the car exploded."