Young Truths (Young Series) (28 page)

There’s a knock on the door and I turn my attention towards it as Marcus enters. “How is she?” he asks quietly.

“She was poisoned,” I say tonelessly. “Rohypnol and something else they haven’t identified yet. Where was Dave?”

Marcus looks at me in surprise, but doesn’t respond to the first half of my statement yet. “He was at his assigned post the whole time, though he admits he ducked away for a few minutes for a bite of lunch. I’ve taken the liberty of dismissing him from his duties to save you the trouble of doing so yourself.”

“That’s a shame,” I mutter darkly, turning back to Samantha. “I’d have liked to take out some of my anger on him for leaving her alone at all.”

“Aside from that, nothing out of the ordinary happened today as far as I could tell,” Marcus goes on. “She ordered lunch around the time Dave took off—”

“Lunch from where?” I ask sharply, finally turning to face him.

“That little café across the street from the store,” he says promptly. “I’ve got a couple guys checking things out there, but I honestly don’t believe anyone in that place came up with something that did this to Samantha. The Rohypnol, maybe, but anything else would have killed her outright.”

I glare at him. “Way to ease my mind.”

“Sorry,” he says.
“Point is we’re looking into this, Matt. We’ll figure it out.”

Shaking my head, I press her fingers to my lips again. “We always say that, Marcus,” I remind him, frustrated. “And we always end up right back here.”

He doesn’t seem to have a response as he sits down beside me.

“What am I doing wrong?” I ask in almost a whisper.

“What do you mean?” he replies cautiously.

I glance at him from the corner of my eyes. “No matter what I do or how safe I think I’ve made my family, I can’t ever get it right. My family has been kidnapped and threatened and our home has been burned down... My wife has been poisoned, for fuck’s sake. I’m finding bodies in my fucking lake and being accused of murdering my ex-girlfriend. Obviously, I’m doing something wrong. So what is it?”

“Matt, you and I both know the only thing we can do at this point is find Marone. Once we’ve got him, this all stops.”

“Then fucking find him already!” I exclaim. “Jesus, Marcus, you’re supposed to be one of the best agents in the FBI and you can’t even find one person? If this was your family—your wife, your kids—what would you do?”

He watches me expressionlessly for a few moments. “I’d be beyond pissed,” he admits evenly. “I’d be terrified and desperate for this to end. I would be a fucking basket case. And I would take out every ounce of anger and frustration on whoever crossed my path.” He pauses. “Believe me, Matt, this is getting to me, too. It may not be my family affected right now, but I want that bastard just as much as you do. Unless you’ve forgotten, he fucking shot me.”

I scrub my hands roughly across my face. “I haven’t forgotten,” I say quietly. “I just don’t know what to do anymore. How am I supposed to keep my family safe? We keep getting lucky somehow, but what if our luck starts to run out? Samantha could have so easily died today and where would that have left me? It would have been my fault—it
is
my fault—because I’m supposed to protect them from all of this.”

Marcus sighs. “I promise you, I’m doing everything I can. If you want my advice, once Samantha is released, get them out of here for a while. Take a vacation or something. You need one just as much as they do. Clear your head, because I know under all that frat boy, carefree exterior you try so hard to exude, you’re right on the edge of a complete breakdown and if you go over that edge, you really won’t be any use to your family.”

I nod. “We’re visiting Sam’s family in Iowa for a bit,” I admit after a few moments. “My only concern is leading the trouble out there to them. Or leaving my parents and my sisters open for targeting.”

“I’ll take care of things back here,” Marcus assures me. “And we’ll make sure Samantha’s family is taken care of, too. For now, though, focus on your wife and your kids and yourself, and try not to stress yourself into an early grave.”

Looking back at my wife and realizing just how bad this day could have been, I can’t find the strength to agree with him. I just want a normal life with my family. Why does seem like too much to ask for?

Over the next several hours, not much has changed. Samantha still remains unresponsive. I remain in my chair beside her bed, only moving when nurses come to check on her. The only times I do more than stare at her is when Olivia starts to fuss because she’s hungry or needs to be changed. When Claire left for the evening, I refused to part with my daughter even though Tyler has gone to stay with Claire’s family. Again. That kid deserves the biggest reward in the world after all the times he’s been shunted off to Claire when something happened that his parents can’t put all their attention on him. I only hope these last ten months won’t result in a lifetime of therapy for my son.

I’ve had plenty of time to think about everything that has happened and how it’s all related and how to end it once and for all. Too many people have died, too many have been hurt, and I don’t know how much more I can take. I’m not accustomed to being afraid, though I’ve been in that state repeatedly as of late. I’m also coming to terms with my feelings of helplessness. I’m terrified that next time something like this happens, my wife or my children might not survive. At this point, I don’t care what happens to me—I’d gladly and willingly sacrifice myself if it meant they were safe. Luckily, I’m not dumb enough to mention this to Samantha or anybody else, lest they spend hours lecturing me about saying such ridiculous things or for trying to downplay my importance in their lives.

But the truth of the matter is that it doesn’t matter what they say; I’m the cause of all of this. I’ve pissed so many people off over the years that they’re banding together for revenge. This isn’t about business anymore; this is personal. Very personal. All the threats I’ve had over the years have in some way involved a business contract or a piece of technology and have disappeared the moment a deal had been struck. Yes, there were times those threats hit a little too close to home before Samantha and Tyler left that I’d have to pack them up last minute and take them on an impromptu vacation, but even then I never believed it was anything outside of professional rivalry. Just because I didn’t play the same games with some of my competitors, they thought I was easily rattled. That’s never been true until now.

“Matt?”

My head whips around and my eyes widen when I spot Jessica Mills tentatively entering the room. I can’t imagine why she would be here. Then I roll my eyes at myself. She’s Mark Reilly’s girlfriend; she’s probably here visiting him and heard Samantha was sick. “Hi, Jessica,” I say quietly, trying to conjure a smile.

She enters the room, looking at Samantha. “How is she?”

I shrug. “The doctors say she’ll recover, but they don’t know how long it will be before she wakes,” I inform her.

She nods slowly, tearing her unreadable expression from my wife to meet my gaze. “I realize this is probably a very bad time,” she begins, “but I was hoping you and I could talk about something.”

“Look, no offense, Jessica,” I say, trying not to sound rude, “but I’m really not in the mood to discuss work right now.”

She shakes her head. “It’s not about work,” she assures me. “Actually, it’s about Samantha.”

Now she’s got my attention. “What about her?” I ask, unable to keep the suspicion out of my tone.

She hesitates. “I really don’t want to cause any more trouble than what you’re already dealing with, but...”

“What?” I ask, gesturing for her to take a seat.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she takes a moment to get her words together. “I think Mark is in love with Samantha,” she blurts out.

Of all the things I thought might come out of her mouth, this is the very last one I expected. And my response is almost as surprising. “Yeah, I figured,” I say tiredly. “Most heterosexual men don’t go out of their way to spend time with a married woman whose husband hates them.”

She blinks in surprise at my lack of reaction. “I think there’s more to it, though,” she says. “Matt, he’s obsessed with her. It’s the reason we broke up; he spent so much time talking about her and I got fed up.”

“Wait, you broke up?” I ask, my brow furrowing.

“Yes, about a month or so ago. He was supposed to come with me to visit my family, but at the last minute, he decided he wanted to stay behind because he was hoping to be around when Samantha went into labor,” she explains. “At first, he tried to tell me it was because of Bonnie that he didn’t want to go, but I knew better.”

Well, this is news... My eyes dart over to Samantha’s sleeping form. “I didn’t know that,” I say quietly. The cynical part of my mind wonders why Samantha didn’t tell me her friend was dumped by his girlfriend and whether she intentionally kept it from me. I shake that thought quickly. “When you say he’s obsessed with her, what exactly do you mean?”

Jessica rolls her eyes, almost in disgust. “I’d left some things in his apartment before we broke up and last week, I went by to grab them while he was at work. When I was getting everything together, I found a shoebox under his bed filled with pictures of her. It was like he’d been stalking her and taking photos from long range. Candid stuff—picking up your son from school, at the grocery store, at the bookstore, shots with the two of you together. A few of them were...” She glances around briefly, searching for the right word, giving me an apologetic look. “
Intimate
.”

I want to ask what she means by that, but the blush on her cheeks tells me everything I need to know. “Why does Mark Reilly have a boxful of pictures of my wife?”

“I don’t know,” she replies regretfully. “It’s a little creepy, to be honest.”

“More than a little,” I mutter darkly. “Did he have anything else?”

“Not that I saw,” she answers. “I just thought I should give you a heads up. I don’t know if he means to hurt her or you or your children—I honestly can’t see him going that far—but I know I would want to be aware of the possibility.”

I nod. “Yeah, thank you,” I say broodingly. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

Jessica stands to leave after a few moments, realizing I can’t think of anything to discuss on this subject. As she reaches the door, I manage to think of something and call her name. She turns around questioningly.

“Last month, after Samantha gave birth, did you call Mark to ask if she was up for visitors?” I ask, already knowing what her response will be.

She shakes her head. “No,” she replies. “I was visiting my family in Texas. Why?”

“No reason,” I tell her. “Thanks.”

With a tight, concerned smile, she leaves the room. I’ve never wanted to beat the shit out of somebody more than I want to do so to Mark Reilly. I could have accepted his friendship with my wife eventually, but this...

I sit at Samantha’s bedside for a few more hours, forming a plan. I’m done standing on the sidelines while people get away with hurting my family and I can’t just let somebody else handle it anymore. This has to end before anything worse happens and I think I know how to start getting to the bottom of it all.

For what has to be the hundredth time in a matter of hours, I wonder what the hell I’m doing here and why I thought it would be a good idea. Upon leaving the hospital, I left very strict instructions with Marcus to keep Mark Reilly and anybody else away from Samantha. He’s already arranged for one of the junior FBI agents to stand watch outside her hospital room. As luck would have it, Claire was arriving as I was leaving so I didn’t have to take a detour to drop off Olivia with her. I managed to ignore her and Marcus’s demands for me to tell them where I was going; something tells me they wouldn’t approve. And I know Samantha won’t approve, but this needs to be done and I have every intention of telling her every detail of what happens once she wakes.

I hated leaving her, especially not knowing whether she would wake up while I’m gone. I want to be there the moment she opens her eyes so I can reassure her and myself that she’s going to be okay. But this is important and has the potential to answer so many questions.

The moment I walk through the door I’m waved over to a counter by a corrections officer where I hand over my driver’s license and sign several forms and log books before being patted down and searched for hidden contraband. Once the officer determines I’m clean, he directs me through a metal detector and on the other side, I’m handed a visitor’s badge that I clip to the collar of my jacket.

“Walsh, huh?” comments another officer as he leads me towards the visitation room. “She doesn’t get many visitors. Only her brother once or twice a week and even then, he doesn’t stay for long.”

I nearly stumble in my steps at his words. Brother? Natalie doesn’t have a brother, at least not one I’ve ever heard of. You would think dating someone for nearly a year, you’d know them as well as you know yourself. Then again, I didn’t realize she was screwing my best friend behind my back and plotting my demise during that entire time. I suppose it could all be bullshit—someone pretending to be her brother to gain access to visitation—but I can’t imagine a facility such as this overlooking something so obvious. Or you wouldn’t think so, anyway.