“I need an attorney? I’m in trouble?” She went as cold as ice.
“You hold the lease here and we don’t know how Sylvestri will characterize your involvement. This is just in case.”
“How do you characterize my involvement, Rick? Do you think I’m part of this?”
“Not from the moment I met you, Sammi. Call the guy.”
She stared blindly at the card.
“They’ll bring in Mona, Val and Blythe. He can help them, too.”
“My friends are in trouble?”
“Like I said, just in case. I’m sorry you had to be part of this. I’d hoped it was all at the yarn shop, but it wasn’t.” He swallowed. “And there’s one more thing.”
“What?” She couldn’t take any more bad news. She hadn’t even thought about her friends being involved.
“It would be best not to mention our…about us….”
“You mean that we’re sleeping together?” Bitterness made her voice crack. “I bet there are rules about sleeping with suspects, right?”
“It was wrong. I should never have let it happen.”
“No kidding.” But she was stung by his words. She’d had the best time of her life and he wished it hadn’t happened? Meanwhile, he’d been lying to her about himself, about everything. Hell, he’d put her in danger. And she’d fallen for it. Like a small-town fool.
“Just don’t say anything about us,” he said again. “We don’t want to give them a reason to doubt my word about you.”
“What about my word about me? Isn’t my word good enough?” On top of everything, now she’d be treated like a criminal.
It had been happening all around her and Rick had said nothing—pretended to be her assistant, helping her with clients and the other shops, all the while suspecting them all of being crooks.
“Why didn’t you warn me?” she said. “After all the time we’ve spent together? All we meant to each other?”
“I wanted to, believe me, but I couldn’t.” His eyes dug deep, a fierce green, as radiant as fire. “I’ll explain it all when I can. Just don’t think the worst until we talk. Promise me that.”
“I won’t promise you a damn thing, Rick,” she said.
She thought he’d been her partner, that he loved her work, too, hell, that he was falling in love with her. Instead, he’d been spying on her every move, looking to arrest her, her friends, Bianca, Lester. Because of him, police swarmed her beloved center with cameras and crime-scene tape and she might need an attorney to stay out of jail.
“That’s fair.” His shoulders dropped and the intensity in his eyes faded to a cool neutral. “I’ll fix what I can. I promise you that.” Then he took off.
She wanted to call him back, turn back the clock to this morning when they’d woken up sticky with sundae sauce, ready to make love. In the hours after that, her whole life had been turned upside down. The scary tattooed people had paraded out her door wearing plastic vests padded with drugs. She’d had a gun pointed at her head. She’d risked her life catching a drug dealer.
Bedroom Eyes would never be the same. It even smelled weird—of sweat and metal and chemicals and fear. She wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and cry for hours.
Worse, she wanted Rick to hold her, explain it all away, make everything right. That, she knew, was impossible.
It would never be right again.
15
GET BACK TO SAMANTHA and fix it. The thought was a drumbeat in Rick’s head all the way to the station, during the interview with Sylvestri—even while he cooked up a way to get the man to confess—he wanted to get to her, straighten it out, somehow erase the betrayed look in her eyes.
He’d managed a couple of calls to her home and her cell, but got no answer.
It might be too late. Love was fragile, he knew to his soul. You had to protect it with everything in you. He hadn’t done that. In a way, it had been impossible, because from the beginning he hadn’t been able to be honest with her. Their whole time together had been built on a lie.
He had to make sure she got out of this okay, no matter what. He knew she’d called the attorney because the cop who interviewed her had said Tucker was there.
Despite his worry, Rick had managed some decent police work. Sylvestri had screamed immediately for his attorney, but it had been Rick’s idea to send in Bianca and she’d shamed the man into confessing.
Darien had intended on retiring. This was to be his last job. He might be a lying sack of shit, but he loved his wife, though Rick was in no mood to be touched by a tender moment.