Sam checked her clip; full. She slammed it into the butt of her Px4 Storm. The gun was new, sleek and her hand molded around the grip. Seventeen bullets, sixteen in the clip and one in the chamber as she pulled back the slide and let it snap shut. Two more clips in her jacket. If she needed more than fifty-one bullets, she was going to be in trouble... or at least, more trouble than she already saw coming her way.
This was supposed to be a simple job, watch a guy, report back to his wife. The watching was easy. Sam sat in the car most of the time, her nails drumming along the steering wheel. He went in, he came back out hours later. He was always cagey when he walked into the grand hotel in downtown Manhattan. He looked right, then left when he got out of the car. He paused before handing the keys to the valet. He looked left, then right before going into the hotel.
Sam watched him for two weeks and never once saw him with a woman other than his wife. He was up to something, but not what the missus suspected. This guy wasn't having an affair. Sam reported that back to his wife. She had promptly coughed up more money and told Sam to find out what he was doing. That's when it got hard.
Sam slid her shiny new gun into its new gray holster and looked in the mirror. The gun hung easily at her hip. A swipe toward the back, and she could flip the catch and pull the gun. The gun on her hip would call for her duster instead of her leather jacket. The jacket was just too short to cover the gun, and the last thing she needed was for someone to call her out. She had her PI's license, and she had a license to carry. She just didn't want the hassle of being held up by questioning police.
"What am I doing?" Sam muttered as she ran her hands through her hair. She pulled her hair back from her face and twisted her lips, pushing her mouth toward the side. "This is a really bad idea," she said. "Just give the lady back her money and tell her that you don't want anything to do with this."
Except Sam did want to know what was going on. After weeks of watching, planting recording devices in the guy's office, listening to phone calls, she was curious. This guy was into something dangerous, and she should stay away from it. Too bad Sam seemed to go diving headfirst into any and everything dangerous. It was a complex, a disease, and both her mother and her cousin had told her so.
Oddly enough, Alexis and Nikolas had been supportive of Sam's decision to be a private investigator. They both probably figured that her job would be chasing cheating spouses and hidden bank accounts. Neither thought that it would include new hardware and a knot in Sam's stomach as she thought about going out the door, following the trail, finishing the tough jobs. Now, they would probably beg her not to go any further. If she gave them the chance, she might agree with them, she might listen.
Listening would have been the smart thing to do. After all, this was going nowhere but bad places. Sam wished that Kevlar vest had come in. She needed it sized specially for her frame, big enough to cover her full breasts but tapered at her tiny waist. That was going to take some time, and when she first put the order in, she thought she had time before she was going to need it. With her luck, the damn thing would show up tomorrow after she was already gone.
Sam dropped her hair around her shoulders and cocked her head to the side. "Why am I so damn nosy, huh?" She grunted and put her hands on her hips. "Nosiness is definitely not a Cassadine trait." She had picked up all the others, why couldn't she pick up that one?
Maybe she should have taken Nikolas up on his job offer. He'd pay her a retainer, and when trouble came knocking at the door of his big stone palace, she would make sure that he, Spencer and Nadine were safe. She would be in charge of his personal security. That was one hell of a thing to put on a resume. Head of a bona fide prince's security. It would have been enticing if Sam thought the job would actually be needed. No one had heard from Helena Cassadine in ages, and Nikolas didn't get into quite as much trouble, anymore. She'd have been a highly paid, glorified babysitter. Even Nikolas could see the realization in her eyes, and he knew that she wasn't going to take him up on it.
Three hard knocks came at her door and Sam jumped. "Open up, Sam!" She relaxed at the voice. She knew this was one person that wasn't going to hurt her. Only when her hand brushed her thigh did she realize that she had moved to grab her gun. She wasn't going to need it.
Sam walked the few brisk steps to the front door, her heels clicking against the hard wood floor. She opened the door, and the disapproving face that met her squelched any excitement about his arrival. "I got a call from Alexis, because Nikolas called and told her that you told him you'd be out of town for a few days. You've got a new gun on your hip. What are you into?"
Sam almost told him that he didn't have a right to care about what she did anymore. He was the one that broke up with her, after all. Hadn't he fallen in love with someone else? Of course, that wasn't the way to go about things when she thought that maybe he was falling in love with her all over again, or maybe realizing that he'd never stopped loving her in the first place. Sam and Jason were meant to be together, after all. They were right for each other. Who else would have noticed that she had a new gun strapped to her hip?
"I'm on a case," she said, taking a step back. Jason stalked past her and Sam swung the door shut behind him. "Sometimes, cases take me out of town. I really wish Nikolas would stop."
"Stop what? Caring about you?"
"Yes, actually. I can handle myself." Sam folded her arms and her back went stiff. She was a big girl. She had handled herself in situations a lot worse than this one, and that was long before she ever met Jason Morgan, long before she came to Port Charles, New York. "It's not even anything major. I just wanted Nikolas to know in case he came by or something and I wasn't here."
"And you weren't going to tell me?"
"Why would I tell you?" she asked. "Do I have to check in whenever I do my job?"
"What if you need back up, huh? If I don't even know where you're going, how can I help?"
Sam wanted to scream. Sometimes, he frustrated her so much. There were times like these when he acted like nothing had changed, like neither of them had ever done anything and they had never broken up. They were nice moments until Sam compared them with the near misses and the almost kisses, the times when Jason backed off, ran away from her, reminding her that life wasn't the way that it used to be, reminding her that they were no longer the Bonnie and Clyde of Port Charles.
"I'm just checking something out," Sam said with a heavy sigh. "There was this guy—" Why was she even telling him about this? It was none of his business. This was exactly why she'd talked to Nikolas instead of Alexis. She knew that her mother would go straight to Jason. Alexis may have hated the idea of her daughter being anywhere near the known criminal, but she knew that if anyone had a chance of talking Sam out of something crazy, it was Jason. She also knew that if he couldn't talk her out of it, he'd go with her, or at least he would give it a shot.
"This guy," Sam said, "was supposed to just be cheating on his wife. Easy case, easy money, right? Except, he's not cheating on his wife. He's doing something dirty, and she wanted me to find out what it was. Then, I followed him coming into Port Charles, twice, and he went to the Zacchara place and talked to somebody there. Once, I saw him standing out on the docks staring out at the water. So, obviously, this guy has something to do with them and shipments, right?"
"You need to stay away from the Zacchara organization."
Sam watched his jaw tighten. It still bothered Jason that Sonny had taken over the Zacchara family, and if she found anything out about them, it was going to go back on him. Maybe, maybe not. She'd not seen the guy meet with Sonny. He met with either Anthony or Trevor. But, still, it might go back to Sonny, and in that case, Jason would have to do something about it. Just another reason that Sam had kept him out of it until she had more information.
"I am staying away from the Zaccharas," she told him. "That's why I'm following the guy. I'm not gonna get anything here, but I can get something from him. Jason, the guy's twitchy and has no idea what he's involved in. He's afraid of his own shadow. I put this gun in his face and he'll tell me whatever I want to know."
Jason stared at her for a second, one quick heartbeat, then said, "I'm going with you."
"You can't! I mean, you've got an organization to run. You have things to do here. You can't just go with me."
"Bernie and Diane can handle anything here, and if they need me, they can call me. I'm going with you."
Sam's eyes narrowed. Was he always so pushy, or was she just now realizing it? Probably the latter. Except for his sudden ability to lie like a damn pro, Jason hadn't changed much over the years. She wasn't going to get out of taking him with her. Either they walked out of her house together, or he followed her along the way. Funny how things changed. Hadn't there been a time when the roles were reversed, when Sam would have been the one putting her foot down and threatening to follow? Oh, how life changes.
"Fine," she said, "but it's my case, and I'm calling the shots. You're just going for back up."
"Just back up."
"I mean it, Jason. You step on my toes, I'll take off and you won't find me until I come back to town." Sam groaned and let her arms fall to her sides. "Now," she said, "lets get going. I know where he'll be for the next twenty-four hours. If I lose him, there's no telling when I'll get this chance again."
