Chapter 3

~*~*~*~

In the night, I hear them talk, the coldest story ever told
Somewhere far along this road, he lost his soul
To a woman so heartless

~ Heartless (Swinghouse Session) by The Fray

~*~*~*~

At seeing Martin's face, Kim's heart started pounding so furiously in her chest she was certain that the agent sitting next to her could hear it. She shifted slowly in her seat to get a better look at him, her entire body trembling with both excitement and fear. Delmar had made it abundantly clear that Martin wasn't going to be affiliated in any way, shape or form with the case. She didn't have to ask to know that it was because Martin had already risked so much in his association with her that he needed to be as far removed from her as possible.

And yet, here he was.

Their eyes met and time seemed to stand still, flashes of their all too brief time together appearing in her mind's eye. Forgetting how to breathe, she stared at the man who had been haunting her dreams for the last few months. He looked the same but older, worn down, sad. His blue eyes weren't as bright and there were creases around them now that made him look older, wearier. His easy smile was replaced by a stoic frown and his golden glow was now pale and dreary. His entire body seemed heavier, subdued and burdened. Her chest tightened knowing that she was most likely the sole cause for the change.

She stared at him as pangs of guilt, remorse, excitement, and nervousness swelled up inside of her. She was so enthralled at seeing his face that it took her a moment to notice the man standing to Martin's right: Danny Taylor. He narrowed his steely eyes at her and she wanted to disappear into her seat.

"Outside," Delmar barked, pointing to the door.

Kim tensed up, watching as Delmar stalked out of the conference room followed by Martin. Danny got in step behind Martin but not before glaring at her as he exited the room.

As soon as they were gone, all around her she could hear the other agents murmuring and gossiping, talking about what Martin's motivations were and why he volunteered to go undercover. Eventually all pairs of eyes drifted over to look at her, casting judgmental looks in her direction. She lowered her eyes, doing her best to focus on her glass of water sitting on the table.

"If I were Fitzgerald, I'd want to play house with her again, too," one of the agents murmured under his breath but loud enough for her to hear.

"You got that right," another agent replied, chuckling.

Despite herself, Kim glanced over in the direction of the conversation in time to catch the two men ogling at her from across the table. They stared at her, giving her crude appraising looks as they scanned their eyes over her. One of the agents waggled his eyebrows, admiring the view and there was no mistaking the gleam in his eye. He licked his lips as if he was picturing her in his mind and she felt the taste of bile in her mouth.

She shot him a look of disgust and quickly turned her head to look out the window into the hallway. She watched as Martin spoke with Delmar, a look of determination on his face. She was taken off guard that he would volunteer to spend so much time with her considering the last time she saw him he made it abundantly clear he never wanted to see her again…

~*~

Kim roused slowly, the scent of disinfectant and sterilization filling her senses. It took her a moment to remember where she was, her eyes blinking as she took in her surroundings. She was lying on a hospital bed in the dimly lit room; the only sources of light were coming from the small fixture mounted above the headboard of her bed and the soft glow from the hospital hallway. Judging by the darkness outside, the window and the lack of noise or activity, she guessed it was that quiet time between no longer being night, but still not quite ready to be considered day. She swallowed and sighed heavily sinking into the bed, the coarse fabric of the hospital gown scratching her skin. There was a dull throbbing feeling in her shoulder and her vision was blurry at first, so she blinked a few times to find focus and when she did, there was Martin.

He sat by her bed in a stiff pale blue recliner, the darkness of the room shrouding his face in shadows. Wordlessly, she scooted up a few inches and stared back at him. His normally bright blue eyes were as dark as a sky after a storm. They watched each other warily, uncertainty weighing heavily in the air.

"How do you feel?" he asked at last.

"Sore, fuzzy," she quietly answered. She looked down at her hands, the IV tube taped onto her skin and an ID bracelet dangling limply from her wrist. Fully awake now, she glanced around the room that looked like any other hospital: bed, chair, TV mounted on the wall, and a small cabinet near a door to a small private bathroom. When her eyes drifted past Martin to the open door, she spotted a uniformed officer guarding the door. He was seated on a stiff orange chair, his focus fixed on the crossword puzzle in his hands. Licking her lips, she carefully asked, "Is he here for me?"

Following her gaze, Martin looked over his shoulder and answered, "For now, yes." He turned to look back at her. "We'll need to talk to Detective Bensinger and the DA in the morning and see which agency will handle your case."

"I see," she breathed, closing her eyes and sighing heavily as she wondered what would become of her now that she had been caught. She was surprised that while being incredibly anxious about her fate, there was also a part of her that was relieved that the running was over. It was done. Despite her intense anxiety about being arrested, having her long time secret exposed to the air, gave her room to breathe.

It was quiet for a beat, the air thick with silence when Martin's heavy voice filled the space between them. "I can…" he paused, as he searched for his words, "If you tell me the truth, I can try and call in some favors to try and get you placed in a minimum security Federal Prison."

She opened her eyes to look at him. Her first instinct, the one that every molecule of her body was screaming for her to follow, was to lie, lie, lie and when confronted with the truth, lie some more. So she opened her mouth to spin a new yarn when she saw Martin's eyes studying her sadly, looking so heartbroken and ready to be disappointed by her once more tonight. His pained voice echoed in her ears, pleading, 'Stop lying to me!' and a fissure split up inside of her, sending a painful ache through her body.

So with a shaky breath she spilled out, "I never wanted anyone to get hurt."

Looking caught off guard by her honesty, he leaned in closer and asked, "What happened?"

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she began, "I'd been dating Jimmy for a few months and I thought he was dark and mysterious. Turns out, I was just stupid." She fidgeted with the pale pink blanket on the bed before giving Martin a pointed look and clarifying, "I didn't know exactly what he did when we started dating, he kept saying he did freelance work but he was always very private and didn't like it when I asked too many questions. One day, I walked into his bedroom and he had stacks of money on his bed, getting ready to put into this safe he kept in his closet. When I asked him about it, he shoved me out of the room saying it was none of my business. I didn't like him getting so physical with me so I threatened to break-up with him and he got so angry," she paused, her eyes shut tight at the visceral memory of his arms squeezing her arms. "He slapped me across the face and told me that only he can say when it would be over between us."

"Why'd you stay with someone like that?"

"I thought I loved him," she replied, unsure exactly herself. "Or maybe I just didn't want to be alone. I don't know." She sat up, wincing as her shoulder brushed the stiff hospital pillow. She noticed that Martin started to stand up to help her before thinking otherwise and dropping back into his chair. "Afterwards, he lavished me with gifts and apologized for losing his temper with me." Martin nodded slightly as he clenched his jaw. "About a month later, my mom had her first stroke." She swallowed, her throat getting increasingly sore with each word she spoke. "She lost almost all motor function and didn't have any insurance. She needed full-time care and Medicaid only covers so much." She stopped talking to try and dislodge the lump in her throat as the memory of her mother looking so frail and weak filled her mind. "I had to put her in a state run facility and it was just such a depressing place. I wanted her somewhere good, someplace where the nurses seemed to actually care about the patients. But I was barely scraping by as it was with my income and paying back my student loans, rent…"

She stopped talking to try and regain her composure, tears welling in the corner of her eyes. She pursed her lips and looked over at Martin who was wringing his hands nervously.

"And?" he gently urged for her to continue.

"And I was desperate to get money to help her," she shakily replied, pulling the blanket up and holding it close. "So I asked Jimmy for a loan. I mean, I knew he had cash, right." Her lips curved up into a bitter smile. "He told me no, but said he knew of a way to help me get all the money I needed to help put her in a top notch facility. That he lost one of his workers recently and needed some help. I asked how one job could possibly pay so well and he explained that it was because it was dangerous."

"He asked you to help rob banks," Martin speculated.

She nodded, a few tears falling from her eyes. She wiped them away and continued, "When he told me that, I tried to walk away – I really did." This time the tears were falling faster than she could wipe them away. Wordlessly, Martins walked across the room and picked up a box of tissues. He pulled several out as he came back to her bed and held them out for her. With shaky fingers she took them, giving him a grateful look. "But a few days later, my mom had another stroke and just got sicker…"

"And that's when you agreed to drive the getaway car," Martin guessed, bowing his head.

"I was only supposed to drive the car that one time," she lamented, frustration still billowing over at how quickly her entire life unraveled because of one incredibly stupid decision born out of desperation. "Jimmy told me that his crew was good and would be in and out in a matter of minutes with no complications. But on that day – that one damn day – he ended up shooting that security guard."

"I didn't even know what had happened until we were already driving away. Jimmy had me pull into an alley a few blocks from the bank and he and the other guys all climbed out saying we would meet later at a bar near his apartment," Kim explained, still remembering the hours she spent sitting in the back booth of the smoky bar waiting for him or anyone else from his team to arrive. She sat in the corner booth as instructed, staring at the door, her eyes searching out for a familiar face with each patron who entered. She still felt so foolish sitting there waiting for them and fending off the drunken advances of slimy men asking why a pretty girl like her was sitting all alone. "I sat there until last call but no one ever showed." Her voice cracked as she finished, "I risked everything and ended up with nothing.

Martin sat there quietly absorbing what she had just said. "Why didn't you disappear, too? You had to know that the police would come around asking questions."

She wiped her nose with a tissue, her face feeling flushed with emotion. "I couldn't. I was still broke and I had my mom to worry about."

"So when you talked to Detective Frank Bensinger it wasn't a total lie. You really had no idea where Jimmy had gone?"

"I was so scared talking to him. I didn't want to go to jail and I really didn't know where Jimmy went. The only reason I was at his apartment that day the detective came by was because I was going through his stuff to try and find out where he might've gone or if there was anything I could sell. I still needed the money."

"Something still doesn't track, Kim. You say that Jimmy and his crew took off with the money but we found nearly fifty thousand in your bags at the storage unit." He sat up straight and gave her a sharp look. "Where'd that money come from?

More tears fell from her eyes as all of her dark secrets were dragged out into the light, demanding to be reckoned with. She knew that this conversation would be hard with anyone but with Martin, watching her with his big blue eyes that looked like they still wanted to believe there was goodness inside of her, it was heart wrenching. She wiped her cheeks, slicked with tears and gasped for air as she struggled to find her breath.

"You need to tell me the truth," Martin pleaded, his voice yearning for her to be honest. "I can't help you if you lie to me because I will find out the truth eventually. The FBI is tracking the serial numbers on the money as we speak trying to link it to the bank robbery."

Shame and fear welled up inside of her, lodging themselves behind the lump in her throat. She had never felt more vulnerable, so much hinging on how she answered this difficult, life-changing question. She looked back over at him, every molecule, ever fiber of her being was screaming for her to lie – to not tell him this final truth that would irrevocably damage what little faith he had left in her. But as much as she wanted to follow her sense of self-preservation, staring into Martin's ocean blue depths, she felt her resolve crumble in a thousand pieces and confessed, "They won't link it to the bank robbery."

"Why not?" he asked, frowning. "Did you launder it already? We have ways of tracking it if you did."

She shook her head, dreading his reaction to the truth. She clenched her eyes as more tears well up as her bottom lip quivered. "Martin, please… don't make me say it."

"Damn it, you need to talk while I am still in a position to help you, Kim," he demanded, his voice hard and determined. "Because if NYPD and the FBI find out before I do, it's all over and I can't do anything to help you."

The tears just kept streaming down her face as she surrendered, "Bobby Elber didn't threaten to hurt my mom in order to get me to change my vote on the jury." She steeled her nerves and in one quick whoosh she said, "He offered me a bribe and I accepted it."

Martin cocked his head as if wondering if he heard her correctly. It tore at her to see that even after all that happened tonight, it was as if he still wanted to believe the best of her.

But as the realization sunk in at how much she had lied to him since day one, he looked away disgusted and flew off his chair, stalking to the far side of the room. She choked back hot tears, watching him through teary eyes as he stared out the window, shaking his head with tensed up shoulders as he processed just how deep her betrayal had been. From where she lay, she could feel the rage radiating from his body, his fury heavy and palpable. Not looking at her, he seethed, "It was all just one lie after another, wasn't it?" He spun around, livid, and darkly accused, "Everything was just a lie. Everything." She couldn't speak and just stared back helplessly as Martin unraveled before her. "You've been lying to me all along."

"I didn't mean to hurt you," she argued, her vision blurred with hot tears at this confession of genuine regret. "I only took the money because I still needed to get my mom out of that facility." She gasped struggling to find her breath that was being choked back with emotion and shuddered. "And in the end, none of it mattered because with my shitty luck… after the trial my mom died in that damn state hospital anyway."

"Don't do that," he ordered.

She blinked. "Do what?"

"Try and make me feel sorry for you," he replied, shaking his head vehemently. "I'm not falling for that again. You used that card with me that day at the cabin and I know you played it with Det. Bensinger. I'm not falling for it anymore."

"I'm not TRYING to make you feel anything," she replied, shocked at just how true that statement was. For the first time in years, she was speaking without pretense or an agenda only to have it tossed back in her face. She suddenly became defensive and argued, "You wanted me to tell you the truth and I am."

"The truth is you keep saying you have bad luck but you know what truth I see? I see that you needed money and tried to take the easy way out by stealing it," he counterattacked with hard unrelenting anger. He made a broad sweeping motion with his hands. "I see that if you had any conscience you would've told the truth when Det. Bensinger interviewed you but you lied to save yourself and then you ran and hid."

"I didn't know where Jimmy went and I didn't want to go to prison," she replied, her self-preservation instincts kicking into high gear. "I knew that with Jimmy gone, they would've charged me with the guard's death."

"The guard was murdered and even if you didn't pull the gun, by driving the car, you were as culpable as Jimmy was," he argued, shaking his head at her in disbelief. He huffed out a frustrated breath and continued, "And then when you did get away with it, when you could've turned your life around, you saw another opportunity to get easy money again and you took it. You sold your vote and let a criminal get away with murder for fifty thousand dollars." He stared at her, his face a mixture of sadness and disgust. "That's what I see when I look at you."

Seeing him look at her that way, her shoulders hitched as the tears fell harder. "I was desperate." She wiped her nose and took a moment to gather herself. With so much emotion, she was overwhelmed. Taking a jagged breath, she said, "I don't expect you to understand feeling that way but," she swallowed, her throat raw and sore, "but desperation, it makes you do things that you would never believe possible otherwise."

Releasing a shaky breath, she raised her chin and met his eyes. He looked back at her and in an instant she saw a flicker of understanding. He bowed his head and rubbed his chin with his hand, pensively. She tried to read him, to guess what he was thinking when after a long beat he started speaking again.

"Why didn't you just go? You had the money… why not just run away?" he asked, the faintest trace of empathy in his voice. "I know you were thinking about it," he pointed out, dropping his hands by his side, staring at her sadly. "Reading the travel section, looking for places to 'get lost.'"

She wanted to disappear into thin air, knowing that he knew that morning they were talking about traveling she was thinking about running while he probably thought it was a chance for them to grow closer. She wiped her face with both of her palms; her entire body went limp, exhausted both physically and emotionally. "I thought about it all the time but I don't know… I just wasn't ready." Releasing a shaky breath, she met his eyes and said, "And then I met you and even though I knew I should go, I didn't want to anymore."

They stared at each for a long beat, each looking uncertain as to what the fates held for them. He opened his mouth to speak but the words wouldn't come when there was a soft knock on the door.

"Martin?"

Kim looked over to see Martin's partner, Danny, lingering in the doorway, his gaze shifting apprehensively between the two of them. She stared at him, thinking back to the previous night before all this happened, Martin had mentioned that maybe they could double date with his friend and his fiancée, Elena. It felt like another life. Of course, in many ways it was.

Clearing his throat to try and collect himself, Martin stepped towards the lanky agent. "Yeah, I'll be right out."

Danny nodded reluctantly, casting a final suspicious look at her before stepping out of the room.

Once he was gone, she looked back over at Martin and quietly asked, "You're leaving?"

"I have to go give my report to my SAC," he replied, running his hand over his head. He stepped towards the door, talking as he walked. "Since you told me the truth, I'll still see what I can do to get your case under federal jurisdiction." He paused and added, "But it won't be easy once they find out you lied about the jury tampering." She nodded her head slowly, grateful that after all of this, he was still willing to try and help her. She watched as he picked up his coat from the back of the chair and shrugged it on, still refusing to look in her direction. "In the meantime, as soon as the doctor gives the all clear, you will be transported to the county jail for processing."

"When will I see you again?" she asked as he started walking out.

His back was to her and rather than turn around to face her completely, he turned his head slightly, his profile silhouetted against the light of the hallway. "You won't."

And then he was gone.

~*~

Kim sunk into her chair, wrapping her arms around her remembering that was the last time she saw Martin in the flesh. True to his word, whatever connections Martin had they must have been of the highest caliber because she was sent to the Federal Penitentiary where most of the fellow prisoners were of the white collar variety: embezzlers, hackers, and fraud.

Her lawyer thought she could make a deal to testify against Malucci, the drug dealer who had bribed her, but when they were in the process of making the deal with the DA, he was killed by a rival drug dealer before the trial even began. Again – Kim never had any luck. She was disappointed because not only would she have gotten released from prison but she also would've been placed in the witness protection program. It was her last chance at starting over – beginning anew.

At least, that is until Agent Delmar approached her about helping with his operation to capture Jimmy. While she was terrified of seeing Jimmy again – still remembering how dark and furious he could get, she was more terrified of spending the rest of her life in prison.

Lifting her chin, her eyes drifted over to the window to see Martin arguing with Delmar in the hallway. She soaked in the sight of him knowing that while she was overcome at seeing his face, it was hardly the auspicious reunion she had been hoping for. She kept her gaze focused on his face, praying that he could convince Delmar to let him go undercover as her husband because having him alone for a few days may be just the opportunity she needed to prove to him that in all of the lies she lived – he was the one true thing in her life.

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A/N: Thanks so much to those of you who are sticking with this story and reviewing. As always I am totally honored when anyone reads any of my stories so thank you so much. Another shout out to Anmodo for all her help. It's rather scary how much I've come to rely on her input and guidance so I want to thank her again for helping me work through the story and git 'er done. ;-)