Chapter 6

XoXoXoXoX

Samantha brought the back of her hand up to her mouth to stifle her yawn. As soon as it was released she took a sip of her coffee, hoping the caffeine would help. It was already four in the afternoon and this was her fifth cup. The odds were slim that another cup would do the trick but she had to try. She still had a full day ahead of her - and more importantly, a full night.

She felt her heart race at the thought of the evening ahead and it took all her power to force it to slow down. She reminded herself that she was only doing her job, nothing more. But the truth of the matter was that her exhaustion had nothing to do with the guard detail. Mike relieved her at midnight and she was home in bed by one am. The problem was that, in spite of her exhaustion, she couldn't sleep because every time she closed her eyes her mind kept drifting to thoughts of Martin.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, she cringed at the memory of how easily she forgot why she was in his house to begin with…

XoX

From where she sat on her end of the sofa, Samantha smiled smugly at Martin's dower expression as John Anderson announced that the Bucks had beaten the Knicks. She took great pleasure in the fact that Anderson was a well known Wisconsin boy who favored their sports teams and was adding a lot of embellishment in his recap of the game's highlights.

She turned and grinned at Martin who narrowed his eyes at her and took a sip of his beer. She raised her eyebrows and just sat back, smirking as she drank some of her soda.

Lowering her can she teased, "What was it you were saying about a certain team kicking another team's ass?"

He gave her a somber look and coolly replied, "No one likes a smug winner."

She grinned. "Actually, I think they say that no one likes a sore loser."

He laughed and she joined him. They shifted their attention back to the show in time for a commercial for Anderson Cooper's news show on CNN. There, Cooper promoted the headlines for the day and, of course, he referenced Fiona Rogers and her connection to Senator Fitzgerald. They used a clip of Martin and Danny exiting their office earlier that day and underneath they had the customary scandalous bold headline to draw in viewers: Senator Connected to Lobbyist Murder?

Samantha sighed heavily, knowing that even though Jack had given a press conference adamantly insisting that the Martin was not a suspect in Fiona's death, speculation about his connection to her was still a hot topic.

She glanced over at Martin to see him looking bothered by the negative press. She knew that it couldn't be easy to have to deal with. "I'm sorry about all of this but I'm sure Jack or Vivian will contact the press again and reiterate that you aren't involved."

"Samantha, I am involved aren't I? That's why you are here." He shook his head and took another sip of his beer. "All I can pray is that you catch whoever is behind this before the Senate reconvenes next week."

"Me, too," she replied, slumping into her seat, the levity from earlier now gone. She stared at the TV when the news camera cut one final time to Danny and Martin.

"Oh well, I'm sure Danny will work his magic and spin this to our advantage tomorrow," Martin commented with his eyes on the TV as he set his beer back down on the table. "He's a genius when it comes to spinning a negative into a positive."

"He didn't seem too happy about not being able to tell the press about what's really going on," she commented. "He looked pretty mad actually."

"I know Danny can be abrupt when you first meet him but he's really a good guy," Martin explained, slumping down on his side of the sofa so his face was even with hers. "He just has this innate distrust of people whose motivations seem ambiguous. I guess you could say it has to do with his upbringing. But his heart is always in the right place and I promise you: when push comes to shove, there is no one else you would want on your side."

"You guys are really loyal to each other aren't you?"

Martin smiled. "Danny likes to joke that we're like brothers from another mother."

Samantha smiled and said, "You know, my friend Elena said she thought he was really handsome."

He turned to face her looking wounded. "What? She didn't say anything about me?"

"Not her type," Sam quickly teased.

"Oh, yeah?" he said, his eyebrow cocked. "And whose type would you say I am?"

"Oh, uh," she stammered when she was saved by the ringing of his cell phone.

He smiled at her as he reached over and picked up his cell phone. Reading the caller ID he said, "Speaking of the devil." Shaking his head, he pressed the talk button and answered, "Why must you bother me all the time?"

She stared at him, surprised at his greeting and wondered if it was his father when he laughed and, into his phone, said, "Yeah, I just saw it, too. Hang on." He looked over at Sam as he stood up. "Excuse me. I have to take this call." He walked to the door and exited but not before she heard him say, "Yeah, I talked to him… You know my father. What do you think he said? He told me he was only trying to help."

She sat back on the sofa, watching the TV but when they started talking about an upcoming boxing match she lost interest. She glanced at the door, his voice softly filtering through the door. Satisfied he wouldn't be coming back right away Samantha stood up and wandered around the room.

In the center of the room was a dark tan sectional sofa that was strategically placed as to allow everyone seated full view of the large plasma screen mounted on the far wall. Scattered on the coffee table were numerous periodicals like The New Yorker, Newsweek, Time, Business Week, U.S. News & World Report intermingled with more popular magazines like Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, and Outside. All the magazines looked like they had each been flipped through on more than one occasion, the corners bent and pages wrinkled.

She moved over to the far wall where there was a bar stationed in the far corner. Her eyes scanned it and she noted that it was stocked equally with both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.

She slowly gravitated to the wall lined with photographs. She found herself taken aback with the content of the photographs. There were photos of Martin with famous sports figures like Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Damon and Hank and George Steinbrenner of the NY Yankees, Chris Duhon, Mike D'Antoni and Jamal Crawford from the Knicks, and some guys that she couldn't name but judging by their size and the fact that Martin was holding a football they were with the Giants.

But more than that, there were also photos of him with friends at backyard BBQ's, hiking in Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and some of him simply sitting in living rooms with people who resembled him enough to make her wonder if they were his family. There was a very proper looking photograph of him with his father, a man she recognized from the bureau newsletters. She couldn't help but smile at how casual and happy he looked in these photos when her eyes landed on him with an older woman. She leaned in close, studying the photograph.

Martin and the older woman were standing at a bench inside a greenhouse. The woman didn't look too much like him but there was definitely a familiarity between the two. The woman's head was wrapped up in a colorful scarf and while she looked frail in body, it was evident that she had a strong spirit by the determined expression on her face. Sam's gaze shifted to Martin. He had a look of concentration on his face, his hands wrapped around the base of a small plant. It looked as if the older woman was giving him instructions because she was pointing to something around the ball of dirt and roots. They both looked so engrossed in what they were doing she doubted that they even knew they were being photographed until after the picture was taken.

"That's my Aunt Bonnie," Martin said.

Startled that she hadn't even heard him return, she mentally chastised herself for forgetting why she was here and mumbled, "Sorry…"

"Stop apologizing already," Martin teased before coming to stand next to her. He looked at the photograph, a sad, wistful look on his face. "This is one of my favorite photographs." He smiled and explained, "She loves to garden. She practically has two green thumbs."

"Is she the one who lives in Long Island?" Samantha asked, her eyes continually landing more on him than the photograph.

"Yeah, she does," he quietly replied, his gaze fixed on the photo when he sighed and turned to face her with a small, sad smile on his lips.

Sam looked into his blue eyes, realizing just how close their faces were. Suddenly feeling very flushed, the air around them rising a few degrees. She knew she should step back, look away, anything other than standing so dangerously close to him when a loud ringing sound sliced through the quiet.

Abruptly, Martin turned around and said, "That's the buzzer for the back door." He turned back to look at her and said, "Looks like the next shift is here."

"Yeah," she replied, nervously taking a step back and moving around him. "I better go answer it."

She quickly exited the den, leaving Martin all alone. As she hurried to the kitchen she took a few calming breaths, she didn't need Mike to see her looking anything but like a cool, collected agent. She couldn't believe how easily she forgot the reason she was here and she vowed that the next time she was on duty she wouldn't lose herself again.

At least she prayed she wouldn't.

XoX

"Wake up, Spade," Louis ordered.

Sam's eyes flew open and she looked over to find Elena and Louis walking into the bullpen carrying a laptop. "I wasn't sleeping, I was resting my eyes," she argued, knowing how lame the excuse sounded in her own ears. "Besides, you should be nice to me. You know that the only reason you don't have to do guard detail is because Jack always makes those of us who are single and without children do it first."

It was unsaid but true that whenever Jack assigned duties he was always delegating based on the home situation of his agents. Whenever Louis had his kids staying with him he was usually not called on to work late. Elena's hours were usually the most structured, unless she was absolutely needed, she was usually the first one to go home, while Samantha and Mike ended up with the long days; not that Sam minded. She often considered work to be her home.

Louis sat down at the conference table, flipped open the laptop and said, "Either stop your whining or get hitched and shoot out some babies."

Elena rolled her eyes. "Remind us again how it is that you are single, Louis."

He playfully growled in frustration as Sam stood up and walked over to where they were setting up the laptop on the conference table. "So what do you have?"

"We had Mac transfer Fiona's files to this laptop so we could go through them," Louis explained as he clicked on a few keys. "He said he unlocked the locked files."

"Encrypted files," Elena corrected, sitting down next to him.

Louis clicked on a few more keys.

And then a few more.

"Just give it to me before you break it," Elena said, pulling the laptop towards her. Louis was not the most computer savvy team member. He was great at interviews and out in the field but when it came to technology it was like giving a monkey a gun: a recipe for disaster.

Samantha watched as Elena clicked on a photo file. A series of photos appeared and when Sam looked closely it was clear they were surveillance photos. In the background were photos of Martin doing his daily activities.

"I think this is the proof we needed that she was involved with something more than just trying to get the senator to sign off on a bill," Louis commented, standing up and rolling up his sleeves. "I'll go get Jack. He'll want to see this."

Sam took Louis' vacated seat, her eyes not leaving the screen as Elena scrolled through all the photos of the senator. There were pictures of him entering and leaving buildings, getting into his car, walking on the street talking to Danny or Anne, and even one of him inside a Duane Reed buying chewing gum and a newspaper. Sam thought about how creepy it was at how easy it was for someone to take such intimate photos of someone's day to day life without their knowledge. And then she thought about how often she bought magazines with paparazzi photos of celebs just walking about and suddenly felt very guilty.

Elena continued scrolling through photo after photo when Samantha noticed a photo that looked strange in comparison to the others.

"Wait, hold it," she said to Elena with her eyes on a photo of Martin with a Golden Retriever.

"What is it?" Elena asked, her eyes darting between Samantha and the photo.

"Check out this photo," Sam said, pointing to the photo. It wasn't just a picture of Martin with a dog but rather, Martin with someone else's dog and he was staring directly at the camera. "Notice anything?"

It took Elena a beat before realization dawned on her. "He's posing for a picture."

"And that means someone had to ask him," Sam said when she heard Jack and Louis approach. She showed them the photo in question and explained to them what she had deduced.

"How do we know it wasn't Fiona?" Louis asked.

"Well, Fiona doesn't own a dog," Elena explained, crossing her arms. "Besides, it wasn't taken that long ago. Do you think he would have forgotten meeting Fiona in the park?"

"We don't but we should ask him," Samantha replied.

Jack stared at the photo and nodded. "Sam, you're going on shift in an hour. Take the photo with you and ask him about it. Elena, go with her. If he does remember anything about the person who took the photo we'll need to check into it." He looked at Louis and said, "In the meantime, let's me and you go talk to Vivian. I'd like to ask her a few more questions about the information her source gave her about Fiona. Something's not sitting right with me."

"What do you mean?" Samantha asked.

"Like why Fiona had these photos on her laptop," he replied. "If she was a member of the group you would think they would have taken her laptop to protect themselves from being discovered."

"You think they wanted us to find them?"

"I think they wanted us to think she was acting alone," Jack replied, jerking his head to the pictures. "There is zero indication that she was working with anyone else so I think they are trying to throw us off their trail."

"Why would they do that?" Louis asked.

"Because they have no intention of changing their plans to kill the senator," Jack grimly replied. "They're hoping we'll keep our focus on Fiona if they give us just enough to keep us busy."

Sam bit her lip and looked back at the photo of Martin with the dog. He looked totally relaxed and unaware that the person who took the photo may be the very person who was planning his murder.