She seemed to be doing a lot of clock watching these days.
Sam pondered this as she stared down her alarm clock, wondering if she could sneak out of bed and get back to the couch before Jack woke up.
It wasn't that she hadn't woken up with him before—she had, more than once—it was why she was waking up with him, how it came to be that she was waking up with him, who she was waking up with him for.
And as much as she didn't mind, and in fact enjoyed, waking up with him, part of her could not let go of the feeling that it had never been more inappropriate.
"Hi."
So much for making it back to the couch. "Hey."
"Thought you were taking the couch."
"I was." She left it at that. "Did you sleep okay?"
The pillow rustled as he nodded. "As well as can be expected."
And just like that, the case pushed its way into the morning light of her bedroom. "I know I told you this before, Jack, but I'm sorry about Hanna."
"I know." The words brushed against her ear, his low tone slipping in and working a slow path to her brain. She hadn't realized just how close he was until that point. Turning over to face him, she had just enough time to notice the pain in his eyes before he added, "Me too."
They had always been in a position to take away the other's pain, to erase the events of a case or the memory it brought back. To take the anguish upon themselves, to ease the weight, to destroy it with a word, a kiss, a touch, a night if it was too immense to handle alone. And it was killing her that she could not, would not, make a move to get rid of that pain now. It would be so easy to just kiss him. To touch him. To make Hanna's disappearance go away for a little while.
But it would all come shattering back, harder and more painful than before, and she could not cheapen the case or the cause by sleeping with him.
Jack broke the silence with a half-whisper of, "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking... I want to save you and I can't. That none of this is fair."
He reached out a hand and lightly touched her bandage, his hand trailing down her face. "I wish you could."
It seemed too easy, too expected, when he leaned in and brushed her forehead with his lips. Retreating slightly, he looked into her, she looked into him…
And just as she was about to throw away her insistence that kissing him would bring nothing but trouble to the investigation, his cell phone trilled.
Samantha started and reached a hand out, grabbing the instrument off the bedside table and punching the 'talk' button. "Hello?"
"It's Vivian. Where are you?"
"My apartment. You want to talk to Jack?"
She mouthed 'Vivian' to him as the other agent said, "No, just tell him that the records for the Brightman case are in Scarsdale."
"Scarsdale?"
Jack climbed out of bed, sliding his dress shirt over his shoulders. "Yes, Scarsdale," Vivian replied. "One of our cold case storage units is there."
"Funny," Samantha mused as Jack put on his shoes. "That's where the Brightman family lives."
"Just the father, actually," Jack injected.
"Tell Jack that we haven't heard anything, will you? Danny and Martin are both at his home, right by the phone with his wife, but nothing so far."
"How odd," Sam said, getting out of the bed. "After a ransom drop gone bad, he doesn't call?"
Jack turned, his face holding the question. "Nothing about this case is normal," Vivian pointed out. "I need to go. Keep us posted on what you two find in Scarsdale."
"Okay, Viv. Thanks." They said their goodbyes, and she hung up, handing the phone to Jack. "Vivian. The Brightman files are in Scarsdale."
Taking the phone and putting in the pocket of his jacket, he said, "Better get dressed. It's a long drive." Jack headed for her living room.
"Jack." He turned at the door. "I didn't mean to tell her you were here."
"She knows, Sam."
"I know, I just... didn't want her to be thinking about what we were doing while your daughter is missing."
"If we weren't doing anything, there's nothing for her to think about." He left the room.
She emerged five minutes later, looking as fresh as one can in new clothes and the previous day's hair and bandage. "Scarsdale?"
"Let's go."
The girl was quiet.
Shelby had been quiet. He supposed this one and Shelby were quiet for different reasons, this one (Hanna, remember? The girl's name is Hanna) out of strength, Shelby out of fear and a voice strained by screams.
Was Hanna's silence born of her parentage? Did her refusal to speak, to move, come from her father or her mother? He recalled her mother's grating voice hours earlier, remembered her father's emotionalism. No, if the girl was at all like her parents under emotional stress, she would have reacted by now. Strongly, fiercely.
Perhaps she was biding her time, resting for the attack.
Her father was the type to do that. Calm, then quick to accuse. He wondered what Malone had done when he'd seen the note. Their first communication in years. Did he recognize it immediately? Did he have to search his brain for Shelby's name or had he known right away?
So many questions, so few answers. The time would come.
He'd made a mistake last night. Hit the wrong car. He'd intended to hit Malone's, but had positioned himself incorrectly. The night had nearly gone to hell when he saw Malone crossing from the other side.
All was well, however. He'd still caused damage.
Looking down at the girl (so quiet, why is she so quiet?), he wondered who the blonde was. FBI, certainly, and new. She hadn't been involved in his last encounter with the Bureau.
However new or slightly rusted she was, Agent Malone had apparently staked his claim, if his little gesture on the museum steps was any indication. Did the wife know? Did the girl?
"Are you hungry?" he asked pleasantly. "Would you like more juice?" He'd risked exposure by wandering with her through the local market, picking out things she loved, things she would eat, things her parents would never let her have.
She remained silent, just shook her head with the slightest movement possible. Eyes frightened, but angry, and still strong.
"Sure?" he asked again. "I only want what's best for you, Hanna."
The only response he received was the same, increasingly unnerving stare. Damn it, why the fuck was she so quiet?
Shelby never did this. Shelby never gave him this look, this horrible, horrible stare. There had been no anger and distrust and dislike and strength in her fear. No, Shelby had just been scared. Shelby had moved, Shelby had screamed.
He wanted Hanna to move.
The drive to Scarsdale was a long one, nearly two hours with the heavy early morning traffic on the Bronx River Parkway. Jack looked over at a silent Samantha, her eyes obscured by sunglasses. He spoke tentatively. "Sam?"
"Yeah."
"I thought maybe you were asleep."
She sat up a little straighter. "No. Just thinking."
He wondered if she was thinking about the case. In all the fears regarding his lack of objectivity, he hadn't stopped to think about how difficult it might be for her. For all kinds of reasons. "Did you want food?"
Stretching a little in her seat, she suddenly couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten. "Maybe just something from a drive-through."
Ten minutes later they were back on the road, Samantha picking at pancakes in a Styrofoam carton while Jack kept his eyes on the road, occasionally taking a cautious sip of his coffee.
"You should have gotten something to eat." It was the first time she had spoken to him without prodding since the apartment, he realized.
"I'm fine." Watching as she pushed yet another piece of her breakfast to the side, he considered his next words. "Are you okay?"
She stared at him. "Do you think I should be on this case?"
If Jack had to be honest with himself, he would admit that he didn't. Didn't because objectively he could see that this was more complicated of a situation than she should have to deal with. "I can't afford to not have you on this one."
She nodded and he felt a pang of guilt. It will be over soon, he told himself. We'll find Hanna and a month from now we'll have moved on and this will just be a bad memory.
"I just can't help thinking that I'm responsible in no small way for this."
Jack's mouth went dry. When he finally spoke his voice was tight, controlled. "The only person responsible is the son of a bitch who took my daughter. Whatever you and I have has nothing to do with it."
She noticed and dismissed his use of the present tense to classify their relationship. "If I wasn't such a source of friction in your marriage..."
"That would only be true if Marie knew about us."
Swallowing hard, Samantha bit back a response. It wasn't the time for recrimination. "That's not what I meant."
His voice lowered. "I know what you meant. But it's my job that kept me away from my family, and I'm going to have to live with that. If you want to step away from the case because you've been personally involved with one of the parents, fine, but don't do it out of some misplaced form of guilt."
He really was living up to his promise to remain objective, and she wondered how much it was taking out of him. "Okay." As his subordinate, she had to take him at his word. As something more personal than that, doubt remained. She looked down at her lap. "I'm sorry. Hanna is the biggest priority here. It just keeps cycling through my mind..."
"All the what-ifs in this world won't help us find her, Sam. I need your head in this case. If you can't do that, I'll assign another agent, but you're a bigger asset to me here than you are sitting at home."
"I can do it." Samantha spoke with more authority than she felt.
"Thank you." His right hand trailed down her wrist, his fingers entwining with her own. A comforting gesture, but she was still surprised when he didn't let go.
The drive continued in silence, the only movement in the car coming from Jack's frequent checks of his cell phone. The power was on and the ringer wasn't muted, but still no calls had come.
The Scarsdale storage unit was essentially nothing more than a large closet; the files not stored in the computer database lined the walls, a fairly heavy layer of dust coating every surface. The boxes of evidence along the walls came exclusively from local cases left unsolved by state and federal offices all over the country. Returned to be handled by a police department too small to give them a serious second glance.
Jack spread out several photographs along the only clean workspace in the room. Shelby's last class picture, taken a week before her disappearance. An evidence photo of a small tennis shoe found in the dense underbrush behind the Brightman home. A screen capture from a convenience store surveillance camera where a child matching the girl's description was seen with an unidentified male.
"It doesn't add up, Jack." Samantha looked up from a nearby computer monitor, the pressure already starting to build behind her eyes. After two hours the dust and mold they had stirred up made the air almost unbreathable. "The time that's elapsed since Shelby's disappearance, the lack of physical similarities between the girls. Why come back now? Target Hanna because you didn't put him away?"
Stacking the photos, he shook his head. "The mere fact he sent the note shows he's a game-player. Maybe he's bored. Maybe he's raising the stakes. Or maybe this goes a lot deeper than the Brightmans. We never did get a motive for the kidnapping."
"What, you think maybe this isn't about the kids?"
"Instead of looking for links in the disappearances we should be seeing if there are any links between my background and Doug Brightman's. Why Shelby was a target and not any other child. Exclude the common motives like money or molestation. What else is there?"
"Revenge?"
He nodded. "Call Martin. Ask him to dig up anything we can find on Mr. Brightman. Past jobs, his religious orientation, any clubs he might belong to, how he likes his coffee. Then I want to cross-check his information against mine."
Samantha dialed. "What then?"
"We're going back to the scene of the crime."
