A Fool To Think

Chapter Fourteen

Two days later, Martin entered the break room to find Sam there. She was standing with her back to him, stirring some sugar into her cup of coffee. He thought about leaving and just coming back when she was gone, but decided against it. He walked over to the coffee machine. "Hey." He greeted softly.

She looked over at him and then back at her coffee. "Hey."

"How are you?" He asked hesitantly. He didn't want to keep fighting with her, but lately that's all they had been doing. He wanted to at least try to be civil to each other because all of this fighting was making him miserable.

"Fine." She replied coldly. She wasn't sure what he was trying to do. Was he actually trying to start a real conversation with her or was he just waiting, lulling her into a false sense of security before launching into another one of their fighting matches?

"That's good." Martin nodded. "Do you like New York so far?"

"It's ok I guess." She started to leave the break room.

"Samantha?"

She heard him use her full name, just as she had instructed him to. Only this time his tone wasn't harsh and full of venom. She had to wonder why he wasn't picking a fight with her. Usually that's all they did when they were together. Something stopped her from continuing on her way out of the break room. Instead she turned around to face him. "What?"

This was the moment he'd been thinking about for days. They were alone and actually not fighting. This was his chance to try and make some inroads with her. Maybe it wasn't too late to at least patch up their friendship. Maybe there was still a chance to have her be a part of his life, even if it was only as a friend. It was now or never. "I..."

"You what?" She asked impatiently. "I have work to do Martin."

"Never mind." He chickened out.

"Ok." She turned to leave, feeling slightly disappointed. She wasn't sure what she had expected.

When she left, he walked over to the wall and softly banged his head up against it a few times.

Danny walked over to Sam's desk and leaned against it. "I've been doing some work on that little project and I think I have some leads."

"Really?" Sam asked, looking up at him with some hope. "What kind of leads?"

"Well I looked into that website address and found the domain where it was registered. They're sending over the records of who registered that website now and it should get here later today." Danny explained.

"So you think that it could lead us to the person behind the whole thing?" Sam asked.

"I think so. It could directly link it to Alex." He sighed. "Or it could lead us back to Martin again."

"I know that's a good possibility." Sam told him.

"If someone set him up, they sure did a good job. I mean, think about it. Someone had to have intimate knowledge of your relationship with Martin. They had to know about the gifts so that when they planted the cameras it made Martin look guilty. They had to have access to your apartment and they were smart."

"Or it was just Martin doing all of those things." Sam sadly pointed out.

Danny thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. "I know that you don't want to hear this, but the more I think about it, the more I think that Martin was set up."

"In what, some really elaborate plan to make him look guilty?" Sam asked. "You're right that I don't want to believe he's the one behind it, but look at the evidence Danny. It all points to him."

"But he has no real motive and doesn't seem to have any knowledge of the website." Danny pointed out. "How do you explain that?"

"I can't." Sam sighed. "I just want to know once and for all who was behind this whole thing."

"I promised you that I would track them down, and I will—no matter how long it takes." Danny assured her, placing a comforting hand on he shoulder. "Then once I find out who it was, I'll make sure they pay for it."

"Thank you Danny." She gave him a small smile.

"No problem." He smiled back. "I'll get to the bottom of this."

"I'm sure you will." Sam nodded.

He hated to have to bring this subject up, especially at work, but felt that Sam needed to know what was going on. "I also have something else I need to tell you."

"About the project?" She asked using the codename they had adopted for his sleuthing.

"No, actually." He shook his head. "This has nothing to do with the project."

"Then what's it about?" She was clueless about what he wanted to tell her and just hoped it was something good.

"Well…see…it's just that…"

"Danny, you're kinda stuttering. Is something wrong?"

"I checked into your step father, mostly just out of curiosity." He admitted.

"You checked into him?" She asked. "What does that mean?"

"I wanted to make sure that he was still in prison and not up for parole anytime soon." He explained.

"Well of course he's not up for parole. They would have notified me if he was." She looked at his face and saw what he was about to say. It was written all over his face. "They would have notified me, right?"

He slowly shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Apparently he was up for parole a few weeks ago and they granted it."

"They what?" She yelled, grabbing the attention of the entire office. Embarrassed, she bowed her head and looked down at the floor before lowering her voice down to a whisper. "They couldn't have. How could they do that?"

"I'm sorry Sam." He could see that this was hurting her, but she needed to know. "I just thought that you should know."

"So he's out there running free right now?" The thought of him living his life as a free man, able to do whatever he wanted and terrorizing someone new made her stomach churn. Then it hit her. What if he decided to come looking for her?

"Well part of his parole is that he has to stay in Wisconsin, but yeah." Danny informed her.

"If he wants to pay me a visit, his parole won't matter to him." Sam replied, entering a sort of trance where she thought about all of the possible ways this could turn out. It was possible, however unlikely, that her stepfather would leave her alone and not come looking for her.

But it was even more likely that he would look for her, and knowing Tom, he wouldn't stop until he found her. After all, he had a promise to keep.

Sam entered the prison visiting room, cringing when she heard the steel door close behind her. Once she saw Tom being escorted into the room, she walked over to the glass partition separating them and sat down.

"Do my eyes deceive me or has my loving stepdaughter come to see me?" Tom smirked.

"I only came here to say one thing to you, something I didn't want to say when we were in court because I didn't want it to go on the record." Sam replied, somehow keeping her composure even though she was anxious and slightly scared of being in the prison. Even though Tom was on the other side and couldn't hurt her physically, she knew that he was aware of at least a dozen things that could hurt her emotionally.

"What'd you want to say to me sweetheart that you couldn't say in court?" Tom stared at her, looking her up and down. "You want to tell me how much you'll miss our late night rendezvous? How much you'll miss our quality time together?"

"No." Sam laughed, determined not to let him bother her. She was stronger than that, at least she kept telling herself that. "I'll never miss that. I'd rather have all my teeth pulled out with rusty tools and no anesthesia than spend quality time with you."

"Well I'm sure that could be arranged." Tom smirked, unfazed by her comments. "Once I get out of here, I'll be sure to look you up."

"You're never getting out of here." Sam bragged. "Even if by some miracle you get a parole hearing, I'll be there testifying to make sure that you spend the rest of your life in this prison."

"Promises, promises, promises." Tom shook his head. "You never were very good at keeping promises Sammy. But then again, you're not very good at anything and not worth much. Maybe by the time I get out of here you will have met a man that will teach you a thing or two about sex. God knows I tried but you are just horrible at it."

She closed her eyes for a moment, channeling her anger into something more productive. She wouldn't let herself be dragged down by him again so she just ignored his last comment and pretended that it hadn't affected her.

"I came here today to let you know that your rein of terror on my life is over now. As soon as I walk out of that door you will be nothing but a bad memory for me. You can't control me anymore and you never will again. You're going to rot in here for the rest of your life while I am going to go out those doors and live a wonderful life. And you know why it will be wonderful? Because you won't be in it."

"That's a pretty speech." Tom praised, clapping his hands together. "I almost believe you. But not quite. It lacked true conviction."

"It doesn't matter if you believe me." Sam told him. "It's the truth, and now that I've told you, I can leave."

He waited until she got up and turned to leave before speaking one last time. "I hope you do realize that I will get out of here, and when I do, I will come looking for you. I promise you that. We have some…unfinished business to take care of."

She didn't say anything to him or turn around. She simply knocked on the metal door and waited for the guards to let her out.

"Sam?" Danny waved his hand in front of her face. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah." Sam replied unconvincingly. "I'm fine."

"No you're not." Danny saw through her lie. "Maybe I shouldn't have told you…"

"No, you did the right thing." Sam assured him, still in a trance-like state. "I needed to know that he is out there."

"You don't really think he's going to try and come after you, do you?" Danny didn't want to believe that Tom would come after Sam, but could understand that Sam would be worried about it.

"Oh I know he will." She told him. "It's just a question of when, where and how."