Here's me again, adding another chapter to the pile! Diane, thank you as always. There are new bits here, but you're used to that by now, right? Thanks also to the wonderful people who enjoy the story and let me know...it's encouraging!
Too Good to be True
By: Mariel
Chapter 10
Once the two agents and Nina had settled comfortably in a booth near the back of the cafe, they ordered freshly brewed cups of coffee and Jack began to question Nina about Georgina.
"Georgina was not a woman to speak about herself, but I think I must tell you some things," she said, her accented voice lilting softly.
Just maybe Jack thought wryly. Knowing it would have made no difference in Georgina's fate, he still wished he had pushed harder when they had spoken the day before. It may have put him just that little bit farther ahead in his new investigation. His expression revealing nothing, he said, "Perhaps you should start at the beginning, then, including how you came to be here and how you met her."
Nina launched into a story that only partially surprised him. While Samantha took careful notes, Jack listened carefully, asking brief questions but on the whole allowing her story to flow unchecked. Nina told them briefly of her arrival in the U.S. as a mail order bride and her life with an abusive partner. Then she went on to cover parts of Georgina's background they had been unaware of.
"Georgina, she help me when I come to New York," Nina told him. "I tell you that yesterday. What I did not tell you is that I was given her name by people I met in a Houston shelter. They gave me money to come here. When I arrive here, she met me and took me to the shelter I work in now. She also give me papers so that I have a new name and can start a new life. No one can find me now. I am safe. I am not the only one she do this for." Her face troubled, she said, "I think she was waiting for someone the day she disappear. I did not tell you in case I danger-" she paused, obviously struggling to find the right word, then continued, "-in case I make it dangerous for her or the woman who is coming. I worry that something bad happened when Georgina go to pick her up."
"Do you know where she was going, or who she was meeting?" Jack asked. Samantha noted that there was little hope in his tone. She understood why: they both knew from past experience that any sort of underground for secreting women away from abusive situations was guarded in secret.
Nina shook her head.
"Do you know any of the other people involved in helping these women?" Jack asked. He knew there must have been others. There was no way one person could take care of all the documentation she had provided to Nina. Nor could she work on two ends. People were being sent to her by someone.
Again, she shook her head. "Georgina was the only person I speak to when I come here. At the shelter, they know nothing, I don't think. I tell them only what Georgina tell me to say."
"What about back in Houston?"
Nina shrugged. "A worker at a shelter tell me where to go. Someone I never meet before give me money for bus and Georgina's name. She meet me here."
"What was the name of the shelter in Houston?"
Jack waited while Samantha wrote the name of the shelter down, then asked, "What is your real name?"
Nina hesitated, then said, "Juanita Fiero."
Jack frowned. It was not on the list of missing Filipino women he'd received.
"Did you use a different name to come into the country?" he asked.
She shook her head, confirming that she was not one of the women reported missing.
"Your husband did not report you gone."
She shrugged. "When he was not happy with me he often told me there were more where I come from. Perhaps he find another one."
Shocked, Samantha asked, "There was no one else to notice you were missing?"
Nina shook her head. "I was not allowed out. I meet no one in the six months I live with Kevin Murphy."
Jack turned to Samantha. "We'll need to talk to this Kevin Murphy and the shelter."
Samantha nodded. "I think perhaps we should let Victoria know what we know, too," she said.
It had been his thought exactly. "You're right," he said, warmed as always by their thoughts being in sync. Victoria, he was certain, knew what her sister had been doing and had kept quiet to protect her and the women she helped. She might continue the silence to protect others unless she knew that the F.B.I. were aware of her sister's activities.
After assuring themselves that Nina had little more information to offer and was willing to talk to the NYPD, the two agents rose and prepared to leave. On the street, it was still raining. Jack flagged down a taxi and helped Nina get in. Giving the driver a twenty, he straightened and watched as the yellow vehicle drove away.
Taking the umbrella Samantha held and holding it up over both of them, Jack looked at her. Gritting his teeth, he took a deep breath and forced his voice into a conversational tone.
"You and Martin want to go to Houston?"
He waited for her reply, steeling himself.
Samantha frowned. "Why?"
Sensing a negative reaction to his question, but not understanding why, Jack's eyebrows rose. "Because I need someone to go, and thought you and Martin might like the opportunity."
"Why not give the 'opportunity' to Danny or Vivian?" she retorted abruptly.
Jack was now totally taken aback by her response. "Samantha, I'm trying to be nice here," he said, wondering how she could have misconstrued his good intent into an insult of some sort.
"Well, stop trying so hard," she snapped.
She saw Jack's surprise, but couldn't quell the surge of anger that swept through her. She knew she should be grateful that he would be thoughtful enough to send her and Martin both off somewhere together. In most circumstances it would be a treat to be looked forward to, in spite of the work involved. Grateful wasn't what she felt, though.
Still genuinely puzzled by her reaction, Jack finally said, "Samantha, I'm sorry. I thought-"
"You thought wrong," she snapped again. "Martin and I don't need to go away to spend time together. And I hate Houston. Vivian won't want to leave the city, so let Martin and Danny go."
Jack tried to keep his face expressionless. In the five months of their affair, he and Samantha had twice used an away trip as an excuse to spend time together. For him, both trips had been wonderful, happy oases of time where they had not had to pretend they felt anything other than what they felt for one another. There had been something wonderful about entering a restaurant without worrying that they might be seen together, something intimate about sharing a room and a bed without worry. Pretending to be just another couple had been a warm, wonderful experience for him, the feeling of which he had never forgotten.
Keeping his voice calm, Jack kept his voice even. "Okay," he said. Looking at her, he again saw the hurt in her eyes that had affected him so much the other night. Worry skittered across his mind. Was she truly not happy? And if she were not, what did that mean? Sharply taking his thoughts away from that direction, he hardened his resolve not to mess up her life again. With a touch to her elbow, he wordlessly indicated that they should head towards their car.
-XXX-
Jack stood at the head of the conference table and spoke: "Samantha tells me she's not into Houston, so Martin, Danny, I want you two to grab a flight there ASAP. Look up this Kevin person Nina married and the women's shelter. Ask around. Show the pictures. We'll see if we hit anything. I'd check the legitmacy of the marriage, too."
Martin looked across the table at Samantha and frowned, wondering where Jack's criptic "Samantha's not into Houston" comment had come from.
The first opportunity he got, Martin stood beside Samantha and asked, "What was that about?" A surge of distrust made him continue, " Did Jack want you to go to Houston with him?"
Knowing where Martin's thoughts were heading, Samantha shook her head. "No, nothing like that. He suggested you and I might want to go. I told him no, I hate Houston."
Martin stood stock still and regarded her steadily. His eyes guarded, he asked, "And do you? Hate Houston?"
She looked at him, remembering how she'd felt when Jack had suggested she and Martin go there.
Shying away from where her thoughts were leading her, she averted her eyes. "I'm not too fond of it," she said. "Besides, I need to do some things around my apartment." She turned to him and put a smile on her face, "I don't get 'round there much these days, thanks to you! My plants are sending out SOS's!"
Martin looked at her closely, then allowed himself to take her words at face value. "Sounds like a plan, then." Turning, he left to talk to Danny.
Samantha rested her head in her hands. With Martin gone, the barricade against her own thoughts crumbled. There was a perfectly good reason for her anger towards Jack - a perfectly good reason that wasn't good at all.
She didn't want Jack 'helping' her relationship with Martin.
What she wanted was something quite different. What she wanted, she finally admitted to herself, was for Jack to show that he still cared. For her. She wanted him to feel hurt, or angry, or jealous, or SOMETHING about her and Martin being together. And she wanted him to show it. So that she would know that all was not lost, so that she would know there was still a chance...
His helping her and Martin spend time together meant that feelings she had hoped were still there, were not.
The pain of that realisation was almost more than she could bear.
End
Chapter 10