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chapter seventeen

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i can't say i really blame you
for being bored with the beginning
always staring at the score
to figure out who's barely winning
but don't you know?
there is a reason strong, move slow
-John Mayer, "Tracing"

xx

April 28, 2003
10:15 am

Samantha sighed audibly as Martin's phone went straight to voice mail. He had said it was "urgent," but she had no idea what he was referring to. This was the first chance she'd found to call him in private since she'd noticed the missed call when she arrived at work that morning, and the more time that passed, the more far-fetched her theories became. She almost left him a message, but then decided against it, flipping her phone shut in frustration. Whatever it was, it would have to wait.

"Hey, Sam," Naomi approached the coffee machine in the break room, looking as heavy-hearted as Sam felt.

"What time are you and Jack due back in court?" she asked as Naomi refilled her mug and the two began to walk back to the bullpen.

"2:30," Naomi replied, subdued. "I can't say I'm really looking forward to it."

"How can Andy not remember anything?" Her hands flailed to the side as she spoke, motioning in her disbelief.

"It's one of the body's defense mechanisms -- it just shuts down. I mean, we see it all the time: trauma, rape, your brain just shuts it out." Naomi shrugged her shoulders helplessly, bringing her mug to her lips.

"Yeah, but Spaulding basically confessed to you in the car. I mean, he took you right to him." She felt the knot in her stomach growing rapidly.

Naomi laughed bitterly. "Except now Spaulding's lawyer wants to keep that out too."

"Based on what?"

Naomi sighed, leaning over the fax machine to pick up several extraneous sheets of paper and running her free hand through her hair aimlessly. "They're claiming that Spaulding requested a lawyer during the drive and that we flat-out refused."

She arched her eyebrows in response. "But that's crazy!" She thought twice, though; it wouldn't be the first time Jack had ignored Miranda rights for the sake of the victim. "It is crazy, isn't it?"

"Of course it's crazy." Naomi assured her. Sam, however, did not find herself particularly reassured.

"You're not going to throw something else at me, are you? Like the photos have been thrown out or Patrick McCullough has suddenly fled the country?" She mentally reviewed all of their scheduled witnesses and evidence, wondering how many other holes Spaulding's lawyer would try to punch in their case.

"No." Naomi shook her head, then tilted her neck to one side. "Did we get another case in?"

She spun around, her eyes landing on the conference table where the rest of the team had assembled. Danny and Vivian were deep in conversation, while Jack just sat sullenly at the head of the table. She knew Jack, and whatever this was, his body language was not sending off positive messages.

"I don't think so," she replied, and walked briskly with Naomi to join their coworkers at the table. "Hey... what's going on?"

Danny and Vivian became instantly quiet as Jack replied.

"Washington wants an internal review of the Anwar Samir case..."

xx

11:45 am

Samantha leaned forward on her desk, propping her head with one hand and massaging the back of her neck with the other. As hard as she tried to focus on the old case file she had in front of her, her efforts went unrewarded. She had doubts that they could "give OPR what they want and get them the hell out of here" quickly, as Jack had put it.

"I just don't understand why they're opening this up again," she shrugged to Vivian, who was passing her desk at that moment. "Naomi has been in there for over an hour. They need to finish up soon; I thought Rossi wanted to see her and Jack again before Adderly grills them this afternoon."

"It's best not to think about it," Vivian advised. "I was thinking about running downstairs to get something to eat. Do you want to join me?"

She offered Vivian a tight smile and shook her head. Vivian walked towards the elevator, turning to give her an encouraging wave. And although Sam always appreciated Vivian's ability to sooth tense situations, she was glad for the few minutes of peace and quiet.

She briefly considered trying to catch Martin on his lunch break. Or, one of his many lunch breaks. He had explained to her that he often tried to break several times during the day to grab something to eat -- if for no other reason than to get a few minutes' fresh air and to escape committee sessions. She let out a small laugh at the idea that a man like Martin would find himself in politics. Of course, the Martin she knew was intense and passionate, he genuinely cared for people. That much was evident just from the few times she observed him with his family during the time surrounding his nieces' disappearance. And in the few weeks that they had been together, she was beginning to find more and more things about his personality that drew her to him.

The problem was, he wasn't at all her type. Her men of the past were all of similar molds: either sad and dark or unavailable -- or both. She always considered herself much better off that way; minimizing the emotional commitment minimized the emotional blow when the relationship inevitably ended.

And what scared her the most about Martin, she found, was that being with him didn't scare her nearly as much as she thought it should.

"So when was this taken?" Sam asked as she leaned over the armrest of the sofa, picking up the picture frame that sat on the end table. It was Saturday afternoon, and after sleeping in to recover from their late night, they found themselves sprawled out on either end of the sofa, half-watching whatever movie happened to be on.

The photo looked like it had been taken within the past couple of years: Martin, Caroline, and Rebecca stood on a beach, beaming at the camera. Behind them, the ocean seemed to stretch out for miles.

"Almost four years ago," Martin tilted his head, remembering. "That was the summer we tried to teach Tim how to sail. Needless to say, that didn't go over well..." He laughed to himself.

"You sail?" She asked. Not that the information really surprised her.

"Yeah, since I was a kid," he said. "My high school had a team."

Sam grinned and shook her head in amusement. "Why does that not surprise me?"

"Hey now!" He called out, feigning a look of feigned hurt and crossing his arms indignantly. "I am a man of many mysteries."

"Wouldn't you like to think that?" She teased, turning to put the frame back in its proper place.

"Well," he said, inching closer to where she sat. "Obviously I'm no match for you, Agent Spade. But don't think that I'm not on to your act -- because I am."

"As long as you know you're no match for me, then I think we'll be okay," she teased, rolling her eyes. "Knowing how to quit gracefully when you're overmatched; they don't teach that at Quantico..."

"I bet they don't teach this at Quantico, either." He said throatily, leaning in to crush his lips on hers.

"No," she laughed, pulling away from him just long enough to answer. "But maybe you should talk to your dad about it..."

The door of Jack's office opened and shut with such force that it shook Sam from her thoughts. She threw her head around in time to catch Naomi stepping briskly towards the break room, muttering silently to herself.

Sam hesitated, then stood up to follow. She found Naomi standing with her back to the door, her entire body looking tense and heavy with stress.

Sam approached her cautiously, trying not to startle her.

"How did it go?" She asked quietly.

Naomi looked up slowly and nodded at Sam in acknowledgement. "It was fine," she said finally. Naomi took a deep breath and threw her shoulders back forcefully. "I should grab some coffee and start making my way back to court. I still need to talk to Rossi."

Sam watched her friend turn to leave, musing silently that she may have been taught how to read people at Quantico, but she didn't need her FBI training to know that Naomi was far from "fine."

xx

2:45 pm

"Can't you go any faster?" She hissed at her computer screen, audibly willing the machine to move faster. She was going through the list of original suspects in the disappearance of Carrie Wilkins, whose body may or may not have been found over the weekend. While the dental comparisons were still running, the family had heard a radio report that their daughter's body had been found.

After twenty minutes of trying to calm a distraught mother and ten more of Danny angrily lamenting his time with OPR's Agent Farrell, Sam found herself anxious to run cross checks on any of the original suspects to see if they might have any links to the area where the girl's body was found. As several months' exposure to the elements had washed away any trace evidence on the body, any link that she could find might be a huge break in the case. Otherwise, Sam knew it would go cold in a matter of a few days' time.

"Agent Spade?" Agent Farrell opened the door of Jack's office just enough to poke his head out. "I'm ready."

She nodded slowly, raising her hand to imply that she would be there in one second.

She minimized the document on her screen, rising from her chair and moving files aimlessly around her desk. After seeing both Naomi and Danny's reactions to the investigation, she knew she needed to have her defenses ready and easily accessible.

Agent Farrell's stern, sneering voice echoed in her head as she stepped purposefully towards Jack's office.

I'm ready, he had said.

"Yeah," she spoke quietly, to nobody in particular. "But I'm not."

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