THREE
Sam felt sick. There was no way in hell that what these people were saying to her was true. Jack wasn't a traitor, he just wasn't like that. He would never betray the people that he loved and worked with and for.
"Samantha, we have a cash trail between your husband and Rodriguez. We have security footage from outside your apartment building where they are both talking peacefully and giving each other lifts." Vivian explained.
"It's not true." Sam kept repeating to herself quietly.
"You know, I have to say something." Kelly spoke as she and Martin returned to the bullpen. Martin looked at her blankly.
"You're the type of guy who always has to save someone from something, and somehow I can see Samantha as being your next target." Martin looked at her appalled that she would even suggest such a thing.
"Okay, first off I do not have to save people other than those in my job, and secondly, she's married. I'm not that stupid." He quickened his pace. Kelly followed him with her eyes, wondering.
"Jack Malone is becoming more and more of a bad guy." Danny sighed as Martin approached the conference table.
"What, having friendly chats with someone he's supposed to be putting in jail isn't enough for you?" Martin joked.
"I'm serious, it's like every single uber bad person that VCU has investigated, somehow he's been linked to them and the team hasn't found out." Danny indicated a number of boxes stacked on his desk. "Those are all the case files Malone's been involved in as a Supervisory Agent, which it must be added has been for three years."
"What would push a man like that to work for the bad guys?" Michael asked him from his desk.
"Anything, money, drugs." Martin responded.
"You know when I was working in Boston, there was a case I worked on there similar to this one." Kelly spoke. "He worked for a big time company, was married and had three kids. One day when he was meant to go to Vegas for a conference, he was gone. As we looked into it we discovered that he had a wife in Los Angeles and every time he went to visit the wife in LA he told her he was going to New York, same for the other wife. When we found him he'd been killed by the drug lord brother of his LA wife." Kelly finished.
"Hopefully that isn't the case here." Danny mumbled.
Samantha sat in the break room a cup of cold coffee in front of her. She had been waiting for hours to learn whether or not Jack had been abducted or left willingly. She realized that the lights in the office were being turned on, a sign that night was setting in.
"You should go home." She heard a voice from behind her. She didn't need to turn to see who spoke because he was walking past the table she sat at as she looked up.
"I can't go home, not until I know what happened." She looked at Martin as he poured some coffee into his mug.
He turned to look at her, his look told her that he was having an argument with himself. "What do you know?" She asked him desperately.
He sighed heavily and sat in the chair opposite her. "Samantha, I'm not supposed to be telling you this, but it looks like Jack left the airport willingly." He looked directly at her.
"Martin isn't it?" She questioned, taking a breath to calm herself. He nodded weakly. "Martin, Jack would never do a thing like that. He loves his job, he loves saving people." She pleaded with him to believe that Jack wasn't the man they had discovered him to be.
"Our investigation says otherwise." He looked down as he spoke.
"There you are." Vivian sighed as she entered the break room. "Samantha, we just got a call from Rodriguez." She said sitting down beside Sam who looked up at her hopefully. Martin took a mouthful of his coffee as he stood and left the room.
"We think Jack may come after you, but in order to protect you,"
"Jack would never hurt me." Sam interrupted Vivian. Vivian smiled weakly.
"He might not, but Rodriguez will, and we want to protect you. I'll be having your apartment under surveillance until the threat passes." Vivian tried to sound as calm as possible, with the knowledge that she had just leant, Samantha's life might be at risk.
Sam sat on her balcony, staring down at the street and the van she knew had all the surveillance outlets. She considered waving to one of the strategically placed cameras but thought otherwise.
The sound of the doorbell made her suddenly think about the coldness that was evident outside and how much warmer it was inside.
"Amanda?" She looked at the woman facing her.
"When you didn't come back up I knew you must have been upset, and I know what you're like when you're upset so I brought some Chinese." She held up the bag she was holding.
"Oh thank you but you really didn't have to do all that." Sam stood aside to allow the woman into her apartment.
I can only stay for half an hour unfortunately." She said dropping the bag on the kitchen table.
"Why?" Sam asked grabbing a pair of plates and glasses, a part of her knowing the reason.
"I think you know the reason." Amanda almost looked down her nose at Sam.
"Vivian Johnson, the supervisory agent for the MPU, she told me about Jack, how it looks like he's working with Rodriguez." Sam sighed sitting down.
"What? Jack would never." Amanda exclaimed, sitting at the table opposite Sam.
"But the thing is, that the more I go over in my head what she told me, the more I start thinking about all the times in the middle of then night he would get up and I would hear him on the phone for hours. And when we'd get calls and he would disappear into the study or onto the balcony." Sam was losing her appetite with every thought about Jack's betrayal; not that she'd had a particularly large appetite before Amanda arrived.
Amanda sat silent. She didn't know whether to tell Sam to stop thinking over the conversation with Agent Johnson and all the moments of uncertainty she was now feeling, or just remain silent.
The ringing of the phone broke both women out of the silence they had unknowingly found themselves in. Sam was instantly at the phone answering, hoping it was Jack. If it was she would berate him until he came clean about everything.
"Samantha Spade, or is it Samantha Malone? Or can I just call you Sam?" A voice that she didn't recognize asked her in a menacing tone.
"Who is this? What do you want?" Sam asked the phone.
"Who I am isn't of your concern. But I will say that you're looking so unbelievable attractive right now, your hair falling around your shoulders, perfectly framing your face." Sam instantly looked out the windows feeling unbelievably frightened. "Scared you did I?" The voice chuckled.
"What do you want?" Sam asked the voice again, this time her voice shaking.
"Nothing, just to let you know that I know what your little FBI friends are doing right now, tracking my call but they wont find me, I'm smarter than that, i Sammy. /i "
"Mario Rodriguez?" Sam asked uncertainly. Amanda's expression instantly changed. She had been watching Sam walk around the apartment in a nervous fit on the phone, but hearing Sam say his name sent a horrifying chill down her spine.
"Oh damn." His tone was patronizing but filled with menace. "But you're smarter than Jack ever depicted you to be." He laughed lightly. "It was nice chatting."
Sam felt her knees give way as the line went dead. Suddenly, all the emotions and feelings she held towards her husband were changed. She felt angry and furious at her husband's deception. She felt her eyes fill with tears, not because she was sad, but because she was furious.
"How could he?" She mumbled as between sobs.
Amanda lowered herself to Sam's level. "Sam, tell me what happened." She soothed to her.
"It's true, it's all true. Jack's a liar and a deceiver." She spat not looking at Amanda. "If you don't mind I'd rather be alone right now." She still didn't look at Amanda but she held back the spite.
Amanda reluctantly stood and left. Sam reached for the phone that she'd dropped. "You bastards." She shouted knowing that there were at least half a dozen people in the van on the street below who had just heard the entire conversation with Rodriguez.