Okay, i really have no idea whether anybody is still reading this story, so please, unless i get a couple of reviews i'm not going to update this again.
FOURTEEN
"Are you sure you're family won't mind me staying here?" Sam asked uncertainly as the car they were traveling pulled up in the driveway of a suburban house.
"My uncle, ever since my Aunt died of cancer a year ago, he's been really lonely, and he relishes in having the place full." Martin smiled at her.
They both excited the car, walking up to the front door. In any other circumstances he would have waited a couple of weeks for his girlfriend to meet his family, but this was an exception and it was the Toland's, so nothing that bad could happen.
"Marty!" A man similar height to Martin opened the door, his arms wide.
"Hey Roger." Martin smiled, shaking his uncle's hand. "This is Samantha Spade." Martin introduced Sam, having already discussed what to introduce her as in the car.
"Well it's very nice to meet you." Roger smiled shaking Sam's hand. "Come on in. Jamie, and Allison are watching TV and Ava's currently asleep." Roger said, closing the door behind them.
"Jamie and Allison are my cousins and Ava is Jamie's daughter." Martin explained noticing Sam's confused look. "And don't ask me how old they are because I am very forgetful about these things, but come birthday time its easy."
"Strange how these things work." Sam chuckled, following him into the house.
"Marty!" Both Jamie and Allison responded similarly to Roger when they heard and saw Martin enter the room.
Sam stood back and watched their greeting, slightly hurting that she didn't have any family members who would do that for her.
"This is Samantha." Martin turned his attention to Sam.
"It's really nice to meet you." Allison smiled. Jamie gave Martin a quick look of amusement before greeting Sam in a similar fashion to her little sister.
"Do you mind if I use your bathroom for a minute?" Sam asked trying to hold the emotions she was feeling back.
"Sure, this house is dreadfully complicated so I'll show you." Allison smiled taking Sam's hand.
"Marty?" Jamie said to Martin as Allison and Sam left the room, a tone of amusement and intrigue on her voice.
"Don't start Jamie." Martin attempted to walk past her but she blocked him.
"She has a wedding ring, and you don't; not to mention she's blonde and you are quite partial to them." She grinned as he squirmed in front of her, trying to get passed her.
"It's complicated but she's getting a divorce. I was there when she was filling out the papers." Martin responded, finally managing to step around Jamie and into the kitchen where Roger was finishing up dinner.
"Hey kids, this will be ready in five minutes. Jamie could you set the table please?" He asked not looking up from the saucepan he was standing over.
"What about her husband? I thought you had more morals than that." She hissed quietly as she crossed the kitchen and walked through to the dining
Martin could feel the frustration with his cousin's constant questions, but remembering she was family, knew he would be asking the same things. "Jamie, when I say it's complicated, trust me, I mean it's complicated."
"Okay, how long have you been with her?" She asked, placing knives and forks around the table.
"Not long." Martin responded simply.
Jamie was expecting more of an answer so maintained her quiet; realizing there was no more she asked again. "Well in that case, I know you Marty, you have super high standards, and whenever you meet one of those girls it takes a while for you to bring her to meet your family."
"Maybe she's more of a friend than a girlfriend, and I'm changing my ways?" Martin asked entering the kitchen to grab some glasses.
"You, changing your ways? Please. You're a Fitzgerald and I've met my uncle. You might not admit it but in the women department you're both rather similar." Jamie sighed taking some of the glasses from Martin and placing them around the table.
"Why are you so interested in my personal life?" Martin asked, placing the final glass he was holding down.
"Because I have a toddler who still doesn't sleep through the night that's why." She chuckled, looking over the selection of wines. "Which would you prefer, Chardonnay or Shiraz?" She asked looking at Martin.
"Make it a Merlot, the Napa Valley, '98 vintage." Roger said entering the room from the kitchen. "Samantha and Allison not back yet?" Roger looked around the room only seeing Martin and Jamie.
"Here we are." Allison announced entering the room leading Sam.
"Good, good, well I'm about to serve so everyone take your places." Roger smiled, re-entering the kitchen.
Sam smiled at Roger. She liked him, and was glad that she would be spending some time with some nice, friendly, and welcoming hosts. She glanced at Martin as he sat in the chair beside her, smiling at him briefly and resting her hand on his thigh.
Sam sat on the bed, glad that they had gotten through dinner without any hassles. She knew she shouldn't let her guard down. Anyone from the Rodriguez clan could have followed them from the FBI building.
She knew that by staying with the Toland's they were putting the family at risk, but her conscience was driving her insane. She knew that if they told the family the real reason that they were staying with them, indefinitely, could encourage them to be more obvious that they were hiding something. However not telling them, could put them in a greater danger answering the phone or door to a stranger.
"Sam?" Sam was so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn't even realize Martin had re-entered the room and was sitting on the bed, waving his hand in front of her to grab her attention.
"What, sorry." She apologized, leaning into him, wanting comfort.
"You were just staring off into space and you didn't answer my question." He sighed, wrapping an arm around her and rubbing her back gently.
"Well I guess you're going to have to ask me that question again then."
"Are you, is your conscience driving you as mad as mine is?" He finally said after much stuttering and pausing.
"If yours is debating whether or not we should be here and should we tell your family then yes I guess it is." She sighed, feeling how good it was to be in his arms.
"What should we do about it?" He sighed, looking down at her.
Sam looked up at him, meeting his eyes. Honestly, she didn't have a clue what to do without somehow embroiling the innocent family into their problem, and she didn't want that to be on her conscience. "I don't know." She whispered looking away from him.
Martin sighed leaning back into the pillows. He knew, when he signed up to become an agent that these things could happen, but they were rare. He found it hard to believe that he had managed to find himself in a situation where he wasn't even safe in his own home, that was to frightening.
Sam found the silence that had come over her and Martin to be something of bliss. The whole debacle had been giving her a headache, and spending the last hour and a half fielding questions from the Toland's about herself hadn't helped things. Sure they were friendly but sometimes she just wanted to have a moment of silence, but that was a lot harder to come by than she had first thought.
As they lay on the bed, slowly falling asleep, a loud thud came from the room next door to them, moments later followed by the sound of a baby crying. The sounds stirred something in Samantha, a memory that as she thought more about it, might help with the case.
"Martin, I think I remembered something." She sat up straight looking at Martin.
Flashback
"Sam what's happening in there?" Jack said through the mic. The team was in an apartment building in the middle of the Bronx, investigating the torture, rape and murder of three women. After hearing a fight in their main suspect's apartment the entire team was on alert.
Sam stood in the middle of an apartment with no rooms. It was one big room, with a small bathroom off to one side. She was staring at a wall with the words, 'I'm watching you' written in blood. She whirled around when she heard the crash from the neighboring apartment.
"Jack next door." She said into her radio, exiting the apartment to find Joshua Gomez standing in front of her. "Nothing." She said to him simply, turning and walking in the direction of the neighboring apartment door.
"On three." Jack whispered, motioning for Josh to get into position to kick the door down.
With his fingers he counted to three, allowing Josh to kick down the door, Sam close behind him.
"FBI FREEZE!" She shouted, not noticing Jack had disappeared.
She followed Josh as he checked the bathroom. "Clear." He said turning back to her.
Sam heard the whimpering and her attention was drawn to blankets lying on the floor. She lifted them to see a small baby, the words 'See you in Reno J' across the baby's stomach.
"Son of bitch." Josh whispered, standing up and realizing Jack wasn't in the room. "Jack?" He called, walking to the hallway. "Sam, he's gone." He called back to her as she picked up the baby.
"We need a medic now." Sam said into her mic, rushing out, not hearing Josh.
"Got it Sam," Amanda's voice sounded.
"Where's Jack?" Sam asked Josh, still holding the baby.
"Yeah see you in Reno." Jack excited a door opposite the one they kicked down.
"Jack?" Sam asked him. Jack started at the sound of her voice. "What's in there? And where does Reno come from?" She asked him, not noticing Josh's skeptical look.
"It was written on the wall in there." Jack sighed. "I'll get forensics on it immediately." He sighed."
End Flashback
"He just seemed like there was something, someone in there that he didn't want me or Gomez to see. I tried to walk past him but he kept blocking me." Martin listened to Sam intently.
"When was this?" He asked, standing and looking for his phone.
"About two months ago. I never really thought much more about it. But just hearing that thud and Ava crying, it just made me remember." She sighed.
"Name all the places in this city with Reno in the title. I doubt they'd be heading for the actual Reno, they'd have gone already." He sighed holding his phone to his ear.
"I don't think there is anywhere, and Rodriguez isn't that obvious. He uses codes. All the transcripts of the interviews he had with Jack, they were all in codes, everything they said was all a code." She hated to admit it.
"You read over the transcripts?" He looked at her as the phone continued to ring.
"Don't look at me like that." She sighed.
"There are a lot of transcripts there. How's you pick up on it?" He asked her, feeling worried, he should have been connected by now.
"There was something he said in one of the interviews, 'your plan to nab lil' Bo peep didn't work. She told us everything,' Jack gave me the nick name little Bo peep one afternoon when it was raining. I came home in a red raincoat with a bag of shopping. That morning, a guy tried to mug me. It later turned out he worked for Rodriguez." Sam explained. "After I read that, I re-read them all to catch up on the code." She finished.
"This isn't working." Martin exclaimed closing his phone. He walked back over to the bed and flopped beside Sam.
Ava's crying had stopped, and they could just hear Jamie talking to her, trying to get her back to sleep.
"Do you think we should just go to bed?" Sam asked, maneuvering herself to be half over Martin.
"We already are in bed." He chuckled as she pressed her lips to his.
"I mean, properly." She chuckled, resting her head on his chest.
He moaned as she shuffled her body properly onto his, reaching over to the nightstand to turn the light off, before his hand stopped her. She looked at him curiously before he leant up and kissed her gently. "After." He whispered, his hands roaming over her back.
"If you insist." She grinned, kissing him again as he rolled over so he was on top of her.