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Chapter 6- Risk.
Sam cradled the glass in his hand, his attention solely focused where it shouldn't be.
The house was quiet, as it always was, but somehow the silence sounded wrong. It sounded hollow and empty, just like he was starting to feel.
Peck was watching him, her face pretty much reflecting the harsh thoughts that were consuming her mind right now.
She'd had almost as many whiskeys as he'd had, only she looked like she was handling them better than he was right now.
"You didn't know?" Peck asked when he openly looked up at her. Sam shook his head in reply, he really hadn't known, if he had; they wouldn't be here. If he ever thought that Andy still loved him, things would have been different. Very different.
The dim light cast shadows over Peck's face making her look guilty, while her hand clutched her own empty glass aimlessly.
"I nearly told her. The day of my dads funeral. That's why I left and came back here. I couldn't look at her and not say something".
"If I'd known...". He wasn't ready to go there just yet, to admit to that.
"You'd have stayed?".
Sam nodded.
"It still would have fallen apart" Peck challenged making Sam's blood run cold.
There was more to the story that him just 'dying'. He'd been dating someone else when he 'died'.
His way of convincing himself that there was more out there than just the right person for you, only problem was, it didn't work when you had met and lost you're only 'right' person, and then let them go completely.
"Does she know that?". Sam had no idea why he even asked that question. He really didn't want to know the answer, and he highly doubted that Andy would have made an appearance at his grave today if she knew the whole story.
Peck shook her head, before mumbling a soft reply "Traci hadn't told her by the time I left yet, but she will".
Sam scoffed in response, of course Nash would. Andy was her best friend and she wouldn't lie to her, not even for her, or him. She would tell Andy that he had moved on, that he hadn't been waiting for her before he 'died'.
"You know what I don't get? Is why?".
Sam's concentration snapped back to Peck with that question looming over his head.
"Me, I told Nick I screwed around to get him to let me go so I could be here, but that's different. You let her go, because you're scared". Peck had her say then pushed off the wall she had been leaning on before mumbling more.
"I need to sleep, got to work at one". With that she simply left the room.
Sam watched her go, his mind still vastly pleased that she had taken the spot when he told Callaghan that he wanted her in on it when he was asked if he wanted a partner. Of course Callaghan had not been happy with his choice, but he couldn't have who he wanted here, so he took the next best option he had- Peck.
The things that they were doing needed more than most of the cops at Fifteen could bring to the table, it was one of the reasons he'd chosen her.
She was a lot like him- she'd do what she had too if it meant it would get the job done. She was a fighter, a survivor, and that's what he needed in the person partnered with him. But the biggest criteria that his partner had to meet was that they had to have nothing to lose, no-one to miss them, and nothing holding them back.
But she had Collins, and she'd openly admitted that she'd lied to him to leave him behind, so what was with that? What was driving her so hard to be here and not be where she had an actual shot at getting what she wanted? Well, what was driving her more than the need to clear her family name?
Sam spent the next hour and a half drinking alone while Peck slept it off. It was their routine by now, she went to work hungover and he went in still letting his ass swing with whiskey.
It put them at risk, but it fought off the invitations to sample the stock, or partake in the party. Their 'friends' and 'coworkers' thought that they were raging alcoholics, but it was merely a means to an end, and an excuse to lay off the drugs. Best of all was, it had worked so far. And they really didn't care what anyone here thought of them.
After skipping his shower, Sam woke Gail up with enough time for her to get ready to go to work. She was bar-tending in a club called 'Charise' a few blocks down and had really gone all out to fit the description of the locals.
She'd dyed her hair dark brown and sported some ink around her wrist, Sam not really getting why she would stain her pale skin for the job. That was one step she really didn't need to take. When he asked her about it, she had simply said that it was personal, but with her, Sam wasn't all that sure about what she meant exactly.
Sam insisted on driving her in and out of work if she worked and he was off, so this morning was no different. Her shift started at one am and went through till the bar closed after sunup, and originally they had thought the hours weird. But Gail's boss had explained that; that was their busy time, when everyone else closed up, and he needed staff that weren't trashed by then. So Gail went to work hungover instead of getting loaded on the job.
"You staying?" She asked when Sam made no move to get out when he pulled up outside her new workplace.
But he just shook his head, tonight he wasn't in the mood.
"Stay away Sam" she warned before closing her door and walking around the car to where the bouncer eyed her like he was ready to eat her.
Sam took a slow drive around town, although he probably shouldn't be driving- hence the reason he was doing it slowly.
When he looked up he'd found his destination and killed the engine after pulling over parked far away from the corner or a street light.
Why he had to come here, he had no idea, he just wanted to be ... Closer to her? Hiding in the shadows like a serial stalker?
Yeah, he was totally losing it.
But there was nothing else he could really do right now. If she had a fire escape, he'd probably have been up there... Wait she had one around the back.
Sam hit the steering wheel as soon as the thought leapt to mind. What the hell was he thinking?
Climbing up Andy's fire escape like a common criminal, to hopefully catch a glimpse of her through her window, and give her a heart attack?
So not cool right now!
Ten minutes of staring at her dark windows did little to make him feel any better, so he simply decided to put it behind him and leave. Getting caught like this would blow the whole case out of the water, and a lot of people could get hurt.
Hurting Andy if he suddenly came back from the dead was at the top of the list of things that he really didn't want to do.
So he drove away and headed in another familiar direction.
Taking a slow cruise passed his own house, Sam felt like he was trespassing.
The for sale sign on the front lawn was heartbreaking, but he had to let it go just like he'd let the rest of his life as Sam Swarek go.
He'd given Callaghan a new will and he'd included clauses that Sarah's kids could only inherit the money from the sale of his house when they went to college, which wasn't too far off.
Funny enough, they'd never gone so far as to talk about what would happen when this was over, or what would happen when they got out. Because it didn't look like it was going to be over, or if they were ever going to get out of this alive. The more corners they turned, the deeper the web of deceit ran, the more they dug, the deeper they were in.
This was a suicide mission.
A sudden ringing pulled Sam's attention to the present as he turned the corner and left his old street.
It was Peck.
"He's here" she whispered into the receiver as soon as Sam answered. He could hear the panic raging in her voice, a clear sign that her stress levels had escalated beyond her own control.
"Who...Get out".
"And go where?". Gail whispered again. Even in fear she could be cold and sarcastic, a trait he normally found amusing unless her life was in danger- like it was right now.
She had been leaning over the bar serving a guy a beer when she looked up and saw him walk in.
She told Kim, the other barlady that she was going to be sick so she needed the bathroom and rushed out behind the bar and into the hallway that led to Johnny, her boss' office, and the bathrooms. And now she was stuck here. She didn't have keys to go out the back.
"Sam where are you?"
"Um, about that, where are you?" Sam said stepping on the gas.
"Bathroom hallway".
Crap, there was no way out from there. Not without being seen.
"Sam, they're coming towards Johnny's office" Gail said looking in the direction of the bar to see them coming closer.
"Hit the fire alarm" Sam said taking a corner recklessly while he kept his tone calm.
"What?" Gail said looking towards the fire alarm on the wall to her left.
"Hit it, go into the mens room and break a window, it'll take you out the back, I'll meet you there".
"Sam..."
"Go okay, if you don't he will see you and I won't be able to help you" Sam tried not to sound like he was panicking, but he was.
"Okay" Gail mumbled before ending the call.
She hit the fire alarm and watched the entire place run around in panic before making sure that no-one was looking her way and slipping into the mens room.
Gail toed a toilet seat lid down with the tip of her boot before standing on it and then getting back down. She pulled off one boot and stuck her hand into it, climbed back onto the toilet and smashed the window hoping that the breaking glass wouldn't be heard above the screaming alarm that still sounded.
Gail jumped around and put her boot back on before standing on the toilet again and then stepping up onto the cistern and climbing out the window.
It was a bit of a high jump down, but she managed to hit the ground without breaking anything. As she turned around to run down the alley, a hand steadied her and a voice mumbled a soft "Let's go" before Sam was dragging her in the opposite direction of where she wanted to go when she saw red and blue lights flicker through the air.
The cops had arrived and forced them to scale a dumpster against the back wall in order to get out of the alley.
When they were out and walking down the street, Gail didn't see Sam's car so she kept walking and avoided asking.
It was quite possible that they had just been burned, so he ditched the car because they would be looking for it.
Sam stopped a cab and gave their other address, the one that only the two of them knew. If anything went wrong, or they got separated, that was where they would go. Now they were heading there because it was safer. He'd been there before, but Peck hadn't, she only knew the address.
After driving a few blocks, Sam's phone rang again. This time a loud sigh accompanied his "go".
"You out?". Callaghan's voice crooned in his ear.
"Yup, guess who showed up?".
"We'll they're gone now. Where are you?".
"Heading over to a safe house". Sam was not telling him the address, never in a million years.
"Seriously?" Callaghan sounded impressed that he had a backup plan.
"I need a new car" Sam said in reply.
"Nope, this one's good. Kim seems to think that Gail went home, and no-one asked any questions so I think you're good".
Sam cut the call, talking too long was not a good idea.
"I screwed up" Gail mumbled looking out the window.
"Nope, you're still breathing, so thats a good thing".
"But I burned this whole thing"
"Let's sleep on it okay, we'll figure it out later" Sam was suddenly feeling the adrenaline wearing off and the tiredness set in. Besides driving around had sobered him up.
Pulling up a block from the safehouse Sam scanned the area just to make sure that they were alone on the street in the middle of the night. Coming here was a last resort, but it was really the only option they had right now, and all their backup gear had already been hidden here in the early days of this assignment.
Retrieving the key from the fake rock in the garden Sam watched Peck eye him with surprise as he knew exactly where to find it.
If that shocked her, then he couldn't wait to see what she did at breakfast time.
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