I know how pathetic I sound. I do. It’s the truth, though. I couldn’t tell anything else.
And Blake’s eyes? Soft again. Softer anyway. That’s something. If anything came out of this, forgiveness from Blake and from Lucas would be the greatest reward.
That and living through it all.
HOT & WET
I took a shower. A gloriously hot shower. I set it to scalding and grit my teeth until I got used to the scorch, but then it felt amazing. As amazing as you could get in a shower/tub combo with a dark ring around the tub like a ghost of ten thousand dirty hotel guests before me. And I’d bet you a thousand bucks at least one person hung themselves off the rusty shower head at some point.
But with my eyes shut, and my brain beautifully blank for a change, I let the white noise of the water rushing past my ears block out everything for a while.
I thought of Blake in the next room, and wondered if he thought of me. Even after the change in him, the obvious disgust for what I’d done, did being this close, naked and soapy, did it turn him on? Making him think of what could have been in other circumstances in this dingy motel room?
I surveyed my bruises, searched for some signs of a wound on my arm where the stabbing pain of Blake’s gunshot made it seem like I’d be staring down at an exposed bone, but nothing. A few freckles, that’s it.
I shut off the water, not quite ready for my mini vacation to end but the water started to cool off. I think I’d drained the hot water heater for the whole motel. The fan in the bathroom didn’t work (Shocker!) so the air hung thick with fog and the mirror turned opaque. I wiped my palm over the fog and in the clear patch saw the light bruise on my cheek from the punch I’d given myself. The swelling wasn’t too bad. The mirror fogged up again quickly.
I slung a towel around me and dreaded the idea of getting back into the same clothes I’d been wearing for two days straight. A little late to ask Blake to take me shopping. Only place to get clothes at that hour of the night is a XXXL tee shirt with a bald eagle or American flag on it at a truck stop.
Again, not my style.
I hated to tease Blake by coming out in a towel, but since I thought that attraction pretty much dead and gone, I risked it.
SURPRISE! AND IT’S NOT ROOM SERVICE
Blake was not alone. I instinctively put a hand on my towel, feeling ridiculous being nearly naked. My fear of the strangers was tempered by what I knew about them.
It wasn’t Calder and Rizzo’s guys. They were DEA. If they’re backs were to me I’d have seen the giant white Helvetica letters on their windbreakers, but even without that clue I can spot a fellow agent at a hundred paces. I felt like my badge would be going bye-bye real soon.
“Samantha, I can explain,” Blake said. Ah, that old chestnut. A line spoken by someone who is about to tell you something you don’t want to hear, designed to make them feel better, and which doesn’t explain things at all. “I called them. They can help. This is bigger than just you.”
Run? No. Fight? Can’t. Slump shoulders and ask permission to put on my panties? About all I could do.
THE WALK OF SHAME
I wouldn’t look Blake in the eye. He didn’t seem too eager for eye contact himself. Things couldn’t have been more awkward between us if we did have sex in this shitty motel.
A female officer came into the bathroom with me to put my old clothes on. Hey, maybe I’d at least get a spiffy orange jumpsuit out of this. They put cuffs on me, as I expected. When we left there were no news crews, no gauntlet of cameras, no gawking looky-loos. Anyone else staying at an out-of-the-way shitbox that rents by the hour isn’t exactly going to jump up and volunteer to be seen by a parking lot full of DEA agents. They were all hunkered down sweating their asses off and probably swallowing condoms filled with dope.
While I waited to get stuffed into the back seat of a navy blue sedan I saw two agents with their backs to me. The one on the right turned his body in such a way the giant letters on the backs of their jackets spelled out DEAD.
Great. As bad omens go, I might as well have been riding a black cat under a ladder while breaking thirteen mirrors.
Blake came up to me before they took me away. I could see him get permission to talk to me first.
“It’ll be alright, Samantha. These are our people. They can help.”
“Did you explain it?”
“No, not yet.” He looked at his shoes. “I thought you should do that. I’ll screw up the details.”
Right. He didn’t want to sound crazy. I felt a scathing rant in the back of my throat, expletive-laced and cruel. My tongue shut down. I could only nod and look like my name had been called to the principal’s office.
“I’ll be with you the whole time.”
“No,” I said. “You have to find Lucas. Please. She’s still out there. We’ll run out of time.”
“Okay, okay. It will take some time for you to be processed anyway. And I know I can’t sleep right now.” He ran a hand through his hair. Nice hair. I’d never noticed before. “I’ll do what I can, but Sammy, these are the people we want on our side.”
“These are the people I betrayed,” I said. “Why would they do anything to help me?”
“Because it’s their job.”
“It used to be my job too.”
A gruff officer muscled in between us and folded me in origami shapes until I fit into the back of his car. As we drove off I watched Blake. The doubt on his face read like a book. He wondered if he’d made the right choice. If only he’d asked me first, I could have saved him the agonizing question hanging over him. No. Wrong choice. Bad idea. Go to sleep.
Jesus, if only I’d fucked him he never would have gotten to the phone.
JUST THE FACTS, MA’AM
The local cops were thrilled to have me. We did have a holding cell at the DEA office, but by then the whole building would have been turned into a crime scene since they took Blake’s call and searched the place.
An agent stayed with me as the cops booked me in.
“Charge?” the desk sergeant asked.
“DEA custody,” my handler said.
“That’s not a charge.”
“Just write it down.”
“But it’s not a charge. What’s the crime she did?”
“Okay, how about you write down none of your fucking business? Will that fit on your form?”
“You don’t gotta be a dick about it.”
“And you don’t have to fuck with a homeland security case.”
Any agency under the umbrella of homeland security these days loves to toss that kind of rhetoric around. It’s the twenty-first century version of, “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” Act tough, wave the HS flag and you get away with anything in the face of a lower rank public official. Hell, I’d done it before when local cops almost derailed a fake drug buy of mine.