Lucas came after him. I sat up quick, a gasp escaping my throat.
He raised his hand in a tiny wave. “Hi there.”
I ran to the wall of bars and push my arms through, reaching for him. He walked slowly to me and we hugged through the steel.
“I’m so glad you’re safe.”
“Me too,” he said. “I mean that you’re safe, not that I’m safe. I mean, I am glad about that too.” We laughed as we broke our embrace. Blake stood off to the side, a third wheel.
“I’m so sorry for all of this,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s a little crazy.”
“He still doesn’t know how crazy,” Blake said. I locked eyes with him. “I haven’t told him everything. Not about her.”
Lucas took my hand. “Blake said you’d have more to tell me.”
“Did he tell you about Calder and Rizzo?”
Lucas looked away from me to the floor. “Yeah.”
“Then it can’t get any worse.” Lucas lifted his eyes to mine again. I could see the hurt and disappointment in them. Not half as hurt as me. “I’m surprised you wanted to see me.”
“I need to know what happened.”
“It’s still happening.”
“Well, it involves me so I’d like to know. I get that Calder and Rizzo want me dead. They want their case to go away. That’s not hard to figure. How are you involved?”
“Just listen. Don’t ask questions until I’m done. And trust me.” He looked away again. “Lucas, can you trust me?”
It took agonizing seconds for him to meet my eye again. “Yes.”
Then I went in for the sucker punch. “Do you still love me?” What the hell, why not? Everything was about to be out on the table from my end.
“Yes.”
Could have been a line to get me to talk, he is a lawyer after all, but whatever. I took it, locked it away like a valentine and told my tale.
I kept my voice low so no cops could eavesdrop. I figured there had to be a decent chance either one of them could be wearing a wire, but the whole story wasn’t going to stay locked away for long. Not as long as me, anyway.
I held a tight grip on Lucas’s hand as I spun the wild story of my evil twin. I at least hoped it sounded more Buffy The Vampire Slayer than some crapy old soap opera.
To his credit he didn’t blink. He had seen her so it wasn’t all foreign to him, but he took it all in as if it were fact. Again, the guy’s a lawyer so he’s used to clients telling tall tales to get out of trouble. My story got me deeper in, though.
I ended with what I’d seen last night.
“And that’s it. Then I woke up. My God I wish it could be a dream. Or is this where you tell me it was and I’m the only one on those security tapes?”
“I haven’t seem them. The DEA has confiscated everything from the office. My office is on lockdown too.”
“You guys must have tapes. But darn it, we were never there at the same time. That wouldn’t prove anything. Everyone in the office sure thought we were the same person.”
“Can you blame them?” he said.
“No.” He let go of my hand and rubbed his chin, his thinking pose. “Lucas, do you believe me?”
“I believe something happened. And I believe you could never do the things that happened in those offices, or to judge Randolph.”
“But do you believe it was her?” A headache started behind my eyes.
“No matter what, we know Calder and Rizzo are behind it. They called for the execution of government officials in order to obstruct justice. The trick is going to be turning this story into admissible evidence to get a warrant. I can’t exactly go to a judge with this story. He’d throw me out.”
“But the tapes. The evidence.” The headache moved from leg cramp level pain to hand-over-an-open-flame level pain.
“Tapes can be faked. It fits right in with something Calder and Rizzo would do.”
“So you have nothing to use against them? You can’t pick them up?”
“I’ll find something. With your testimony about the payoffs and the ambushes we’ll put them away for life easily. Right now, Samantha, you’re my whole case. Just you though, not the other you.”
My headache moved into ice pick territory and I realized why. Sam. Watching. That meant she saw Lucas. That meant she knew where he was.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO HOME BUT YOU CAN’T STAY HERE
“Lucas you have to go,” I said, a new breathlessness in my voice. Blake sat up straight, recognizing my fear.
“What’s wrong?” Lucas asked.
“She can see you. Right now. She’s listening and watching. She knows where you are.”
“Good, let her come. The best thing for us is to arrest her.”
I tried forcing her out of my head the way she forced me last night but I couldn’t do it. I pinched my eyes shut and sat down on the cot, reeling from the pain.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “She needs to kill you to get her money. She won’t care about anything else.”
“Is she here now?” Blake asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t tell. She’s blocking me out somehow.”
“Samantha, it’s okay,” Lucas said. “We’re in a police station. She can’t get to us here.”
Painful as it was, I opened my eyes to look at him. “I’m sure that’s what everyone at the DEA would have said.”
The first shots were far away. They could have been anything if I hadn’t been listening for gunfire specifically. I felt like a bird watcher hearing a rare call. I I.D.’d it right away.
“She’s got a 9a-91.” I knew we kept a few of those in the munitions locker. They’d be small enough to carry around and even get inside the front door with one hidden. The short, fast bursts came one on the heels of another. She got a lot of shooting done in a short amount of time.
“You have to go,” I said. “Blake, get him out of here.”
“Wait, Samantha, you really think she’s here?”
I knew what he meant. Do I really think she’s real? Another cluster of shots and then some return fire. No doubt about it, upstairs in the lobby raged a full-on fire fight.
“Lucas, go. Now. Don’t tell me where. Whatever I know, she knows. Please get out of here. Build your case and nail them.”
The men in the cell next to me started moving quickly around the cell like trapped animals. “What the fuck’s goin’ on?” someone said to nobody in particular. The one desk cop on duty stood and crept slowly backward with one hand on his sidearm, but the gun still in his holster.