Perilous Waters, page 18
“You really think that—” Jake drilled a finger into Sam’s shoulder “—and you didn’t warn me! The woman is Tommy’s new best friend.”
“Jake, I’m sorry. She wasn’t good with kids. I honestly didn’t think the attraction would last.”
“You didn’t think is right.” Jake withdrew his finger and paced the cabin, which seemed to be shrinking by the second. “What a mess. I warned you this would happen.”
“You’re right. The family is better off without me around.” If he hadn’t shown up at that family picnic all those years ago, Jimmy would still be alive.
“Don’t even go there. This is about working a case on our family vacation. This is not about you being to blame for Jimmy’s death. Don’t you think it’s time to get over yourself and accept the good that life has to offer and that’s right in front of you?” Jake rubbed the bare place where his wedding band used to sit. “We all feel responsible for Jimmy, but checking out is just selfish.”
The words twisted in Sam’s chest like a knife. He stumbled backward. His legs hit the sofa and he sunk to the seat. Was that what the family thought of him?
“Cass isn’t the only one Tommy’s calling Auntie. Mom’s probably mentally picking out wedding invitations for you and Jen as we speak.”
“Right.” Sam snorted. How much more could he let his family down? “Jen seemed cool with Tommy’s question.” And it didn’t matter if his family thought he was selfish. They were safer without him around. Today proved it.
“What did you expect her to say after your lame answer?”
Sam cringed. He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings.
“Wait a second.” Jake abruptly stopped. “You said you think Cass was trying to divert suspicion off herself by going in the water?”
“Yeah...”
“So why’d she say the crowd pushed her?”
“She probably thought I’d assume it was deliberate, so not saying so makes her look all the more innocent.”
“Ever think that maybe she’s looking so innocent because she is?”
Sam clutched a throw pillow and let his gaze drift to the glass door and the pier beyond. He blew out a breath. “Yeah, it’s possible.” But with Jen’s life at stake, he wasn’t taking any chances.
“I get it.” The hard look in Jake’s eyes slipped away. The tension in his voice dissolved. “You’re falling for Jen. I mean really falling. Falling harder than you’ve ever fallen for anyone. You know, you’re allowed to be happy.”
Sam’s mouth dried, even as his hands grew slick, but no way would he betray how close Jake had gotten to the truth. “I’m doing my job. Don’t read more into this than there is.”
“You’re not doing your job. I know what you do. You win the trust of crooked art dealers, convince them to sell you something illegal, then arrest them for it.”
Yeah, that about summed up his undercover gigs. Befriend, then betray. Not much of a way to live, when he thought about it. But in the process, the FBI art crime team had given America back millions of dollars in stolen national treasures—the battle flag of the Twelfth Regiment Infantry, Corps d’Afrique, a missing Rockwell painting. And not just American treasures. They’d returned a Rousseau taken from the home of a private collector in southern France, a Degas pastel stolen from an exhibit in Marseille, a Monet lifted from a Rotterdam museum.
As if Jake’s throat had parched along with Sam’s, Jake opened the fridge and took a swig from a water bottle. “But the brother I know—” Jake took his time twisting the lid back on the bottle and Sam’s insides twisted right along with it “—wouldn’t kiss a woman he planned to betray, let alone kiss her like you kissed Jen out there on the pier.”
Sam ground his teeth to bite back words he knew he’d regret. Jake had no clue what it was like to work undercover. You did what had to be done. But even as he thought it, Sam had to concede that in Jen’s case the rules didn’t apply. Nothing he’d done had been because he was thinking of the case first. He’d been singularly focused on her welfare.
“Face it. You’re too close.” Jake jabbed the bottle toward Sam for added emphasis. “And it’s skewing your perspective.”
“Leave it alone.”
Jake got into Sam’s face. “I’m in the middle of this whether I like it or not, thanks to you. So don’t tell me to leave it alone. You came aboard to do a job, but you’re going to have to decide who you want to be—the agent that saves Jen’s life and clears her name, or her shipboard romance.”
He could be both, but Sam knew what Jake meant. If he didn’t come clean, a fleeting shipboard romance was all there’d ever be between him and Jen. Trouble was, if he came clean, he could lose her anyway. “She’ll be furious with me if I tell her the truth.”
He shook his head. Was he actually contemplating the possibility? Their sting in Skagway hadn’t worked, and their Jennifer-approved search of the Robbins gallery hadn’t yielded a shred of evidence, either. He was running out of options if he wanted to nail Reggie and whoever else was involved. And there was no question he did. If he returned to Boston without finishing this, his gut told him Jen wouldn’t see her twenty-sixth birthday.
“Oh, yeah, she’ll be furious.” Jake had the nerve to chuckle. “But if she loves you as much as I think she does, she’ll get over it.”
Sam’s heart did a slow roll through his chest. Now Jake actually thought Jen loved him? Sam hugged the throw pillow he didn’t remember burying his fingers into. Even if she loved him now, she wouldn’t after he arrested her beloved guardian, and possibly her sister. What was he saying? There was no way he could trust her to keep his identity from Cass. Coming clean wasn’t an option.
Jake tore the pillow from Sam’s arms, an if-you-don’t-I-will glint in his eyes. “Coming clean is your only option.”
FIFTEEN
“Cass, wait!”
At the sound of Jen’s cry, Sam jerked open his cabin door to find Cass hurrying down the hall and Jen, halfway out their door, yanking on her coat. “What’s going on?”
“I told her about Reggie’s note. She wants to find him before the ship leaves.”
Sam glanced at his watch. “They’ll be barring the exit in a few minutes.”
“I know.” Jen took off in the direction Cass had headed. “That’s why I have to stop her.”
“I’ve got to go,” he called to his brother and then jogged after Jen. “Did she get another text from him?”
“Yes. It said, I’m sorry I missed you. That’s what prompted me to tell her why we’d gone back out to the pier.” Jen skidded to a stop as the elevator door shut her out. She slapped the down button. “After Tommy and Cass fell into the water, I hadn’t exactly wanted to hang around out there, but Cass dashed out before I could tell her his note said he’d lost his phone so that wasn’t Uncle Reggie texting.”
The elevator doors swept open and Jen plunged inside with Sam on her heels. He’d had the local PD scouring the pier and surrounding area for their elusive uncle for more than an hour after his nephew’s near drowning, but they hadn’t spotted him. He doubted the man had ever intended to show himself. Sam should’ve given the police the number Cass had been calling and seen if they could triangulate the signal.
The elevator ground to a stop at every deck, gaining an extra couple passengers at each. When they finally reached the disembarkation level, Jen was more antsy to get out than a cat in a dog pen.
“There she is!” Jen pointed to the exit where Cass was arguing with a petite female crew member as her brawny male counterpart blocked the exit.
“The door is only still open, ma’am, because one of the tour excursion buses is late returning.” The crew member pointed to the printed schedule that each passenger received every morning. “Passengers are no longer permitted to leave. The time is clearly stated. If I let you leave, I’d have to let anyone else who asked. I’m sorry.”
“But you don’t understand,” Cass pleaded as he and Jen reached her side. “My uncle came all this way to see us.”
Jen seemed relieved that the crew member wasn’t giving in, and Sam continued to wonder if Cass had more sinister motives for not wanting to miss seeing her uncle.
“If you hurry to the open deck,” the crew member suggested, “you might be able to wave to him.”
With scarcely a glance in their direction, Cass raced for the spiral staircase. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about the note sooner,” Cass griped as he and Jen caught up to her.
“Cass, something weird is going on. Reg’s note said he lost his phone.”
“What? Then who’s been texting me?” She reached in her jacket pocket, but her hand came out empty. “Great, I must’ve left my phone in the cabin. Reg probably found his again after he left the note is all.”
Jen met Sam’s gaze, and he shrugged. It was a reasonable explanation. Except... “Don’t you think he would’ve mentioned the note in his texts then?” Sam asked, not sure whose side he hoped to help by the question. If Reggie had wanted it to look like the text messages came from someone else, he wouldn’t have mentioned the note, any more than someone else would have. Considering how soon she’d contacted him by phone after their tour bus pulled away, he’d have had to lose his phone between texting her and walking to the ship, then found it again before they arrived for their rendezvous at Creek Street. Not so believable.
From the anxiousness on Jen’s face, he suspected she was thinking along the same lines. He could use that uncertainty to his advantage if he admitted to her he was with the FBI and stressed how important it was to not say anything to Cass since her loyalties clearly lay with their uncle.
Cass pushed past a group blocking the door to the open deck and burst outside. She ran along the railing and scanned the near-empty pier. “Do you see him? I don’t see him.”
“He probably gave up waiting for us a long time ago,” Jen said tiredly. “Certainly after the ship shut its doors.”
Cass visibly deflated. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I feel so bad that he came all this way to surprise us and we missed him.”
“If seeing us had been his priority, he would’ve cut short his meeting this afternoon, don’t you think?” Jen edged a sheepish look Sam’s way as if seeking moral support.
Oh, man, she was clearly struggling to know what to believe. Would there ever be a more perfect opportunity to come clean? If he could convince her to cooperate in a sting, he could get her the answers she craved once and for all.
“I think you’re being too hard on him.” Cass shivered. “I’m going to take a hot shower. I’m still chilled from that dunk in the water. You coming back to the cabin?”
“I—”
Sam caught Jen’s hand before she could finish answering. “How about taking a walk around the deck with me?”
Cass waved. “I’ll see you two later.”
Sam led Jen to a secluded section of the deck.
“I can’t believe how paranoid you’ve made me. Now you’ve got me questioning who sent those text messages.”
Sam stroked his thumb over the back of her fingers, struggling with how to begin. “Paranoia is good. It’ll keep you alive.”
She shuddered. “I tried to remember if maybe that redhead, Bellamy’s roommate, was in the crowd when Cass and Tommy went off the dock. Did you notice?”
Sam tried to recall the crowd. He’d been so intent on getting to Tommy that he hadn’t paid enough attention. “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
She swallowed so loudly he heard the gulp. “What am I going to do when I’m back in Seattle? How can I protect myself when I don’t even know who’s really after me? Was Bellamy acting alone? Or is there still someone else out there who wants to get rid of me?”
Sam stepped to the rail and drew her close. “I think I have a plan that would compel your uncle to confess, but you’d have to promise not to say anything to Cass.”
“I can’t believe she’s involved in anything illegal.”
“But we don’t know for sure,” Sam reminded her. “So we can’t risk it.”
“But wouldn’t we be risking her safety?”
“If you both died—” Jen paled and Sam curled his arm around her shoulder “—your uncle would lose control of the gallery. If he wants to keep doing what he’s doing, he needs one of you alive. You don’t want the gallery, but Cass does. And he can control her, keep doing what he’s been doing, maybe without her suspecting a thing or maybe with her full knowledge.”
“But this plan of yours, does it involve the police?”
“The FBI.”
Her widening eyes rivaled Tommy’s earlier gawk. “Why? You plan to let Reg kidnap me?”
“No, because of the art crime connection.”
She met his gaze and the trust mingled with trepidation in her eyes heaped burning coals on his chest. “I guess you’ve worked with them before if you’ve handled security for art galleries.”
“Yeah.” Sam waited as a couple passed by, then lowered his voice. “Jen, I haven’t been completely honest with you about my job because I didn’t know if you were party to your uncle’s alleged deals.” His guts churned.
She stiffened, her forehead furrowing. “You thought I’d sell stolen paintings?”
The hurt in her voice cut to the core. The wind whipped strands of hair across her face and he tucked them behind her ear, letting his fingers linger on her cheek. “Not once I got to know you.”
“But I didn’t tell you about the paintings until—” She let out a strangled sound. “What are you saying?”
He drew a deep breath. “I’m an FBI agent. We had reason to believe that Michaels sent you and your sister on this cruise to collect a stolen painting and bring it back to Seattle.”
What little color she’d had left drained from her face. “From the gallery in Skagway...” She backed out of his reach. “That’s why you wanted to come with us. The whole way there, I felt like people were watching us. And they were, weren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“So none of this was real?” Her voice broke. “You were just playing me.”
“No, I mean, yes.” He shook his head and clasped her upper arms. “Yes, I was supposed to win your trust, but my feelings for you are real, Jen. You have to believe me. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t be telling you any of this. I would have walked away at the end of this cruise and you would have been none the wiser.”
She cupped her hand over her mouth, looking so much like she wanted to believe him. “Does your family know?”
“No, I never told them.”
“But Jake knows. That’s what he meant, isn’t it? When he said this has gone too far?”
Sam exhaled. “Yes. He figured it out.”
“I can’t believe I sided with you over Cass. She warned me. She said it was weird how the police would feed you all this information and how you seemed to know everything.” Jen’s voice grew fainter with each word and, backing away from him, she had this panicked deer-caught-in-the-headlights look. “How could you? I thought you were different! Sharing this cruise with your family has been—” She gulped. “I thought you actually cared about me.”
He reached out to her but let his hands drop back to his sides when she cringed at his touch. “I do care, Jen.”
“You don’t. You just care about what you could get from me—like every other guy I ever dated.”
The comparison stung.
“I don’t want to be like them, Jen. You have to believe me.” He was slimier than fish bait for romancing her the way he had, but he needed to turn this around and fast. “That’s why I had to tell you, because I don’t want to walk away from you at the end of this cruise. I want to help you.”
“Help me? You’ve ruined everything. All I ever wanted was to have a quiet family life.” Her voice edged higher. “But no one will ever buy the gallery after you drag it through the mud. I’ll never escape.”
He clasped her arm and maneuvered them farther away from the others on deck. “You can’t escape by running.” The sudden memory of his aunt and uncle’s grief-stricken faces at Jimmy’s grave caught him in the gut. Who was he to lecture anyone about not running from troubles? Not that he’d been running so much as staying away for his family’s sake. He’d let them down enough for one lifetime.
Jen folded her arms and glared. “You have no idea what it’s like to have your life dissected in print. If you’d had to endure the malicious speculations the newspapers entertained after my parents died, you’d understand why I couldn’t go to the police.”
“I’m sorry.” His heart ached at how much that experience had clearly cost her. But he still needed to convince her to work with him.
“It was never about the money.” Her hand inched up to her throat and captured the cross pendant dangling there. “I was going to drown if I didn’t get out.”
A warning horn sounded from the ship’s bridge and Sam motioned to the windows overlooking the deck, where the captain stood. “Do you know what sailors do when a storm threatens to tear their ship apart?”
She stared at him mutely.
“They throw their excess cargo overboard—everything—and cling to what matters...the ship.” He stroked his thumb over her hand that still clutched the cross at her throat. “God is our ship, Jen. Don’t you think maybe it’s time for you to cling to Him? And consider that he might have sent me here to protect you?”
* * *
Sitting on the lounge chair on her cabin’s balcony, Jen unfolded the picture Tommy had given her their first day at sea. Her heart clenched at the sight of the little stick family standing alongside her on the ship’s bow. To be part of a family like Sam’s again had been all she’d ever wanted. She traced the faces, and when she reached her own, a tear dribbled from her chin, smearing the wide smile Tommy had given her.
