Part 6 (2/2)
She frowned. ”Have you been home at all since the raid?”
”I went to your apartment from there.”
He had pulled an all-nighter, then. Instead of going home, he'd come to her? Why would he do that? Had something happened after she and the others had left? Her questions were going to have to wait. Sam released her, then turned and headed straight for the sedan, putting an end to their conversation. He obviously wasn't going to say anything more now.
Paige followed him to the car and they drove off. Within a few minutes he parked in front of the Main Street Diner. Sam held the door for an elderly couple who smiled their thanks, then waited for Paige to precede him. The rain hadn't started and the temperature was climbing. Paige welcomed the change from the sticky heat outside to the cool air in the diner.
Paige inhaled the scents of coffee brewing and bacon frying. She scanned the diner, as had become her habit, but there were only a few customers at the tables, one waitress, and the cook, a man visible above a half wall that separated the kitchen from the dining room.
Sam led them to a side table. Paige claimed a seat, and Sam took the one across from her. A waitress joined them right away, preventing Paige from asking Sam why he'd gone to her apartment.
Pus.h.i.+ng up her gla.s.ses, the woman said with a smile, ”Hey, Sam.”
”Cathy, this is Paige.”
”Hey, Paige. What can I get y'all?”
”Coffee to start would be great, Cathy,” Sam said.
”You got it.” Cathy gave Paige a smile, then pointed to the laminated menu with a huge orange rooster logo that also served as a place mat. ”I'll give you a few minutes to take a look.”
Paige's mind wasn't on the food. Returning her attention to Sam, she asked, ”How did you find me?”
”Ivy told me you went for a run. I was waiting for you in your parking lot, and when I saw you run by the building, I realized you weren't going home and went after you.”
”Why were you waiting for me?”
”I wanted to talk with you.”
At six o'clock in the morning? ”What about?” She wanted to add: What couldn't wait until she went into the office a few hours later?
”About the raid.”
Paige felt a rush of anxiety, familiar from her time with the New York squad. Had Sam found her lacking during the raid? ”Was there something more you needed? I thought we were done for the night.”
”You were. It's not that.”
Cathy returned with their coffees. ”Ready to order?”
”Paige?” Sam asked.
Absently, Paige said, ”Whatever you're having is fine.”
Sam said to Cathy, ”The number five, please. Make it two and an order of pancakes and home fries to go.”
Cathy scribbled on a notepad. ”Picking up for Jonah?”
”No. Jonah's with his mother. This order is for Paige's sister.”
That drew Paige's attention from herself. ”Ivy?”
”She doesn't have a cla.s.s until ten,” Sam said, ”and I told her I'd bring her breakfast.”
Ivy had told Sam about her late cla.s.s. Paige felt a pain that Sam knew that about Ivy while Paige herself did not.
Cathy nodded. ”Sure thing. It'll be up in a jiff, hon.”
When they were alone again, Sam looked to Paige. The few lines around his eyes and mouth pulled tighter. ”I saw you leave last night.”
Paige's insides tightened. ”I told you I was leaving.”
He watched her, never taking his eyes from hers. ”You told me you were going into the house to get something you'd dropped. I went after you, but you didn't go into the house. You were in the back, in the train yard. I thought you might have seen someone else suspicious out there and went after you, but you got into a cab.”
Paige knew better than to volunteer information. ”Okay.”
”You're wary. Jumpy.” Sam eyed her. ”Something is going on with you. Tell me what that is.”
Paige's breath caught. She had to work to take another breath. ”There's nothing going on with me.”
His voice even, he asked, ”Why did you take a cab home last night instead of going with the squad?”
Sam didn't break eye contact. Paige believed she was getting a glimpse of what he was like in an interrogation, how skilled he was, how powerful. Despite the chill in the diner, Paige was sweating. ”Harry mentioned going out for wings and beer. I needed to go back to the office to get the car, and”-she shrugged, affecting indifference-”more than that, I didn't want to cramp their style if they were looking to hook up at a bar.”
Sam leaned across the table toward her. His eyes showed frustration, but along with it Paige saw tenderness. ”You can trust me.”
That tenderness was almost her undoing. She needed to give him something to throw him off the scent, but just now she felt the full weight of her situation and couldn't come up with words that would deter him. He wanted her to trust him. She was so tired of not being able to trust anyone. He couldn't possibly know how much she wished she could trust him. Her throat grew so tight it burned. She forced out her next words. ”I've learned that I can't trust anyone.”
Cathy appeared with their breakfasts and a container with Ivy's takeout and set everything on the table. ”Enjoy.”
As Cathy left them, Paige got to her feet. Her handbag was locked in the trunk of her rental car. Sam would have to get the meals. Swallowing hard, she said, ”I'll see that Ivy gets her breakfast.”
Paige picked up the container and left the diner.
Back at his place, Sam stepped under the shower. Bracing his hands against the tile, he let the hot spray pound his shoulders and sluice down his back. He was tired, going on more than thirty hours without sleep. But he didn't think he could sleep even if he did close his eyes. He couldn't get Paige out of his mind.
When he had seen her run by the apartment building earlier, he'd been surprised that she hadn't stopped. Kirk County Park was a fair distance from where she lived and would have provided a good workout, but she'd kept going. And she hadn't been moving at a leisurely jog. She'd been running as if the devil himself had been chasing her. Sam had been set to get out of the car and put himself between her and whoever might be after her, but there was no one. Then she'd stumbled. Sam's gut went tight as a fist remembering that. He didn't want to think about how badly she could have been hurt if she'd hit the concrete.
At the restaurant, her parting words, that she couldn't trust anyone, struck him. The pain behind them hit him, pain Sam knew would have felled a weaker person.
She'd pulled herself together. Before his eyes, she'd put herself back together, but he couldn't get the sight of her fighting this battle on her own out of his head.
Something from her past? Personal or professional? Her emotions had been laid bare just then, as open as Sam had ever seen her, and for an instant, there'd been a vulnerability in her eyes, a yearning, as if she'd wanted desperately to be able to tell him whatever was going on with her. The s.h.i.+elds she'd erected around herself had come down, and he'd gotten a glimpse of everything she was feeling.
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