CHAPTER 15
Sam found Sarah in the barn sitting on the back of their SUV with her feet hanging out the open door. It looked like Jess had just finished putting a bandage on the cut on Sarah’s forehead when he joined them. All traces of the blood were gone and she was dressed in clean blue jeans and a tan colored tee shirt. Her face still looked pale to him, but the dazed look seemed to have left her eyes.
“How’s she doing?”
Jess smiled at him. “Better than expected, Sam. I think she’s fine. She did real good out there, don’t you think?”
“Will you two quit talking about me like I’m not here?”
Sam felt the corners of his mouth raise in a small smile as he caught Jess’ wink. She did sound fine, and she sure wasn’t the quiet timid woman he had interviewed that first day. This sounded more like the woman he had come to know and love over the past few days.
Then he remembered what he had to tell her.
“Jess,” he raised his chin in the direction of the open barn door. “Bill needs your help to finish processing the scene.”
Jess nodded at him, cleaned up the remaining medical supplies and headed out the door, leaving them alone.
Sam took the position Jess had just left, standing in front of Sarah. He was close enough that her knees brushed against the pant legs of his jeans. He really wanted to pull her back into his arms but instead he gently reached out and tipped her chin up with his hand to look at her bandaged forehead. Then he allowed his eyes to sweep slowly over her face. With her little glasses, she was as cute as ever. He took a deep breath and released it. They had come way too close to losing her, and he didn’t ever want her to go through anything like that again. Regardless of his personal feelings for her, he was going to do his job. He was going to protect her – at all costs.
“We need to talk.”
Before he could say more, she started babbling.
“Sam, I think it’s my fault he found us. As a matter of fact, I’m sure of it. I never even thought about it at the time I did it, but that must be how he traced us.”
“Sarah, what are you talking about?”
He put his hands on her shoulders to try and steady her as she turned her stricken face up to his. Sam felt her take a deep breath before she answered him.
“I turned my cell phone on yesterday morning – just for a minute while I checked to see if there were any messages on it. I thought it wouldn’t hurt anything unless I actually tried to make a call. They must have traced it…Sam, I am so sorry!”
He gazed down at her. That explained a lot. He had wondered how Manaquez had managed to find them, and now he knew. At least it wasn’t due to a leak in the Bureau, so that was a relief.
Sam waited a moment before he responded. There was no sense at this point in letting her know how badly it could have turned out. Besides, he was pretty sure she already knew.
“Sarah, that was a foolish thing to do. But thank God, it turned out okay.” He fought the temptation to gather her into his arms again. Instead he reached up with his fingers and lightly touched her bandaged forehead. His heart was still in his throat at how close Manaquez had come to completing the job he had been hired to do.
Sam heart hurt with the knowledge he had failed Sarah. He was supposed to keep her from getting hurt, and he had failed her miserably. It had almost cost her life.
“Sarah, I’m so sorry. He never should have been able to get that close to you.” He dropped his hand and sighed. “I don’t know what I would have done if anything had happened to you.” He felt his face grow warm as he realized he had just voiced his last thoughts aloud.
She must not have been as shocked as he was at his words because she just smiled at him before getting a more serious look on her face.
“It’s not your fault, Sam. I was stupid to leave the house by myself. I know that, so please don’t scold me.”
Then she grinned at him. It was going to be impossible to scold her when she looked at him like that.
“Bad guy dead. Right, Sam? All is right with the world again. I am so glad it’s over!”
He swallowed hard and clenched his jaw. Now came the time when he found out how much grit and gumption she really had.
“Not exactly.”
He watched the light slowly go out of her eyes. “What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?”
Sam hesitated, wishing he didn’t have to tell her the rest. But there wasn’t any choice in the matter. She had to know it all and she had to be told what it meant for her – for her future.
“Manaquez’s cell phone shows he sent several texts to his boss over the last few days telling him that you were still alive. He had orders to take care of you.” He paused a moment and let that sink in.
“Sarah, once they know Manaquez is dead, once they find out you’re still alive, they’ll just send someone else up here to finish the job.”
She gazed at him for a moment with a bereft look on her face before she dropped her head. The top of her head rested against his chest and he heard the sorrow in her voice as she spoke.
“So, it’s not over,” she whispered. She sighed and he felt the weight of it. “What do we do now, Sam?”
He gently took hold of her right hand. “You have to die, Sarah.”
He realized he could have worded it differently as her head came up sharply and he saw the fear sweep across her face.
Dear Lord, how could she even think that I’m capable of hurting her?
“What I mean is,” he added quickly. “Sarah Masters has to have also been killed in this shootout. If she’s dead, they will have no reason to continue to hunt her.” He saw the fear leave her face and he could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. She finally understood him.
“How? There’s only one body.”
She was smart, he had to hand her that.
“We’ve got it covered. I’m going to have Jess and Bill stay here and get the bodies ready to transport to the Parkston local airport and fly them back to Headquarters. You and I are going to drive back to D.C. today. It will be a long drive and you’re going to have to stay out of sight. I’ll take you to headquarters, and they’ll take care of you from there. They’ll help you start over with a new name and a new life.”
He saw her nod, although he wasn’t sure if she could really understand how much her life was about to change. Sarah Masters no longer existed. Not only did she no longer have a job, friends, or a home and belongings; now, she also didn’t have a name.
Sarah had been very quiet ever since they’d left the farm. She sat alone in the rear seat of the agents’ large SUV so she could get down if necessary to stay out of sight. Perhaps she hadn’t said much of anything, but she had been thinking – a lot.
Sam had been driving for about an hour, and from what he had told her, they still had a long drive ahead of them. Sitting in the back seat, she had a lot of time to think – too much time - and her mind was spinning.
Things had taken a turn she hadn’t envisioned and now she wasn’t sure what to expect. She had thought that once Manaquez was eliminated or caught and put in jail for the rest of his life, that her life would no longer be threatened and she would be able to go back home.
Obviously, she had thought wrong.
So now she had to wrap her mind around what was really going to happen. She could never go back to Herbert and her old life. She didn’t dare go back because she wasn’t going to be able to be Sarah Masters anymore. Instead, she was going to have to go somewhere else and start all over again with a new name. In a way, it was like being born again.
As she had stated to Sam earlier, “I’m alive. Even though a part of me is gone, I’m still alive. So I will be reborn as a new person with a new name. I’m ready.”
She couldn’t help but think about the parallel her new life would be to the Christian life. You left your old self behind when you became a new person in Christ and tried to liv
e a better life because of it. She was going to have to do the same with her real life. How many people got the chance to start their life over with a clean slate?
She leaned forward a little in the seat, taking care to keep her profile as low as possible as Sam had asked of her. Fortunately, they were traveling little-used roads so there weren’t many people to notice her sitting in the back seat. But she would never assume safety again. She had done that once and it had nearly cost her life. Now she wanted to be prepared for whatever the future held for her. She’d had a lot of time to think about what had happened the last five days and she was convinced Sam hadn’t told her everything about Matt and his involvement with the Mexican cartel and Brown and Associates. At one time she had thought he might be a little more forthcoming with information, but she guessed she was going to have come right out and ask him.
“Sam, why were you so sure the cartel was going to come after Adam Brown and the law practice? I’ve never understood how the FBI knew the threat against Adam was tied to what happened to Matt.”
She saw his head come up as he glanced at her in the rear view mirror then he turned his attention back to the open road.
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to tell you, Sarah,” he finally said in a quiet voice. She heard his weary sigh. “It doesn’t really matter anymore, and I didn’t want to scare you at the time.”
“Tell me what, Sam?” She knew she was pushing him, but she felt she had to know it all. She couldn’t explain why to him, but she just felt she had to know the truth - the whole truth. Maybe it would help her understand what had happened to her, and why.
He finally nodded his assent. “A few weeks ago, Adam Brown received a written death threat along with a package. The contents of that package were what convinced us the threat was real.”
Sarah leaned up with her chin resting on the back of his seat. “What was in the package, Sam?”
She saw the muscles working in his jaw. It must be bad because he really didn’t want to tell her.
“A hand, Sarah. In the package was a severed hand.”
She gasped at the picture he painted with those words, but then wrinkled her brow.
“I still don’t understand the connection.”
Sarah saw Sam take a deep breath. She wished she could see his face but all she could see was the side of his face because he had to keep his eyes on the road.
“Like I told you before, Matt Calvin died in an automobile accident, but we were sure it wasn’t an accident. There was a reason for that. His right hand had been cut off. The DNA matched the hand Adam Brown received. It’s was Calvin’s hand.”
Sarah gasped again and sat back in the car seat as the shock of what he had told her swept over her.
“No wonder you were so sure. Why didn’t you tell me this before, Sam?”
Sam shook his head. “I didn’t want to scare you more than you already were. And I didn’t think it mattered at the time.”
Neither one said anything for a time as the countryside sped past the vehicle.
Sam had been smart not to tell her. She would have been terrified – more so than she already had been. And it hadn’t changed anything that had happened anyway. Matt made some really bad choices which resulted in pain and death to a great many people she cared about. And personally, she was going to have to live with the results of those choices for the rest of her life. But at least she still had a life to live – even if it wasn’t her own life.
She could forgive Matt because he was going to pay for his mistakes with an eternity of separation from God. That was more punishment than the cartel, or Sarah Masters, or the FBI could ever give him.
“Sam, what will happen to me once we get to Washington?”
She saw him glance up at her in the rear-view mirror again.
“Well, I can’t tell you exactly what will happen. I’ve never had any contact with anyone after they’ve been placed in the witness protection program. But what I can tell you is that the Bureau’s Witness Protection Program people are good at what they do. They will give you a new identity with a new history – both professionally and personally. If you need training to do a new job, they will provide that for you too.”
He paused and they both watched as a small passenger car driven by an elderly woman passed them. Sarah sensed his relief once the car had passed and the quick sense of fear she felt vanished. Would she ever feel safe again?
Sam continued. “The people in the program will train you so you can start over in a new place in a new job. So many people in the program have trouble adjusting because of family and friends they’ve had to leave behind. As a part of the program, they are never supposed to contact anyone from their old life and sometimes people struggle with that. In this case, it is fortunate for you that you have no family.” He hesitated a moment before he continued. “I know that sounds harsh and that’s not the way I meant it. All I know is that they will see to it you are taken care of.”
Sarah thought for a moment about his statement regarding her having no family being an asset. Sam was right. It might have sounded harsh to someone else, but she had understood what he was trying to say. She didn’t have anyone she wanted to keep in contact with from her old life – unless you counted Sam Morgan. It was going to be very difficult leaving him and never seeing him again. Knowing that left a huge hole in her heart she didn’t think would ever heal. She would miss him so much.
She wondered as she had several times the last few days, if her feelings were because Sam had become her protector – her guardian – her hero. She had heard about situations like that where the feelings involved were because the victim was thrown into a precarious position and they developed an unrealistic attachment toward the person that offered them safety. She didn’t think that was the issue here though. Her feelings were far too real. There was no doubt in her heart; she would never forget Sam Morgan.