The Choice (2 page)

Sam pressed his microphone close to his mouth. “Diane, where are you?” He slid open the kitchen sliding glass door and walked onto the massive stone patio overlooking the pond and luscious well-tended rose garden. He slumped against the patio door and tried to rub away the pulsating pain between his eyebrows. Since this investigation started, he’d begun to experience a sudden sensitivity to light and sound. It could be gone in hours or days. The usual warning had been there for the last few days—a blue aura in his peripheral vision, black spots. But he ignored it. Told himself it was the stress of running what started out as an independent investigation by the DEA and escalated into an international task force. Targeting the marijuana grow ops running rampant on the isolated islands in the Pacific Northwest.

World-renowned high grade marijuana was being shipped and traded for cocaine and guns. This was big time, a major business and an international problem law enforcement had yet to defuse. As if they could.

“What’s wrong?” He never heard Diane approach. Her words stretched out long and loud. It took forever for his senses to override the roaring in his ears. His blood began to pound through his body and pulled Sam deeper into throbbing misery.

“Here, take this.” He opened his eyes when Diane tapped out three pills from a small bottle.

He didn’t question it. He just swallowed. There wasn’t much Sam wouldn’t take from his trusted friend. Diane was a woman of medium height and build, compact and tough, with tan short-cropped hair, the type of woman who didn’t distract a man with flirtatious curves. But the kind of partner who’d do the gritty groundwork while keeping her partner focused, which is what she did on the boat ride over this morning, ignoring Agent Donaldson’s crude jibes, guzzling coffee with Sam.

“If you don’t pull it together, some woman on this team’s going to fulfill her dream and have you bedded and nursed before we can wrap this up.”

Whatever she gave him took the edge off the soon-to-be-blinding pain.

“Eat this.” She tossed him an energy bar. He didn’t argue. He ripped open the foil wrap with his teeth and chewed the gritty bar.

“He knew we were coming.”

“Click off your radio Sam.”

He ripped the headset from his ear. “You know we followed the letter of the law to make sure this scumbag didn’t get off on some technicality. All those stakeouts, we did our homework Diane. We know who the little guys are, every fucking one of them on the street. We have video footage and rock solid evidence the drugs were here!” Sam pounded the fleshy part of his fist against the smooth fir siding.

“Agent Carre, you better get in here and see this.” Donaldson beckoned, quite arrogantly, undermining his superior, Diane, by not addressing her.

Diane, one to always hold her emotions close and rarely showed what she thought, tilted one eyebrow up as her face hardened. This prick deliberately pushed her buttons and deserved a one-on-one ass kicking. Personally, Sam would have planted his foot so far up this kid’s ass by now. Except, this was Diane’s fight and if she wanted these guys to respect her, Sam couldn’t do her fighting.

Sam and Diane followed Donaldson down a long hall, which resembled an art gallery, to Lance Silver’s study in the solar glass wing. Green, Mercer, Winters and Craig looked up, but only Winters, a big dark Irish, African-American guy with long, fuzzy hair would honestly look at Sam. The tension magnified about fifty times when the other tough guys turned away slightly, crossing their arms, glancing awkwardly at Lance Silver’s palatial mahogany desk, where all drawers hung open.

“We found this in the top drawer of the desk.” Donaldson appeared to own the room, when he picked up a crisp yellow piece of paper from the cluttered desk with his big dry hands and passed it to Sam.

Diane peered closer. Her head never topped Sam’s shoulder.

His vision cleared. Bold black letters spelled out his name. He didn’t miss how still the room became. He could feel heat from every agent while they waited for Sam to explain. But then Diane ripped the note from his hands and stepped in front of him.

What the hell is this, some kind of game?”

No one answered.

Sam was ready to clear out. When he replaced his headset, he could hear his boss Dexter shouting over the radio, bypassing Sam as he spoke directly to Diane. Diane pressed her hand to her ear to listen.

“I want your asses back here now, we got a problem. A tip’s been called into the Sequim Sheriff’s detachment, to check Sam’s locker at Ocean’s Gun club. We’ll find a key to Lance Silver’s estate and my Golden Boy’s on Lance’s payroll.”

Sam looked up so fast his head spun. Dizzy, he stepped back and leaned against the mahogany bookcase. “What the hell? That’s bullshit.”

Dexter yelled, “There’s a chopper on route to get you now. Two deputies from the Sequim detachment just opened your locker. And they found a key along with five pounds of marijuana.”

His blood chilled. The bad feeling he had earlier had just become a clear epiphany. He could almost see that suave tight-assed bachelor, Lance Silver, laughing at him. Instead of Silver going to jail, all this shit flying around landed hard right on top of Sam. Not only did he look like the leak in Lance Silvers' back pocket, doubt of Sam’s true allegiance was painted on the agents’ faces surrounding him. He could feel their censure.

Amazing how quickly they turned. They thought he did it. Pissed and completely furious, Sam gazed hard at each of these turncoats until each one stepped back. He wasn’t about to dignify this with a response to these pricks. Not after how hard he worked to nail this bastard. Following every lead the other agents missed or brushed off. But not Sam, he lived this investigation. He breathed life into it. And lost sleep because of it. These guys should know out of anyone, Sam wouldn’t betray this team. He ground his lips together so hard they trembled. He felt the rug ripped right out from under him. And was positive he heard a toilet flush in the distance as six months of steady, solid work went right down the toilet. How could this happen again? Why was he such a target?

Well for one, this was Las Seta, an un-policed reclusive island, part of the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest. History alone should have warned him it wouldn’t be easy. The explorers and adventurers who claimed this island over a hundred years ago, landed here quite by accident for one reason or another. Whether hiding or running from something, they all insisted on a land free from politics and civilized order. Families and clans remained year after year, protecting each other. And staying true to tradition, they followed their own way of doing things. So, while Sam hunted Lance Silver. Lance Silver and the island of Las Seta changed the rules of the game and ambushed Sam.

“Get on the plane, it’ll be fine. I’ve got your tickets and passport taken care of. We practiced this. You know what you need to do.” Dan McKenzie was broad shouldered with an exquisitely lean body, mesmerizing hazel eyes perfectly situated on his lightly freckled aristocratic face. His nose was a little too large with a small bump at the bridge where he’d broken it at the end of his brother
’
s fist as a child. He also had a firm mouth she knew all too well could set her soul on fire. He was quite the package with a magical face that could belong to some fairy tale hero, and all that unruly reddish hair he trimmed himself. A fine specimen of a man, standing nearly a foot over Marcie’s average height with well-sculpted hands that knew how to touch a woman.

“I thought you were coming with me, and we’d finally have time away together?” Marcie’s soft voice trembled. Her heart sank. This wasn’t what she expected. What was he doing? This was supposed to be their time to rekindle their love—time to lift off whatever had been oppressing him. She needed him so much but felt him slipping through her fingers like dry grains of sand while she struggled to hold on.

Dan leaned back, his hazel eyes dark and sober, as he crossed his arms across his broad chest. How could she convince him to go? She had so much fire and passion inside for him that it tugged a cord deep inside her tummy.

What was it about him? He dressed so casually, T-shirts, blue jeans. But the man could wear a grain sack and he’d still look good. He wasn’t handsome. He was pretty. And, unfortunately, even letting her down didn’t shake the mega chemistry that attracted her to him. It made her want him more. Just looking at him she wondered if Zeus himself had been the image Dan was cut from. Those long solid arms. Tight firm ass and long, lanky well-muscled legs she knew all too well intertwined nicely with hers. And those lips, man, she loved to kiss them as had scads of other women. After all the man’s a magnet for women like honey is to bees. He said time and again women were always landing in his lap. He could have anyone he wanted. So why’d he choose her?

“Can’t Marcie; I’m too busy, you know that. I have faith in you. You can do this.” Before Dan could turn away and open his door, she reached over and grabbed his wrist. He
leaned
over the middle console separating the bucket seats. But hardness tightened his muscles, like a brick wall between them as she held on.

“I love you.” Panicked she felt some part of him slip away. His body, his eyes, everything about him seemed to take a step back from her. As if he held some part of himself in a secret location and forgot to tell her he left. He hovered a few inches away, gazing out the front window, resting his other arm over the steering wheel. But the arm her hand grasped, he didn’t once try to pull away.

“I don’t understand what’s going on. We were so close, and you’ve been pulling away bit by bit.”

Dan glanced over in a way that told her his patience was thin. “Marcie…”

She placed her hand over his mouth. “Dan, please, I don’t know what to do. I feel you pushing me away. You ask me to babysit your marijuana plants. But I don’t see you anymore. Then you ask me to go to New Orleans, which I thought was a trip for us. Now I’m going alone. Why are you pushing me away?” Shaking, she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. He no longer looked at her with that deep, magical spark, which said she’s important to him—that they’re connected at a cellular level as soul mates. But that was after Granny died when she’d been so alone on Las Seta. After she met him at Gardiner’s Farmers market, and he said he fondly remembered her from high school. They spent hours talking. Every week after that, he showed up at the Market where she sold her herbs—to see her. He connected with her on a level no one else ever had. He understood how different she was. She felt things from other people, their emotions, and her love for nature and the need to protect the environment—to respect Mother Earth. What excited Marcie, and still did, was his ability to pick up vibes, which warned him just like her.

Each time she saw him, his radiant smile, shook up the butterflies in her heart. He’d tell her being near her had been something he planned each and every day. In the beginning, it seemed like he couldn’t get enough of her. He made her feel special before she fell absolutely head over heels in love with him.

He caressed her cheek with his warm hand and then tucked her heaps of rich wavy brown hair behind her ears. “You need to stop. I’m not pushing you away. I’ll be here when you get back. You and me Marcie, I’m still interested. I got a lot on my plate right now. You’re it to me. You got in when no one else ever has.” He pressed his hand against his heart. “Come on, your plane’s leaving.” The next instant, his eyes softened. And that slightly crooked smile he flashed did what it always did. Sucked her right back in, to where she believed she could somehow grasp some tiny morsel of caring from him.

Dan popped open his car door and stepped out. He didn’t come around to her side to open hers. She knew he wouldn’t. He didn’t do all that mushy stuff. She told herself it didn’t matter and smiled away the hurt that stung beyond belief. He carried a lot of pain from a hungry childhood. Forced to eat out of garbage cans after his father walked out, leaving his mother to raise and feed him and his five brothers and sisters, alone. Marcie supposed that’s what shaped him into who he was—and why at times he became distant, unable to be the perfect man. He needed love and lots of it. Then he’d stop making her feel less of a woman—then he’d genuinely love her, or so she told herself. After all, her entire life, all she ever wanted was to be loved, deeply, as every woman had a right to.

Marcie climbed out of his older model Olds. He pulled out a backpack and handed her two tickets along with her passport. She flicked open the passport and frowned at the name.

“It’s fine Marcie, what you’re doing, you don’t use your real name.”

“What if I get caught?” She whispered when alarm turned to nausea in the pit of her stomach.

“Come here, give me a hug.” And just like that, she was in his arms. His tall, lean body pressed against hers. His wide palmed hands with the fingers of a carpenter slid firmly up her back. His voice whispered like silky rum. “I love you too.” When she let go, he held tighter. So she slid her hands back around his neck and nearly wept from this deep soul connection. And what he couldn’t say with words. When he finally let go, she felt foolish for doubting him. And offered a honest dimple-creased smile.

“Go Marcie, your plane leaves in fifteen minutes.” And she did. While grasping some artificial hope she remained very much Dan’s one and only.

Her cellphone buzzed while she hurried through the enormous Sea-Tac Airport, bustling with travelers. She glanced down at the number that flashed across the screen. “Ah crap.” But she answered it anyway. “Sally, I’m in a hurry, I can’t talk right now.”