69

Upstairs, on his green raft, Sam moaned and cupped his cheekbone. “Jesus, Iz.”

I handed him a washcloth full of ice. “Sorry,” I said. But I wasn’t. “You sent me a postcard.”

He looked at me with the one eye not covered with cloth. “I told you. I promised Forester I wouldn’t say anything to anyone. I did call the cops and tell them to check it out.”

“You were the one who left the anonymous tip to 9-1-1 on the night he died?”

Sam nodded. “And then I couldn’t just take off without telling you I was okay, so I sent you the postcard. I mean, do you know what it was like for me to watch you when I walked away that day at Cassandra’s? I knew something was wrong with Forester, and I knew I had to check it out, and I also knew that my life was never going to be the same. It killed me. I thought about you, that look you gave me over your shoulder. Your smile.” His voice broke a little. “I thought about that all the time. Every day. Fifty times a day.”

I sat next to him on the raft, causing it to lurch. Across the room, the sun shifted, slanting a powerful beam through the glass doors and into the room. I hated seeing him sad. It was something I could never tolerate for long. I put my arms around his neck and we hugged. Feeling the heat of his skin, smelling that Sam smell.

We sat back and looked at each other.

“I still don’t understand,” I said. “Why would Forester tell me about the letters and all that, but not let you tell me what he wanted you to do?”

“He didn’t want you to risk your law license.”

“It’s a little late for that.” I told him how I’d made the duplicate hard drive from Michael DeSanto’s computer and how I’d been in Forester’s house that night with Mayburn. It felt good to tell somebody all of it.

Sam shifted the ice around. “Computer hacking, huh?” He grinned. “Impressive, although I’m not surprised. You could do anything you set your mind to.”

I smiled a little, too. I realized then how much I’d missed Sam’s ever-present cheerleading. “I was just so desperate to find you, and I made a deal with Mayburn-help him and he’d help me. And now I’m feeling bad about Lucy. I really like her. I hope I haven’t screwed up her life.”

“The way I did ours?”

My smile slid away.

“Do you still love me?” Sam asked.

“You know I do.” It was an easy answer.

“Are we going to be okay?”

Not such an easy answer. I lifted my shoulders and let them fall. “I’ve been screwed up about the wedding. I mean, before you left.”

“I know. I could tell.” He gave me a half smile, the kind reserved for the times when he knew things would be all right. “But we were getting it done. We were on schedule.”

I looked at the glass of the sliding doors, seeing the reflection of Sam and me in them. We looked like we’d always looked. And yet, so much had changed.

I looked back at him. “It didn’t feel like my schedule. It felt like it was going too fast, like it was too much. I was going to talk to you about it that night you disappeared.”

“You were going to talk about it like you wanted to not have the wedding?” He laughed a little, as if he thought that couldn’t be true, but his eyes peered at me.

I shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. Look, let’s not talk about the future. Let’s talk about what we’re going to do now.” I found my phone in my purse. “I have to call Mayburn.” I dialed his number.

“DeSanto was arrested,” Mayburn said when he answered.

“I found Sam.”

“Okay, you win. Where is he?”

“Sitting right next to me.” I told Mayburn everything I’d learned in the last few hours.

Sam stayed with me on the raft, his bare shoulder touching mine. I could feel him thinking about what I’d said. He hung his head, his cheek in the cloth full of ice as I spoke to Mayburn. His posture seemed that of a boy caught doing something bad but who is relieved the jig is up. And yet wasn’t sure about that. I’d lost the ability to read Sam’s every emotion.

“Who’s the P.I. Forester hired?” Mayburn said when I got to that part of the story.

I asked Sam and repeated the guy’s name-Joe Medley.

Mayburn grunted. “I know Meds. Thorough guy, but a little radical. So’s his partner. If you and Sam give us authorization to talk, I’ll call him, and we can pool what we’ve learned. You guys stay put, and let us sort it out.”

I told Sam that Mayburn suggested we stay in Panama.

“No way,” Sam said, letting the cloth full of ice drop from his face. There was a deep-blue tint spreading under his right eye. “I’m ready to get the hell out of here. Let’s go back to Chicago and figure out who did this to Forester. That’s the whole reason we’re in this mess. It’s what we both promised him we would do.”

Mayburn must have heard him. “I’d get legal counsel before you come home,” he said.

“Actually, Sam doesn’t know it yet, but he already has a lawyer.”

I thanked Mayburn and dialed Maggie’s number. “Your client Sam wants to talk to you.”

“You’re kidding me.”

I handed Sam the phone. “It’s Maggie,” I said to him. “Tell her everything. I hired her for you. And in case there’s anything you haven’t told me yet, I’ll leave.”

“I’ve told you everything.”

I left anyway.

I walked through the rest of the apartment. I could imagine the place filled with sumptuous couches, plush rugs and gauzy curtains. In the kitchen, I got myself a plastic bottle of water from the fridge. I opened some cupboards and drawers, noticing there were no utensils, plates or glasses. Aside from the fact that the apartment itself was spacious, Sam had been living with almost nothing. In a way, I knew how that felt, stripped of all the basics in life.

But how I felt now, I couldn’t seem to figure out. I was relieved that I’d found him; that he was all right; that he had done something he believed was honorable; that he hadn’t hurt Forester or stolen from him at all. I was relieved I had told him what I’d been thinking before his disappearance. In a way, that made me feel closer to him. But there was still the fact that he hadn’t turned to me. He hadn’t trusted me.

I walked back into the bedroom and poked my head inside. Sam gestured me in.

“What does she think?” I asked.

“Hold on, Mags.” He hit the Speaker button. “Izzy’s here. She knows everything.” He looked at me pointedly.

“Okay, let’s all get up to speed.” Maggie’s voice was clipped and assured. I could tell she was in full criminal defense-lawyer mode. “Here’s the deal. If Sam’s got the right paperwork, then he hasn’t done anything illegal by taking the shares or selling the corporation and the properties. From what I can tell, he’s got two potential problems. One is that if Forester was killed at his house that night, Sam could be on the hook for leaving the scene of the crime.”

“No,” I said, “it was definitely a heart attack. The crime was what Dr. Li did, and hiring her to do it.”

“Fine. The other problem is traveling with a passport that’s not his. That’s a big one, if he’s going to have to do it again to get back in the country undetected, because the feds will have tagged his passport for sure.”

“I can use Alec’s passport again,” Sam said. “No one knows about it other than Alyssa.”

“Think she’ll talk?”

Sam and I looked at each other. “No,” we said in unison.

“So, can we come back?” I asked Maggie.

“If no one knows you’ve gone in and out of the country with that passport, Sam, you’re in the clear,” Maggie said. “But if the feds keep following Izzy when she’s back, they’ll notice you’re back, too.”

“I won’t go home or to Izzy’s,” Sam said. “I’ll stay out of the way until we get this figured out.”

“Up to you,” Maggie said again. “I can’t give you advice that would make it illegal for you to do anything. All I can do is advise you that the federal government is looking for you, and they will take you into custody if they know you’ve returned. It’s possible they may have already followed Izzy there and are ready to follow you back to the States. Izzy, have you seen anyone?”