Edge of Black Read online

  That’s why teaching appealed to her. She could talk about her field in a theoretical way, and not be hands-on again until she was ready.

  Nocek answered on the first ring. His strangely lilting voice, the result of a European upbringing that drew on both Italian and French, combined with several years in the polyglot accent that made up D.C., calmed her immediately. “Samantha. It is very fine to hear from you this morning. I suppose you are calling to ask the nature of the emergency we find ourselves in, and not developing plans for a small, intimate gathering for dinner at your new house?”

  Nocek always did have a way of cutting to the chase.

  “You know me too well, Amado. I’m actually sitting outside the decontamination unit at GW. No one’s been forthcoming with information.”

  “I will give you what I myself know. We have been getting reports of a biological contaminant that was released in the Metro. Multiple reports of people being taken ill, all over the city.”

  “Any idea what the contaminant is?”

  “No. People are presenting with respiratory distress, fever and coughing. It could be most anything.”

  “Casualties?”

  “None that are related to this that we are aware of yet, but that will most likely change as the day wears on. We are in an uncertain time at the moment, Samantha. I am well pleased to hear that you are safe.”

  A stern-looking nurse tapped Sam on the shoulder. “Ma’am. Please turn off your cell phone.”

  “And you, Amado. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to go. Will you call me if you can once you find out more?”

  “Of course. Be well, my dear.”

  Sam hung up the phone. The nurse nodded at her, satisfied that the breach was under control, and strode away.

  There was a young man sitting next to her. He raised an eyebrow and said, “Well?”

  “Nothing concrete,” Sam said. She wasn’t about to tell a stranger what Nocek had just disclosed. That was just enough information to cause a wild panic.

  “Are they going to let us out of here?”

  “I hope so. My friend said there have been no confirmed casualties. So that’s good news. This may be a false alarm after all. Sometimes in an emergency situation, people who are already sick have issues.”

  She turned away from him and stared at the floor.

  This wasn’t how her new life was supposed to begin.

  Is it possible to ever really start over? To find yourself after a tragedy? How do you measure the pain you’ve experienced, and know what is appropriate and what isn’t? Sam had lost her husband and her twins in the Nashville floods two and a half years ago. And lost part of herself, too. She’d come to D.C. the shell of a person, one going through the motions of a daily life, a breathing ghost. More loss had led her to Xander, and her path back to the land of the living.

  She had to admit she felt a little snake-bit. Nashville, and her life there, had been decimated. She’d run to D.C., and now it, too, was under attack.

  She could only hope that the damage would be minimal. To all of them.

  Chapter 4

  Another hour passed. Sam was just about to start stamping her feet and demanding answers when the nurse who’d run the initial triage came down the hall.

  “Is everyone feeling all right?”

  There was a chorus of affirmations.

  “You’ve been cleared to leave. Please come back immediately if you have any unusual symptoms. Use your masks until you get home.”

  Sam couldn’t wait to get out of there. If she’d been stuck much longer, fretting and worrying, she might not be able to control her anxiety. And losing it in a group of strangers wasn’t exactly her cup of tea.

  They broke off into packs and left the hospital through the emergency room doors. A corridor had been created for their exit, and they were able to leave unmolested. Sam tried to look for the kids but didn’t see them. Hopefully, they’d been released much earlier.

  The scene had calmed considerably since her preliminary foray outside. The bright summer sun beat down on the asphalt, making waves of heat shimmer in the foreground. News trucks had replaced the first responders, though there were still a few HAZMAT trucks parked at the curb.

  Sam turned her phone on the second she was clear of the doors. She had two messages—both from Fletcher.

  She played them in order.

  “Saw you called, I assume you’re wondering about what’s going down. Call me back when you get this.”

  The second was more abrupt. “Where the hell are you, Owens?”

  Ah, that was sweet. He was actually worried about her. Fletcher was a good man. A good man, but not her type. They were destined for friendship only.

  Sam hiked up to 23rd Street, found a bench and called Fletcher back. He answered on the first ring, obviously annoyed.

  “Where have you been?”

  “At the hospital, Mom. One of my students got extremely ill and I took her to GW, then got caught in the decontamination fuss. I’ve been sitting in a hallway for two hours. They made me turn off my phone.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. What’s going on? I talked to Amado and he told me—” she glanced around then covered her mouth with her hand “—it’s a biological attack.”

  “We don’t know yet. Total clusterfuck. People sick from all corners of town, we can’t trace it down, and the entire city is on alert. Homeland Security raised the threat level. They are in a dither.”

  “That’s to be expected. What can I do to help?”

  “Nothing.” Fletcher sounded horrified at the idea, which hurt Sam’s feelings a little.

  “I can’t just sit here, Fletch.”

  “You most certainly can. Better yet, get home and stay there. I have to go, but I’ll call you later. Don’t interfere, Sam. Just let us do our jobs. It’s our town, we know how to handle things.”

  He hung up, and she felt stung all over again. Dismissed like a civilian. It was her town now, too.

  She stowed the phone in her pocket and started the walk home. It would only take fifteen minutes or so on a normal day, but the sidewalks were crowded with people, and the traffic was a snarled nightmare.

  As pissed and upset as she was, she reminded herself again that she was no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of law enforcement. And that had been her choice. A choice that until this very moment she thought she was content with. Instead, here she was, a victim again. Caught in an attack, unable to do anything to alter her course. She started itching for some hot water, satisfied the urge with a dollop of antibacterial gel.

  At Washington Circle she turned left on Pennsylvania Avenue and followed the throngs of people trying to get out of the city on foot. She’d worn sandals today, thank goodness. Hiking all the way home in heels would have been brutal. It was bright and sunny, warm, but without the summer humidity that usually choked D.C.’s air from May until September. All around her people were talking, worrying, panicking, preening, many on cell phones relaying their close call with...something. They didn’t know for sure what. A fever of excitement and nervousness permeated the crowds, overlaid with an overwhelming sense of fear.

  Fear of the unknown. Of what could be happening. Of getting home and finding out that someone you know, someone you love, was involved. Was hurt. Or worse.

  Sam remembered that awful feeling from 9/11, the hours of uncertainty, the unanswered phone calls, the nightmarish quality of the news reports, almost as if Hollywood had decided to drop a CGI green screen against the Manhattan and D.C. backdrops and shoot a heart-wrenching action sequence. She’d lost several friends that day: two who were in the towers when they fell, one on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.

  Even one casualty was too much.

  When she arrived
at her house on N Street, it was just after 2:00 p.m. Four hours had passed since Brooke’s swan dive in class. Four interminably long hours. She was exhausted. She just wanted to take a long, hot shower, and wait for Xander to get back within cell range.

  Sam took the steps to her front door, inserted her key. The door was unlocked.

  She thought back, trying to remember if she’d locked it this morning when she left for class. Of course she had. She always locked her doors.

  She heard her best friend’s voice mentally admonish, “Back out, and call the police.”

  Sam shook homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson out of her head. There was a perfectly legitimate reason for her front door to be open. The only problem was the timing. She turned the knob and pushed the door open with her foot.

  “Xander?” she called out.

  “Sam!” Xander came barreling out of the kitchen. She was struck by how handsome he was, even with worry lines creasing his forehead. His dark eyes locked on hers. He reached her in two long strides and pulled her to his chest.

  “Jesus, I’ve been worried sick. You weren’t answering your phone.”

  She let him hold her, just reveling in the normalcy of it, how warm his skin was beneath his T-shirt, how she could just reach all the way across his tightly muscled back, his scent, woodsy and clean. He’d showered recently; the edges of his dark hair were still damp.

  She pulled back.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He didn’t answer, instead kissed her, long and soft, so sweetly that she nearly forgot everything that had happened this morning. Nearly everything.

  When he released her, she smiled up at him. He topped her by several inches. He made her feel downright dainty.

  “Trying again. Why are you here, Xander? Not that I’m not thrilled to see you, but I thought you were fishing.”

  He draped an arm across her shoulders, walked her into the kitchen.

  “There’s tea. It should still be warm. And I did go fishing. My guy never showed, and nothing was biting so I decided to head back to civilization and check my email. I heard about the attack and started down here immediately. I called as soon as I got here. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  Sam reached into her pocket. She opened the phone and saw a blank screen. It must have run out of battery on her walk home.

  “Whoops. It’s dead.”

  “That’s a seriously cheap-ass phone, lady.”

  “It’s a seriously old phone, and I should probably get a new battery for it. Otherwise, it does its job.”

  His playful tone changed.

  “How bad is it?” He didn’t need to say more.

  “I don’t know yet. Fletcher blew me off and Nocek said there were no casualties yet. It’s a biological agent of some kind. What’s the news saying?”

  “Multiple contradictory accounts. I’m so glad you’re home. I was worried about you. Are you...okay?”

  Sam knew what he was talking about. Since the flood, since she lost her family, these kinds of events had a tendency to shake her. Natural disasters—tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, floods—fed her anxiety and caused her to relapse into obsessive hand washing. She tried not to sit up nights watching the Weather Channel, but sometimes succumbed. She felt that the only way she could ever move past the fear was through immersion. If you’re afraid of spiders, you spend time letting tarantulas crawl on your arm. If you’re afraid to fly, you get on airplanes as often as possible.

  If you’re worried a terrible flood might sweep your life away...

  It wasn’t necessarily a healthy choice, but it worked for her.

  Xander, on the other hand, spent his time avoiding all things that could remind him of his own stormy past. He didn’t understand her need to watch, to experience, to relive. To punish herself through others’ pain. He’d served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, seen things she could only imagine in her worst nightmares. He’d lost friends. He’d spent nights under fire, days in armored carriers driving IED-laden roads, weeks on foot in the desert, not knowing if each breath was his last. When he got out of the Army, he went to ground, alone in the woods, cut off from everyone and everything. Until Sam.

  They were a perfect fit. Each damaged, each desperate. Each so very alone.

  She considered his question. Was she okay? Strangely, she’d only had a few moments today where she wanted to wash. Instead, she’d been slightly jazzed by it all. She took that as an encouraging sign.

  “I’m good. I promise. I was worried about you, too. I’m really glad you’re here, Xander.”

  She poured a cup of tea, and they settled in the living room where Xander already had the television on. Every channel was in full-on breaking-news alert. Sam had enough experience with emergency situations to know that half of the information was wrong, and the other half would change fifty times before the end of the day. What they could glean so far wasn’t much more than what Sam already knew.

  She flipped channels while Xander used her computer to surf the internet, searching for anything he could find. As a former Ranger, he had a different set of contacts than Sam. When the news broke another piece of the story, Xander would confirm or deny based on what his military brethren were saying across their message boards and chat rooms.

  By 5:00 p.m. things had boiled down to a set of certainties no one could deny. Someone had released an airborne toxin in the Washington, D.C., Metro. It caused a progressive pulmonary distress. And two people were confirmed dead.

  Everything else at this point was just speculation. The tests were being done on the toxin; so far they’d ruled out some of the obvious—the ones that would have created different symptoms. Sarin, ricin. Anthrax was still high on the list of possibles. The words made chills slip through her system.

  The problem was, testing took time.

  Just the idea of that made her skin crawl.

  Sam decided she’d had enough. She went to the kitchen and began making dinner. She’d just unwrapped a head of butter lettuce when her phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID, saw Fletcher’s number. She pretended not to notice the uptick in her pulse as she answered.

  “Fletch? Everything okay?”

  “No. I need you, Sam. I’ll be there in five minutes. Meet me out front, we don’t have much time.”

  “Need me for what?” she asked, but he’d already hung up the phone.

  She replaced the receiver and put the lettuce back in the refrigerator.

  Xander was on the laptop in her office. “Hey,” she said. “Anything new?”

  “No. Same old shit—speculation and fear mongering. No one has a clue what’s going down.”

  “I have to go. Fletcher just called. He’s picking me up in a few minutes.”

  He rolled back in the chair. “Go where?”

  “I don’t know. He just said he needed me and to meet him outside.”

  “Why don’t I come with you?”

  “I get the sense I may be a while. He sounded totally stressed-out. They might just need some extra hands.”

  “But there’s only two dead.”

  “Xander, I have no idea what he needs. I would assume it’s my services with the sharp end of a scalpel. Come out to the street with me, let’s see what’s happening. I’m sure he’ll tell us when he gets here.”

  She grabbed her bag and her phone, tossed a light sweater over her shoulders just in case. Xander held her hand as they walked down her front steps to wait for Fletcher. She appreciated that he didn’t nag her about running off with another man. He was special, he knew it, and he was comfortable with his place in her world.

  They didn’t have to wait long, Fletcher arrived with a squeal of tires a moment later. He put the passenger window down.

  “Get in, Doc. We gotta go.”

 
She stuck her head in the window. “What’s up?”

  He shot a glance at Xander, who was leaning in as well, over her shoulder. His face tightened imperceptibly.

  “Classified.”

  “Come on, Fletcher. He has the right to know.”

  “Sorry. This one comes from above. You can call him later. Now, Sam. I’m not kidding.”

  She turned back to Xander, who had a frown on his face. “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything. Don’t worry, okay?” She kissed him lightly, then got in the car before he could protest.

  Fletcher slammed the gas and the car leaped from the curb. Sam grabbed the seat belt and jammed it into the lock.

  “Jesus, Fletch. What the hell?”

  He didn’t move his eyes from the road, spoke grimly.

  “Congressman Leighton is dead.”

  Chapter 5

  Sam recognized the congressman’s name, but that was all. She told Fletcher that. He glanced over at her and barked a small, humorless laugh.

  “You’re probably the only one in D.C. who doesn’t know everything about him. Peter Leighton is the head of the Armed Services Subcommittee. Four-term congressman from Indiana, Democrat, big-time dove. He’s been shooting down the military for years, authoring bills to cut spending, shutting down VA hospitals, the works. But lately, he’s had a change of heart. He authored an appropriations bill that will give more funding to the military. It’s a massive reversal. He’s been under fire.”

  “Now I’ve got him. Xander isn’t a fan.”

  “I can’t imagine why not,” he said drily.

  “So what’s the story?”

  “He collapsed in his office on the Hill about two hours ago. They said he was having trouble breathing. He was dead on the scene but they transported him anyway. Called it at GW half an hour ago.”

  “And I’m racing with you where, why?”

  “Morgue. Nocek wants you to help post him.”

  “Why me?”

  He glanced at her again. “I may have asked if he’d be cool with having you come in.”