Claiming What's His (30 page)

             
“Going to work.”

             
He stopped her with a hand to her elbows, turning her around.  “You’re not working today.  Dad said that you were not to come in.  And I agree.  You need a few more days off.”

             
Her brows came together and asked, “Why?”

             
His brows went up and he dipped his face close to hers.  “
Why?
  Sam, you were attacked two days ago and your apartment was shot at.  You need to rest.”

             
“I don’t need to rest any longer.  I’ve already had a day and a half off.  That’s plenty.  And the guy who attacked me is in jail.  I’m now living with you.  I’m all covered.  Now, I need to do my job and you’re in my way.”  She yanked her elbow out of his hand, dodged around him and continued making her way across the street.

             
His footsteps fall closely behind her.  She heard him sigh and then he said, “Fine.  You go in and get what you need, then get out.  You’re not staying.”

             
“And if I wanted to?” she asked out of curiosity even though she knew that stay wasn’t an option for her.

             
“Sam, you’re not staying,” he said in his final tone.

             
“I’m staying if I want to,” she said as she stubbornly stomped to the office.

             
She made it to the elevators and pressed the up button.  She waited, keeping her eyes averted from him.  The car arrived and she walked in, with Alex walking in behind her.  The car slowly ascended up.  Alex moved, pressed the stop button, and caged her against the wall.

             
Her hands immediately went to his chest.

             
“What are you doing?” she asked with a shove.

             
“You’re not staying, Sam.”

             
She stopped shoving and kept quiet, looking to the side.  She wasn’t caving.  She didn’t want to cave and she didn’t like him telling her what to do.  But she couldn’t help the warm feeling that overcame her.  That feeling that he cared for her, wanted her safe, and always wanting to protect her.

             
She just hated the way he said it in that bossy, you-have-to-do-what-I-say tone.

             
“You’re not staying,” he repeated.

             
But right now, she was tired of bickering the same thing with him so she caved, so she could end it.

             
“Fine.”  She huffed, keeping her eyes averted from his.

             
Even after she caved, he still hadn’t moved to descend the elevator.  He stood there, still caging her to the wall, staring down at her.

             
Something shifted in her belly and she wasn’t sure what it was, but what she knew for sure was that the position they were currently in was feeling slightly uncomfortable (though she liked it a lot but wasn’t going to admit to those feelings since she was pissed he wasn’t letting her stay at work).  Also, they were stuck in an elevator with very little air and room to breathe so this made her even more uncomfortable.

             
She couldn’t take it anymore.  This had gone far too long, longer than she wanted. 

             
“What?” she snapped.

             
Her mistake. 

             
The second she turned her head, he took his hands, gripping her head and kissed her.  She tried pushing him off her but stopped after about four nanoseconds.  She opened her mouth and kissed him back, hands gripped on his waist, roaming down and around to his ass.  She loved his body and always craved touching him.  She needed more. 

             
When it came to his body, she was weak.

             
He growled his approval. 

             
Her hand left his ass, rounding the front, and just as she was about to grab his crotch, the phone rang.

             
She gasped, took a step back, and slammed into the wall. 

             
Alex lifted his head, took a deep breath, moved to open a box by the buttons and answered the phone.

             
“Hello.  Yeah, Dean, everything’s fine.”  He hung up and pressed a button.  The elevator moved again.

             
He turned to her, wrapped his arms around her waist, buried his face in her neck, and gave her a light kiss where her neck met her shoulders.  She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her head to his chest, loving these small intimate moments of just them. 

             
The elevator pinged, the door opened.  He gave her one more kiss on her neck, released her, and grabbed her hand, twining it with his. 

             
They walked hand-in-hand inside, employees ducking out of the cubicles and offices to look. 

             
Particularly at her. 

             
Sam blushed.  She hated being the center of attention where all eyes were on her.

             
A woman, whose name she remembered was Lisa Prince, ran up and gave her a hug, whispering softly, “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

             
Sam pulled back and, through misty eyes, she smiled back.

             
George and Maggie stood at the end of the row of cubicles, wearing the same expression everyone wore.  She kept walking; smiling at everyone (though it didn’t completely reach her eyes) she passed and kept going towards her desk.  Looking ahead, she saw that George and Maggie and turned around and started walking as well. 

             
Once they cleared the other employees, they walked into Alex’s office where George engulfed her in a huge hug.  Sam lifted her arms and hugged him back.  He kissed the top of her head and muttered, “Didn’t I tell you not to come in today, young lady?  Children these days are so stubborn.  I should ground you for not listening.”

             
Sam let out a soft giggle.

             
George released her and Maggie stepped forward and gave her another hug.  Instead of saying how glad she was that Sam was okay, she asked, “What are you doing here?”

             
“Work –”

             
“No, no, no, no,
no!
  You are not here.  I told you not to come in today.  Go home and rest!” 

             
Maggie released her hug and Sam turned around.

             
That had come from Nick.  He was usually the laid back one.  Somehow, this ordeal with her shook him up a little more than usual.

             
“Nick, I’m fine,” she said.

             
“No –”

             
“She knows she’s not staying.  We already had our chat in the elevator,” Alex told him.

             
Nick’s anger dissipated and his firm, amused eyes appeared.                “Oh, so that was the two of you that held up the car.  Dean called from the security office and told me someone might’ve been stuck in there.  I see the reason now.”

             
Sam blushed, her face heating up as Alex and George chuckled.

             
What could possibly be more embarrassing that getting caught of doing the nasty, even if they didn’t do anything (technically) but in the process of
possibly
doing something? 

             
George guaranteed that Sam would no longer be working late by herself anymore, allowing her to bring the work home if she needed to.  Sam told him that it wasn’t necessary, but he wouldn’t hear of it.  He informed her that Brown had been fired on the spot once he regained his consciousness.  He was still being held down at the station for attempted murder, waiting to be questioned.  If they waited this long to question him, this just gave him more time to come up with a story.

             
He also reminded them that the Fourth of July festivities was tomorrow night and that he wasn’t expecting either of them to participate.   In fact, he demanded that Sam get her rest and that Alex was to
‘watch her like a hawk and do not let her out of your sight’
.  His words, verbatim.

             
But everyone knew that nothing could keep Sam away from the festivities.  Sam had never missed any of the festivities in town, especially not the Fourth of July celebration, not when there were food, games, fireworks, and a beauty pageant.  And she wasn’t planning on missing one now.

             
George and Nick turned and walked away.             

             
“Don’t worry girlie.  I knew you’d be in here sooner or later.  I already packed up your work when I got in.  It’s all ready to go.”  Maggie pointed to the boxes on the coffee table.

             
“Boy, you guys sure couldn’t wait to rid of me, could you?” Sam muttered.

             
“Samantha, you know we love you.  We just don’t want anything to happen to you,” Maggie told her.

             
“I can work here.  I just won’t work late without anyone here with me.  Or I’ll hire a bodyguard.” 

             
Not that she really wanted nor needed someone following her at all hours of the day.

             
“I know you won’t, but I’d rather you work at home for a few days, in case you’re not feeling well.”

             
She sighed.  Apparently it ran in the Conrad household that she shouldn’t be in the office.

             
“Fine.”

Alex called Dean up to his office.  Once he arrived, they headed downstairs with boxes in their arms.  They made their way across the street to Alex’s SUV.  Once it beeped, Sam instantly changed her mind and rerouted, heading back to her office doors.

“Where are you going?” Alex called out.

Sam turned her head and smiled sweetly.  “I’m going to my office.  I’ll work in here, if you don’t mind.”

She could see Dean bit his lip, very likely to prevent himself from laughing.

However, Alex didn’t find it amusing at all.  “Sam, we agreed.”

She shrugged.  “Yeah, well I’m changing my mind.”

“Sam.”  She knew that he was now annoyed from his tone.

She stopped just in front of her door, turned, and placed her hands on her hips.

“Alex,” she returned his mock with the same tone.

“Samantha.”

“Alexander.”  

She knew he hated when she called him by his full name.  If they were younger, he would’ve given her a noogie.  And, for him to call her by her full name, he got a wedgie.

But, they weren’t kids anymore.  They were adults, adults who engaged in hot, steamy sex.

So she didn’t care.  (Plus, he started it.)

They went into a stare-down where no one was willing to budge. 

She broke the stare, turned around and pulled the door open.  “I’m heading to my office to work, with or without those boxes.  You know I have other stuff I can do.  You can either bring them or load them in the car.  I don’t care.”  She stomped off, not looking back.

Before the doors shut completely, she heard Alex mumble something about “stubborn ass woman” and “follow her”
at the same time.

              “What are you doing?  I thought you were suppose to be working.  You’ve been gone for two hours.  You said you came to get coffee.”  Sam heard Alex somewhere behind her. 

             
His voice didn’t sound angry.  It sounded surprised and, somewhat, amused.

             
Without turning her head, Sam replied, “Yes, but I needed to clear my head.  And I had my coffee.  Four, to be exact.”

             
“Four?  Fuck, Sam.  You’re gonna go into caffeine overdrive.  And, are you playing
video games
?”

             
“Yes…
Oh, come on
!”  She was screaming at the television as Luigi whizzed pass her Mario and raced ahead, gaining distance to the finish line.

             
“And playing video games help?”

             
Did he really not understand that Mario worked wonders?  Mario was the
shit
!

             
“We’re talking Super Mario here,” she answered as if he was the idiot who didn’t know Super Mario was the almighty video game that solved issues.  She mentally rolled her eyes and shook her head.

             
“Seriously?”

             
“Trust me, Alex.  Sam can clear her head and stuff just pops in randomly.  She thinks better with Mario,” Nat explained to him.

             
Sam ignored the both of them and continued playing, able to speed up in the race and bypass Luigi and Mushroom, crossing the finish line for first place.

             
“Yay!”

             
“Fuck,” she heard Alex mutter.

             
Then she heard Nat ask Alex as she set up for the next round, debating whether to switch out her Mario character for another character or not, “You wanna have a go?” 

             
“Sure.  I need to kill time away.  I have to wait until the Mario-playing-zombie-hunter here finishes before I could get back,” Alex responded, having no effect on Sam whatsoever.

             
Sam shifted her eyes to Nat.  Nat’s eyes were on Alex.

             
“Zombie hunter?” Nat asked, her brows coming together and wondering if he was crazy or not.

             
“Have you seen the decal on her car?”  He was referring to the decals that Maggie, Nat, and Sam order before they finished school.  It was a United States decal with a tri-arc skull head on one side.  It had another tri-arc skull in the middle of the decal over the United States.  Across the bottom, it stated,
“Rifles/Handguns: .223 or Larger Decapitate & Burn All Remains”
.  Very helpful information.  At the time, it was the hit thing to get for your car, especially people who were crazed that the world was ending.  Obviously, it didn’t.

             
Nat burst out laughing.  When she came down from it, she shared, “Oh yeah.  I forgot about that decal.  We all have it on our cars - me, Sam, and Maggie.”

             
“Okay, the two of you make fun of me all you want, but, watch, when zombies are after you, I’m not saving neither one of you.”

             
Nat turned to face Sam.  “Did you forget that I’m a zombie hunter too, Sam?”

             
Sam stuck her tongue at Nat which made her laugh again.

             
Suddenly, a thought clicked in her head.

             
The fundraiser.

             
Conrad Financial.

             
Somehow, these two were connected.

             
Sam handed the remote to Nat (mid-game) and headed towards the door.

             
“Sam, where are you going now?”  Alex called after her.

             
But, Sam wasn’t listening.  She had something on her brain and she needed to process it out.  So, she couldn’t pause it to answer him.

             
Instead, she heard Nat answered, “Her brain is working.  Just follow her and she’ll eventually fill you in.”

*******

“My gut is telling me that the fundraiser and Conrad are somehow connected,” Sam said when Alex followed her into the office.  “So far I’ve only gotten Haynes going on an unauthorized trip to Dallas for four weeks, paid it on a company credit card, spent more than two hundred dollars for lunch each time, and repeated this pattern every week for a month.  I asked Maggie about employees going to other facilities for work and she said it wasn’t uncommon and that it happens, but, for what Joe was going for and how often he went to the same location, that was uncommon.  We got Lynn’s car being used as the getaway car with dents and blue paint chips on the side, matching the trash bin.  I’m about ninety-nine point nine percent sure it was the same car, even without the testing analysis.” 

When Sam turned to face Alex, he was sitting on the edge of her desk, his arms crossed at his chest and his legs crossed at the ankles.  He hadn’t said a word, but his face was blank as he listened to everything she said.

She continued.  “I think Bernie and Joe are inside partners.  Chuck pulled records the day Bernie was arrested and logged that Joe was the one who went to the station and tried to bail Bernie out, even though bond hasn’t been posted yet.  When Chuck asked him what his relation was to Bernie, he just said coworker.  Why would a
coworker
bail you out?  Wouldn’t you call a family or friend for that?”

“Maybe he doesn’t have any family or friends.  Maybe Joe is his only friend.  Everything you’ve said so far is circumstantial.  But, you may be on to something with Joe and the trip if you can get more evidence.”

              She nodded.  “But, if he was his friend, why didn’t he just say so?  And I’m working on that.  Did the guys get anything on the post office key?”

“Yeah, just got it an hour ago.
  It goes to a post office out in Irving, Texas, a suburb of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.  Matt and Jason used the key to open the box to find envelopes of what looked like checks from the company.”

“Let me guess. 
Conrad’s?”

“Yeah.
  And
only
Conrad’s. No bills, newspaper, magazines, nothing.”

“That’s odd.  Each mailbox usually had at least one or the other.  Who does it say the check is written out to?”

“A company called H&S Properties.  Checked them out.  No information on them.  Not even a website.  It’s like they don’t exist.”

“Is it possible that it’s the name of the company the Dallas rent goes to?” she questioned.

“From what I know, our Dallas office doesn’t pay rent because we own the building that our employees work in.  I’m not a hundred percent sure, but that’s what Dad told me when he purchased it six years ago right after I left for New York.”

“Do you have rent for any offices anywhere?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

Sam thought it over and knew that the more she thought about it, the more this whole office/rent thing didn’t make any sense. At least not with the clues jumbled together.  “Let me call Maggie to confirm.  She’ll know.” 

She picked up the phone and called Maggie, asking her about any rentals the company may have.  Somewhere during the middle of their conversation, she heard Alex’s phone go off and he answered it.  Maggie confirmed that the company owned all offices and no rentals were even in place.  She then asked her who has the authority to sign checks.  She informed her that there were two people, Henry Moore and Joseph Haynes.

Sam hung up the phone and turned to Alex who turned to her as well.

“I’ve got something,” they both said at the same time.

“You first,” Sam urged.

Alex began.  “That was Matt.  They stayed a little longer and staked-out the area.  They said they saw Joseph Haynes enter with Bernie Brown waiting in the car.”

“That proves that they’re working together.  Wait, I thought Bernie was supposed to be in jail.”

He pressed his lips together then continued, “He posted bond early this morning.  It doesn’t prove that they’re working together.  It just proves that Bernie gave Joseph a ride to the post office.  In order to prove that, we need them to do some sort of exchange, money, drugs, or anything at all.”

Sam paced back and forth in front of the desk, facing downward with a hand to her neck.  Then she said, “I’m assuming they picked up the checks.”

Alex stopped her mid-pace, pulled her back to his front, bringing his hands up to her neck and shoulders and gently massaged as he replied, “Yeah, they did.  There were three in there.  Dean already gave accounting the heads up to track the checks to where and who would cash it.  This was earlier this afternoon.  What did you find?”

Her head drooped down and as she took in the magnificent work of his magic hands and tried to focus as she informed him, “Maggie confirmed that there are no properties being rented.  All were purchased by the company.  As for who has the authority to sign the checks…”

Alex interrupted then finished, “Let me guess, one of them is Haynes.”

Sam rolled her head back as his hands moved across her shoulders.  “Yes.  Ugh, I feel like my head is going to explode. 
Too much thinking.  But, at least I’m getting a free massage out of this.”

“I know
, lucky you,” he teased then suggested as he stopped, “Want to go home and take a long bath?”

She shook her head.  “I do but not yet.  I want to finish up some stuff to make sure before I leave for the day.”

He pushed her up from his lap, stood up, turned her around, and bent to kiss her lips.  “Okay, I’m going to run some errands.  Stay here and don’t go anywhere.  Call me when you finish and I’ll come get you.”

She nodded as she watched him turn and walk out the door and wondered if she could somehow convince him into giving her a much-needed full body massage later tonight.

*******

An hour later, Sam received a text from a blocked number that said it was from Alex.  He said to meet him at Meyers Park. 

She glanced down at the phone and stared blankly at it.

Why was his number blocked and why did he want to meet her at the park?

Sam had his number programmed into her phone (because he was the one who programmed it in), but why was it blocked?  She supposed she understood him having a blocked number in his line of work (for security reasons).  She still found it odd but didn’t think anything more into it. 

She left the office and walked through the park entrance, finding it unusually more quiet than usual. 

From a distance behind some bushes that was not lit from the park lights, she heard a murmur of voices.  She slowly made her way there when she heard familiar voices.

“Come on, baby.  You know you want to.”

Was that Lynn?  It sounded like her.  Who was she talking to?

“Lynn, I –” And that brief deep voice sounded a lot like Alex.

Sam rounded the bushes to find Alex lip-locking with Lynn.  Her arms were tightly wrapped around his shoulders and his hands were firmly holding her waist.

“I’m sorry! S-sorry to interrupt.”  Sam gasped, turned around and began running the opposite direction. 

The hurt struck her straight in her heart.  Tears quickly crept up her eyes and flooded her view.  She ran as quickly as her feet could carry her, getting away from the scene she had just witnessed.

She couldn’t believe that he would do this to her.  After all of his talk of wanting to be with her and moving forward with her, this was how he betrayed her.

“Sam
! Sam, stop!  Let me explain!” he called.

Her footsteps increased.  So did his.  His heavy footsteps pounded the pavement, quickly gaining distance between them.  This didn’t surprise her because he had longer legs than hers so they were able to catch up to her.

“Sam, stop!”

             
She didn’t stop.  She kept running, running as far away as she could get from him.  Tears streaked down her face, completely obstructing her view, but she didn’t care.  She needed to get away.

Sam was almost to the office.  Just a few more steps and she could lock herself in her office.  She reached her arm out to pull the door handles when an arm tagged her around her waist, bringing the other arm around her chest, pressing her back firmly into a hard-muscled body.  His mouth went to her ears and he whispered, “Sam.”

She trembled in his arm, pushing against his arm for him to let go as the tears continued falling.  She couldn’t bear to hear her name spoken across his lips.  It felt as if someone had kicked her in the gut and left her crumbling on the floor.

“Let me explain,” he whispered.

She gulped in a huge breath through her nose and snapped, “You couldn’t pick a more private place so you picked the bushes in the park, in the dark where you thought no one would find you?  Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?  You asked me go there and that’s what you do?  Why did you ask me to meet you there?”