Fatal Flaw Read Online Free Page A

said. “How’s it going?”
    “Okay, I guess. The thing at Carl’s was rough. Carl and a seventeen-year-old kid who was his father’s only living family.”
    “Jeez.”
    “No kidding.”
    “How’d it go with Gardner?”
    Of course he would assume she’d already taken care of that piece of business. He knew how badly she’d wanted her moment with that scumbag. “Nowhere fast.”
    “Sorry to hear that. Are you okay?”
    “Yeah. Another dead end. For now.”
    “So what’s up? Miss me already?”
    What would he say if she told him she’d missed him from the minute she left him? “You know it. So while we were gone, did you get any mail?”
    “ Tons of it. You?”
    “Same. Did your office open it?”
    “Not all the cards and stuff they could tell were personal.”
    “Listen, do me a favor and don’t touch any of it until I can get there.”
    “What’s going on, Samantha?”
    He was the only one allowed to call her that and usually only trotted out the dreaded name at the most important of moments. “I’m not sure, but I’ll tell you about it when I see you.”
    “And here I thought I had to wait all day to see my lovely wife. What a nice surprise this is.”
    She smiled. “I’ll be right over.”

Chapter 3
     
    “Are you kidding me? ” Sam asked as she took in the mountain of cards that occupied the meeting table in Nick’s Capitol Hill office. There had to be thousands of envelopes. “You’re way more popular than I am.”
    “It’s because I’m far more charming than you are,” her handsome husband said. At six foot four with soft brown hair that curled at the ends, gorgeous hazel eyes and a mouth made for sin, Nick turned female heads everywhere they went. No doubt more than a few of the cards were from his admiring public.
    “I can’t deny you’re more charming than I am,” she said. She’d never been known for her charm and was fine with leaving that trait to him. “Perhaps the eight million citizens you represent might have something to do with the fact that more people are happy for you than they are for me.”
    “All these people,” he said, gesturing to the pile, “are happy for both of us.”
    “Not all of them.” While it still went against her nature to share everything with him, especially stuff she knew would upset him, she told him about the threatening card she’d received.
    Hands on his hips, face set in an unreadable expression, he stared at the pile of cards.
    Sam went to him and rested a hand on his back. “What’re you thinking?”
    He glanced at her. “It never ends, does it? Just when we’ve neutralized one threat against you, another pops up.”
    Sam knew he was referring to the recent murder investigation that had uncovered a prostitution ring reaching the government’s highest levels. As she’d closed in on the man who’d raped and murdered two women and kidnapped and raped Detective McBride, Sam had been warned to back off or face a similar fate.
    “We don’t know for sure this is a new threat. Maybe it’s just someone thinking they’re being funny.”
    “You don’t believe that or you wouldn’t be here.”
    “I don’t know what to believe yet. Could be nothing, could be something. I have to take all these cards and go through them, okay?”
    “Whatever you need to do.”
    Sam reached behind her and closed the office door. Sealed off from the prying eyes of his busy staff, Sam took his left hand and kissed the platinum band she’d recently placed on his finger. The sight of that ring never failed to stir her. That the one who’d gotten away now belonged to her forever was still hard to believe. “I don’t want you to worry until we know we have something to worry about.”
    He put his arms around her and rested his chin on the top of her head. They fit together like two halves of a whole. Sam closed her eyes and took a moment to breathe in the scent of starch in his dress shirt as well as the citrusy cologne that suited him so