8. Sammie

After we returned home from Atticus and Annie's, I gave Chloe her bath and tucked her in, snuggling next to her to read her favorite, Mercy Watson to the Rescue. She'd heard it dozens of times but never tired of the story about a pig who adored buttered toast. The illustrations were beautiful, and anything written by Kate DiCamillo was genius, so even I didn't mind how many times I'd read it to her.

When we were done, I leaned down to give her a kiss.

"Sleep tight, my love," I said.

"Night, Mama."

I reached over to turn off the lamp by her bed. The night-light plugged into the wall came on, thus I could cross the room without bumping into anything. Although we had to share the space, I'd wanted her to have her own bed. Otherwise, I worried she'd never want to sleep on her own. I'd made a little nook for her with a small bookcase, a child's chair, and her toddler's bed.

I was at the door when her sweet voice called out to me. "Mama, I want a pig that lives inside with us and sleeps with me in my bed."

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that's impossible."

"Why?"

"Because…pigs belong in the barn."

"We could name it Mercy and it could sleep with me," Chloe mumbled sleepily. "And it would be my best friend."

"Go to sleep. You have a big day tomorrow. Thad said he's going to take us swimming."

"I love Tad." Chloe yawned and rolled to her side, a sure sign she would be asleep within minutes.

"I know, honey." I love him too.

It hit me then, as if someone punched me in the gut. I really did love Thad Moon. I hadn't allowed myself to hope for anything more than friendship. Yet, today, when we had McCall on the line, I'd felt a slight optimism. Was it possible we could actually break away from the Underwoods? Could the detective find something we could use against them? The idea of living my life in freedom made me almost giddy. A life with Thad, without the worry of my past, seemed too good to be true.

If it seemed too good, it probably was. I needed to keep that in mind.

I shut the door behind me and walked quietly down the hallway and downstairs to the kitchen, a glass of wine calling my name. Both Soren and Thad were at the kitchen table, finishing off pieces of tiramisu from the restaurant.

"Hey, how you doing?" Soren asked, uncharacteristically gentle. "Thad told me what's going on."

"I'm okay." I hated the scrutiny and pity in his eyes. Now that the guys knew my secret, I could expect more of the same. "Is there any wine open?"

"No, but I'll open a bottle." Thad jumped up and pulled a white out of the wine refrigerator.

I sank into a chair at the table, suddenly exhausted.

"You want tiramisu?" Soren asked. "There's another piece. Elliot sent it over earlier. Apparently, a glass fell on one side of the pan and she couldn't use any of it for customers."

"Our gain," Thad said, tugging a cork out of a chardonnay bottle.

"No, I'm not hungry," I said. The idea of food made me feel woozy. If only I could get a decent night's sleep instead of waking a half dozen times from nightmares. They were always variations of the same dream in which I opened a door just as John appeared, forcing himself inside before I could shut him out.

Soon, I had a generous glass of wine in front of me. Thad poured a tumbler of whiskey for Soren and wine for himself.

"You guys want to watch a movie?" I asked. "Or do something to get my mind off of my troubles?"

Neither man answered because we were interrupted by a knock on the back door. Thad, still up, went through the mudroom to see who it was. Seconds later, we heard Finley's voice, then she arrived in the kitchen, looking apologetic.

"I'm sorry to barge in like this," Finley said. "And I'm probably being paranoid, which I can be, but there's a really creepy guy in cabin F. He just came to the office asking for extra towels, even though he's the only one in the cabin."

"What's creepy about him?" Soren asked, sitting up straighter.

"He wouldn't look me in the eyes," Finley said.

"That makes him creepy?" Soren asked. "Maybe he's just shy around pretty women."

"Are you saying I'm pretty, Mr. Moon?" Finley asked, grinning.

"You know you are, so don't pretend you don't know it," Soren said, almost harshly.

Finley sobered. "You have no idea what I know or don't."

Soren put up his hands. "Sorry."

Finley ignored him, turning back to Thad. "His name's Dan Cutter, and he was asking a lot of questions too. About our staff, namely the restaurant crew."

"Like what?" The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

"Like how often we had openings at the restaurant and had we hired anyone new in the last year," Finely said.

"And what did you say?" Soren asked.

"I told him if he was interested in applying for a job, to stop by the office in the morning. To which he laughed. A scary, high-pitched laugh like someone was tickling him." Finley shuddered and wrapped her arms around her waist.

"Tickling?" Soren asked.

"That's what I said," Finley replied.

"Come sit," Thad said. "I'll pour you a glass of wine."

"Are you sure?" Finley asked. "I don't want to intrude on your evening."

"It's fine. We weren't doing much of anything. Just chatting," Thad said. "You're always welcome here." He splashed chardonnay into a glass and set it on the table in front of Finley.

Finley took a sip and murmured her approval. "Hits the spot."

I was barely listening, thinking about the creepy guest. Could it be someone looking for me? Why else would he want to know about the restaurant staff? How had he traced me?

Don't get ahead of yourself, I thought. He might be creepy but have nothing to do with me or the Underwoods. I didn't have the monopoly on predators and abusers. Or could he be someone hired by the Underwoods? Like a detective? Or a hired killer?

"Did he give you a private detective vibe?" I asked out loud.

Finley's brows raised for a second. "No. It was more of a thug type of feeling. For one thing, he's enormous. A spiderweb is tattooed on the top of his bald head. It's ugly. And scary. I hate spiders."

"Should we go pay him a visit?" Soren asked Thad. "Find out why he's here?"

"Yeah. Let's go." Thad headed toward the coat closet but turned back to say, "Ladies, please stay here. I'll lock the door behind me."

Soren followed him through the mudroom and out the back door. After they'd gone, I drank a few large gulps of wine to steady my nerves, even though it would probably give me a headache. Booze was not the answer to any problem. In fact, it was the opposite. I'd witnessed that truth every day of my marriage.

"What's going on with you?" Finley asked, cocking her head to one side. "You've been as jumpy and nervous as one of the little bunnies running around here."

I swept a hand across the table, then drank more of my wine. It was time to come clean with the people I loved. Finley had become a good friend. As had Elliot. Yet I'd held back, knowing the truth could drive them away.

"Do you really want to know?" I asked quietly, fighting tears. "Because it's going to change how you look at me."

"Will it explain why those boys just ran out of here with their hair on fire?"

I nodded and got up to fetch the bottle of wine. "We're going to need more of this."

* * *

Fifteen minutes later,Finley knew my entire story. She'd been quiet throughout, asking only a few questions.

"So that's why you're here?" Finley asked. "I had a feeling it was something like that."

"Do you see me differently now?"

She shook her head, sending her dangling earrings to and fro. "No. It was an accident. You were defending yourself. A judge and a jury would see that if this went to trial. Except you can't do that because of his family."

I clasped and unclasped my hands. "The guys thought the guest might be here for me. Which he could be, by the way. Where are the guys? Shouldn't they be back by now?"

"It's only been a few minutes," Finley said. "And spiderweb tattoo guy's probably harmless. Other than his poor judgment when it comes to inking his head."

"I hope so. If anything happens to one of you because of me, I won't be able to live with myself."

"Especially Thad, isn't that right?" Finley asked, eyes narrowed. "You like him, don't you?"

"Actually, I think I'm in love with him."

"I thought as much," Finley said.

"It's hopeless, though. With my situation, it's unlikely we could ever be together. I'll always have one foot out the door. In fact, I've stayed here too long. I just can't find it in myself to leave. Now that all this is out in the open, I feel such relief. At the same time, I know it's dangerous to expect a miracle." I told her Atticus and Thad's plan to find something they could use as leverage.

"I like that idea," Finley said. "Fight them with the same ammunition they're using—fear and threats."

"I don't know. Getting them involved is a terrible thing to do to people I care about. I'm running from some very bad men. Thad's a good person, without baggage and nothing but good to offer someone—he deserves to be happy with a woman like him. Not someone like me."

"You're not the only one running from something." Finley looked down at the table, brushing a finger across the base of her glass, clearly struggling to decide how much to tell me. "I have a story of my own."

"I'd like to hear it, if you want to tell me." As anxious as I was for myself, my chest ached in sympathy. Something had brought her here, just like me. Was it a man?

"I've not told anyone the truth since I came here," Finley said. "Thad has an inkling that there's something dark in my past, but he's never pried. Before I came to Montana, I was in jail."

My eyes nearly bugged out of my head. "Here or in England?"

"England. I was falsely accused of robbing a bank."

"What? You can't be serious."

"It was a case of mistaken identity. Turns out the real thief looks a lot like me. In fact, she looks just like me. She's my identical twin."

"Oh, Finley, that's awful."

"She got involved with some bad people—namely a man she thought she was in love with. He talked her into robbing a few banks, the last of which was captured clearly on bank cameras. Danielle and her boyfriend wore plastic masks, like the kind people wear at Halloween, but hers slipped at one point and the camera caught her face before her partner shot out the cameras. My sister disappeared somewhere—like vanished into thin air. The boyfriend lied and told them it was me with him. When they brought me in for questioning, I could tell they'd already decided it was me. No matter what I told them, I couldn't convince them that it was Danielle and not me. I had no alibi, as I was home sick with a cold. I lived alone, so there was no one to back me up. To make matters worse, I was assigned a public defender who didn't do their job."

"What about family?" I asked.

"I'm like you—there's no family, other than Danielle and me. We grew up poor with a single mum, who died of cancer when we were eighteen."

"You were convicted?" My stomach clenched at the idea.

"Yeah. I spent an entire year in prison. During the time I was incarcerated, a friend of mine found an attorney willing to work pro bono. He finally located a woman who had worked at the pharmacy where I'd gotten the cold and flu medicine earlier that day."

"Why hadn't she come forward before?"

"She'd moved back to India to care for her sick mother shortly after the robbery. It was a fluke that he found her, actually. Or a miracle from God, depending on how you look at it."

"Yes, right," I said, hanging on every word.

"He traveled all the way to India to interview this poor woman. She remembered me and testified on oath that I had been very ill—‘coughing up a lung' is how she put it. Turns out she was a bit of a germaphobe, so my coughing had been memorable. That was enough to reopen the case. I went through another trial, only this time the jury found me innocent. There was enough reasonable doubt, given the twin thing. He'd found someone who testified that it was Danielle who had a relationship with Arthur Brown—that's the name of her boyfriend. They released me and struck it from my record. But the damage it did to me is still there. None of that can be suddenly stricken from a memory, no matter how much we wish it so."

"Where's your sister? Still on the run?"

"Yes, they've never been able to find her. Brown's in jail, but she's managed to lie low somewhere. There was nothing for me at home, and I just needed new scenery to escape so many bad memories, so I decided to come to America and build a new life, free from my twin."

"I understand. Prison must have been horrible." I'd thought about incarceration a lot in the months since John's death. I shivered, feeling dizzy and cold despite the warmth of the summer evening.

"It was as bad as you can imagine."

"Betrayed by your own twin?" I shook my head. "I can't imagine how much that hurt."

"It's a betrayal I'll never get over. Sad as that sounds, it's true." Finley ran her finger around the rim of her wineglass, brow furrowed. "I doubt I'll ever go back there. I'm making a new life here with friends and a good job, things I never thought I'd have. It takes something like I went through to see the beauty in the simplest of pleasures. Freedom is something I took for granted until it was taken from me."

"Me too," I said.

Finley reached for my hand, giving it an encouraging squeeze. "I wish there was something we could do to fix this."

"I'd turn myself in and take my chances with a trial if it weren't for Chloe. I'm all she has. I don't want her placed into foster care while I rot away in jail."

"That's not going to happen," Finley said. "We're going to figure a way out of this."

"How can you be so optimistic about things after what happened to you?"

She shrugged. "I figure I could spend my life bitter and resentful, or I could live as fully as I could. It was a terrible time, but I was released and acquitted. It was hopeless until it wasn't. Now that I'm free, I don't plan on wasting a single moment."

"If I get out of this somehow, I'll do the same," I said.

"You will. We must keep the faith. Always."