A Rose in Shadow

Jamie

Mac noticed the gawker, still staring at Samantha, start to get up from his seat and walk through the room toward the bathroom hallway. "He's on the move" Mac said quietly to Finn.

Abruptly, he changed direction and went to sit back in his seat surprising Mac just as he was getting up to confront him.

"What the..?" he started.

"Hey, Finn" came a voice from beside the table where two detectives wearing suits and ties, their badges hanging off their belts, just appeared through the crowd.

Finn stood up to shake hands with the taller of the two men. "Adam" he said and turned to the table. "This is Sam's brother, Mac, and our friend, Malachi"

Mac and Mal both got up to shake hands with the cop who introduced them to his partner, Jamie.

"Where is Sam?" he asked looking around the room.

Mal, who had barely taken his eyes off of her for the few seconds it took to acknowledge the cops, nodded with his chin toward the hallway. "In line for the bathroom."

Mac looked back to Adam. "Since you're here that would explain why our happy gawker sat himself back down". He glanced back to the seat across the room where the guy had been sitting but no longer was.

"He's gone" he said to Finn and without a word went down the hall to find his sister leaving Finn to search the room for their little friend.

"Who's gone?" asked Adam.

"There was a guy, a big guy, staring at Sam and he got up and was heading toward her when she left the table but he turned away as soon as you walked in".

Finn turned to Malachi. "Stay here Mal, in case Mac needs help. I'm going to circle the place".

Malachi nodded and positioned himself so that he could see where Sam still waited in line, now with her brother standing beside her. She did not look happy.

Glancing over to be sure that Mac was still with Samantha, Adam spoke to Mal "we'll take a stroll around outside" and took off with his partner back through the crowd.

Finally getting into the ladies room, amid the curious glances between her and her brother from the other women in line, Sam washed her hands and then wiped at her face with a cold, damp paper towel. She looked at herself in the mirror and took in her appearance.

Tonight she was wearing a royal blue pencil skirt which landed just above her knee and a flowered peasant blouse which had a ruffled collar to hide most of her bruises and ruffled cuffs which also hid her arms. Once again she wore her hair down because she couldn't stand that anyone might notice the marks on her neck but had added a pair of dangly bronze earrings to try to make her outfit more fun. Low, brown suede boots finished off her look and she touched up her lip gloss before moving from the mirror.

The woman waiting in line behind her gave her a kind smile. "You have amazing eyes", she said to her.

"Thank you" Sam replied shyly and, giving over to her need to be polite, complimented the woman's necklace, which was truly quite stunning.

Back out in the hallway Samantha found Mac where she had left him, leaning on the wall beside the doorway and together they walked back to the table where she was surprised to see Adam and another officer standing with Finn and Malachi.

Fully aware of Adam's attention Sam blushed slightly and smiled at him. "Hi Adam. Nice to see you"

Without taking his eyes off of her Adam waved his hand in the general direction of his partner. "Samantha. This is Jamie", he said.