Page 78 of Hacking the Holidays
“If you tell me something incriminating, and they put me on a witness stand …” I let the implication hang there. “I won’t be able to lie under oath. Anything you tell me could be used against you. And just between me and you, it would break my heart to use it against you. You may not believe it, but I believe what you are doing is very admirable.”
Sam considered this, his fingers drumming once against his mug. “And what if I’m completely innocent?”
I sighed. “I will say it again—be careful with what you say. Please. We can ask hypothetical questions.”
“Okay then …” He tilted his head. “Who goes first?”
“You,” I said.
Sam leaned back in his chair. “How did you get in as a volunteer at the library? Eleanor specifically told me a few weeks ago that we didn’t need anyone. Then you showed up out of nowhere.”
Right. Starting with the simple questions.
“You’ll have to ask Eleanor that question because I had nothing to do with how it came about,” I said. “My supervising agent assigned me to the case, told me I would be avolunteer, and then told me what I needed to do. I had no say in the matter. I didn’t even want to be here.”
Sam nodded. “Your turn.”
“Hypothetically speaking, do you think a man like Good Sam thinks it’s worth the risk of jail time to help these people?” I asked.
Sam was quiet for a moment, his gaze drifting back to the fireplace. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft but certain.
“I think a man like that probably doesn’t see it as a choice,” he said. “He sees a single mother working three jobs who still can’t afford warm clothes or new shoes for her children. He sees an elderly man having to choose between medication and food. He sees kids going to bed hungry because both their parents lost their jobs.”
Sam was deep in thought, then turned back to me, and the emotion in his eyes made my breath catch.
“And I think when you see suffering you have the power to stop—even if it’s risky—doing nothing becomes the harder choice,” he added. “Not the safer one. The harder one.” His fingers tightened around his mug. “Because that man has to live with himself. He has to look in the mirror every morning.” Sam shook his head slowly. “I think a man like that would rather risk jail time than risk becoming someone who doesn’t have a heart, someone who could walk past that kind of pain and do nothing.” He met my eyes again, unflinching. “So yeah. I think he’d say it’s totally worth it. Every single time.”
My throat tightened, eyes burning with tears I refused tolet fall. This wasn’t a carefully crafted defense or philosophical argument. This was Sam’s truth, raw and unfiltered. I could hear the conviction in every syllable, see it in the set of his jaw, in the way his hands gripped that mug like it was the only thing keeping him grounded. He believed in Good Sam’s mission with every fiber of his being.
“Okay—it's your turn to ask a question,” I barely got out.
Sam leaned back, studying me with that look he got sometimes—like he was trying to figure out a particularly interesting puzzle.
“Was your clumsiness all just an act?” he surprisingly asked.
I stared at him in disbelief.
Of all the questions he could have asked—about the investigation, about what evidence I’d gathered, about what happened next—he’d asked if my clumsiness was real!
“That’s what you want to know?” I said. “I thought you were going to ask me something about the case or my job.”
“Why? You have no evidence, plus it keeps you from saying something you shouldn’t be saying,” Sam said. “I want to talk about us. Fabricated clumsiness or real?”
“I told you I have issues, and for your information, the clumsiness is real.” I traced the patterns on the pine table with my finger, looking for the best way to explain it. “I haven’t been like this my whole life. My awkward years started at the tender age of thirty-seven.”
Sam’s expression shifted, surprise and curiosity mixing. “Seriously?”
“Yes, and before you ask—no, it wasn’t a midlife crisis.”
“I wasn’t going to?—”
“You were thinking it.”
“Maybe.” A smile formed on his face, giving me a little hope that he didn’t hate me. “Can I ask what happened?”
Something about the way he looked at me—genuinely interested, no judgment, just openness—made me want to tell him. At least part of it.
“I’d rather not get into specifics.” I stared down at my cider, watching the steam curl upward. “But I was given intelligence by a person I trusted that a suspect was armed and dangerous. When I approached the man, his movements matched the threat profile perfectly. So I …” My voice faltered. “I drew my weapon and fired, but the man I shot was unarmed.”
