Page 108 of Never Forget
I thought about Sam. At the station. Two hours into his shift. Same uniform, same rig, same rules Jack had worked under.
Jack was already gone. The proposal wasn't going to bring him back. The proposal was supposed to keep the next one from happening. And the department had just told me it wasn't going to.
Which meant the next one was still coming.
"You went as high as you could," I said. "And the answer's the same."
"I know."
"How many more people have to die for things to change?"
I didn't mean to say it out loud.
Neither of them answered.
Because there was no answer.
Rosie wasn't due for pickup until another hour, and we'd been gone for two weeks. There was nothing in the house. So I swung by the Harris Teeter on my way through town and filled a cart: bread, milk, the cereal Rosie liked, pasta, chicken, the lemon cleaner, decent coffee and those waffle fries from the freezer section that Sam kept asking about but we never seemed to have in the house.
I pushed the cart out to the parking lot and opened the trunk of Jack's car.
It had been in the shop for an oil change the night the house burned, which was the one mercy of that night—it was the only thing of his I'd walked away with. I still couldn't get in the car without feeling him in the driver's seat.
I started loading the bags in as Danny’s voice echoed in my head.
The current system has served Havensworth well for decades.
I set a bag down harder than I'd meant to.
Sam was at the station right now. Two hours into a shift under the same rules Jack had been under. Every shift he worked, I was going to sit in the apartment and listen for a phone call I didn't want to get.
That was the life I'd just chosen.
"Jamie?"
I went still with my hand on a bag.
I knew the voice.
I turned around.
"Amber." I shifted the groceries in my arms because I didn't know what to do with my hands. "It's nice to see you."
Amber smiled. "I heard about the fire. I'm so sorry about your house."
I nodded. My brain was still catching up to her being here at all.
"Is Sam helping you?"
Something in the way she said it made me set the last bag down slowly in the trunk. "Is there something I can help you with, Amber?"
Amber hesitated. Something flickered across her face that looked almost like sympathy.
"Look, Jamie. You seem like a decent person. And you've been through enough. First your brother, then your house." She paused. "I'm not the kind of girl who kicks someone while they're down. So I really thought you ought to know."
"About what?"
"I feel terrible telling you this. I really do. But Sam hasn't been completely honest with you." She paused. "You've just been to New York, haven't you?"
