Fatal Frenzy: Book 9 of the Fatal Series

by Marie Force

  Because the inauguration is considered a National Security Special Event, the Secret Service was the agency in charge. Every aspect of the event was closely managed, with buses requiring advance permits to enter the city, and the restricted National Defense Airspace over the city widened for the day by the FAA. The D.C. National Guard was bringing in more than seven thousand fellow soldiers to help provide military ground security.

  Communication networks had been established, social media was being employed to provide up-to-date information to those planning to attend, tickets had been issued to the “lucky” two hundred fifty thousand people who’d be the closest to the actual inauguration ceremony. Jeannie thought they were crazy to want to be there when they could watch it at home far more comfortably. If she and the rest of the nearly four thousand members of the MPD weren’t required to work twelve-hour shifts on inauguration day, she’d be home watching it on TV in her pajamas.

  But she’d be on duty alongside the rest of her brothers and sisters in blue, except of course for her lieutenant, who’d be with her husband the vice president, holding the Bible as he took the oath of office. How exciting for both of them.

  Jeannie tried to stay focused solely on the plans for tomorrow, but the memories of the horrific day she’d spent as Sanborn’s captive pushed through despite her desperate desire to forget. The yellow room, the bindings that held her to the bed while he cut off her clothing, the repeated, painful sexual assaults, the threats he’d made against her, Sam and others in the department who were pursuing the call-girl murders, the aftermath of the assault, the excruciating physical examination, finally telling Michael what’d happened and struggling to get back to the life she’d known before Sanborn changed it forever.

  And now he was gone forever, taking the easy way out and avoiding the trial that would bring his many crimes to light once again. She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter if he never stood trial. The whole world knew what he’d done to her. Her attack and the murders of the immigrant women who’d been lured into his sordid web would forever be tied to his name, which had once stood for leadership and vision within the Democratic Party.

  She parked in an underground garage and took the elevator to Michael’s office. This would be the first time she’d ever come here in the middle of a workday and she hoped he wouldn’t mind that she was interrupting him.

  At the reception desk, she gave her name and asked to see Michael Wilkinson.

  “Please have a seat while I check to see if he’s available.”

  Every nerve in her body was on full alert as she took a seat and hoped she wasn’t getting him from something important. He’d tell her nothing was more important than her, but his work was important too. About a minute after the receptionist made the call, he came bursting through the glass double doors that separated reception from the offices within. At six-foot-six inches, he cut an imposing figure in the suit that had been made just for him.

  “Jeannie, baby, what’re you doing here?” His concern was immediately comforting. “What’s wrong?”

  “Could we talk for a minute?” She glanced at the receptionist. “In private?”

  “Of course.” He took her hand and held the door to the inner sanctum open for her to pass through ahead of him. They walked down a long corridor full of offices and inquiring eyes before he guided her into his and shut the door behind them. Then he closed the blinds, sealing them off from the rest of the office. “What is it, baby?”

  Jeannie threw herself into his arms.

  He wrapped them around her. “You’re scaring me.”

  “Sanborn’s dead.”

  Michael pulled back, only enough so he could see her face. “He’s what?”

  “Dead. He killed himself in jail.”

  His face went slack with shock and fury. “Oh my God.” He took a closer look at her. “You’ve been crying.” Sliding his thumbs over her cheeks, he said, “That makes me furious. He’s hurt you enough. How dare he do this to you?”

  “I was so ready to testify. And now I won’t get to.”

  He wiped away more tears.

  “Sam says I should do one of the interviews so I can tell my story and make sure people know the truth of what he did.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “I think I’m going to do it. Why should he get to take those secrets to the grave with him?”

  “Why should he indeed, but are you sure you want to talk about it again? You’ve been doing so well. I’d hate to see you back where you were last year.”

  “I would’ve had to talk about it in court, so what’s the difference? At least I won’t have to be cross-examined if I do an interview.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Would you do it with me? The interview, I mean?”

  “I’d do anything you asked me to do, Jeannie. You know that by now.”

  She slipped her arms inside his suit coat and wrapped them around his waist, resting her head on his broad chest. “You’ve stood by me through this entire nightmare. Never once did you waver. I’ll never forget that, Michael.”

  “You really ought to marry a guy like that,” he said teasingly.

  “You’re right. I should. What’re you doing in July?”

  “Nothing other than marrying the love of my life, the strongest, toughest, most resilient woman I’ve ever known.”

  She smiled up at him. “Thanks.”

  “Aw, baby, don’t thank me. Loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

  When he kissed her, the spinning inside her stopped and her world righted itself once again. They’d gotten through worse than this, and they’d be fine. She’d be fine, as long as she had him and her friends and family to lean on.

  * * *

  After a thorough search of HQ, Sam found Gonzo in the morgue, staring down at the waxy remains of his partner. After the meeting he’d been required to attend earlier, Tyrone was back on watch outside the door.

  Lindsey McNamara approached her.

  “How long has he been here?” Sam asked of Gonzo.

  “About half an hour now. He just stands there and stares. You got this?”

  “Gonna try.”

  “Terrible thing,” Lindsey said with the empathy Sam had come to expect from the medical examiner. That empathy made her excellent at her job. The victims of crime received the utmost respect in Dr. McNamara’s lab. Lindsey squeezed her shoulder and left her to deal with Gonzo.

  Sam walked up to him and nudged his arm. “Hey.”

  He didn’t reply. He didn’t blink. Hell, he was so incredibly still, he didn’t even seem to be breathing.

  “Gonzo.”

  After a long moment, he glanced over at her, his eyes tortured and ravaged from lack of sleep and endless tears. “What?”

  “What’re you doing in here?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “Gonzo—”

  “I’m not really interested in company. His parents will be here soon. I’m waiting for them. No need to hover.”

  Under normal circumstances, Sam would tell him to fuck off with the hovering comment, but nothing about these circumstances were normal so she gave him a pass. “I’ll wait with you.”

  “No need.”

  “I wasn’t asking.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “I will, thanks.”

  They stood in unusually tense silence, him staring down at Arnold and her trying to look anywhere else. The gaping hole in the detective’s face didn’t look any less horrible today than it had yesterday, and it made her heart ache to think of his parents seeing that. But they’d insisted on seeing him, so their request would be accommodated.

  “I want you to talk to Skip,” Sam said after a long period of silence.

&
nbsp; “About what?”

  “This happened to him when he was still in Patrol. His partner was killed in a drive-by that was never solved. Skip was standing feet away from Steven when it happened.”

  “It’s not the same thing at all.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No, it isn’t. Did Skip send his partner out to be slaughtered? Did he antagonize him in the last hour of his life to the point that he felt he had something to prove? Did Steven take a bullet that should’ve been Skip’s?”

  “The bullet that hit Arnold was meant for him and only him.”

  “You think you’d be saying that if this were Cruz stretched out on the table and you were the one who put him out there to take the shot?”

  “I’d probably feel exactly the same way you do, and you’d be standing next to me saying the same thing I am—it wasn’t your fault. It was not your fault, Gonzo. One of you had to be the one to confront this guy. In this case, it happened to be him.”

  “It was the first time I let him take the lead in confronting someone known to be dangerous. The first fucking time, Sam.”

  “I know.” She placed her hand on his shoulder. “It’s a terrible thing and the fact that it was the first time makes it that much worse. But you did not pull the trigger. You did not kill him.”

  “I may as well have.” He shook his head in utter misery and dismay. “When I think about the way he saved my life when I was shot and how I couldn’t do a goddamned thing for him.”

  “The shot was fatal, Gonzo. There was nothing anyone could’ve done.”

  He used his sleeve to wipe his face. “I owed him better.”

  “You gave him your very best from the first day he was assigned to partner with you. I’ll never forget that night in the surgical waiting room, when we didn’t know if you would live or die. He was covered in your blood and we kept trying to encourage him to go home and change, but he wouldn’t leave until he knew you were okay. He cared for you so deeply. He’d never want you to be doing this to yourself, Gonzo.”

  “Can’t help it.”

  “Will you talk to Skip? He’s been where you are. He understands what you’re feeling better than anyone. It might help.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. If you want me to.”

  “I’ll go with you if it would help.”

  “Up to you.”

  “After work tonight. We’ll go there together.”

  Gonzo wiped his face again. “I’m really sorry I let you down.”

  “What? What’re you talking about?”

  “I was in charge of the squad while you were on medical leave. This happened on my watch.”

  “It would’ve happened no matter who was in charge, Gonzo. As much as we might wish otherwise, Arnold’s number was up the other night.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “I have to believe it, or the random shit that happens around here every day would make me insane. There has to be some higher power at work here, someone who has a grand plan for all of us. You were spared because you have a son to raise and contributions left to be made.”

  “He had contributions to be made too.”

  “Yes, he did, and we may never understand the why of this, Gonzo. But we have to accept that it happened and find a way to go on. That’s what he’d want us to do.”

  His jaw pulsed with tension. “I want this guy to fry for what he did. I want him dead.”

  “That’s not for us to decide, as you well know.”

  “Maybe not, but that doesn’t make me want it any less.”

  “Sometimes justice comes in the next life. We heard today that Sanborn offed himself in jail.”

  Gonzo’s head whipped around and his eyes widened. “For real?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “Jeannie…”

  “Has been told. She’s taken a few hours to go tell Michael and to deal with the news.”

  “Christ,” Gonzo muttered. “This fucking job, these fucking scumbags. It never ends, does it?”

  “Only when we turn in the badge and call it a day.”

  “You ever think about doing that?”

  “Fleetingly from time to time. Never seriously.”

  “Even after what happened with Stahl?”

  “More so after that, but the urge seems to have passed.”

  “I seem to think about it a lot more often lately. After I was shot, then you with Stahl and now this.” He rested his hand on Arnold’s chest, which was covered in a sheet. “I think about walking away.”

  “But you won’t do that now or a month from now or even six months from now, because we both know you’d regret doing something rash after what’s happened recently. PTSD decisions are never good ones.”

  “Still. I think about it. I think about packing up Chris and Alex and heading south and finding warm weather and something better to do with my life. Anything has to be better than this.”

  “Today anything seems better than this, but I know you. Six months in the Florida sun and you’d be jonesing to be back in the rat race again. You’d be bored out of your mind.”

  “Being bored out of my mind actually looks good to me right now.”

  “Pardon me,” Lindsey said. “The Arnolds are here.”

  Gonzo blew out a deep breath and stood up straight. “I can handle this if you’ve got stuff to do.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here with you.”

  He nodded, pulled the sheet up higher and straightened Arnold’s hair. The tenderness he showed his fallen partner brought a lump to Sam’s throat. “Not much I can do about the gaping hole in his face.”

  “I can cover it with a bandage,” Lindsey said. “If that would help?”

  “I think that’s a great idea,” Sam said. “They don’t need to see that. What do you think, Gonzo?”

  “Yeah, let’s do that.”

  Lindsey got the bandage and came to the other side of the table to apply it carefully to Arnold’s face.

  Gonzo released a deep sigh of relief. “That’s so much better. I’ve been stressing out about them seeing that.”

  “No need to stress alone, Tommy,” Lindsey said softly. “We’re all here to help you through this any way we can.”

  “Thanks.” He wiped his face again. “I guess you can bring them in now.”

  “Will you let the chief know they are here too, Lindsey?” Sam asked.

  “Of course.”

  While they waited, Sam slipped her hand through Gonzo’s arm and squeezed. She kept it there when Lindsey brought the Arnolds in to see their son. She kept it there when both parents and Arnold’s two sisters broke down at the sight of him lifeless on the table. She held on to him when the chief came in to offer his condolences to the family. Sam only released her hold on Gonzo so he could hug his partner’s parents and sisters.

  After stroking her son’s hair for several minutes, Mrs. Arnold said, “I’ve seen what I needed to see. I’d like to go now.”

  Her daughters took her by the arms and led her out. Mr. Arnold stayed behind. “Any developments in the case?” he asked.

  “The man we’re looking for is a known human trafficker named Sid Androzzi, also known as Giuseppe Besozzi,” Sam said. “He’s from Yonkers, not Italy, and is on the FBI’s ten most wanted list for crimes he committed in New York and Los Angeles. After his organization was infiltrated in those cities, he’d apparently set up shop here under at least one assumed name. The U.S. Marshal Service is leading the manhunt in conjunction with the FBI and the MPD. We’re doing everything we can to find him, Mr. Arnold, but we’re dealing with someone who is accustomed to hiding in plain sight.”

  “In other words,” he said bitterly, “we shouldn’t expect any kind of speedy resolution.
”

  “We never know how these things will go down. All I can tell you is that everything that can be done is being done.”

  “I suppose that’s all we can ask for. Thank you for allowing us to see him. Part of me didn’t believe it was true until I came here.” He blew out a deep breath. “Now denial is no longer an option.”

  “We’re so sorry again for your loss,” Sam said. “And we’re heartbroken. He was very well loved within our squad and the department.”

  “Thank you so much for that.” To Gonzo, he said, “Sergeant, we’d like for you and the other detectives from his squad to be the pallbearers.”

  “We’d be honored,” Gonzo said gruffly.

  “We’ll be in touch with the details. Detective Tyrone has been very helpful to us.”

  “Glad to hear that,” Sam said. “You let him know if there’s anything we can do for you.”

  Mr. Arnold fixated on his son’s face. “Burying a child… Most unnatural thing I’ll ever do in my life.” With those words, he turned and left them, the doors to the morgue swinging shut behind him.

  Gonzo bent to rest his head on his partner’s chest and wept.

  Sam put her arm around him and stayed right there with him, wiping up her own tears as his brokenhearted sobs echoed off the cold, sterile walls of the morgue.

  Chapter Twenty

  The news about Sanborn had cast a pall over Nick’s day. He could still remember how excited they’d been when they realized Sam might be pregnant, and before they could even officially celebrate the good news, her altercation with Sanborn had led to the miscarriage.

  It had taken months for them to get back on track after she lost the baby. It had carried over into the week of their wedding when she’d finally opened up to him about her private agony. Four miscarriages. His poor, sweet Samantha had been through the wringer. Even knowing that, he still hoped against hope that one day they might conceive again and she might finally realize her dream of carrying her own baby.

  He prayed for that every day of his life, but only because he knew she wanted it so badly. If she and Scotty were the only family he ever had, Nick would be perfectly satisfied.