Kick A** Heroines Box Set: The UltimatumFatal AffairAfter the DarkBulletproof SEAL (The Guardian)

by Karen Robards

  “If necessary.”

  “Can I be bad cop this time? Please?”

  She shot him a withering look that said “as if.”

  “I never get to be bad cop,” he said with a pout. “It’s so not fair.”

  “Grow up, Freddie,” she shot over her shoulder as she crossed the hall to where the O’Connors waited. Before she opened the door, she took a moment to collect herself, to take her emotions out of the equation. She appreciated that Freddie knew her moods well enough by then not to question what she was doing or why. “Ready?”

  He nodded.

  Sam opened the door. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.” She did her best to avoid looking directly at the four faces ravaged by grief as she took them through what the police knew so far, leaving out anything that would compromise the integrity of the investigation.

  “So you’re telling me that after two days, you’ve got absolutely nothing?” Graham said.

  “We have several persons of interest we’re taking a hard look at,” Sam said as the chief slipped into the room. She nodded at him and returned her attention to the O’Connors. “I wish I could tell you more, but we’re working as hard and as fast as we can.”

  Graham turned to the chief. “I’ve known you a lot of years, Joe. I need the very best you’ve got.”

  Chief Farnsworth glanced at Sam. “You’re getting it. I have full faith in Sergeant Holland and Detective Cruz as well as the team backing them up.”

  “So do I,” Nick said quietly from where he stood against the back wall.

  Senator and Mrs. O’Connor turned to him.

  With his eyes trained on Sam, Nick said, “I’ve known Sergeant Holland for six years. There’s no one more dedicated or thorough.”

  As Sam fought to keep her mouth from dropping open in shock at the unexpected endorsement, Senator O’Connor held Nick’s intent gaze for a long moment before he stood and held out his hand to his wife. “In that case, we should let you get back to work. We’ll count on you to keep us informed.”

  “You have my word, Senator,” Chief Farnsworth said. “I’ll show you out.”

  “Before you go,” Sam said, “can you tell us who Patricia Donaldson was to your son?”

  Graham and Laine exchanged glances but their expressions remained neutral.

  “She was a friend of John’s,” he said.

  “From high school,” Laine added.

  “A friend he paid three thousand dollars a month to?”

  “John was an adult, Sergeant,” Graham said, appearing nonplussed to hear about the payments. “What he did with his money was his business. He didn’t have to explain it to us.”

  “Where does she live?” Sam asked.

  “Chicago, I believe,” Graham said.

  Interesting, Sam thought, that the senator knew, without a moment’s hesitation, the exact whereabouts of his son’s friend from eighteen years earlier. She debated pushing him harder and might have had the chief not been in the room. In the end, she decided to pursue it from other angles.

  “If there’s nothing else, I’d like to take my wife home,” Graham said with a pointed look at Sam.

  “We realize this is an extremely difficult time for you, but we may have other questions,” she said.

  “Our door’s always open,” Graham said, helping his wife from her chair.

  Lizbeth and Royce got up to go with them.

  “Mr. Hamilton,” Sam said. “A minute of your time, please?”

  Royce’s eyes darted to his wife.

  “Go ahead, Daddy.” Lizbeth kissed her parents. “Take Mom home. We’ll be by after a while.”

  After Graham and Laine left the room with Chief Farnsworth and Nick following them, Sam turned to Lizbeth. “We’d like to speak to your husband alone, Mrs. Hamilton.”

  Tall, blond, blue-eyed and handsome in a rugged, hard-working way, Royce slipped an arm around Lizbeth’s shoulders. “Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of my wife.”

  Sam glanced at Freddie, who handed her the printout detailing the Hamilton’s financial situation. “Very well. In that case, perhaps you can explain how you’ve come to be almost a million dollars in debt.” Only because she was watching so closely did she see Royce tighten the grip he had on his wife’s shoulder.

  “A series of bad investments,” Hamilton said through gritted teeth.

  “What kind of investments?”

  “Two horses that didn’t live up to their potential, and a land deal that’s tied up in litigation.”

  “We’re handling it,” Lizbeth said.

  “By mortgaging your house?”

  “Among other things,” Lizbeth said, her tone icy.

  “What other things?”

  “We’re considering a number of options,” Royce said, adding reluctantly, “including bankruptcy.”

  “You expect us to believe the daughter of a multimillionaire is on the verge of bankruptcy?”

  “This has nothing to do with my father, Sergeant,” Lizbeth snarled. “It’s our problem, and we’re handling it.”

  “Are your children the heirs to your brother’s estate?”

  Lizbeth gasped. “You think…” Her face flushed, and her eyes filled. “You’re insinuating that we had something to do with what happened to John?”

  “What I’m asking,” Sam said, “is if your children are his heirs.”

  “I have no idea,” Lizbeth said. “We weren’t privy to the terms of his will.”

  “But he was close to your children?”

  “He adored them, and they him. They’re heartbroken by his death. And you think we would’ve done that to them—to him—over money?”

  Sam shrugged. “He had it, you needed it.”

  Shaking with rage, Lizbeth moved out of her husband’s embrace and stepped toward Sam. Speaking in a low, fury-driven tone, she said, “I had only to ask, and he’d have given me anything. Anything. There would’ve been no need for me—or Royce—to kill him for it.”

  “So why didn’t you? Why didn’t you ask him for help?”

  “Because it was our problem, our business. Other than my husband and children, there was no one in this world I loved more than John. If you think my husband or I killed him, I encourage you to prove it. Now, if there isn’t anything else, I need to take care of my parents.”

  “Stay available,” she said to their retreating backs.

  After they were gone, Sam turned to Freddie. “Impressions?”

  “Pride goeth before the fall.”

  “My thoughts exactly. They’d rather declare bankruptcy than let her family know they’re in trouble.”

  The door opened, and the chief stepped into the room. “What was that about with the son-in-law?”

  “Nothing,” Sam said, deciding it was just that. “Tying up a loose end.”

  “You know Nick Cappuano?” the chief asked.

  Sam cleared her throat. “Technically, yes. I met him once, six years ago. I hadn’t seen him since until yesterday. He’s been a tremendous asset to the investigation.”

  “That was quite a show of support from someone you hardly know.”

  She shrugged. “It seemed to be what the senator needed to hear.”

  “Indeed.” The chief’s shrewd eyes narrowed as he studied her. “Is there anything else you want to tell me, Sergeant?”

  He was handing her the opportunity to come clean. But if she told him she’d slept with Nick, had feelings for him—then and now—she’d be off the case and maybe off the force. It was too much to risk. “No, sir,” she said without blinking an eye.

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “We’re waiting on a warrant to search Billings’s car and apartment. If you could exert some muscle to speed that up, we’d appreciate it.”

  “Consider it done.” He started to leave, but turned back. “Get me an arrest, Sergeant. Soon.”

  “I’m doing my best, sir.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SAM SPENT T
WO hours with Freddie and the other detectives assigned to the case going over everything they had so far. While she was with the O’Connors, the lab came back with the report from John’s apartment—nothing was found in the sheets, the drain, or elsewhere in the apartment that didn’t belong to the victim.

  Beginning to feel frustrated, Sam doled out assignments, told Freddie to meet her at Senator Stenhouse’s office at nine the next morning, and sent him home. Fifteen hours after she’d started her day, she returned to her office to find Nick in her chair with his feet on the desk.

  “Comfortable?” she asked, leaning against the door-frame.

  He dropped his cell phone into his suit coat pocket. “You were my ride.”

  “Oh shit. Sorry. You waited all this time? You could’ve grabbed a cab.”

  “I was hoping to talk you into dinner.”

  “I can’t. I’ve still got a million things I need to do.” She paused, looked closer. “Did you clean my desk?”

  “I just straightened it up a bit. How can you work in such a messy space?”

  “I have a system. Now I won’t be able to find anything!”

  “You need to eat, and you need to sleep. What good will you be to anyone if you make yourself sick?”

  “So in addition to bringing your anal retentiveness to my workplace, you’ve put yourself in charge of making sure I eat and sleep?”

  His face lifted into a cocky, sexy grin. “Happy to oblige on both fronts.”

  “Food, yes. Sleep? No way in hell.”

  He shrugged, apparently pleased with the half victory. “Who’s this?” he asked, picking up a photo from her desk.

  “My dad.” In the picture, Sam stood to the side of her father’s chair, her arm around his shoulders. “He was injured on the job almost two years ago.”

  “I’m sorry. What happened?”

  Stepping into the cramped office, she bumped his feet off the desk and sat. “He was on his way home in his department vehicle and saw a car weaving through traffic. He followed it for a mile or two before he pulled it over.”

  “He was a traffic cop?”

  She shook her head. “He was deputy chief and three months shy of retirement. Anyway, he approached the vehicle, knocked on the window, and the driver responded with gunfire. He doesn’t remember anything after stopping the car. The bullet lodged between the C3 and C4 vertebrae. He’s a quadriplegic, but through some miracle, he can breathe on his own when sitting up. We’ve learned to be grateful for the small things.”

  “I remember reading about it, but I didn’t realize he was your father. Happened on G Street?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they ever get the guy?”

  “Nope. It’s an open investigation. I work on it whenever I can, and so does every other detective in this place. It’s personal to me, to all of us.”

  “I can imagine. I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged. “Life’s a bitch.”

  He stood up, stepped around her, pushed the door closed, reached for her and held her tight against him.

  Appalled by the lump that settled in her throat, she wrestled free of him. “What was that for?”

  He kept his arms around her. “You seemed to need it.”

  “I don’t.” She placed her hands on his chest to put some distance between them and to calm her racing heart. “I can’t be alone in here with you. People will talk, and I don’t need that.”

  He reached for the door and opened it. “Sorry.”

  Sam was relieved to find no prying eyes on the other side of the door and annoyed to realize she had needed the comfort Nick offered, that it somehow helped. The discovery left her unsettled.

  “What?” he asked, studying her with those intense hazel eyes that made her melt from the inside out. “You’re staring.”

  “I was just thinking…”

  He tipped his head inquisitively. “About?”

  “You’ve aged well. Really well.”

  “Gee, thanks. I think.”

  “That was a compliment,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “Thanks for clarifying. Of course, I could say the same to you. You’re even sexier than I remembered—and I remembered everything.” He took a step to close the distance between them.

  Her heart tripping into overdrive, she held up a hand to stop him. “Stay out of my personal space.”

  “You’re the one who started handing out the compliments,” he said with a grin that she much preferred to the grief she’d witnessed earlier.

  “Temporary lapse in judgment brought on by fatigue and hunger.”

  “Then how about that dinner?”

  “Pizza and you’re buying.”

  “That could be arranged.”

  “Speaking of arranged, the M.E. is set to release the senator’s body to the funeral home in the morning.”

  Nick immediately sobered, and Sam was sorry she’d dropped it on him that way. “Okay. Once the funeral home is done, the Virginia State Police will accompany him to the state capitol in Richmond,” he said. “I was going to ask you if I could get into his place to get some clothes. The funeral director needs them.”

  “After dinner. I’d like to go back there anyway. Poke around some more.”

  “It’s a date.”

  She turned off her computer and the lamp on her desk. “It’s not a date.”

  “Semantics,” he said as he followed her from the office.

  “It’s not a date.”

  * * *

  OVER THICK-CRUST veggie pizza and beer at a place where everyone seemed to know Nick, Sam asked him about Patricia Donaldson.

  “Who?”

  “According to his parents, she was a high school friend of John’s who lives in Chicago.”

  His eyebrows knit with confusion. “I’ve never heard of her.”

  “He sent her three thousand dollars a month, has for years, called her several times a week and talked for as much as an hour.”

  Nick shook his head. “I don’t know anything about her.” He seemed puzzled, distressed even. “How’s that possible?”

  “Did you know he was into porn? Big time into it?”

  Pausing mid-bite, he returned the pizza to his plate and wiped his mouth. “No. How do you know?”

  “It was on his home computer.”

  His expression shifted from startled to disgusted. His breathing slowed as he fixated on a spot behind her. He was quiet for a long time. “I wish I could say I’m totally surprised, but I’m not. He took such chances with his reputation and his career.”

  “What else besides this?”

  “Women. Lots of them. It was like he was looking for something he just couldn’t seem to find. He’d be all hot over someone and a week later she’d be history.”

  “Did they have anything in common?”

  “They were all blonde and well-endowed. Every one of them. One Barbie doll after another. It got so I didn’t even bother to make the effort to remember their names.”

  Sam swallowed the last of her beer in one long sip and had to admit she felt recharged after the meal. “Christina Billings sent over a list of the women he’d dated during the last six months. We’re working through it now. I bet we’ll find his killer among the Barbies.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You said it was a crime of passion, right?”

  She nodded.

  “None of them were around long enough to feel the kind of passion you’d have to feel to do what was done to him—except Natalie, but that was over and done with years ago. If she were going to kill him, she probably would’ve done it a long time ago.”

  “We’re going to talk to her tomorrow.”

  “How do you do it?” he asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Keep up this pace. It’s relentless.”

  “You spent a night in your office this week. You do what it takes to get your job done. That’s all I’m doing. Usually it’s worse than th
is. I often have multiple cases going, but thanks to the forced vacation my load has been light lately.”

  “But dealing with murderers and victims and medical examiners…It’s got to be so draining.”

  “It can be. Other times it’s exhilarating. There’s nothing quite like putting all the pieces together and coming out with a picture that leads to conviction.”

  “Did you always want to be a cop?” He hadn’t asked that question the first time they met, when she had just made detective.

  “That subject is kind of complicated.”

  “How so?”

  She fiddled with the handle on her mug. “I’m the youngest of three girls. I think I was about twelve when it dawned on me that the only reason I’d been born was because my father wanted a son so desperately.”

  “You can’t know that for sure.”

  “Oh, yes I can. My mother all but told me.”

  “Sam…”

  She hated the sympathy that radiated from him. “So, knowing I’d disappointed him just by being born, I set out to win his approval every way I could think of. Name a high school sport—I played it. I went with him to Redskins games, Orioles games. He even branded me with a boyish nickname.”

  “You’ll be Samantha to me,” Nick declared. “From this moment on.”

  She sneered at him. “I don’t let anyone call me that.”

  “You’re going to have to make an exception because to me there’s nothing boyish about you. You’re all woman. Every beautiful, sexy inch of you.”

  Her face heated under the intensity of his gaze. “I’ll allow an occasional Samantha, but don’t overdo it. And not in front of anyone else.”

  “I’ll save it for only the most important, private moments,” he said with a grin that melted her bones. “So, you became a cop to please him, too.”

  “Huh?” she asked, captivated by his hazel eyes.

  “Your father.”

  “Oh. Right. At first that’s what it was about. I won’t deny that. But I discovered I have a knack for it—or I thought I did until recently.”

  “You do. You can’t let one incident shake your confidence or your faith in yourself.”

  “You sound like the department shrink,” she said with a chuckle. “And while I know you’re both right, there’s something about a dead kid that shakes you to the core even when you know you did everything right.” Sam fixated on a spot on the wall as the horror of it all came back to haunt her once again. She’d never forget the sound of Marquis Johnson’s agonized shrieks after his son was hit by gunfire.