by Marie Force
“You really think that’s what happened?”
“No. I think she got in way over her head with kids who are far more experienced with the drinking and drugging and sexing scene than she is. I think she took shit her friends gave her, and she drank too much on top of it. I think someone slipped her something extra, and those boys took advantage of the fact that she was out of her mind. I think she’s the tenth victim, only she didn’t die. Now all I have to do is prove it and figure out who dropped her here and whether they’re the killers or if it was someone else entirely.”
Sam’s phone rang and she saw Mike’s name on the caller ID. “What’s up?”
“A Detective Ramsey is here from special victims. He wants to take a statement from us and from Brooke.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“My sister-in-law,” Sam heard Mike say. “Lieutenant Holland.” She thought she heard Ramsey mutter something under his breath, but she didn’t catch it. She never had figured out what the SVU detective had up his ass where she was concerned.
“This is Ramsey.”
“The victim is my niece. I’m handling it.”
“I don’t think you are. We got called in on this.”
“I’m calling you out of it.” Even though she was twenty years younger than the detective, she had two ranks on him, and he knew it. Sam suspected that was the source of his animosity toward her.
“You ready to explain this to the brass?”
“I’ll take care of them. You leave my sister and her family alone. Got me?”
“Yes. Ma’am.”
The condescension in his voice was hard to miss.
“Investigating a crime involving your own family is a conflict of interest.”
“Is it? I had no idea. Thanks for the clarification. Now stand down and back off. That’s an order.”
“You’re not my boss.”
“I’m a lieutenant. You’re a detective. Any questions?”
“Yeah, just one. Where do you get off?”
“At home mostly, although sometimes it happens in a hotel room. Those times are the best.”
“Such a cocky bitch. One of these days you’ll get what’s coming to you, and a lot of people will be glad to see you taken down a peg or two.”
“Is that a threat, Detective?”
“No. Just the one thing on my Christmas wish list.”
“This conversation is boring me, and you’ve got somewhere else to be. Give the phone back to my brother-in-law.”
“Nice guy,” Mike said when he came back on the line.
“Is he gone?”
“Yep. He stormed out of here.”
“Good. Let me know if he or anyone else shows up.”
“Is what he said true, Sam? Is it a conflict of interest for you to be working on Brooke’s case?”
“Hell, yes, it’s a conflict, but I’m doing it anyway.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t. You’ve worked really hard to get where you are. I’d hate for Brooke to get you in trouble.”
“Let me worry about that. You take care of Brooke and Tracy.”
“I’m trying. Tracy is inconsolable after hearing Brooke is all over the Internet.”
Sam could only imagine how her sister was dealing with that news on top of everything else that had happened. “I gotta go. Keep me posted, and you did the right thing calling me when Ramsey showed up. Don’t talk to anyone unless I’m there—and don’t let Brooke talk to anyone either.”
“We won’t, Sam. We’re counting on you.”
The weight of those expectations sat on her shoulders like fifty-ton weights. “I’m doing everything I can. I’ll talk to you later.”
Sam ended the call, more agitated than she’d been before, if possible.
“I don’t like this,” Nick said. “I don’t like it one bit.”
“I know you don’t. I don’t like it either. But there’s no way in hell I’m going to sit idly by and let a ham-handed asshole like Ramsey run this investigation. That guy hates me. Pinning a murder on my niece would bring him pleasure.”
“Why does he hate you?”
“Damned if I know. I have my suspicions that it involves my speedy rise through the ranks while he’s been sitting still at detective for at least a decade now.”
“That would explain it.”
“I’m sure he believes I only got where I am because of my last name.”
“Which is completely untrue and unfair.”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t let it bother me, and you shouldn’t either.”
“I don’t like when people hate you because you’re good at your job.”
“At least we’ve got Stahl out of the way for the time being. Although he’s fighting the charges and suspension with everything he’s got.”
“He can’t fight the fact that he assaulted you at your own home.”
“He can try, but the proof is in the pictures. Anyway, now that it’s finally after nine, I need to call the headmaster at Brooke’s school and figure out how the hell she managed to get out of there last night.”
“What’s going to happen with Scotty?”
Sam ran her fingers through her hair, attempting to bring order to it as the long night without sleep began to catch up to her. “I’ll report to Gonzo with what he saw, but I’m going to try like hell to keep him out of it. It’s actually good news that he couldn’t identify the people who dropped her off, even if it makes our job that much harder.”
“I agree. I nearly had a heart attack when he told me what he’d seen.”
“This is exactly the kind of thing I was afraid of when he came to live with us. I never wanted him wrapped up in my cases. I certainly couldn’t have imagined him wrapped up in a case that involves my own niece.”
Nick leaned forward to rest his hands on her legs. “If it turns out that Brooke was somehow responsible for what happened at MacArthur, are you going to be able to live with that?”
“She wasn’t responsible. I saw her on video with three of the vics, and she was out of her mind before they were killed. As sickening as that video was to watch, it’s proof there’s no way she could’ve killed them. She was barely conscious. Someone else did the videotaping, the killing, the posting. We’ll figure out who that was.”
“I know you’ve got stuff to do, and I’ll let you get to it, but I wanted to say...I’m sorry about before. I shouldn’t have made an issue out of the vacation getting screwed up.”
“Yes, you should’ve,” she said with a sigh. “We’ve been looking forward to it, and you’re right to be pissed. I’m pissed too. I don’t want to be dealing with this right now, but I can’t turn my back on Brooke—or Tracy. Especially Tracy.”
“I know, babe. Is it okay to be secretly glad the chief bounced you off the homicide case so you have to work from home?” he asked with a hint of the sexy smile Sam loved so much.
“It’s okay to be glad I got bounced off the case—this one time.” She cupped his face and leaned in to kiss him. Leaning her forehead against his, she said, “I hate fighting with you. It’s the worst thing ever.”
“Same here. I couldn’t sleep when I got home because I was so wound up about how we left things.”
“My stomach hurt all night after you left.”
“I hate to hear that.” He leaned in to kiss her, grimacing when his injured side protested. “I hope you know that even when I’m mad as hell at you, I still love you more than anything.”
“I love you just as much—even when you’re mad as hell at me.”
He kissed her lips, her nose and her forehead. “I’ll leave you to it. Let me know what I can do to help.”
“Keep an eye on our boy. He saw some upsetting stuff. I want to make sure he’s okay.”
“I will.”
“And take it easy too. You’re injured. You should be on the sofa with your feet up and your wife waiting on you hand and foot.”
“Now that you mention it...”
“Later, Senator. As soon as I get some answers, I’m all yours.”
“I’ll be looking forward to later then.”
Sam watched him go, enjoying the back view of him, which was awesome even in sweats and a T-shirt. She never got tired of looking at him and hated to see him compensating for the pain on his left side. More than anything, she wished she could focus only on him today when he was injured and trying hard to be stoic about it. He rarely got her undivided attention for a full day, which was why he’d pitched a fit about their vacation getting screwed up. She certainly understood, but there wasn’t much she could do about it with so many unanswered questions surrounding her niece.
With getting some answers in mind, she picked up the phone to call Gideon Young at the number her sister had given her. He answered on the first ring.
“Mr. Young, this is Lieutenant Sam Holland with the Metro DC Police Department. My niece, Brooke Hogan, is a student at your school.”
“Yes, of course, Lieutenant. What can I do for you?”
“Brooke is currently in the ICU at George Washington University Hospital in the city, suffering from the aftereffects of a drug overdose, alcohol poisoning and sexual assault. I’d like to know how all of that managed to happen when she was supposed to be safely ensconced in your school.”
Silence.
“Mr. Young?”
“I, um, I have no idea what to say. I’m in total shock.”
“You could say that you’ll be thoroughly investigating how this happened.”
“Absolutely. Of course. I can assure you I’ll be looking into this and will find out exactly what happened.”
“I’d also like her room locked until I can get a team down there to deal with her belongings. No one goes in there, you got me?”
“She has a roommate.”
“Get the roommate out of there, and don’t let anyone touch anything of Brooke’s. If her laptop and iPad and other belongings aren’t there, I’ll hold you personally responsible. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Let me give you my number so you can let me know what you find out.” She recited the number and had him read it back to her. “My sister and her husband paid your school a lot of money to keep their daughter safe, and you’ve utterly failed her—and us. We want answers, and we want them right away, Mr. Young.”
“I want answers, too, Lieutenant, and I will get them for you. I’ll be in touch.”
“I’ll be waiting.” Sam ended the call feeling pleased that she’d ruined his day. It was the least of what he deserved after Brooke managed to somehow escape from the school that Sam had given Tracy twenty thousand hard-earned dollars to pay for.
Sam placed a call to Lieutenant Archelotta, head of the IT department at HQ.
“Hey, Sam, what’s up?”
“I need a favor, Archie.”
“You caught that big case up on MacArthur?”
“Not exactly.”
“Really? What gives?”
“It’s possible my niece might’ve been there before it went down.”
“Oh, shit. No kidding?”
“I wish. Crime scene will be bringing in the cell phones recovered from the house. I think my niece’s is going to be among them.” Sam brought him up to date on what’d happened the night before. “I’m trying to figure out how she got to the District when she was supposed to be at school in Virginia. I was wondering if you could do me a courtesy and let me know if you have her phone and if you do, whether you’d dump it for me.”
He hesitated for a second before he said, “Sure, I can do that—as a courtesy and as long as it’s between us.”
She was asking him to cross lines on her behalf, and they both knew it. As the only other cop Sam had ever dated, they’d crossed lines together before. “You have my word. Let me give you the number.” She recited Brooke’s cell phone number, remembering the thrill of the young girl receiving her first hot-pink flip phone on her twelfth birthday. The memory came with a stab of pain in her chest for the same girl who now lay bruised and battered in the ICU.
“Got it. I assume you want everything?”
These days they had to specify voice, text, data, video and music when requesting warrants for phone dumps. “Yes, please.”
“I’ll let you know as soon as I have anything for you. As you know, smartphones take about eight hours. I assume it’s smart?”
“Yes, it is. Thanks, Archie. I appreciate it.”
“I hope your niece is okay.”
“I hope so too.”
Her next order of business was tracking down the principal of Woodrow Wilson High School on a Saturday.
Chapter Five
Gonzo rushed home to change before court. His nerves were already raw with the hearing bearing down on him, but the added pressure of running the investigation into the murdered teenagers only added to the weight of the world sitting on his shoulders. While he was pumped to have the opportunity to run his first major investigation, all he could think about was the custody hearing that had been scheduled for a rare Saturday morning session due to the backlog in family court.
As he went through the motions of showering and shaving, he downed a cup of coffee to wake himself up after the sleepless night. He was standing at the bathroom sink running a razor over his face when Christina came in and slipped her arms around him.
“Hey, baby,” he said, fortified by the press of her body against his. “Is Alex still sleeping?”
“Uh-huh. He was up around five, but I told him he had to go back to sleep for a while.”
“And that actually worked?”
“For once, thank goodness.” She let out a big yawn. “I was so not done sleeping yet.”
Gonzo rinsed the leftover suds off his face and turned to her, drying his face as he moved. “I know you love him and me, and I know you don’t mind being here with him when I’m at work. Just the same, I hope you also know how very much I always appreciate it and never take it for granted.”
“Of course I do.” She ran her hands up his chest to rest on his shoulders. “How could I not when you tell me all the time?”
He bent his head to kiss her, lingering on the sweet taste of her lips.
“I need to tell you something that might help today.”
Keeping his arms around her and his lips against her neck, he said, “What’s that?”
“I’ve made a somewhat major decision.”
Gonzo raised his head to meet her gaze, afraid he wasn’t going to like her somewhat major decision. He lived in perpetual fear of the day she’d wake up and realize she could do a hell of a lot better than him.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s nothing bad.” She cupped his cheeks, her palms soft against his freshly shaven skin. “I’m going to leave my job to stay home with Alex full-time. For now anyway.”
Gonzo shook his head, uncertain that he’d heard her correctly. “You’re going to do what?”
“Hear me out. This isn’t something I decided overnight. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now.”
“I can’t let you do this, Christina. Your career is important to you.”
“My family is too. I’m not leaving my career permanently. I’m taking a break.”
“I don’t understand where this is coming from.”
She took him by the hand and led him to the sofa, where he glanced at the clock on the cable box. He had an hour, and he’d gladly give a few minutes of that time to her.
Sitting next to him, she took his hand and curled her fingers aro
und his. “It’s been almost a year since we lost John. His death woke me up to the fact that life is short, and all that matters in the grand scheme of things are the people I love. I want to be here with Alex. I want to take some time to plan our wedding and maybe have a baby of our own.” She looked up at him with a shy smile that slayed him. “I don’t want to look back and have regrets. I talked to Nick about it—”
“You talked to Nick? Before you talked to me?”
“My decision is going to simplify your life and complicate his. I thought he had the right to know what I was thinking when I first started thinking it.”
“You should’ve told me,” he said, trying not to be irritated that she’d told her boss and friend first.
Raising a saucy brow, she said, “So you could talk me out of it?”
“No, so we could make this decision together.”
“I didn’t want to stress you out when you had so many other things on your mind. I’m only telling you now because I thought it might help today in court to tell the judge that your fiancée will be devoted full-time to Alex’s care.”
“It stresses me out to know you had something this major on your mind and didn’t feel like you could talk to me about it.”
“So you’re bummed because you weren’t the first to know? I didn’t really expect that reaction.”
He stood, unable to contain the energy zinging around inside him. “I’m not bummed. How could I be when you’re offering to do such a huge thing for our family?”
She came up behind him, putting her arms around him and refusing to let him put distance between them. “Then what is it?”
“What if you do all this and we lose custody? Have you thought of that?”
“No, I haven’t, because we’ll get custody. How can we not after all we’ve done and been to him since he came into our lives?”
“I wish I shared your confidence. I have a very bad feeling about this.”
“Tommy, look at me.”
Reluctant to show her his turmoil, he turned to her.
“It’s all going to be fine. I know it is. We’re his family, and he’ll know his real mother, but the judge isn’t going to take him away from you.”
