by Marie Force
Even though Sam was stunned to hear her husband had been considered for such an honor, she couldn’t take the time to process that now when she had murder and kidnapping on her mind. “Was Victoria having any problems with anyone that you knew of?”
“No. You knew how she was, bubbly and friendly. Everything I’m not.” As a fresh wave of sobs racked his muscular but wiry frame, he dropped his head into his hands. “I’m sorry. I know you need my help, but all I can think about is where’s Maeve, and how am I supposed to live without Vic?”
Moved by his raw grief, Sam dragged her chair over next to his and rested a hand on his back. “I’m so sorry, Derek. I know this is a nightmare, but time isn’t on our side where Maeve is concerned. I won’t quote statistics, but it’s imperative that we find her soon.” She watched him make an effort to pull himself together. “You’re certain Victoria hadn’t had recent conflicts or problems with anyone?”
“Not that she told me.”
“And she would have?”
“I think so. We’re tight, you know?” His use of the present tense saddened Sam. Family members of murder victims almost always used the present tense when speaking of their loved ones right after they were taken from them suddenly and violently. Poor Derek had a long road ahead of him as his staggering loss registered. “I work a lot—too much, especially lately with the campaign heating up. So it’s possible something could’ve happened and she hadn’t had a chance to tell me.”
“If something big happened and you were at Camp David with the president—”
“She would’ve called me. I might have an important job, but she knew that she and Maeve came first—always.”
“I have to ask about your work and if there’s anyone or anything you’re involved with that might factor into this.”
“That’s my job,” a familiar voice said from the doorway.
Sam bit back a groan when FBI Special Agent Avery Hill and her boss, Chief Farnsworth, stepped into the room. Hill had butted into an earlier investigation of hers before Farnsworth sent him packing back to Quantico.
“I’ve got this, Hill,” Sam said in her best dismissive tone. “But nice of you to come by.”
“Actually,” Hill said in a honeyed Southern accent that no doubt worked on most women. Unfortunately for him, Sam wasn’t most women. “Since I have a top-secret security clearance and you don’t, I’ll be looking into Mr. Kavanaugh’s work and any tie-ins.”
The guy was too handsome for his own good, and Sam hated to admit that if she hadn’t been recently—and happily—married, she might’ve been interested in getting to know him better. He wore his golden-brown hair combed back off his face in a style he could pull off thanks to chiseled cheekbones and equally golden-brown eyes that zeroed in on her with laser-sharp purpose.
Of course Nick picked that moment to step into the room to see if Derek needed a drink or anything to eat. Over the last eight months, Nick had become an unofficial member of Sam’s team. They’d all but deputized him a few times, so no one thought a thing of him coming into the room where his friend was being questioned. When Nick noticed her staring match with the agent, the subtle lift of one eyebrow was the only change to her husband’s otherwise expressionless demeanor.
“Let’s put aside the turf war,” Farnsworth said with a warning look for Sam. “We all have the same priority—finding Maeve Kavanaugh and catching Victoria Kavanaugh’s killer.”
When the man that Sam once called “Uncle Joe” used that particular tone, there was no point in arguing. “Follow me,” he said to her and Hill.
“Excuse me for a minute,” Sam said to Derek, annoyed by the interruption.
On the way past Nick, she rolled her eyes.
Farnsworth led them to a conference room where Special Victims Detective Ramsey waited with another officer.
He nodded to Sam. “Lieutenant, we meet again.”
“Detective.” Their paths had crossed right before Sam’s wedding when she’d gone to him seeking information on an old case that might’ve been tied to her father’s unsolved shooting. It had turned into another dead end.
“My partner, Detective Harper,” Ramsey said.
The younger officer reached out a hand to Sam. “Heard so much about you, Lieutenant. Pleasure to finally meet you.”
The sucking up earned him a scowl from Ramsey.
Harper quickly pulled back his hand after Sam shook it.
Sam never had figured out what Ramsey had against her. She’d decided he was put out by the fact that he was easily ten years older than her, but she had two ranks on him. Whatever. His fragile ego was the last thing on her mind at the moment.
“Here’s how this is going to go,” Farnsworth said as Sam’s mentor, Detective Captain Malone, joined them. Farnsworth pointed to Sam. “You’re the lead on the Victoria Kavanaugh murder. Hill’s in charge of looking into any possible connections to the husband’s work, and Ramsey is leading the investigation into the missing kid. Anyone have a problem with that?”
Sam had a problem with it, all right. Her team could easily handle every aspect of the investigation without assistance, but she held her tongue, knowing the chief expected her to do what she was told.
“Anyone who can’t work collaboratively will be taken off the investigation and disciplined accordingly,” Farnsworth continued.
Hill smirked at Sam, letting her know that he expected her to be disciplined before it was over.
Fuck that, she thought, determined to close her third of the investigation while the other two were still tripping over their own dicks. That thought made her smile as the chief made eye contact with her.
“Am I clear, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir,” she said in her sweetest tone.
Unused to such easy capitulation, let alone sweetness, from her, Farnsworth eyed her suspiciously before he moved on to the others. “Ramsey? Hill?”
Both men muttered their agreement.
“Now, get to work, and keep me posted. Lieutenant, I’ll need you to brief the media at zero seven hundred.”
“What if we don’t have anything by then?” Sam asked.
“Get something,” Farnsworth said as he walked away with the other men in tow.
“Sure, no problem.” When they were alone, Sam turned to Cruz, who had joined them. “Where are we with the canvass?”
“We checked the whole block and didn’t find anyone who heard or saw anything unusual. Naturally, all the neighbors wanted the lowdown on what happened.”
People were always obscenely interested in crime—until it happened to them. “Call in Gonzo, Arnold, McBride and Tyrone. We need all the help we can get on this one.”
“And of course you’ll want to close the case before Hill or Ramsey,” Freddie said.
Sam rewarded him with a shit-eating grin. “Duh.”
Chapter Three
“Tell me about Victoria,” Sam said, once again filled with regret that she’d never taken the time to get to know the other woman better.
Hill stood inside the closed door to the interrogation room, observing the interview.
Sam went out of her way to pretend he wasn’t there, which wasn’t easy when he was staring at her the whole time.
“What about her?” Derek asked. He’d already answered a staggering number of questions about his daughter for Ramsey and Harper, who’d left to mobilize the entire special victims unit in the search for Maeve. Issuing an Amber Alert would be their first order of business.
“Where did she grow up? What do you know about her childhood?”
“Her maiden name was Taft. She grew up in Ohio with her parents. She didn’t talk too much about her childhood. I got the feeling it wasn’t particularly happy.”
“What did she study in school?”
“History and political science.”
“What did she do after college?”
“She worked for a lobby firm but quit her job when we got married. She couldn’t do that while I was w
orking for a senator, especially since he was running for president. It would’ve been a conflict of interest.”
“Can you write down the name of the firm where she worked?”
Derek reached for the pad and pen she pushed across the table.
“Who were Victoria’s close friends? Who did she see every day who might have insight into her activities?”
“I should know that,” he said regretfully. “But I’m afraid I didn’t spend much of the small amount of time we had together talking about who was in their playgroup.”
“So she did belong to a playgroup?”
“A few of them, I think. She and Maeve kept busy with lots of activities.”
“And she never talked about who she met through these activities?”
“Look, I know this’ll make me sound horrible, but I didn’t care about those people. I work so much that when I was home, I wanted to talk to her about Maeve and about us, and I wanted...” He faltered and again dropped his head into his hands.
“What did you want, Derek?”
“I wanted to be alone with her, to take her to bed...” His hands over his mouth muffled his voice. “I can’t believe I’ll never, we’ll never... Ever again.”
Sam ached for him. For the first time since they started the questioning, Sam took a tentative glance at Hill. She noticed the pulse of tension that ticked in his jaw before his eyes met hers, offering support that Sam appreciated in the face of Derek’s terrible grief.
“We’ll need her phone,” Hill said. “The list of contacts will give us a place to start.”
When the agent took the words right out of her mouth, Sam frowned at him, and the moment of unity was forgotten.
“It’s probably in her purse at the house,” Derek said. “That’s where she kept it when she was home. I’m thinking now that her friend Ginger, who she met in the hospital when she had Maeve, might know her other friends.”
“That’s helpful,” Sam said. “Excuse us for a minute.”
Hill followed her out of the room.
“I thought you were going to stand there and keep quiet until I’m done,” Sam said.
“Just trying to help,” Hill replied with a charming smile that had the desired effect, even if Sam would never admit it.
“Do me a favor and don’t. I’ve got this.”
“Whatever you say, Lieutenant.”
His condescension earned him another scowl.
“Your husband sure is a lucky man,” he said with a chuckle that grated on Sam’s already raw nerves.
“Yes, he is,” she said suggestively. Let him wonder how lucky Nick really was. If anyone had any idea, she’d be tagged a nymphomaniac. Under normal circumstances, that thought would’ve made her laugh. But nothing about this situation was funny.
“Would you like me to ask your partner to arrange for transport of the phone?” Hill asked.
“Sure, thanks.” Since she was apparently stuck with the ingratiating agent, she may as well make use of him. “That would help.”
“Wait for me before you start up again,” Hill said over his shoulder as he headed for the pit to find Freddie.
Sam stuck her tongue out at his back, which made her feel much better.
“How’s it going, babe?”
At the sound of Nick’s voice, Sam turned. “Where’d you come from?”
“I saw you come out. What’s with that guy Hill?”
“What do you mean?”
“He watches your every move like...” Nick looked past her as he seemed to search for the words he needed.
“Like what?”
Turning his potent hazel-eyed gaze on her, he said, “Like I imagine I do.”
Sam stared up at him. “Are you jealous?”
“Do I need to be?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Our friend has been murdered, and we’re talking about the way a fellow officer looks at me? As if I have any control over that!”
Shrugging, he said, “I don’t like it.”
Sam went up on tiptoes to kiss her husband, a rare deviation from her strict no-PDA-at-work—or ever—rule. “You’re very cute when you’re jealous.”
His brows narrowed with annoyance. “Samantha...
“Oh, sorry to interrupt,” Freddie said when he came around the corner. “Hill said you want me to get Victoria’s phone?
Sam stepped back from Nick. “You’re not interrupting. Get the phone to the lab. I want a call made to every contact on there, asking when they last heard from her or if they’ve seen Maeve today. Then we need a report on every number, as well as a log of all calls made and received in the last month.”
“On it.”
“Where are our reinforcements?”
“Gonzo and Christina are on a train back from New York City, where they were visiting his sister. He said he cleared the weekend away with you before he went.”
“Yeah, he did. I forgot.”
“Arnold is in Florida visiting his parents. He said he also cleared it.”
“I guess he did, now that I think about it. What about McBride and Tyrone?”
“They’re at Tyrone’s brother’s wedding in Baltimore. She said she can come in if we need her, but it’ll be an hour or more before she can get back to the city. She said they cleared it—”
“All right already! They all cleared their plans with me, and I forgot! Sue me.”
Freddie started to grin, but her frown discouraged him.
“Phone. Lab. Now.”
“You got it, boss,” he said as he scrambled off.
“Sometimes I feel sorry for him,” Nick said.
“He’s lucky to work with me, and he knows it.”
“Sure he does.”
“I have to go back in there and dig deeper into Derek’s life when all I want to do is offer comfort to our friend.”
“The best thing you can do for him is find his daughter and get the person who killed his wife. Harry and I will be there for him when you are done.”
“Good,” she said, squeezing his arm. “I’m sure he appreciates that you’re here.”
He gave her shoulders a quick, fortifying massage right as Hill reappeared in the hallway.
“Are you ready to get back to work, Lieutenant?”
Nick gave her one last squeeze and let her go, muttering “asshole” under his breath.
Surprised by the unusual and unwarranted hostility from her mild-mannered husband, she whispered, “That’s no way to talk about an FBI agent.”
“Since when do you need help from the Feds?”
“Since I don’t have a security clearance and he does. Someone has to dig into Derek’s work and any possible connections. Can I go back in there now?”
“Don’t let me stop you, but stay away from that guy. I don’t like him.”
“So you said.” Sam rolled her eyes at him and stepped into the interrogation room, where Hill was opening a soda for Derek.
He gestured to the diet cola he’d left on the table along with a can of lemon-lime-flavored water. “Drink, Lieutenant?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Staring at the diet cola with lust in her heart, she chose the flavored water, but only because Nick might be watching in observation. She didn’t feel like hearing it from him if she fell off the diet-cola wagon she’d been on for months now thanks to her damned stomach.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said to Derek when she sat next to him at the table.
“I’m going crazy wondering where Maeve is. There has to be something I can do. I should be out looking for her rather than sitting here answering endless questions.”
“The best thing you can do is cooperate with the investigation. We’ve got every cop in the region looking for her.”
“She could be anywhere. Who knows how long ago this even happened?”
“The medical examiner is working on getting us a timeline right now. In the meantime, take me through the last time you talked to Victoria.”
“Last nigh
t. Late. I was finally back in my room after an eighteen-hour day.”
“Was there anything unusual about the call?”
“No. We were both tired after the long day of political strategizing and chasing a toddler. It was a quick call.”
“Let’s talk about how you met.”
* * *
“They told me I might find you in here,” Harry said to Nick when he stepped into Sam’s office.
Nick, who had his feet on the desk he’d spent twenty minutes cleaning, gestured for Harry to have a seat in the visitor’s chair.
“What’s the latest?” Harry asked.
“Last I heard, they’re talking about how Derek and Victoria met.”
“Remember how he was after he met her?” Harry asked with a small, sad smile.
“Yeah. A total disaster.” Their shy, unassuming but sharply intelligent friend had been blown away by the dark-haired beauty. Nick had met Derek shortly after John O’Connor was sworn into the Senate and Nick became the new senator’s chief of staff. Derek was an aide to then-Senator Nelson, who was now the president. Nick ached thinking of the golden days when John was still alive and Derek was trying to figure out how to ask out Victoria. “How’d it go with his parents?”
“Horrible, as you can imagine. They’re despondent about Maeve and heartsick over Victoria. I know how they feel. Who in the world would want to kill Victoria?”
“I can’t begin to guess. Everyone loved her. Especially Derek.” If Nick let himself think how he would feel if this had happened to him... He shook it off, refusing to go there. It was bad enough that he lived in fear of suddenly losing his wife every day of his life. “I was thinking about how long it took him to work up the nerve to ask her out.”
Harry ran a hand over his face in a gesture of weariness Nick could relate to. It was all so hard to fathom. “The poor guy was so painfully shy, and she was so vivacious. We thought it would never work.”
Sam stepped into the office. “Derek needs a minute,” she said, looking battered by the grueling interview. Her eyes bugged out of her head when she took in the clean surface of her desk. “Every time? It’s a sickness!” To Harry, she said, “Can’t you prescribe something to cure his anal retentiveness?”
