Chapter Nine #2
Sam lost it laughing, thankful to them for the levity they provided at times when she needed it most. “Any sign of the boy child yet?”
“Nope,” Nick said. “He’s taking full advantage of his last day of vacation. I was thinking I would try to find something fun to do today. Maybe catch a Feds game if we can make it happen.”
“He’d love that. Wish I could join you.”
“Really?” he asked dryly.
“Well, not for the game so much as the company. Have you heard anything else about…the situation?”
“Nothing new. I’ll let you know if I do.”
“Please don’t. Henceforth, I’m operating on a need-to-know basis. If I don’t need to know or if you don’t need to tell me, don’t. I plan to keep my head as deeply planted in the sand as I possibly can for as long as I possibly can.”
“Good plan, babe. I’ll see you when you get home.”
“It’ll probably be late.”
“No worries. We’ll still let you in.”
Sam smiled at the witty reply. He was so cute and funny and sweet, and she loved him with a desperation that would’ve unnerved her before he showed her that it was okay to love so deeply. “Love you.”
“Love you, too. Be careful out there.”
“I always am.”
“You two are so funny,” Freddie said after she ended the call.
“We are not.”
“You are, and it’s great that you can laugh and be normal with everything that’s happening.”
“We don’t know how to be any other way but normal.”
“That’s going to get you through whatever comes your way. You’ll be able to handle it because you have each other.”
“You’re very philosophical today, young Freddie.”
“You have no idea how much your friends admire both of you or how proud we are to be your friends. Elin and I were talking about it on the way home from the beach. She said how cool it was that we were hanging out with the vice president and his wife, and they’re Sam and Nick, our friends.”
“That’s very nice of her—and you—to say. We try to keep it real. I can’t imagine either of us getting caught up in the nonsense that goes along with his job.”
“A lot of people would be caught up, and it’d change who they are.”
“I like who I am, and I particularly like who Nick is.”
He cracked up. “It’s admirable that you’re remaining true to yourselves and who you are underneath it all when everyone in the country—hell most of the world—knows who you are.”
Sam cringed. “Don’t remind me of that.”
“Sorry, but remember the upside. You’ll never have to work undercover again.”
“There is that, especially considering the way my last undercover assignment ended.” She would never forget the shootout at the crack house that’d ended Quentin Johnson’s life.
“Do I need to remind you again that the blame for Quentin’s death belongs squarely with his drug-dealing scumbag father and not with you?”
“Nah, I got it. I still wish it hadn’t happened, though. He was a cute kid who had the supreme misfortune of being born to scumbags.”
“Very true.”
They arrived at HQ and used the morgue entrance to avoid the mob gathered out front.
“What’ll we do when they move their circus to this door?” Freddie asked.
“Bite your tongue. They know we’ll never talk to them anywhere but outside the main door. If they ever move their show over here, we’ll have to ask the department to get us a helicopter so we can land on the roof.”
“That’d be cool. I get to drive it.”
“As if.” Sam rolled her eyes at him and headed into HQ, making a beeline for the pit. “Who’s got something for me?”
“Nothing yet, LT,” Jeannie said from her cubicle. “Patrol is working its way through the owners of the black sedans, and I’m looking for retired sharpshooters in the area. I might have something on that, but I’m not quite there yet.”
“Keep me posted,” Sam said. “We need to keep up the pace. I’m not convinced their campaign was a one-night deal.”
“We’re moving as fast as we can,” Jeannie said.
Sam went into her office and read through the various reports that had come in while she was out.
They revealed nothing particularly helpful, which left her feeling frustrated.
Then she turned her attention to the reams of information they had on Trace Simmons, who’d been in and out of the system since he was fifteen on a series of escalating offenses.
What had begun as shoplifting and simple assault as a teenager had led to multiple drug offenses, felony assault and domestic assault. The guy was a prince among men.
Archie popped his head into her office. “Hey, you got a minute?”
“Sure, come on in.”
“I was going through the various feeds from the shootings, and I was able to isolate one number on the plate.” He handed over a sheet of paper that showed the number 8 clearly visible as the last number.
“You see how it looks blue? That means it’s a District plate.
I took the liberty of running a list of black sedans with District plates that end in the number 8. There are seventeen of them.”
“Wow, that’s fantastic work. You saved us hours.” She called for Jeannie.
“Yes, ma’am?”
Sam handed her the page that Archie had given her, and he handed off the list of cars. “Let’s get patrol to focus on these seventeen cars.”
“That narrows it down from hundreds to a few,” Jeannie said to Archie as he headed out of the office. “Thanks, Lieutenant.”
“Happy to help,” he said on the way out. “Let me know what you find.”
“I’ll get this info out to Patrol,” Jeannie said as she left the office.
Sam’s stomach growled, letting her know it was almost time for lunch, and then her cell phone rang. “Holland.”
“Lieutenant Holland,” a female voice said, “I’m calling on behalf of U.S. Attorney Tom Forrester. He would like to see you in his office tomorrow at two o’clock. Are you available?”
Sam’s stomach fell and hit the ground. “Um, yes, I can do that.”
“We’ll see you then.”
When the line went dead, Sam found the number for Nick’s friend Andy in her contacts.
“Hi there, Sam,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Sorry to bother you on a holiday, but I got a call from Forrester. He wants to see me tomorrow at two. Can you and Kurt be there?” she asked of the criminal defense attorney from Andy’s office who’d attended her first meeting with Forrester about the Ramsey situation.
“We’ll be there.”
“Do I need to be worried?”
“It’s hard to say, but if I had to guess, there’s no way the grand jury is going to indict you in light of who you are to the city and the country.”
Sam clung to his assurances with everything she had. “Thanks for the optimism. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“We’ll be there.”
She put down the phone and dropped her head into her hands, thinking about the circle of life in her world.
Stahl took her hostage and tormented her with razor wire and gasoline, and was looking for an Alford plea while she waited to find out whether she’d be indicted for punching Sergeant Ramsey for suggesting that Stahl should’ve finished the job when he had the chance.
She could live without the whole mess coming to a head at the same time she had a shooter picking off innocent people in her city. Not to mention the goings-on in the White House and the possibility that… No. Don’t think about that. Do not think about that.
Her brain was going to melt out her ears at any moment.
Freddie came to the door. “Sam?”
She looked up at him. “Yeah?”
“What’s wrong?”
Everything? “Nothing. What’ve you got?”
He eyed her skeptically because he knew her too well. “The Gang Unit has delivered Simmons to interview two.”
Sam took a moment to get her head on straight, shaking off the call from Forrester’s office, her thoughts about Stahl and the proposed plea, the Nelson mess and everything else that would keep her from doing what needed to be done in this interrogation.
“You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Yep.” She made a spot decision to keep the info about Forrester to herself for now. No sense getting everyone wound up about that when she needed them focused on the case.
Taking the file on Simmons with her, she got up to follow Freddie to interview two.