Chapter Twenty-Seven
All three men were arrested by the FBI at the exact same time, so they couldn’t tip each other off.
The operation went off with surgical precision, overseen by Hill.
Gallagher was hauled out of a meeting at City Hall, his arrest chronicled for all to see by the media that stalked the building.
Ryan was found at one of the restaurants the three men owned, and Santoro was pulled naked from his bed in a penthouse apartment in Georgetown.
A woman who’d been in bed with him raised such a fuss that she was arrested, too.
Charged only with the murder of Metro PD Deputy Chief Skip Holland initially, each of the men proclaimed their innocence.
However, as she watched the news coverage of the bombshell arrests on the conference room TV, Sam saw the fear in their eyes.
They knew what they’d done and that they were screwed, glued and tattooed every which way to next Tuesday.
Her phone rang nonstop with calls from Darren Tabor and other reporters, but she didn’t take any of the calls.
A hollow feeling gnawed at her. For the longest time, she’d imagined what this moment would be like, to have the answers that had eluded her and the others who’d loved Skip and Steven for so many years. But the reality was … Empty.
Her dad was still dead. Steven was still dead.
Yes, she was glad to see the people responsible dragged out of their comfy lives, fully aware they would do hard time for what they’d done to two honest, hardworking, dedicated police officers—and their families.
Normally, Sam would hate being relegated to the sidelines, but in this case, it was for the best. She would’ve been tempted to shoot them in their necks, so they’d have to live the same way her father had, trapped in a useless body while their minds remained as sharp as ever.
That would be the least of what they deserved.
She ought to call Celia and her sisters but couldn’t bring herself to do it. She hadn’t been allowed to call them or anyone before the operation went down. They would hear the news soon enough if they hadn’t already.
Sam had no idea how long she’d stood there staring at the TV when she heard the door to the conference room open and close. She was about to turn to see who it was when arms slid around her waist and the fragrance of home filled her senses. He’d come. Of course he’d come.
She sagged into Nick’s embrace. “How did you hear?”
“Freddie called me. He thought I’d want to be here for you.”
Thank God for the two of them. What would she ever do without them? She hoped she’d never have to find out.
“I don’t know whether to say congratulations or I’m sorry or I love you.”
“All of that works.”
“I can’t begin to imagine what you must be feeling.”
“I’m numb.”
“The whole thing is simply unbelievable for me, but for you it has to be such a massive betrayal.”
She nodded because she didn’t trust herself to speak.
“Samantha.” He tightened his arms around her and kissed her neck.
Safe in the arms of her love, Sam finally broke down.
Nick turned her to face him and gathered her into him, his fingers in her hair, his arms tight around her as she shook with sobs that she’d held off until now, until she finally knew why her father had been taken from them far too soon.
“Let it all out, sweetheart.” He rubbed her back and kissed her forehead. “You’ve been so strong for everyone when your own heart was breaking.”
She cried until there were no tears left, until his shirt was damp under her face, until her body ached like it’d been run over.
“Let me take you home.”
She knew she ought to stay, to see this through to the end, but there was nothing left for her to do. “Okay but give me a minute.” She didn’t want her colleagues to see her red-faced and unhinged.
He handed her a monogrammed handkerchief. “Take all the time you need.”
Sam breathed in the familiar scent of starch and citrus-scented cologne as she wiped the dampness from her face. She took the bottle of water he handed her and drank half of it while wondering how he always seemed to have exactly what she needed when she needed it. “Thank you.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “No need to thank me.”
“Yes, there is. The only reason why I’m holding it together at all right now is because of you.”
“I always want to be where you are, especially at a time like this.”
“Didn’t you have a thing at the White House tonight?”
He shrugged. “I called in sick.”
“Can you do that?”
“Well, I did it. I guess we’ll find out if I’m allowed to.”
She smiled up at him, surprised that she could smile, but leave it to him. “You’re the best.”
“I love you, and I ache for you over this.”
“I love you, too. I’ll get through this knowing the people who killed him and Steven, and those who let them get away with it, are going to pay.”
“That’s what matters.”
She released her hair from the clip that held it up while she was working and ran her fingers through it, attempting to bring order to it. “I need to call Celia and my sisters.”
“Go ahead. I’m sure they’re anxious to hear from you.”
She called all three of them, went through the facts of what had been uncovered and talked them through their tears of outrage and despair.
“It’s so unreal,” Celia said. “It’s just unreal.”
“I know. It’ll take me years to wrap my head around this, but at least now we know.”
“Yes, for all the good it does.”
“I’m going to start a grief group for people like us who’re the victims of violent crime. I want you to be part of it. It might help.”
“I’ll think about that. Come see me when you get home?”
“I will. For sure.”
Angela and Tracy had expressed similar disbelief and had cried when Sam told them about the connection to the owner of O’Leary’s.
That detail had been difficult for all of them to hear, knowing how much their father had loved that place.
After she ended the call with Tracy, she turned to Nick. “I need to see Alice.”
“Alice Fitzgerald?”
Sam nodded. “She’s waited far longer than we have for this news.”
“I’ll ask Brant to get us there. Give me one minute.”
After he left the room to confer with Brant, Sam tuned back into the TV. The local news was on fire over the long-awaited arrest in the shooting of Deputy Chief Holland. They hadn’t yet made the connection to the Coyne case, so Alice still didn’t know.
“Babe.” Nick stuck his gorgeous face through the door. “Let’s go.”
She took his outstretched hand, made a quick stop in her office to get her keys and walked with him through the winding halls that led to the morgue exit where his motorcade was parked.
Along the way, she ignored the curious stares of her coworkers, who had to be reeling right along with her.
And if they weren’t, they ought to be. He helped her into the backseat of one of the black SUVs and then followed her in.
When he was settled, he reached for her and Sam curled up to him.
“It’s amazing.”
“What is?”
“That I was as agitated as I’ve ever been, and then you show up and make everything better.”
“That’s my job.”
“You do it exceptionally well.”
“Why, thank you. I try.”
She tipped her head so she could see his face. “Now we know.”
“Now we know.”
“I want it to change everything, but it doesn’t.”
“No, because it can’t bring him back or undo the nightmare of the last four years.”
“And it can’t bring back Steven. In all this time, never once did it ever occur to me that their shootings were related.”
“Why would it? They happened decades apart. There was never any reason to suspect they were related, was there?”
Sam shook her head. “Still… It’s so hard to know that the answers were right under our noses all this time.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that, babe. You were betrayed by someone you thought you could trust.”
“True. And get this—one of Gallagher’s cohorts owns O’Leary’s.”
“Wow.”
“It makes me sick. My dad put that place on the map by making it a favored bar for MPD officers, and this is the thanks he gets?”
“It’s so disgusting. Every bit of it.”
“I wish I had a dollar for every time greed was the motive in one of my cases. I could retire early.”
“You could retire early even without those dollars. Your husband would be more than happy to support you while you attend tea parties and have facials. Tossing that out there in case you’re tempted.”
Sam laughed. “Can you see me working the tea party and facial circuit?”
“I can totally picture it. You’d be awesome at it.”
“You’re only saying that because you want me to quit being a cop.”
“I’d only want that so people would stop shooting at you and running you off the road and hitting you with their cars and—”
Sam hooked her hand around his neck and drew him into a kiss. “Thanks for offering to keep me, but I’d go mad without the job.”
He leaned his forehead against hers. “I know.”
A short time later, the car came to a stop outside Alice’s modest home.
Sam glanced at the house. “She’s not going to know what’s going on with the motorcade stopping here.”
“You want me to come with you?”
“Do you mind?” She didn’t want to leave him, even for the fifteen minutes she would need to explain the unexplainable to Alice.
“Not at all. Happy to be wherever my beautiful wife is.”
“You’re the best.”
They walked hand in hand up the sidewalk to the door where Alice stood waiting for them, her eyes wide at the sight of Nick and the motorcade. She opened the storm door for them. “What is all this?”
Sam dropped Nick’s hand and put her arm around Alice. “I have news. Let’s go sit so we can talk.”
“Okay…”
The two women sat together on a sofa while Nick took one of the chairs.
“I know what happened to Steven—and my dad. Their two shootings were related after all.”
Alice gasped. “How do you know that?”
Sam took her through the whole thing, connecting Gallagher, Ryan, Santoro and Conklin to the shootings of Steven and Skip.
“Paul Conklin knew this and never said anything?”