Fatal Series 00 - Fatal Destiny

told her.
    “Holy shit,” Freddie muttered. The rare curse told Sam how affected he was by the story. “What’s the plan?”
    “We’re going to nail his ass—for Faith and the woman he raped.” Sam swallowed hard, thinking of her colleague, Detective Jeannie McBride, who’d been abducted and brutally raped during a recent investigation. Jeannie said she planned to attend the wedding, but Sam would believe it when she saw it. Jeannie had barely left her boyfriend Michael’s home since being released from the hospital.
    “What’s the first step?”
    “I’m going to see Ramsey—the SVU detective who handled the rape case. While I’m there, I want you to pull every single thing you can find on Gardner. No detail is too small.”
    “Got it.”
    “Keep a lid on this, Cruz. I mean it. Faith would lose her job if this ever came to light, not to mention what the bar association might have to say about it.”
    “I get that the stakes are high.”
    “I know I can trust you or I wouldn’t have told you.”
    Sam’s cell phone chimed with the tune of “When You Wish Upon a Star.” She withdrew it from her coat pocket and flipped it open, groaning. “Goddamn it.”
    Freddie scowled at her. He hated when she took the Lord’s name in vain. “What’s wrong?”
    “Freaking Tinker Bell, reminding me I have my final dress fitting at six.” She glanced at her watch. Just after five. Where the hell had this day gone? “I’m going to hit SVU before I head out of here. You’re on the rest?”
    “Yep.”
    “Shoot me a report at home. I’ll authorize overtime.”
    “For what?” asked a voice behind her.
    Sam spun around to find her captain and mentor standing with his hands on his hips, his silver eyebrows knitted.
    “Has there been a murder I don’t know about?”
    Pressed for time, Sam glanced at Freddie. “Will you please fill in the captain?”
    “You got it.”
    “Dress fitting,” Sam said sheepishly.
    Malone grinned. “Will you take video so we can laugh at you later?”
    The phrase “bite me” was on the tip of her tongue.
    “She has something she’s dying to say,” Freddie said, sharing a laugh with the captain.
    God, she couldn’t wait to get the wedding behind her. “Get to work, Cruz.”
    He choked back a grin and said, “Yes, ma’am.”
    Sam forced a phony smile for her boss. “Captain.”
    “Lieutenant.” He tapped his watch. “Don’t be late now.”
    “Bite me,” she muttered under her breath and felt better even as laughter followed her out. Navigating her way through HQ, she took the elevator to the third floor where the special victims unit resided. Sam asked the department’s admin assistant for Detective Ramsey.
    “One minute, Lieutenant. Let me see if he’s available.”
    While she waited, Sam made a quick call to her sister Tracy to let her know she hadn’t forgotten about the fitting and would be there shortly. She knew she’d been a bit of a handful as a distracted bride. That was why Shelby, the wedding planner she called “Tinker Bell,” had programmed reminders into her cell phone. Without them, Sam would’ve been even more of a disaster. She had no doubt it would be a wonderful, beautiful, memorable day. But she was ready for the hoopla to be over and life to return to normal.
    That thought made her laugh to herself. Since reconnecting with Nick six years after a memorable one-night stand, her life had been anything but “normal,” and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Suddenly, she was anxious to see him, to be with him, to feel the way she did just being in the same room with him. She’d missed him, and it was time to get things back on track between them.
    “Lieutenant?” the admin said. “Detective Ramsey will see you in the conference room. Right this way.”
    Sam followed the young woman through a maze of cubicles so recently renovated that the new-carpet smell was overpowering. When, she wondered, would her own beleaguered pit get a much-needed face-lift? She made a mental note to take that up with Chief Farnsworth. After she’d closed three high-profile murder cases in short order, he owed her a few favors.
    Detective Ramsey was in his mid-fifties with a salt-and-pepper crew cut and a no-nonsense demeanor. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”
    “I’m interested in an old case of yours, a sexual assault. Darius Gardner was charged but never tried.”
    His no-nonsense expression became stormy. “Because AUSA Faith Miller