Fatal Series 01 - Fatal Affair
reached over to unlock the passenger door for Nick.
He slid in next to her. “Before we go to John’s place, I need to get my car.”
“Okay.” Sam started the car to get the heat going, but sat with her hands propped on the wheel.
“What’s wrong?”
She gripped the wheel. “I’m sorry I can’t give you more right now, Nick.” Glancing over, she found him watching her intently. “It’s not because I don’t want to.”
He reached over to caress her face. “I know that.”
His touch sent a burst of longing sizzling through her, but she tamped it down. “Can you be patient with me?”
“I spent years wishing for another chance with you, Sam. I’m not about to bail just because it isn’t going to be easy.”
She released a deep sigh of relief. “Good.”
“But after this case is closed…”
“I’ll be right there with you.”
“What we had six years ago is still there,” he said, gazing into her eyes.
“So it seems.”
“Whatever it is, I’ve never had it with anyone else.”
“I haven’t either. I was so sad when you didn’t call. I couldn’t believe I’d been so wrong about you.”
“ Ugh . That makes me furious. When I think about what we might’ve had, all these years…”
“Let me close this case,” she said, her voice hoarse and tense. “The minute I close this case…”
Nick seemed to be resisting the urge to haul her into his arms. “Samantha?”
Surprisingly, the dreaded name didn’t sound so bad coming from him. “Hmm?”
“We steamed up the windows.”
“And we didn’t even do anything!”
“Yet,” he said, his voice full of promise.
Finding him harder to resist with every passing second, she shifted the car into drive and forced herself to focus on the road.
Chapter 13
Sam left Nick at the congressional parking lot, and timed her drive across the city to the Watergate. At that hour of the night, traffic was light but an accident on Independence Avenue screwed up her timing. She’d have to try again tomorrow night to determine whether Christina Billings would’ve had enough time to drive across the city, commit murder, and drive back with a stop to pick up Chinese food in twenty-eight minutes.
Reaching for her cell phone, she called to check on the search of Billings’s car.
“I was just going to call you,” Detective Tommy “Gonzo” Gonzales said. “We got a hit for blood on the front seat.”
“I knew it!” Sam cried. “I’ll bet she wrapped up her coat and left it on the seat. The blood soaked through!”
“Wait,” Gonzo said. “Before you get too excited, she said she cut her hand scraping ice off her car two weeks ago and had to get three stitches. She has a raw-looking pink scar on her right hand and produced the form from the E.R. with wound care instructions. We’re checking the blood anyway, but I’ll bet a month’s pay it’s going to be hers. She willingly gave us a sample.”
“ Son of a bitch . We can’t catch a single break in this one.”
“We’ve narrowed down Billings’s list of the senator’s recent girlfriends from six to two. The other four could prove they weren’t in the city that night.”
Sam added visits to the two remaining Barbies to her ever-growing to-do list for the morning. “Do me a favor and set up some plain-clothes coverage for the senator’s wake. Make sure you coordinate with Virginia State Police and Richmond.”
“Sure thing. Do you want observation and video or just observation?”
“Let’s tape it. Make sure the officers you send have the photos of the senator’s family and girlfriends, so they’ll know who to watch for.”
“I’m on it.”
“Thanks for the good work, Gonzo.”
“You got it. Try to get some sleep tonight, Sam.”
“Yeah, sure.”
As she sat in the tangle of cars held up by the wreck, Sam banged her fist on the wheel in frustration that came from multiple sources. She couldn’t stop thinking about Nick and how understanding he’d been when she put their fledgling relationship on hold. How often did she allow herself to lean on someone? Never. However, she couldn’t lean on someone who was a material witness in the homicide case she was investigating. As much as she wanted to, she just couldn’t.
She edged the car forward and finally cleared the accident. When she arrived at the Watergate, Nick was waiting for her in his black BMW.
“What took so long?” he asked as he stepped out of the car.
“Accident on
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