Fatal Reckoning (Fatal #14)(36)
“I am telling you. Stay out of it, Dad. I mean it.”
“Are you being insubordinate to a superior officer by any chance?”
“Always.” Her cheeky grin had made him laugh.
It’d been excruciating for him at times to gracefully handle the way she was treated by Stahl and others simply because her last name was Holland. And he’d absolutely despised her husband—he’d had Peter’s number long before Sam had figured him out. It’d given Skip great joy in his final years to see her divorce Peter, ascend to Stahl’s command and marry Nick, and it gave her pleasure to know that the changes in her life had been met with his approval.
As she drove to Adams Morgan, she thought about those last days of normal with her dad still on the job, wearing the uniform of the deputy chief. They’d met for coffee most days before work as Sam had tried to navigate the shark-infested waters that came with being the daughter of one of the department’s top officers. His support and guidance had been as critical to her then as they had been later, when she assumed command of the Homicide squad and regularly relied upon his advice and counsel.
She wished she could ask him now how she was supposed to live without him.
“Don’t go there.” She was determined to keep her emotions out of the equation, so she could focus on the job. That was what he’d tell her to do if he were there. He’d tell her to do the job. And today, her job was getting justice for him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SAM FOUND THE address in Adams Morgan and saw Cruz’s beat-up Mustang parked down the block. He waited for her on the sidewalk, so she double-parked and left her hazards flashing as she got out to join him.
“That one.” He pointed to the building in question.
“Lead the way.”
She followed him up two flights of stairs to an apartment on the third floor.
He knocked on the door. “Metro PD.”
Sam rested her hand on her service weapon, wary after having recently been shot at through a closed door.
A series of locks disengaged, and the door swung open to reveal a man with wild white hair and wilder blue eyes. He took a quick assessing look at them and then gasped. “It’s you! The VP’s wife.”
“Frank Davis?”
“That’s me.”
She flashed her badge while Freddie did the same. “Lieutenant Holland, Detective Cruz. May we have a minute of your time?”
“Yeah, sure. Come in.”
Sam waited for Frank to lead the way before she followed him in. She tried to never turn her back on anyone on the job, which was one of many things her father had pounded into her head when she first started. Keep your eyes on them always. Never turn your back. Be ready for anything. Expect the unexpected. Don’t bring the job home with you. Everything she knew about how to do this job had come from him.
Davis led them into a tidy kitchen that smelled of freshly brewed coffee. “Care for some?”
“I wouldn’t mind a cup.”
Sam scowled at her partner. She hated anything that dragged things out, especially when she was eager to go home.
Freddie smiled and shrugged as he accepted the mug from Davis.
“Cream is on the table. I don’t have any sugar. Not supposed to have it cuz of my diabetes, so it’s easier not to have it in the house.”
“Cream is fine. Thank you.”
Sam glared at Freddie before returning her attention to Davis. “You called the MPD tip line about the shooting four years ago of Deputy Chief Holland?”
Davis nodded. “He’s your father, right?”
“Yes, he was.”
“Sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.” Sam wanted to pound her fist on the table and tell him to get on with it, but he seemed like a nice enough man, and if he had info she needed, she didn’t want to piss him off. “What can you tell us?”
“Like I told the officer the day it happened, I was walking on G Street after work.”
“What officer did you speak to the day it happened?” She had long ago memorized every detail of her father’s case and had no recollection of a report about the shooting by anyone named Davis.
“Conklin.”
What the fuck? “Tell us what you saw.”
“I worked then at the Government Accountability Office—GAO. We work for Congress, doing investigations.”
“Yes, we’re aware of what GAO does.”
“So I left work that day and saw the cop in the unmarked car pull over another car. I kept walking past where it was happening. I was about two blocks away when I heard the gunshot. I turned around and saw the officer go down.”
Sam took frantic notes, her heart racing at the implications. An eyewitness. A fucking eyewitness she hadn’t known about for four fucking years? Her hands shook, and her heart raced. She could feel Freddie’s gaze on her, but she didn’t dare look up or venture a glance at him or do anything other than write down every word Davis was saying.
“I called 911 and ran over to see if I could help him. He was bleeding from his neck. I did what I could to stop the bleeding, but it was bad.” He shook his head. “Real bad.”
Sam realized she was talking to the man who’d probably saved her father’s life in those first few fateful moments. Where had this information been for four long years?