Fatal Reckoning (Fatal #14)(42)

Until Nick, she’d never had that kind of connection with anyone but her father. That feeling of being so deeply understood would be the thing she would miss the most about her dad. Thank God she had Nick to fill some of the void.

He was in bed, wearing sexy reading glasses and flipping through a binder full of briefing documents, or what he referred to as his nightly trip through hell. As vice president, he was privy to things most people would never know about, and for that, he said, they should be thankful. No wonder his insomnia had been worse than ever since he became vice president.

Her cell phone rang and she took the call from the chief. “Hey. Did you talk to him?”

“Yeah. He says he was never on G Street that day. He says he went right from HQ to GW after he got the call about your dad being shot.”

“So that’s it? He’s going to deny it, and that’s the end of it?”

“Did you get a phone number from Davis by any chance?”

“Yeah, hang on.” Sam retrieved her notebook and gave him Davis’s number. “Are you going to call Davis?”

“I’m going to investigate further. That’s all I can say right now.”

“You can’t tell me anything else?”

“I can only ask you to be patient and trust me.”

“Patient,” she said with a laugh. “Four years, Chief, and the guy who replaced my dad as deputy chief has possibly been sitting on a bombshell all that time? You’ll have to pardon me if my patience is sorely lacking.”

“I understand, and I feel the same way. I have to do this by the book.”

“I hear you.”

“If there’s anything to it, you’ll be among the first to know. That’s the best I can do.”

“Okay.”

“Try to get some sleep. If nothing else, we know more today than we knew yesterday.”

Oddly enough, that didn’t bring comfort. She thought of all the meetings and encounters she’d had with Conklin in the last four years, the visits he’d made to her father and the friendship he’d shown them both. Had it all been an act? Had he been hiding critical information about the shooting while pretending to be a friend and ally?

“Sam?”

“Yeah, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She closed the phone and put it on the bedside charger.

“What the hell was that?”

In as few words as possible, she told Nick about the conversation with Davis and what it had yielded. He was the only person who was ever privy to information about her cases that no one else could know. She trusted him implicitly.

Nick stared at her, his face blank with shock.

“Farnsworth confronted Conklin about it, and he says he was nowhere near G Street that day.”

“Can you prove otherwise? Is there security film or something you could check to see if he’s lying?”

“It’s on my list for tomorrow to check with Archie to see what we have.”

Nick’s sour expression made her laugh when she didn’t think that was possible. He’d recently found out about the brief fling she’d had with Archie after her first marriage ended. “Knock it off.”

“Don’t wanna.” He held out his hand to her. “Come here.”

“Give me one minute to change.” She went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and change into pajama pants and a tank before snuggling up to him in bed.

He wrapped his arms around her. “This thing with Conklin has to be a gut punch.”

Safe in his embrace, she finally exhaled after the shock delivered by Mr. Davis. “It is.”

“Any chance the guy is mistaken about who he talked to that day?”

“He picked him out of the photos of the department’s top leadership. I don’t think he’s mistaken.”

“What can I do?”

“This helps. This always helps.”

“I wish it was more. I hate to see you suffering.”

“If the suffering leads to a break in my dad’s case, it’ll be worth it.” Sam gave herself permission to relax—for now—so she could hopefully get some sleep. There was nothing more she could do tonight to pursue the lead she’d been handed by Davis. And besides, the chief had put her on notice that she would not be the one investigating it anyway. “Scotty mentioned the ramps. He asked if we’re going to take them down now that Dad is gone.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I can’t imagine our house or his without them. I can barely remember what Ninth Street looked like before there were ramps.”

“There’s no need to decide anything about that right away.”

“Remember the day you had the ramp installed and I thought someone had blown up our front door?”

His low chuckle echoed through his chest. “My Samantha is always a cop first and foremost.”

“I’m trained to think the worst.” She moved so her chin was on his chest and she could see his handsome face. “In case I forget to mention it every day for the rest of our lives, that was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.”

He curled her hair around his fingers. “I wanted your dad to be able to visit us.”

“You say that as if it’s no big deal, when it was a huge deal to him and to me.”