Fatal Reckoning (Fatal #14)(47)

Freddie pointed to a box on the floor.

Sam knelt next to it and took the lid off to begin going through the family photos, awards, citations and other items that were taken from his office after he was medically retired. The bag wasn’t in there, but why would it be? It had been with him at the time of the shooting. So where was it now?

She stood so quickly she experienced a head rush. “I’ll be back.”

“Where’re you going?”

“I need to go home.” She headed for the door, aware they were watching her the way they would a lunatic.

“Sam!” Freddie followed her. “What’s going on?”

“I—I’ll be back.” Had she ever seen the man purse again after that day? She couldn’t recall, and the not knowing would make her crazy until she found it. Maybe it was nothing, but until she knew for sure, she had to find it. In her office, she grabbed her keys and ran for the morgue exit, aware of Freddie giving chase.

They pushed through the double doors into the chilly autumn breeze. “What’s wrong?”

She’d forgotten her jacket but wouldn’t be going back for it. As she jumped into the driver’s side of her black BMW, Freddie got in the passenger seat, barely closing the door before she peeled out of the parking lot and pointed the car toward Capitol Hill.

“Tell me. You’re freaking me out.”

“My dad carried a messenger bag to and from work.”

“Okay…”

“Faith said something about it earlier, and I told her we used to call it the man purse.”

“That’s funny.”

“He took a lot of ribbing about that bag.”

“So what’s that got to do with where we’re going?”

“I can’t say for certain that I’ve seen that bag since the shooting.”

He gasped. “Whoa.”

“Yeah. May be nothing. May be something.” She tightened her grip on the wheel, frustrated and furious with herself for not thinking of it sooner.

“Don’t, Sam.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t be thinking that you should’ve thought of the bag before now.”

“Well, I fucking should have! He had it with him every goddamned day!”

“I’ve asked you not to use the Lord’s name in vain.”

“Has there ever been a better time for a good goddamn?”

“Sam!”

“Well, has there? What if all this time…”

“Stop. Don’t go there until you know. There’s no point in speculating.”

She drove faster than she should have, dodging in and out of traffic, refusing to let anything as ridiculous as traffic keep her from getting to Ninth Street as quickly as she could. Swerving to avoid a car, she nearly took out a woman pushing a stroller in a crosswalk.

“Sam…” Freddie grasped the handle above the passenger window. “Slow down, will you? The last thing we need is more paperwork if you kill someone.”

She eased off the accelerator. Slightly. Ten minutes later, they pulled up to the Secret Service checkpoint and were waved through. Outside her dad’s house, she jumped from the car and was halfway up the ramp before she heard Freddie’s door—and hers—close behind her.

“That’s okay. I’ll get the doors.”

Under normal circumstances, she might’ve complimented his sarcasm, having taught him everything he knew about the fine art. Today, however, she couldn’t spare the time. She burst into the house, scaring the hell out of Celia, who was on the sofa, a pile of cards and papers stacked next to her.

“Sam.” Celia rested her hand over her heart. “What is wrong?”

“The man purse.”

“The what?”

“The bag Dad carried to work with him. Where is it?”

“I’m not sure what bag you mean.”

Sam told herself to calm the fuck down, to be patient, not to snap when she wanted to scream. “The old beat-up leather messenger bag he carried to and from work.”

“I’ve never seen that. Before the shooting, I only saw him after work, not coming and going.” Her heart-shaped face lit up with a pale pink blush at the reminder of how they’d dated in secret before Skip was injured. Afterward, she’d volunteered to be his lead caregiver, and later, Sam had learned they’d been dating for quite some time.

Hearing that Celia didn’t know where the bag was left Sam feeling deflated after the punch of adrenaline that had brought her rushing home.

“There’s some stuff in the attic—”

Sam was halfway up the stairs before Celia finished saying the word attic.

Freddie followed. “I’ll just go with her.”

In the upstairs hallway, she reached for the cord hanging from the ceiling and yanked down the stairs to the attic, charging up the stairs into murky darkness. Where the fuck is the light?

Freddie used the flashlight on his phone to illuminate the light.

Sam pulled the string to turn it on and took a look around at stacks of boxes, a steamer trunk and milk crates full of crap that she and her sisters had brought home from college and never touched again. In the far right-hand corner, a stack of boxes drew her attention because they were the same boxes that were used at the MPD to house evidence and files. The sight of them made her feel light-headed.