Christina held him close, encouraging him to snuggle into her embrace.

Watching Christina with the baby gave Sam a pang of longing. She’d been trying to have a baby for most of her adult life with no luck, and when Alex had dropped into Gonzo’s life out of the blue she’d been filled with unreasonable jealousy.

“Can we make a statement?” Christina switched into professional mode as the initial shock passed. “If we come out ahead of the story, then they can’t drag us through the mud.”

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Sam said. “Here’s the bottom line—you both have motive, and you’re each other’s alibi.”

“How can you say that?” Christina asked angrily. “You’re our friend. You know us! You can’t honestly think we’d be capable of killing someone.”

“Babe.” The calm tone of Gonzo’s voice belied the panic Sam still saw in his eyes as well as the grim set of his mouth. “Sam’s right. She’s playing devil’s advocate. It doesn’t matter what we know to be true. What matters is what everyone else will believe and say.”

“There has to be something we can do. We never left this apartment from the time we got home from the grocery store yesterday afternoon.”

“Does the building have security cameras?” Sam asked.

“I think it does,” Gonzo said, brightening.

“I’ll get a warrant.” Sam pulled her phone from her pocket and placed a call to Captain Malone, her mentor and boss.

“Happy New Year,” he said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I need a warrant,” Sam said without preamble.

“For?”

“The apartment building where Detective Sergeant Gonzales and his fiancée live with his son.” Sam gave him the address. “I need the security footage.”

“Um, do you mind if I ask why?”

“The mother of his son was found murdered this morning. We’re seeking to prove that neither he nor his fiancée left the house from the time they arrived home yesterday afternoon to the present time.”

“Holy Christ,” Malone said in barely more than a whisper.

“Warrant? Yes?”

“Yeah, I’m on it. I’ll be back to you ASAP.”

“Thanks. We haven’t told anyone who our vic is yet. I’d appreciate you keeping the lid on it until we figure out a plan.”

“Done. Will you be at the noon meeting?”

“I’ll be there.”

“See you then.”

“What did he say?” Gonzo asked the second Sam ended the call.

“He’s getting the warrant. Does the building have a super or a manager?”

Gonzo nodded. “He’s on the first floor. A guy named Tony. I can’t remember his last name.”

“He’s in 1A,” Christina added.

“I’m going down to talk to him,” Sam said. “Sit tight and try not to worry. If you didn’t do anything, you have nothing to worry about.”

“If?” Christina asked, incredulous. “You really don’t believe us when we say we had nothing to do with this, do you?”

“I do believe you. But I need to prove that as fast as I possibly can so no one has a chance to ruin your lives with innuendo.”

“Go ahead, Sam,” Gonzo said, sounding resigned. “We’ll stay here.”

“Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t take any calls. Don’t make any. Got me?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I got you.”

She certainly didn’t have to tell him how important the next few hours would be to maintaining control of this situation. She went down the stairs to find the super, stopping short at the sight of several men working on something inside the main door. “Is one of you Tony?”

“That’d be me,” a tall, muscular black man said. “What can I do for you?”

Sam flashed her badge. “Lieutenant Holland, Metro PD.”

“Ahhh, the VP’s wife,” Tony said, smiling. “We got a celebrity in our midst, fellas.”

The men with him stopped what they were doing to take a good long look at her, which made her skin crawl. She hated when people brought up her personal life when she was on the job. Why did everyone have to make such a BFD out of who she was married to? What did it matter?

“Right now I’m a cop, and I have questions,” she said brusquely.

“What can I do for you?”

“The building has security cameras?”

He gestured to the other men. “It does. They’re fixing them as we speak. Why?”

Sam’s stomach sank at that news. “How long have they been broken?”

“Since about noon yesterday. I noticed it this morning. That one there?” He pointed to the camera that monitored the vestibule. “It was hanging from its wires when I came home from my girl’s place. I called these guys in and paid extra since it’s a holiday. We take security seriously around here.” He paused, glancing up the stairs. “One of your guys lives here.”

“That’s right.” If she could get a look at who disabled the system, it might help. “I’ve requested a warrant for the security footage.”

“How come?” he asked, suspicious now.

“It’s part of an ongoing investigation. I’m not at liberty to discuss the details. Am I going to have to wait for the warrant to receive your cooperation or can you help me?”

“I’m not really sure I’m allowed to just hand over the video. I’d need to check with my boss.”

“Can you do that now?”

“Sure.” He stepped into his apartment and closed the door behind him.

“What happened to the cameras?” Sam asked the workers.

“Someone unscrewed it from its anchor and left it to dangle,” one of them said. “The only footage you’re gonna get is of the floor.”

And of course they’d had their hands all over it as they fixed it, wiping away any prints that might’ve been left behind. Sam felt increasingly queasy as the implications set in. Without the camera, they’d have no way to prove that Gonzo and Christina never left the building last night.

Sam’s phone rang and she took the call from Freddie while she waited for Tony to return. “What’s up?”

“Lindsey is about to transport the vic to the morgue. Crime Scene is here, and they’re looking for the okay to take the car back to the lab.”

Stepping out of earshot of the workers, Sam said, “Let them take it. We need a thread to pull. I’ll take whatever I can get.”

“You talked to him?”

Sam appreciated that he didn’t name names. “Yeah, he’s shaken but adamant. Neither of them left the apartment from the time they got home from the grocery store yesterday afternoon.”

“Good,” Freddie said with an audible sigh of relief. “That’s really good.”

“Except we can’t prove it.” She told him about the disabled camera in the building’s vestibule.

“Oh, crap. So what now?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m waiting to hear if the super is going to be able to get me the video they do have. If we can get an image of someone disabling the camera, that would at least give us something to go on. Malone is getting a warrant, but I’ve asked the super to cooperate. He’s calling the building owner.”

“Sam...”

“I know. Believe me. I know.”

“What can I do?”

“Rip her life apart. Find me someone else who had motive, and do it as fast as you can. I want the whole squad on this one. Call everyone in, tell them the order is from me.”

“Okay.” His relief at having something to do was conveyed with the single word. Gonzo was one of his closest friends, as well as his colleague, and he’d want to do anything he could to help him.

“Work fast. This investigation will probably be taken out of our hands the minute the brass finds out who our vic is.”

“Got it. I’m all over it.”

“Keep me posted. I have a meeting with the chief at noon, and then I’ll find you.”

“Assume it’s okay to share what we know so far with the rest of the squad?”

“Yes.” Sam agreed reluctantly. The more people who knew, the more likely they were to have a leak, not that any of her people would breathe a word without her approval. Still, if she had her way, no one would know who their vic was until they’d found someone else who’d wanted her dead.

Tony emerged from his apartment.