“If you didn’t kill her, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Right. I know how you people work. You’ll tie me to her through my spunk, and next thing you know, I’m a murderer. I take it back. I want a lawyer. I’m not saying another word until I have one.”

“Sure thing. I’ll make the call, and I’m requesting a warrant for your DNA. If that comes through, you’ll have no choice but to comply or risk additional charges. Right now, you’re only facing charges on the child support thing and resisting arrest. This could get a whole lot worse for you short of murder if you don’t cooperate.”

He gave her a mulish look and crossed his arms, sending the signal that their conversation was over.

She got up and pushed in her chair. “Detective Arnold, please take Mr. Hughes downstairs.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Sam walked out of the interrogation room and ran into Terrell as he and Malone came out of observation.

“I’m thinking he’s not our guy,” Terrell said.

“Your thinking matches mine. I tend to believe him when he said she left at two. It would be easy enough to prove he was elsewhere without her last night. I’ll call the people he listed to confirm he was at the party.”

“I’ll get the warrant for the DNA,” Malone said.

“We may as well close that loop.” Sam unclipped her hair and let it fall down her back, rubbing her fingertips over her scalp. “We’re right back to square one with figuring out who killed her. I’d really like to know where she went after she left his house.”

Archie came down the corridor toward where they were gathered. “There you are,” he said to Sam. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“What’ve you got?”

He handed her a thick pile of papers. “The dump on Lori Phillips’s phone. I’ve got something else that might interest you too.”

“What’s that?”

“The vic was found in a car parked near West Potomac Park, but the nine-one-one call reporting the body in the car came from ten blocks away.” He showed her an address that had Sam’s heart sinking. It was right near Gonzo’s place. Son of a bitch. “I listened to the recording of the call. It was a man, he was out of breath, said he’d been running and saw a body in a car. He wouldn’t give us his name or any other info.”

“Interesting. Thanks, Archie.”

“I did a quick look at the text messages and there’s some other stuff in there that might help. She did a lot of texting yesterday.”

“Just what I needed to put together her day. Appreciate this.”

“Sure, no problem.” He withdrew a flash drive from his pocket and gave that to her too. “The nine-one-one call is on here. Let me know if I can do anything else to help.”

“You’ve already done a lot, thanks again.” After Archie walked away, she said to Terrell and Malone, “Let’s get everyone into the conference room to see where we are.”

“You’re going to need to head home soon to get your beauty sleep for your TV appearances tomorrow,” Malone said with a teasing grin.

The reminder of her promise to appear with the chief made her groan. “No one said I had to be beautiful.”

Malone laughed. “Your public has big expectations. You wouldn’t want to let them down, would you?”

“Ugh, shut up.”

“See how she talks to her superior officers?” Malone said to Terrell, who chuckled.

“Her reputation does precede her,” Terrell said, his brown eyes twinkling. The good-looking dark-haired agent wore an expensive suit. That must be a thing with FBI agents—he who has the best suit wins.

“I’m sure you’ve heard nothing but how charming I am.”

“Yes, indeed,” he said. “That’s exactly what I’ve heard.”

“I like this guy,” Sam said. “He rolls with me.”

“She likes you,” Malone said. “Consider yourself fortunate.”

“I am indeed blessed,” Terrell replied drolly.

“And he’s sarcastic too.” Sam wanted to add that he also didn’t stare at her the way his superior officer did. “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

“I aim to please,” Terrell said with a grin.

They returned to the pit, where most of Sam’s team had gathered. “Everyone in the conference room. Ten minutes.” She took the printout Archie had given her into her office and shut the door. The first thing she did was plug the flash drive into her computer and call up the nine-one-one call.

“Nine-one-one, please state your emergency.”

“There’s a lady in a car,” a man said between heavy breaths. “I was running and saw her.”

“Where is the car located?” the operator asked.

“Near West Potomac Park. Constitution side.”

The voice sounded muffled as if the caller was holding something over the mouthpiece. Between that and the heavy breathing, it was difficult to get a read on whether she recognized the voice. She listened to it three more times, thinking of all the people who’d like to screw her and her team: Lieutenant Stahl, Detective Ramsey, her ex-husband, Peter Gibson... Not to mention the litany of criminals that had come through their doors.

Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make it seem possible that Gonzo could be at fault. Who would want to do that? She listened to the recording three more times and still had no more information than she’d had before. Ejecting the flash drive from her computer, she added it to her pile for the meeting, hoping someone else might hear something she’d missed.

Then she took a few minutes to go through the text messages downloaded from Lori’s phone. Archie had taken the extra step of cross-referencing the calls to names and numbers from Lori’s list of contacts. Sam appreciated that tremendously and planned to tell him so the next time she had the chance.

She gathered all her materials, tugged her ever-present notebook from her back pocket, grabbed her phone and a pen and headed for the conference room where her team had gathered, less Cruz and Gonzo. She’d never admit to feeling somewhat hobbled without them, but they were the two detectives she relied most heavily upon.

She had no choice but to press on without them. However, their absence made her more acutely aware of how valuable they were to her. Not that she’d ever tell them that.

Chapter Twelve

“Not sure everyone has met FBI Agent George Terrell,” Sam said when she took a seat at the head of the table. Chief Farnsworth and Captain Malone were standing in their usual positions in the back of the room. “He’s helping us out on this case since it involves someone connected to a member of our team.”

After a series of murmured hellos and nice to meet yous, Sam said, “Cruz is with Elin at the hospital. Apparently she was injured at work today.”

“Is she okay?” Arnold asked.

“She was talking and pissed, so I assume so. Who’s got an update on the case for me?”

“I’ll go,” Jeannie said. “Tyrone and I were able to track down the dentist Lori worked for. He said she was a good worker, prompt, professional and reliable—until a little over a month ago. After she lost the custody hearing, she seemed to lose interest in the job and everything else. She called in sick more often than she showed up and one of the other women in the office had suggested that she was on something. The dentist was planning to speak to her tomorrow and they were going to let her go. He said, and I’m quoting here, ‘We all felt for her after the custody hearing didn’t go her way, but the recent spiral was obvious to all of us, and something had to be done.’”

“Did he give you the sense that she knew her job was in jeopardy?” Sam asked.

“We got the feeling that if she knew, she wouldn’t have cared all that much.”

“The autopsy indicated an elevated BAC, as well as cocaine in her system, so the dentist and his staff were right that she was using again,” Sam said. She divided the stack of paper containing Lori’s text messages and handed some to each of her detectives. “Let’s track down these individuals and see what they know about her movements yesterday. I want a report on each person and what you find out about them. Shoot it to my email. Have we heard anything from Crime Scene’s search of her house?”