Fatal Reckoning Read online

  “Can we talk?” Jake gestured to where Joe waited. “Out here?”

  Conklin glanced at Joe and then at Jake. “Uh, yeah. Sure. Let me grab a coat.”

  Jake came down the stairs and joined Joe at the car.

  Conklin joined them a minute later. “What’s going on?”

  Joe took the lead. “We’ve been following up on some info that came into the tip line after Skip died. Does the name Frank Davis mean anything to you?”

  Conklin thought about that for a second. “No. Should it?”

  “He claims he was on G Street the day Skip was shot, rendered aid to him in the aftermath of the shooting and gave a statement to you that we have no record of.”

  “He said he talked to me?”

  “He named you and picked you out of photos of the department’s top leadership.”

  “I never talked to anyone on G Street that day. I wasn’t even there. I went to the hospital after I got the call about the shooting.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “I’m positive. I was at HQ when the officer-down call came in, and I went straight to the GW ER.” His stance took a defensive edge. “You really thought I’d keep something like this to myself for four years? Just because I didn’t tell you about Wallack? Skip was my friend. He saved my life and my career once upon a time.”

  The story of Conklin’s downward spiral after the end of his first marriage was well-known by Joe and Jake.

  “Who brought this to you?”

  “Holland and Cruz.”

  “Of course it was her.” Conklin’s laugh had a bitter edge to it. “Why’d I even ask?”

  “Don’t blame her,” Joe said sharply. “What was she supposed to do with this and the Wallack info?”

  “No worries.” Conklin scoffed. “I certainly know whose side you both are on. Everyone knows.”

  “I’m on the side of the department and the honest men and women who serve this city,” Joe said, infuriated. “Are you? I didn’t take your badge on the Wallack thing, but if I find out that what you told us about Davis isn’t true, you’re done—and I’ll see you prosecuted. So think about it tonight. Think long and hard about that day and make sure you’re remembering correctly. You know where to find me in the morning.” To Jake, he said, “Let’s go.”

  They drove by Conklin, still standing where they’d left him, as they exited his development.

  The drive back to the city was no less tense than the first half of the trip had been.

  “You believe him?” Jake asked after a long silence.

  “I don’t know what to believe.”

  “We could ask him to take a polygraph.”

  “And what if it gets out that we’re polygraphing our deputy chief?” Joe cringed at the thought of that PR nightmare.

  “So, it’s basically the word of a guy we’ve known and worked with for decades against this Davis dude, who swears he talked to Conklin that day?”

  “If the thing with Wallack hadn’t happened, I’d take Conklin’s word for it. But after that... I just don’t know what to say.”

  Jake looked over at Joe. “Why don’t we dig into Davis a little deeper and get a sense of how credible he is?”

  “We can take a high-level look but nothing too in-depth. I don’t want to rip the guy’s life apart after he was good enough to call the tip line.”

  “One question I have is where’s he been the last four years? He gave the report to Conklin, and that was the end of it for him?”

  “He probably thought we’d do the right thing with the info and what more could he do?”

  “I dunno. If I witnessed something like what he did, every time Sam mentioned the case was still open, I’d be calling to see if I could do anything more to help.”

  A knot of dread tightened in Joe’s gut. “Maybe he did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Get Davis’s phone number and then personally take a look at the records of every call Conklin has received in the office since the day Skip was shot. Find out whether Davis ever called him after that day. Ask Archelotta for the records for all the top leadership so he won’t know who we’re focused on. Tell him to call me for approval.”

  “I’ll take care of it first thing, and I’ll ask Holland and Cruz to take a high-level look at Davis.”

  “Maybe Davis remembered incorrectly.”

  “What if he didn’t? Will you really bring charges against Conklin?”

  “You bet your ass I will.”

  * * *

  SAM HELPED NICK tuck Aubrey and Alden into bed and then went in to check on Scotty. “Everything ready for tomorrow, bud?”

  “Define everything.”

  She rolled her eyes at his predictable comment. “Is most of the homework done anyway?”

  “Define most.”

  “Scotty!”

  He laughed. “Chill, Mom. It’s all good. Dad has already gone through my planner and my backpack to make sure I did everything.”

  Hearing him call her Mom never got old. “Thank God for Dad.”

  “He really is essential to the entire program.”

  “You know it. Celia said you were there this afternoon. She really appreciated your visit.”

  “I love going there after school. It’s weird that Gramps isn’t there, though. I keep waiting for him to come rolling in.”

  “I know. I was just there and felt the same way. I can’t bear to look in the dining room.”

  “Will we take down the ramps?”

  “Eventually, I suppose. I don’t think we need to do that right away.”

  “It’ll be so different out there without them, like it’s different without him.”

  Sam nodded.

  Scotty sat up, reached for her and gave her a hug that brought tears to her eyes.

  She held him for as long as she could before he began to squiggle to get free. “Thanks. I needed that.”

  “No problem.”

  She leaned in to kiss his forehead. “Love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  “Lights out.” She waited until he’d shut off the light before she left the room and closed the door, recalling when her father used to do the same with her. Every night, she turned the light back on, and every night, he came busting in to catch her, scaring the crap out of her. Then they would laugh. The joke never got old.

  Her whole life, they’d had the ability to crack each other up. She could meet his gaze across a crowded room and know exactly what he was thinking and vice versa. They understood each other on a cellular level. It had been no surprise to anyone who knew them that she’d followed him into the MPD. She hadn’t seriously considered any other profession.

  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 f
urther. 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.”

  “Anything for you—and him.”

  “He loved you. I hope you know that.”

  His warm hazel eyes filled. “I loved him too.”

  “Remember when you were afraid he was going to have you killed for being in my bedroom?”

  “I remember everything, and I’m quite certain that even in his paralyzed state, he could’ve arranged it.”

  Sam laughed. “Oh, he definitely could have, but he knew you were different from everyone else the first time he saw us together.”

  “After your ex-husband tried to blow us up?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Ahh, yes, those were some good times, huh?”

  “The best times of my entire life.”

  “You need to get out more.”

  “I don’t need anything other than what and who I have right here in this bed and this house.” Smiling, he gave her a gentle tug to bring her fully on top of him, putting her lips into kissing range. Anytime he looked at her that way or kissed her so sweetly, her insides still fluttered. “I think about our first days together all the time. In the midst of the madness of John’s murder, there you were, the woman I’d dreamed about for six long years.”

  “Did you really dream about me?”

  “I thought about you constantly. My only regret in this life is that I didn’t go after you when you didn’t return my calls.”

  “My only regret is that I didn’t hunt you down when you didn’t call me like you said you would.”

  “I called you the second I got back from the trip to Europe. I called you from the airport.”

  “You did? You’ve never told me that.”

  “If you had answered the phone, I would’ve come straight to you.”

  Sam groaned at hearing that. “It’s a good thing Peter is dead, or I might be tempted to do it myself.” Her ex-husband had been her platonic roommate at the time Sam first met Nick. Since Peter had been interested in her himself, he’d failed to give her the critical messages from Nick. “What do you think would’ve happened if he’d given me those messages?”

  “We’d be married for almost eight years rather than almost two.”

  Sam dropped her head to his chest. “I can’t even think about it or I’ll go mad.” Raising her head, she met his loving gaze. “Thank God we found each other again, because I wouldn’t be able to survive this life without you. You can’t ever leave me.”

  “Leave you? Where would I go when I can’t breathe without you? I almost lost my mind having to live without you for a week, even when I talked to you every day.”

  “There are other ways you can leave me.” She couldn’t think about the people who hated him and what he stood for as vice president. If she did, she’d lose what was left of her sanity.

  “I don’t want you to worry about me. I’m very well protected.”

  “And yet still I worry.”

  “Let’s talk about a worst-case scenario, then.”

  She recoiled. “Do we have to?”

  “We never have before, and every day I have to send you out there to hunt down criminals who would think nothing of taking you away from me. As much as you might worry about me, let’s face it, it’s much harder being me in this marriage.”

  “I know.”

  “So let’s talk worst-case. Maybe if we do, it won’t have the power to frighten us the way it does now.”

  “There are about twenty million other things I’d rather talk about. Such as...” She shifted her pelvis to press against his cock, which sprang to life under her.

  “Quit it. I’m serious.”

  “So am I.” She kissed his neck and took a gentle bite under his jaw.

  He buried his fingers in her hair and compelle
d her to look at him. “Tell me what you would do if the worst thing happened. I really want to know.”

  “Whereas I can’t bear to even think about it.”

  “Humor me.”

  Sighing, she realized he wasn’t going to let this go. “After my six-month stay in a padded room, I’d probably take up drinking for a living. I’d do whatever it took to dull the worst pain I could ever imagine feeling. Just thinking about it is unbearable.”

  “For me too.”

  “What would you do?”

  “I’d make sure that you were honored for your service the way your father was, for one thing.”

  “You’re so much better at this than I am. I’m in a padded room while you’re seeing to my legacy.”

  The sound of his laughter went a long way toward relieving some her tension and reminded her that despite the what-if game, he was very much alive. Thank God for that.

  “I’d be out of my mind with grief,” he said. “Don’t ever think otherwise.”

  “Would you remarry?”

  “Would you?”

  “I asked first. Answer the question.”

  “I probably wouldn’t. How would I ever top this?”

  “What if someone came along who made you happy again?” She seethed with jealousy at the thought of him with anyone but her.

  “What would you want me to do?”

  Sam flashed a big goofy grin. “Stab her with a rusty steak knife?”

  “Why did I know you were going to say that?” His fingers sifted through her hair in a soothing rhythm.

  “If I’m truly gone and you find someone who makes you happy, I suppose it would be okay with me if you married her, but you can’t be as happy with her as you were with me. That’s my line in the sand.”

  His gorgeous hazel eyes danced with amusement. “I suppose that’s fair enough. Now, tell me what you would do.”

  “I would never remarry.”

  “Even if you found someone who made you happy again?”

  “Even then.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’d want to be Samantha Cappuano for the rest of my life.”