“I’m sure you two have cooked up a plan to toss me into a safe house for the weekend,” she said to her father and the chief, “but that’s not going to happen.” Before they could protest, she held up a hand to stop them. “I’m going to continue to work this case until I close it, and I’m not going to let punks or terrorists or whoever strapped an ED to my car and Nick’s take me off the streets. The minute they think they have that kind of power over me, I’m done on this job and you know it.”

Pausing, she made eye contact with each of them again. “I know you’re worried, and I know you care. But if you care about me at all, don’t ask me to be a coward. I won’t deny that bomb scared the shit out of me.” She let her gaze fall on Nick. “When I saw your face covered with blood, my heart almost stopped. So I’m going to get them. If for no other reason than they hurt you, and that’s simply unacceptable to me.”

Nick’s hard expression softened into a smile that engaged his eyes and filled her heart with emotions she had never experienced quite so strongly before.

To Farnsworth, she said, “Let me do my job. I’ll take every precaution I can. I’ll run things from here, stay as close to home as I can, but I won’t hide out. I dare any of you to tell me you wouldn’t rather go down in the line than run scared from scum who think they can take us out like yesterday’s garbage.”

A full minute of silence ensued, during which she noticed Farnsworth and Malone watching her dad and understood they were going to take their cues from him.

“I’d like to see that immigration bill,” Skip finally said. He glanced at Nick. “I’m a political junky in my spare time. I might catch something in there we can use.”

“I’ll get it for you.” Nick checked his watch as he stood up. “My staff should be back from Richmond by now, so let me make a call. What format do you prefer?”

“A fax would work. We can pop it right into my reading device. I can see two pages at once that way. Skip rattled off the number and followed Nick into the kitchen.

“I’m going to go lean on the lab to speed things up with the boomer,” Malone said as he pulled on his coat.

Sam was left alone with the chief. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“Do you?”