She pretended to gaze intently into the file she had carried into the room with her. “The reason you’re here is you failed to attend the safe driving course the judge ordered after your DUI.”

“You aren’t serious.”

Sam glanced at Freddie.

“She’s serious,” Freddie said.

“I meant to,” Terry stammered.

“Why don’t we talk about why we’re really here?” the attorney said.

“Give me a lie detector.”

Grabbing Terry’s shirt, the attorney yanked him into a chair. “Shut up, Terry.”

“Mr. O’Connor, have you been advised of your rights?” Sam asked.

“The cops you sent to haul me out of my parents’ house before dawn went through all that,” he spat back at her.

“Do we have your permission to record this interview?”

“At the advice of counsel,” the attorney drawled in a honeyed Southern accent, “Mr. O’Connor will cooperate with this farce—within reason.”

“Isn’t that good of him?” Sam asked Freddie.

“Real good,” Freddie agreed as he turned on the recorder and noted for the record who was in the room and why.

“It’s now been ninety-six hours since your brother’s body was discovered in his apartment,” Sam said. “You say you spent the night of the murder with a woman you met in a Loudoun County bar. Can you give me her name?”

“No,” Terry said, dejected.

“Have you found anyone who can confirm you left the establishment with this imaginary woman?”

“She wasn’t imaginary!” he cried, slapping his hand on the table.

“Witnesses?”

He slumped back into his chair. “No.”

“That kind of puts you in a bit of a pickle, doesn’t it?” she asked as Nick’s words echoed through her mind—you’re barking up the wrong tree with Terry. She had to admit that the buzz she got from knowing she had a suspect’s nuts on the block and all she had to do was lower the boom was missing here.

“Is there a relevant question coming any time soon?” the attorney drawled.

Sam hammered Terry hard for ninety minutes, reduced him to a whimpering, sniveling baby, but he never deviated from his original statement. Finally, needing to regroup, she asked for a word with Freddie in the hallway.

Malone waited for them outside the observation room door. “Spring him.” Frustration pooled in her aching belly. She nodded to Freddie. “Tell him to stay local and to get that safe driving class done within thirty days.”

“Got it.”

When they were alone, she looked up at Malone. “I had to rule him out.”

“And you all but have.” He lowered his voice. “They brought Peter in thirty minutes ago.”

“He’s mine.”

“No one’s saying otherwise. But you know we can take care of him if you aren’t up to it—”

“I’m up to it—after he chills in the cooler for a little while longer.”