“Who would I tell?” he huffed. “If you don’t know by now that you can trust me—”

“If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t have told you.” She paused before she said, “I’m sorry you had to hear that stuff I said to Peter. I know it was embarrassing for you.”

“You got him to implicate himself, which is the goal of any interrogation.”

“Still…”

“I’m a big boy, Sergeant. I can handle it.”

She looked at him with new appreciation. “Copy me on those reports, and you can run your domestic angle in the morning while I’m at the funeral.”

“Got it.”

“Go home after you finish the paperwork.”

He held up a set of keys. “Your new ride, madam.”

“Ohhh, what’d you get me? One of the new Tauruses?”

“Yep. Navy blue.” He rattled off the parking space number.

“Nice. Thanks.”

“I might come by to watch the game later. I mean, if that’s all right with you.”

“My dad invited you, didn’t he?”

“Well, yeah, but…”

“But what?”

He smiled. “Nothing.”

She pulled on her coat. “I’ll see you later, then. Oh, and thanks for having my back with the scumbag.”

“No problem.” He followed her out of the office and closed the door behind him. “Sergeant Holland?”

She turned to him, perplexed by his formality.

“It’s a great pleasure to work with you.”

“Back atcha, Detective. Right back atcha.”

On her way out of the detectives’ pit, she stopped to peek into the office that would soon be hers. Since the day she made detective, she’d had her eye on the lieutenant’s spacious corner office. However, because of her struggles with dyslexia, she hadn’t really allowed herself to hope.

She turned to leave and ran smack into Lieutenant Stahl.

“Would you jump in my grave that fast, Sergeant?”

Taken aback by his sudden appearance, Sam stepped aside to let him in and noticed he carried a box.

“You must be feeling quite satisfied.” He flipped on the lights and dropped the box on the desk. “Shagged a witness, made lieutenant, stole my command and got away with it—all in the same week.”

Sam leaned against the doorframe and let him spew, fascinated by the way his fat chin jiggled in time with his venomous words.

“I mean do you honestly think you’d have gotten away with screwing a witness if your daddy wasn’t the chief’s buddy?” He tossed pictures and mementos into the box. “You can bet internal affairs will be interested in taking a closer look at that. In fact, you might just be my very first order of business.”

Sam pretended to hang on his every word while she planned where to put her own things in the space.