“Royce Hamilton is up to his eyeballs in debt.”

Sam’s heart reacted to the burst of adrenaline by skipping in her chest. “Is he now?”

“There’s a lien on their house, which is mortgaged to the hilt.”

“And his kids were O’Connor’s likely heirs. Very interesting, indeed.”

“We also found a regular monthly payment of three thousand dollars from the senator’s personal account to a woman named Patricia Donaldson. I ran the name and came up with hundreds of hits, which I’ve got some people checking into.”

“We can ask his parents who she is.”

“Third thing, the tox screen on the senator was clean, except for the small amount of alcohol we already knew about. No drugs, prescription or otherwise.”

“Okay, that’s good,” she said, starting for the door. “One less thing to figure out.”

“Wait,” he said. “I wasn’t done.”

She waved an impatient hand to encourage him to proceed.

“They found porn on his home computer. A lot of it.”

“Kids?”

“None so far, but what’s there is hard core.”

She smoothed her hands over her hair. “Christ, can you believe a United States senator would take such chances?”

Freddie frowned at her use of the Lord’s name. “What do you suppose it means for the case?”

“I don’t know. Let me think about it. Any word on the warrant to search Christina Billings’s car and apartment?”

“I just checked when I went back to get the water and nothing yet.”

“What the hell is taking so long?” she fumed. “If we don’t have it by the time we finish with the parents, I’ll get the chief involved.”

“What about Hamilton?”

“After we get the wife and in-laws out of there, we’ll go at him.”

Freddie’s eyes lit up with anticipation. “Good cop, bad cop?”

“If necessary.”

“Can I be bad cop this time? Please?”

She shot him a withering look that said “as if.”

“I never get to be bad cop,” he said with a pout. “It’s so not fair.”

“Grow up, Freddie,” she shot over her shoulder as she crossed the hall to where the O’Connors waited. Before she opened the door, she took a moment to collect herself, to take her emotions out of the equation. She appreciated that Freddie knew her moods well enough by then not to question what she was doing or why. “Ready?”

He nodded.

Sam opened the door. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.” She did her best to avoid looking directly at the four faces ravaged by grief as she took them through what the police knew so far, leaving out anything that would compromise the integrity of the investigation.

“So you’re telling me that after two days, you’ve got absolutely nothing?” Graham said.