“Very good question,” Gonzo said. “We did some digging and found that the case against Gardner never went anywhere. It made it as far as the U.S. attorney and then the charges mysteriously disappeared.”

“No idea why?” Sam asked.

The two detectives exchanged glances. “We figured that was a question for you to ask,” Cruz said. “We took it this far and decided it was time to bring you in. This is your case. We didn’t want to step on toes. We just wanted to give you one of those threads you love to pull.”

Overwhelmed by what they’d done for her—and her dad—Sam stood and stepped around her desk to address two men who ranked among her closest friends, not that she’d ever tell them that. Didn’t matter. They knew. “You gave me far more than one thread, and I can’t thank you enough. You have no idea how badly I needed this right now.”

“Oh, well, no problem,” Cruz said, clearly flustered by her appreciation.

“Means a lot to me,” she added. “I won’t forget it.”

“Let’s hope it leads somewhere this time,” Gonzo said. He handed her another sheet of paper with the last known addresses for Simmons and Gardner as well as the bagged newspaper clippings about her father’s shooting that they’d found in Reece’s house.

“Yes,” Sam said. “Let’s hope.” She wasn’t sure she could withstand another disappointment just then.

Chapter 3

“I want to see Roberto first,” Sam decided.

“Been a while,” Freddie replied.

Sam didn’t like to think about the six months she’d spent undercover with the Johnson family. The investigation into a far-reaching drug ring in the city, a special assignment she’d been handpicked for, ended so badly she still had nightmares about the hail of gunfire that took young Quentin Johnson’s life.

Intellectually, Sam knew it hadn’t been her fault. Yes, she’d ordered her officers to return fire, but how could she have known that Marquis Johnson would be stupid enough to bring his young son to a crack house? In all the months she’d been undercover with the Johnsons, she had never once seen Quentin in that house. She was still struggling with the outcome more than nine months later.

“Don’t go there, Sam,” Freddie said, knowing how she’d suffered in the aftermath of that calamitous night.

“Hard not to.” For months after the incident, she had repeatedly woken in a sweat, after hearing Marquis’s tortured screams in her sleep. Sam shuddered. Only to close her father’s baffling case would she take a step back in time to the lowest point in her career.

“What do you think Roberto knows?”

“Everything that goes on in Washington Highlands. I should’ve thought to ask him about Reece’s house before now.”

“Don’t feel bad—I didn’t think of him, either.”