“Nico, do something!”

“Shut up, Hoda! I helped you out, and this is the thanks I get?”

She seemed more upset by his harsh words than she did by the fact she was being arrested.

Freddie recited the Miranda warning, advising them to remain silent lest anything they said be used against them in court.

“Nico, please don’t be mad at me. I can’t handle that.”

“Shut up,” he growled.

“I love you! I never meant for any of this to happen.”

“Hoda, I said to shut the fuck up before you make this worse for both of us.”

“How could it be worse? They’re taking me away from you. I need you!”

Sam let them air it out in the hope that they might say something incriminating. She sniffled and wiped at a pretend tear. “This is so heartbreaking, isn’t it, Detective Cruz?”

“I’m positively decimated,” Freddie said, making Sam smile and Hoda cry harder, if that was possible.

“Let’s get crime scene here to go through the place to see what other secrets our friend Nico has been keeping besides his teenage lover,” Sam said.

“I’ll make the call,” one of the patrolmen said. “And we’ll wait for them.”

“Appreciate that,” Sam said. “Make sure they get the bullet she aimed at me.”

“You have no grounds to search my house,” Nico said with growing agitation. “I didn’t do anything. She did.”

Hoda let out a wail that made Sam cringe. “Nico!”

“The minute she pulled a weapon on cops this became a crime scene, pal. Perhaps if you chose playmates your own age, none of this would be happening. Let’s get them to HQ.”

“Keep your fucking mouth shut, Hoda,” Nico growled on the way out the door. “I mean it.”

“Nico, please. I love you. Don’t be this way.”

“I see she has trouble with basic orders,” Sam said with a wince. “That could be a problem when I get her into interrogation.”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“Sure, it makes my day to nearly get my head shot off by an eighteen-year-old girl who’s been allowed to run wild. Are we going to find evidence that you’ve been having all kinds of sex with her while she was holed up with you? Oh, holed up. What a great pun. Did you catch that, Nico? Holed up? Were you holed up in her?”

“You’re a bitch,” he growled.

“It absolutely makes my day when scumbags bring out the B word. Doesn’t it, Detective Cruz.”

“One of your favorite things, Lieutenant.”

They stashed Nico in the back of the second patrol car that had responded to the scene and sent him to be processed.

Hoda, still ugly crying, was put into the back of Sam’s car. When they were on their way to HQ, Sam said, “I hate to see these teenage love affairs go bad.”