Bitterness threatened to consume her as she added another item to the long list of things a nameless, faceless shooter had taken from her father, from all of them. But now when she imagined the person who shot her father, she pictured Clarence Reese. She just wished they could find him. They’d scoured the city all day but had turned up no sign of him either with family members or at any of his usual haunts.

Hands braced against the dresser, Sam let her head hang between her shoulders, rolling off the tension—or attempting to. Hours of sifting and digging had also found no connection between Skip Holland and Clarence Reese. Not an arrest, a traffic stop, a verbal warning, nothing—unless Skip had had some sort of undocumented altercation with Clarence. To find that out, she’d have to ask her father, but she wasn’t prepared to do that until they had more. She refused to set him up for yet another disappointment.

Taking a deep breath, she attempted to shut down her mind, to leave the investigation for tomorrow. Tonight was for celebration—at least that was the plan. Sam didn’t feel much like celebrating and was almost resentful that her new personal obligations were pulling her away from what she really wanted to be doing right now.

She ran a brush through her long toffee-colored curls and applied a light touch of eye shadow. Maybe she wasn’t in the mood to party, but she’d be damned if she’d go out looking like crap.

As she bent to zip high-heeled black boots, Nick stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. From between her legs she saw that he wore a black sweater over well-faded jeans that hugged him in all the right places.

“Mmm, mmm, mmm, that’s one hell of a view,” he said, taking a good long look at her ass.

She shot him an upside-down scowl.

“Uh-oh. What’s wrong?”

Righting, she ran her fingers through her hair. “Nothing.”

“Something.”

“Stop acting like you know me so well,” she snapped.

With a slow, sexy smile that she watched unfold in the mirror, he came up behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “I do know you so well.” He punctuated his words with a brush of his lips over her neck that made her tremble. “See?”

Sam tried—and failed—to shake him off.

“I know you’re frustrated, babe—”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I know I love you, and I hate to see you hurting.”

Damn if he didn’t always know just how to get to her! The starch left her spine, and she sagged into his embrace.

His chin settled on the top of her head, his arms tightened around her waist. In the mirror, he found her eyes. “Talk to me.”

“It makes me so mad!”

“What does?”