He snatched the notebook from her hand. “Your superiors will be hearing about this.”

“They enjoy getting complaints about me doing my job. Should I give you the best number to reach them?”

Cook thrust the notebook back at her. “Tell your boyfriend he needs to learn to keep his mouth shut if he plans to make any friends around here.”

“You aren’t threatening him, are you, Senator?”

“Of course not,” Cook huffed. “I’m just pointing out that blabbing to cops is no way to make friends.”

“I’m sure that making friends around here is of far less concern to him than finding the person who killed his real friend. Detective?”

Jeannie followed Sam from the room. “That was ill.”

“Is that good or bad?” Sam asked, baffled.

“Good,” Jeannie said. “Very good.”

“Ill. I like that.” Sam filed it away for future use.

Freddie shivered in the icy cold, his eyes fixed on Reese’s house. He’d turned on the car and heater half an hour before, but the warm air had made him too sleepy. Even though he was freezing, he burned with anger directed at Sam, Elin and mostly himself. This was his own fault. If he had remained true to his faith and his beliefs, he’d be working a homicide with his partner right now rather than sitting in a frigid timeout. The day grew dark early as heavy clouds hung over the city, and Freddie fought to stay awake.

He should’ve known Sam would zero in on the lie. “Stupid,” he muttered, his breath coming out in puffy clouds. Shrinking deeper into his coat, he wanted to smack the crap out of Elin. Except, of course, he never would. But it sure was nice to fantasize about spanking that perfect ass. When his body reacted with infuriating predictability to that image, Freddie roared with frustration, aggravation and shame.

Since he hadn’t gotten to take a shower, her essence clung to his skin. Images from their erotic night together tortured him like a movie he couldn’t seem to escape. As much as he wanted to throttle her, he feared that if she appeared beside the car right now, throttling wouldn’t be the first thing he’d do to her.

Freddie checked the clock on the dashboard. “Three more hours. I’ll die before then.” He wanted a shower, a warm bed and eight uninterrupted hours of sleep so bad he was tempted to sell his well-protected soul to the devil to get them. With a mighty yawn, he reached for his cell phone wishing he could call Sam to find out what was going on with the Sinclair case.