“Could I ask you something?” he said, zeroing in on her in that intense way he did so well.

“I guess.”

“Your assistant, Shelby.”

“What about her?”

“A while back, she asked me to have coffee with her. Since I’ll be sticking around, I was thinking I might take her up on the invite.”

Sam had no idea what to say to that. “Oh.”

“Would that a problem for you?”

“I, um... I don’t see why it would be.” As long as Shelby kept him far, far away from Sam and Nick’s house, that would be fine, right? Sam made a mental note to address that with their assistant pronto.

He nodded. “See you around, Sam.”

“Right,” she said as he went out the door and into the night. “See you.” As she went back to her workstation to continue processing arrest reports, she also tried to process the latest info on pesky Agent Hill. She’d thought him long gone to assignments out West, but instead he was not only staying in town but also thinking about going out with their assistant.

Far too close for comfort, she decided.

A few minutes later, Hill came back into the station, seeming a bit shaken. He came right over to the bull pen where she was working. “Lieutenant, I need a word in private, please.”

“My office.”

They walked in silence to the detectives’ pit where Sam gestured for him to go into her office. She shut the door behind them. “What’s up?”

“I just got a call from my friend Ray Jestings, the owner of the Feds.”

“You’re friends with the guy who owns the Feds?”

“We grew up together in Charleston. He married Elle Kopelsman.”

Sam blew out a low whistle at the mention of one of Washington’s most illustrious families. The Kopelsman family was the closest thing Washington had to royalty. As the owner of the Washington Star newspaper, Harlan Kopelsman had campaigned tirelessly for years to bring Major League Baseball to the nation’s capital and then died of a massive stroke midway through the team’s first season.

Elle was Harlan’s daughter, a blonde-about-town who’d made a name for herself as a socialite and philanthropist. When her father died, she took over the Star and her husband took control of the team.

“Anyway, Ray told me that Vasquez’s wife is frantic because she can’t reach him, and according to the team, he left the stadium quite some time ago.”

“They let him leave without security? Are they for real?”

“Apparently, he refused the offer of security, and Ray didn’t argue with him in light of what they’re dealing with in and around the stadium.”

“Can you get me the make and model of his car and the plate number? I’ll put our people on the lookout for him.”