“They told us how you lured Willie to the seedy motel by blackmailing him with info about how he’d spent time there before with underage girls. How did you know that? Did your lover boy Rick tell you he’d seen Willie there before? Did you tell him you were going to call his wife, Elle? Is that how you got him there?”

Without skipping a beat, Sam continued. “Doesn’t really matter how you got him there. Boris and Horace took over once he arrived, didn’t they? They put him in a room with Amber, hoping to distract him with sex, before they killed him in one place, dumped him in another and took his car somewhere else and all but destroyed it. Did they use Willie’s own baseball bats to destroy the car he’d loved so much? That would’ve been poetic, right? You must’ve been pretty pissed off with Willie to use almost the last of your available funds to pay Boris and Horace to do your dirty work for you.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Elle said, a little less forcefully since Sam had offered a time line of how Willie’s murder had gone down.

“Rick was a little more personal, since you’d been banging him on the side. You thought you could count on him to give you what you needed with the season on the line, but he didn’t get it done for you either, did he? All he had to do was strike out three batters. Three measly batters and the Feds would be in the World Series, and you’d get the influx of cash you desperately needed to save your daddy’s empire. But it didn’t happen, did it? One of the best closers in baseball couldn’t get it done for you, could he?”

Elle crossed her arms and raised her chin defiantly. “I want a lawyer.”

“No problem. Who would you like us to call?”

She named one of Washington’s top law firms. “Tell them I want someone over here tonight to get me out of here.”

Sam didn’t bother to tell her there was no way she was getting out of there any time soon. She’d figure that out soon enough. “I’ll give them a call. I’m sure they’re standing by at the ready at this hour on a Friday night.”

She walked out of the room, letting the door slam shut behind her. A patrolman stood watch outside the door. “No one goes in or out of there without me knowing.”

“Yes, ma’am, Lieutenant.”

Sam went to the observation room to see how Hill and Cruz were making out with the bodyguards.

Horace was in tears, sobbing loudly as Cruz took him through the same scenario Sam had laid out for Elle.