“Do what you need to. We’ll be here.”

“Thank you for always understanding.”

His soft laughter made her smile. “I owe you a lifetime of understanding after these last couple of months.”

“Yes, you certainly do.”

“Be safe out there. We love you.”

“Love you, too.”

She ended the call and made another to Lindsey.

“Hi there,” Lindsey said. “Are you still working?”

“I am. Do you have Mary Alice Albright?”

“Yes, I was just about to get started.”

“I think this could be related to Spencer.”

“I wondered if that was a possibility.”

“She had bad knee trouble, multiple surgeries and the doctors cut off the pain meds, which makes me wonder if she went looking for them elsewhere.”

Lindsey’s deep sigh said it all. “I’ll get on it and let you know.”

“Thank you.”

As she slapped her phone closed, Sam heard voices outside and walked to the door to admit Haggerty and his team.

“What’ve you got?” Haggerty asked.

“Mary Alice Albright, age twenty-nine, wife and mother of two young children, found deceased in her bed this morning. I’m looking for pills, possibly in a white packet, but any medication you find will need to be analyzed.”

“We’ll get going, and I’ll tag you with anything we find.”

“Thanks. Officer Charles will be back in a bit. She’s with me now.”

“Got it.”

Sam took a last look at Mary Alice and Brad’s former happily ever after before she zipped her coat and headed out to where Vernon waited for her.

He held the door for her. “Where to?”

“Back to HQ, please.”

She wanted to see what Gonzo and Freddie had gotten from Spencer’s phone and make a plan for the next day before she headed home.

Jake Malone touched down in NOLA at six o’clock local time and took a cab to his hotel in the French Quarter. According to Norm, Tom Rosa worked in a bar in the Quarter and was there most nights. This being his first time in N’awlins, Jake was determined to see some of the sights while he was there and try to enjoy his forced break from the grind.

Joe said he had nothing to worry about with the IA investigation, so Jake was doing his best to relax while he could. His wife, Valerie, had declined his invitation to join him because she was scheduled to volunteer at the local hospital the next day, and it was too late to change her plans. They’d have to come back here together sometime. They had a long list of places they wanted to visit if he ever got around to retiring. Val had retired two years ago after twenty-five years in a first-grade classroom and was after him to join her in retirement.

He'd said he wasn’t ready yet, but the Ramsey shooting had him questioning everything, including his desire to keep working for a few more years when he could retire at any time. If he were being honest, he was bloody sick of it all—and even more so after the last year of shocking revelations about longtime colleagues. They’d known for years that Len Stahl was a bad cop, but to find out that Paul Conklin had sat on info that could’ve solved Skip’s case years ago was something Jake still struggled with months later.