Sam rushed up the red-carpeted stairs to the residence to retrieve her weapon, cuffs, badge wallet, notebook and keys from the locked drawer in her bedside table and was on her way back down in under a minute. Though she felt terrible about leaving the family vacation, something akin to euphoria came over her when she was heading to do the job she loved so much—even when the shit was hitting the fan.

She had no idea what to expect when she got to HQ, which was a rare feeling. Usually, she knew exactly who and what she was when it came to the job. She knew who her friends were and kept them close while monitoring her enemies, of which there was one less with Ramsey fired—for now, anyway. If they let him come back to work after he’d ransacked her office and threatened her more than once—with witnesses—she might lose faith in the system designed to weed out those who didn’t belong among their ranks.

Human nature being what it was, there were going to be bad apples in any organization, but the disappointment when those things happened was profound nonetheless. How could Stahl live with knowing that murders and kidnappings in their city had gone uninvestigated for years? And yes, that was a rhetorical question considering the many other ways Stahl had turned out to be morally deficient. But how could you be paid to do a job and then just not do it? In their line of work, not doing the job allowed kidnappers and murderers to run free to terrorize innocent people.

As she considered Stahl’s many fuckups, she also had to accept that her dad and others in command had either turned a blind eye or had been unaware of his lack of effort. Or they’d been so overworked during times of tight budgets that they hadn’t noticed. Whatever the reason, the blowback could put a dent in Skip’s legacy, and that possibility made her sick.

As she approached HQ, she was shocked to see media trucks lining the road a half mile from the building. “Holy shit,” she whispered. This was even bigger than the turnout right after Nick had become president, and they’d come looking for scoops on the first lady police officer.

If she was looking for proof that this would be a day unlike any other, the media crowd was her first clue. She could only imagine how furious the chief must be. As she always did in times of intense press coverage, she drove around to the morgue entrance in the back, but even that was staked out. “Shit.”

She was thankful for the presence of Vernon and Jimmy, who would get her inside without being accosted. Vernon signaled for her to wait for them. No problem, she thought. Not that she couldn’t defend herself, but this was a whole other level of intense.