Fatal Flaw (5 page)

“Did you ever go out with that girl your mother fixed you up with? The one from church?”

“Yeah. No spark. She just didn’t do it for me. She was a perfectly nice girl, though.”

“I’m sure she was if your mother liked her.” As they talked, they boxed up all the cards and letters. “So let me get this straight—while you continue to burn up the sheets with Elin, you’re dating these girls your mother fixes you up with.”

“Don’t make it sound like I’m cheating on Elin. She knows I’ve been out with other women, and she’s fine with it.”

“And are you fine with her going out with other guys?”

“As long as she doesn’t sleep with them, I don’t mind.”

Except he looked like he minded. He looked like he minded quite a lot. “Freddie, come on. Of course you do. You’re playing with fire.”

Throwing up his hands, he said, “What do you want me to say? My mother still hates her, and I’m sick of being in the middle of it.”

“I thought you were ready to tell your mother Elin is the woman you want.”

“I thought I was too,” he said, dejected. “Every time I try to broach the subject she comes up with another girl she wants me to meet. It’s like she knows what I want to tell her but doesn’t want to hear it.”

“In the meantime, the woman you might or might not love is dating other guys. But as long as you’re fine with that—”

“I’m
not
fine with it!” He ran his hands through his dark hair, leaving it disheveled. “I hate it! But how can I ask her to be exclusive when I’m not?”

“You didn’t ask my opinion, but it’s high time you took control of this situation. It’s making you crazy.”

“I know,” he said, slumping into his chair.

“You’re almost thirty years old, Freddie. At some point you have to live your own life and not necessarily the life your mother has in mind for you.”

“I’m not entirely a mama’s boy. If she’d had her way, I never would’ve stepped foot in the police academy.”

“And what a waste that would’ve been. You just proved my point.”

“Huh,” he said. “I hadn’t really thought of it that way before.”

“Go home and get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“See you then.”

Freddie walked the boxes of cards to Sam’s office and piled them in the corner as she’d requested. As he was locking the office door, Lieutenant Stahl came around the corner.

“You’re working late tonight, Detective,” Stahl said, his jowls quivering with every word.

“As are you, Lieutenant.”

“What’s kept you here so late?”

“Nothing special. Just taking care of some paperwork.” Sifting through four thousand cards certainly counted as paperwork. Rather clever, if he did say so himself. “You?”

Stahl glanced at the closed door to Sam’s office—the office that used to be his—and then back at Freddie. “Nothing.”

“Did you need Lieutenant Holland for something?”

Stahl’s fat face twisted into a scowl. “Absolutely not.”

The animosity between the two lieutenants was no secret to anyone in the department. Stahl had made more than a few threats toward Sam, especially since he’d tried and failed to punish her for hooking up with Nick during the investigation into Senator O’Connor’s murder. Sam believed Stahl had fed information to her ex-husband’s defense attorney that led to Peter’s release from jail, but they’d been unable to prove that. Yet.

“I’ll see you later then,” Freddie said, getting out while the getting was good. The last person on the entire police force he wished to spend any extra time with was the lieutenant who used to oversee the detectives’ squad. No one had anything good to say about the guy.

As always after an encounter with Stahl, Freddie gave Sam a quick call to let her know the unsavory lieutenant had been skulking around the detectives’ pit after hours.

“What the hell is he doing?” she asked.

“Who knows?”

“I really wouldn’t put this card thing past him. How awesome would it be if the lab came back with his prints all over it?”

“Extremely awesome, but we’ll never get that lucky.”

“Sad but true. He knows I’ve got my eye on him. We’ll trip him up eventually.”

Freddie got into his Mustang, which was no less dilapidated after an expensive day in the shop, and turned on the engine to start the heat. The night was chilly for mid-April in Washington. “Can’t happen soon enough for me.”

“I hear ya. Thanks for the heads-up. See you in the morning.”

“Later.” Waiting for the car to warm up, Freddie contemplated the phone in his hand and the conversation he’d had earlier with Sam. Yes, he loved Elin. He loved everything about her. He loved her quick wit, her astute observations, those light blue eyes that looked at him with such desire and yes, he loved the sex, which was flat-out amazing. Not that he had anything to compare it to since she’d been his first, but he had a feeling he could sleep with an army of women and never find the kind of connection he had with her.

Then he thought of his mother and how completely she disapproved of his relationship with Elin, who she’d deemed too racy and worldly for her sainted son. She’d raised him alone, and their church had been central to their lives. When he was fifteen he’d taken a vow of celibacy that he’d stuck to for fourteen long years—until he met Elin and all vows went rushing out the window in a haze of lust. He’d been stunned to discover he was just like every other guy who let his little brain do the thinking for his big brain.

Before the interlude with Elin, he’d liked to think he was superior to other men who lived in constant pursuit of their next bed partner. Finding out that, despite his deep Christian faith, he was no better than the next guy had been a revelation, to say the least.

Which was why he was sitting here in the dark wanting to call her and knowing if he did, he’d end up at her place and they’d be going at it in under five minutes. And that was bad how, exactly? His cock hardened as he thought of her soft skin, the firm, toned muscles from hours at the gym where she worked, those amazing breasts with the pierced nipples that hardened to sharp points and brushed against his chest as he thrust into her.

Freddie groaned and pressed the speed-dial number he’d assigned to her. He hoped she wasn’t out with someone else. They’d been taking it day-by-day since she agreed to go to Sam’s wedding with him, and of course Sam had been absolutely right when she concluded that he and Elin were still mostly about sex.

“I wondered if you would call tonight,” she said when she answered. Her voice sounded hoarse from sleep. Imagining her in bed did nothing to help the situation in his lap.

“What’re you up to?”

“Nothing much. How about you?”

“Just getting out of work.”

“Long day. You want to come over?”

His erection surged in answer to the question, but he forced himself to ignore the lust. “We could go out,” he said, even though he had no interest in going anywhere other than her bed. “Hit a club or something.”

“I’m tired. I don’t feel like going out.”

“We can get together another night.”

Her soft laughter had him starting the car and driving toward her place. “I’m not
that
tired.”

“I’m coming.”

“Not yet, but you will be soon.”

Freddie swallowed hard. It was official—he was addicted to her, and it was time to take this relationship to the next level, with or without his mother’s approval.

Sam was in the car on the way home when her cell phone rang. She pressed the speaker button to take the call. “Holland.”

“Other Holland,” her father Skip said with a husky laugh. “I thought you were Cappuano now.”

Sam smiled. “Only at home.”

“Can you swing by on your way home? There’s a ton of mail for you here, and Celia has some questions about some of the stuff you have upstairs.”

Sam’s belly took a nosedive at the mention of mail. “Sure. I’m almost there. Why do you sound all stuffed up?”

“Just a slight cold. See you in a few.”

She used the remaining minutes in the car to place a call to her friend Roberto, a young man she’d met while undercover with the Johnson family.

“Is this my favorite lady cop?” he asked when he answered the call.

“One and the same. How are you, Roberto?”

“Gettin’ by. Saw some wedding pictures. I had no idea you were so
fine.
”

Sam hooted with laughter. “Save the bullshit. How’s the job?” She’d arranged for him to work as a clerk at city hall after he’d been caught in the spray of gunfire that killed young Quentin Johnson.

“Boring but safer than dealing drugs.”

“That’s what I want to hear.”

“So what can I do you for?”

“The killings at Carl’s.”

“Heard about that. True they was found in the freezer?”

“Yep.”

“Tough way to go. What’d ya wanna know?”

“Anything you hear. We’ve got dick, so I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”

“I don’t spend much time these days talkin’ to guys who’d lock people in a freezer. You saw to that.”

“I’m glad to hear you’re staying on the straight and narrow. Just keep your ears open for me, will you?”

“Anything for you, Lieutenant.”

“How’s your girlfriend? Still standing guard over you like a pit bull?”

That made the young man laugh—hard. “My Angel takes good care of me. Don’t forget you want me to meet your dad. Us paralyzed guys gotta stick together.”

“I’ll make that happen. Soon. Call me if you hear anything?”

“You know I will.”

After parking on Ninth Street, she retrieved latex gloves from the trunk of her car and stuffed them into her coat pockets. On the way up the ramp to her father’s house, Sam told herself there was no reason to worry about one random card among thousands of others. It was someone’s idea of a sick joke, she decided as she entered the house to find her father and stepmother in the living room.

“There’s my wayward daughter who used to visit her paralyzed old man once in a while.” Her father sounded hoarse and congested.

“What’s the matter with you?” Sam asked as she bent to kiss his warm forehead. She glanced at Celia. “Does he have a fever?”

“Low grade. I think he’s got the same crud I had at the wedding.”

Except, Sam thought, for a quadriplegic, a cold could quickly turn into pneumonia. A ripple of fear worked its way through her.

“Don’t worry,” her stepmother the nurse said, tuning into Sam’s worries. “I’m all over it.”

“I’m sure you are,” Sam said. “Have you called the doctor yet?”

Knowing how close father and daughter were, Celia sent her an indulgent smile. “Tomorrow, if he’s not better.”

“Quit hovering,” Skip said. “I’m fine. What’ve you got on the murders at Carl’s?”

“Not a damned thing. Less than nothing if that’s possible.” Like she often did, she went through the details of the case, hoping he might have an idea she hadn’t considered.

He listened and thought it over for a long quiet moment. “What about civic organizations? Business owners are often involved in the Chamber of Commerce or the Rotary. Maybe someone knew him through one of those groups and can shed some light.”

“It’s something,” Sam said. “I’ll check it out tomorrow. I’ve been working since just after midnight. I’m about to drop.”

“Then we won’t keep you,” Skip said. “Celia, what’d you want to ask her about the boxes in the attic?”

“Oh right. Do you want all of that to go to Nick’s too?”

“Nah, if it’s okay with you guys, that can stay here. It’s stuff from school and the academy. If I bring all that on top of everything else, he’ll divorce me.”

“Probably better to leave it here then,” Celia said.

“I still can’t believe I agreed to this plan of yours.”

Celia laughed. “With your crazy schedule, if I hadn’t packed for you, you’d be married five years and still living between two houses.”

Sam kissed her stepmother’s cheek. “I can’t deny that, and I can’t thank you enough.”

Celia’s pretty face radiated with happiness. “It was my pleasure, honey.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been mothered. I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed it.”

“Oh, well.” Celia’s green eyes went all misty. “That’s a lovely thing to say.”

“Yes, it is,” Skip said. “All that paper over there is yours and your husband’s.” Using his eyes, he directed her to the pile of mail on the table inside the door.

Sam’s eyes bugged at yet another huge stack.

“The cards have been
flooding in,
” Celia said. “We can’t get over it!”

Sam surveyed the pile and wondered if she’d find another threat in there. She also wondered how she’d manage to get them bagged without her father noticing. “Can you believe we got more than
four thousand
cards at work? Or I should say thirty-six hundred at Nick’s office and six hundred at HQ. He’s far more popular than I am.”

“And why do you know those exact numbers?” Skip asked, his shrewd eyes studying her intently.

Oh crap,
Sam thought. She should’ve known the former chief of detectives would hone right in on what she’d planned to keep from him until she knew more. “No reason.”

“You expect me to believe that after being away on a rather long vacation, you had time today to count the number of wedding cards you received while you were gone? Excuse me if I don’t buy that.”

Cornered by the best detective she’d ever known, Sam squirmed.

“Spill it, Lieutenant. This minute.”

“For a guy in a wheelchair, you can be rather intimidating.”

He seemed pleased to hear that. The eyebrow on the side of his face that wasn’t paralyzed lifted to let her know she’d better start talking.

“One of the cards I got contained a threat.”

“What kind of threat?”

Reluctantly, Sam told him what the card had said.

“You’re running it through the lab?”

She nodded. “Could be nothing.”

“If you really thought it was nothing, you wouldn’t have gloves hanging out of your pockets so you can put that pile of mail into evidence bags.”

Sam stared at him, incredulous.

He smirked. “Nothing wrong with my eyesight, baby girl.”

No,
she thought, wincing at the wheeze she heard coming from his chest.
But there’s definitely something wrong with your lungs.