Page 112 of State of Affairs (First Family 1)

“We’re with you, sis,” Angela said. “Take your time.”

Avery led Sam into his study, which had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and dark wood furniture. A fire simmering in the fireplace gave the room a cozy vibe. “What a great room this is.”

“Thanks.”

“Have you read all those books?”

“Most of them.”

“Of course you have.” Sam took a seat on the leather sofa while he took a chair across from her. “What’s going on?”

“We’re continuing the investigation into the MPD, and we’ve picked up a rumbling that I wanted to run by you.”

“What’s that?” she asked, her stomach feeling weightless, the way it did when things went sideways.

“Does the name Hector Reese ring a bell?”

She licked lips suddenly gone dry. “What about him?”

“Word on the street is that you tuned him up pretty good when he was in custody. Is that true?”

Sam forced herself not to blink or give away how rattled she was to have this blast from the past land in her lap. “It is.”

“Can you give me some context?”

Her brain wanted to shut down and run away from memories she’d much sooner forget. “Hector’s brother, Clarence, murdered his wife and children. It was one of the worst scenes any of us has ever worked. It was the same day I took the lieutenant’s oath and Nick became a senator. New Year’s Eve, almost two years ago. Clarence was in the wind for days. He came back to the house at one point and shot Freddie.”

When she suddenly began to feel overly warm, she took off the coat she’d left on for what she’d thought would be a quick visit.

“While we were working the scene, we found newspaper clippings about my father’s shooting that made it even more urgent that we find Clarence. He came back to the house a second time, this time with his brother, who we were able to arrest even as Clarence got away again.” This was where the story got dicey for her. “I’ll confess to desperately wanting to find the man who’d shot Freddie and to know who was collecting those clips. It’d been two years since my dad was shot, and we hadn’t had so much as a thread to pull.”

She swallowed hard and forced herself to finish the story. “I asked to have him brought to an interrogation room, and I went at him hard, trying to get him to tell me what he knew about where his brother might be. I crossed several lines during that interrogation.”

“I was told you beat the hell out of him while he was cuffed. Is that true?”

Sam had regretted her actions that day ever since. “It’s true. I’m not proud of it, but I don’t deny it happened.”

“Who else knows about it?”

“Do I need legal representation, Agent Hill?” Over the years of their tumultuous professional and personal relationship, Sam had begun to consider him a friend at some point. In this moment, she wasn’t sure if he was a friend or adversary.

“Not at this time. This is between you and me for now.”

“For now. What does that mean?”

“I’m collecting information that may or may not be relevant to our investigation.”

“I made a mistake, but I was running on emotion after my partner was shot and possibly finding a lead in my dad’s case.”

“Do you have a sense of why Hector Reese didn’t file a complaint?”

“Perhaps it was because his brother later forced his way into my car, kidnapped me and held me hostage, demanding we return the ten thousand dollars in cash that we’d recovered from the house. As you may recall, Clarence took his life when he was standing right next to me, which was actually devastating for me because I’d talked him into letting me help him before the SWAT team burst in.”

“This helps to give me some perspective.”

“What’ll you do with this info?”

“I honestly don’t know yet.”