Page 26 of State of Grace (First Family 2)

“Why?”

“It’s standard procedure.”

He nodded as if he understood when she’d bet that none of this made sense to him. How could it?

“I’ll be right back.”

She went to the vending area and bought two bottles of water, and when she turned away from the machine, Detective Ramsey was there.

He took two steps to close the distance between them so he was staring into her face with fire in his eyes. “I hope you’re happy. My wife filed for divorce.”

“Why would that make me happy?”

“Because that’s what you wanted when you sent your dogs to dig for shit on me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We didn’t dig for anything on you, but of course, if there’s nothing to be found…” She shrugged. “Can you move? I’m working.”

“I’m going to tell you something right now,” he said on a low growl. “You’d better watch your back. I don’t care who you’re married to. You’re nothing special, and before long, the whole world is going to know that.”

“Did you eat garlic for lunch?” She made a distasteful face while delighting in his hateful expression. “While I have you, let me ask you… What is it about me that you hate so much? Is it my last name? The fact that I’m a lieutenant, and you’re… not? Or is it that I’m a woman, and you’re not? That might be it. Of course, it could be just that I’m fucking awesome at my job, and you’re not. Hmmm, you know what? I find that I don’t care. I’ve got the husband of a victim in my conference room. I care about him. You? I don’t care about you, so if you’d just step aside, I can get back to doing important stuff.”

He didn’t move.

Sam sighed, hating that he was wasting her time. “Do I need to get physical with you? We’ve already done that once, and as I recall, you ended up in the hospital. But hey, it’s your funeral.”

Ramsey started to raise his hand as if he was going to strike her.

She placed her hand on the butt of her weapon. “Move your ass, now, Sergeant, or I’ll take whatever measures needed to protect myself.”

“That won’t be necessary, Lieutenant.”

Sam would never admit to being relieved to hear Captain Malone’s voice coming from behind Ramsey.

“Detective Ramsey will be getting the fuck out of here right now if he knows what’s good for him,” Malone said.

“I think he was just about to move along,” Sam said.

Ramsey gave her a filthy look before turning and storming off.

“Are you all right?” Malone asked.

“I’m better than fine. I got off a few good comments, the kind you usually think of long after the opportunity has passed.”

“In other words, you made a bad situation worse?”

“Define ‘worse.’ Apparently, his wife is divorcing him. I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to be married to a prize like him.”

Malone rolled his eyes. “What’ve you got with the woman in the van?”

“Not sure yet. I’ve got the husband in the conference room and the two teenage sons on the way here so he can tell them about their mother. The daughter is in college in Massachusetts, so we’ll be calling her.”

“Are you leaning in any directions?”

“Nothing yet. We’re an hour in and have identified the victim as Pam Tappen. According to her husband, Robert, it wasn’t uncommon for his wife to punch out completely for days at a time when she was working at a conference. She ran a business providing conference services to a wide range of organizations. She’d been gone all weekend working at an event, or so he believed.”

“The woman had children, and she didn’t check in while she was away?”

“I found that odd, too.” She didn’t mention that she could barely stand to go an hour without speaking to her husband, let alone four days. That information was probably common knowledge to everyone who knew them as well as Malone did.