Page 34 of State of Retribution (First Family #9)

O n the way to HQ, Sam thought about what Vernon had said earlier, about how she made history every time she left the White House to go to work. While she’d known that was true, she’d never given it much thought because going to work was so much a part of who she was and what she did every day.

“Hey, Q?”

“Yes, Sam?”

“Thanks for stepping in for Jimmy.”

“No problem, ma’am.”

“It’s easier to go with Sam than ma’am when it’s just us,” Vernon said.

“Yes, sir.”

Vernon glanced at Sam in the mirror and rolled his eyes. “Another grasshopper to train.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Inside joke,” Vernon said with a smile for Sam.

“What do you guys think of Jimmy’s theory about it being a warning shot?”

“It has merit,” Vernon said. “Either they intended to miss, or they’re amateurs. I’m not sure which is worse or more dangerous.”

When they pulled up to the morgue entrance, Vernon instructed Quigley to stay with the vehicle while he accompanied Sam inside.

She walked into the pit, feeling like a conquering emperor back from battle or some such dramatic thing. “Howdy, citizens.”

They startled—she loved when that happened—and turned to her.

“Thought you were out today, LT,” Gonzo said. “We were getting ready to have a party.”

“Sorry to ruin your fun. What goes on here?”

“Cruz and I just got back from seeing Joshua Saulnier’s fiancée, Mandy.” Gonzo shook his head. “Horrific. They’d been together since the ninth grade.”

“Oh damn. Does she have anyone with her?”

“One of his school friends is there, and their parents are due in from the West Coast later today.”

Sam was anguished for people she might never meet. “What’s our next move?”

“We’re digging into Saulnier and looking for connections between our four victims but not finding anything relevant.”

“Listen, I had a thought about the shooting.” She shared Jimmy’s take on the matter without quoting him.

“That’s true,” Freddie said. “If they were aiming for you, they were way off.”

“So we’re either looking for someone incompetent with a weapon or extremely deliberate. Let’s pass this on to Agent Hill.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Gonzo said.

“Oh, hey, LT,” Green said. “Sergeant Fitzgivens from sharpshooting was looking for you.”

“What’d he want?”

“Didn’t say but asked you to swing by if you get a minute.”

“I think I’ll do that now. Be back in a few. Vernon, we’re off to sharpshooting.”

“Awesome. Just what every Secret Service agent wants to hear from their protectee.”

Sam chuckled at his sarcastic wit. She loved that about him. “When we get there, I need to talk to the sergeant alone, okay?”

“Yes, that’s fine as long as you feel comfortable being alone with him.”

“I’ve never had any reason not to be. There’s another guy in that unit, Offenbach, who hates me. If he’s there, you’ll probably figure out who he is right away.”

“The good news just keeps on coming.”

“I know it’s hard for you to believe that not everyone loves me. I don’t get it either.”

His snort made her smile.

Talking to him helped to keep her from stressing over what the hell Fitzgivens wanted with her as they cut through the lobby on the way to the opposite side of the building. She’d worked with Fitzgivens during the sniper case but hadn’t had contact with him since.

When she stepped into their office, of course the first person she saw was Offenbach, who’d been busted down to Patrol officer after Sam’s sniper investigation uncovered that he wasn’t at a conference in Philadelphia he was supposed to be attending.

Instead, he’d been in an Atlantic City hotel room with a woman, much to the surprise of his wife, the mother of their six children.

Because he was such a talented marksman, they’d kept him in sharpshooting despite the demotion.

The look he gave her was nothing short of hateful. Actually, hateful wasn’t a strong enough word to describe it. Sinister might be better.

“Where do I find Fitzgivens?” she asked a young female officer, who pointed to a door at the back of the big, open space.

“Thanks.” Sam felt Offenbach’s gaze burning a hole in her back as she and Vernon made their way to the closed door.

Sam knocked.

“Enter.”

She opened the door, stepped inside and closed it behind her, relieved to be out of Offenbach’s line of sight for the moment.

“Hey, LT. Thanks for stopping by.” Fitzgivens had Irish coloring, with reddish-brown hair, brown eyes and a weathered complexion.

“No problem. What’s up?”

He gestured for her to have a seat in his visitor chair. “It’s a touchy matter.”

She sat, crossing her legs. “Aren’t they all?”

“Some are more so than others.” He seemed hesitant to proceed and kept his voice down when he said, “I want you to know I don’t offer this info up lightly. It goes against everything I believe in as a man and a police officer to rat out a colleague.”

“Okay…”

“Offenbach.”

“He hates my guts.”

“Yeah, that’s putting it mildly.”

“It’s funny how he blames me for catching him in the act of fucking up at work and home but takes no ownership of his own actions.”

“I’ve said as much to him, but it goes in one ear and out the other.

” Fitzgivens was clearly uncomfortable as he seemed to choose his words carefully.

“You need to look out for him. He’s unhinged over what went down and how his whole life blew up in his face.

Because he’s not self-aware enough to look in the mirror for someone to blame, he’s focused on you. ”

A chill went down her spine.

“And…” His face twisted with a combination of agony and hesitation. “He’s big into drones. In fact, I’d use the word ‘obsessed’ to describe his fixation. It’s all he talks about.”

The chill turned to horror that quickly.

“Now, I’m not accusing him of anything, but I wanted you to be aware, and whatever you do with this info is up to you. Obviously, I’m way out on a limb here, but if you could keep me out of it, I’d appreciate it.”

Sam had to force herself to remain seated, to not leave the office and go beat the truth out of Offenbach. She was so outraged that she was quite certain she could beat the hell out of him, not that she ever would. “He knows I’m in here talking to you. What else would it be about?”

“I told him I have info about Stahl that I’m passing on to you and to not say a fucking word to you when you stopped by. He hates me almost as much as he hates you because they promoted me to sergeant after he was demoted. I went from being his subordinate to being his boss.”

“We need a way to get people like him, Stahl and Ramsey the fuck out of here when they start becoming the problem.”

“I agree, but he has rights, don’t you know, and the union that protects us all also protects the bad apples.”

“That’s so fucking wrong.” She glanced up at the sergeant. “The minute I make this info available to the Feds, he’ll know you told me this.”

Fitzgivens shrugged. “I don’t give a flying fuck what he thinks. If he tried to assassinate a fellow police officer, not to mention the president of the United States and a lawn full of innocent kids, I could live with myself if he blames me.”

“Do you honestly think he’s capable of such things?”

“I wish I could say for sure he isn’t, but because I can’t, here we are.”

“Thank you,” Sam said, her voice gruff with emotion. “Thank you so much.”

He nodded. “Be careful. He’s unhinged and can shoot like no one I’ve ever seen. If by any chance it was him yesterday, he missed only because he intended to.”

She swallowed hard at the idea of a fellow police officer shooting at her on the job and injuring Jimmy, who was lucky to be alive. It was almost too big to process. “Do you know where he was at the time of the shooting?”

“I know where he told me he was—tracking down a cache of stolen weapons on Southeast.”

“We can seize his phone and check his location.”

“Let the Feds do that. Steer clear of this, Lieutenant. If it was him, you shouldn’t be anywhere near it.”

“Yes, you’re right. Thank you again, Sergeant. I’ll never forget the risk you took to tell me this.”

“Can you go out there and walk by him and not show him a damned thing?”

She took another deep, trembling breath and blew it out slowly. “Yeah, I can do that. Let’s be laughing when I open the door.”

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

“Pettiness ranks right up there with sarcasm as among my favorite traits in a coworker.”

He smiled. “Likewise. Are you ready?”

“Say something funny.”

“Offenbach’s wife got lucky when he cheated on her.”

The laughter came naturally as she opened the door and stepped out of his office and into the grouping of cubicles where his team worked.

Sam felt the heat of Offenbach’s stare on her as she nodded to two of the other officers and walked by him, chuckling, but never so much as glancing in his direction.

She kept her head down as she walked to the pit, feeling as if it would take nothing at all to shatter her composure.

“I want to know why that guy hates you, and I want to know right now,” Vernon said. “He never blinked the whole time you were in that office.”

“Sam,” Freddie called to her.

Without acknowledging either of them, she went straight into her office, shut and locked the door and sat behind the desk.

She had no idea how long she sat there, staring at the dented file cabinet before she pulled her phone out of her pocket and called Avery Hill, praying he was in a place where he could take the call right fucking now.

“Hey,” Hill said. “What’s up?”

“Something too big to be believed.”

“Okay…”

“Avery…”

“I’m here. What’s going on?”

“I’m going to tell you something that you’re going to need to find out on your own. Do you understand me?”

“I do.”

“Look at Officer Dylan Offenbach on the drones.”

“As in MPD Officer Offenbach?”

“Yes.”

“What’s his deal?”

Sam filled him in on their history and how he’d been busted down from sergeant to Patrol and dumped by his wife after the sniper investigation.

“Naturally, he blames me because I was charged with finding everyone who had precision shooting capability when we were working that case. It was completely my fault that he wasn’t where his boss or wife thought he’d be.

His new boss is the one who told me that he’s obsessed with drones, and that’s the word he used. Obsessed.”

And then she had a bigger, even more upsetting thought. “Archie.”

“What?”

“Lieutenant Archelotta is the one who tracked Offenbach’s phone and determined he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. Archie’s girlfriend is the one who was kidnapped and assaulted…” Sam was on the verge of completely losing her shit as the words tumbled out of her mouth.

“All right. I’ve got this. I don’t want you to tell another living soul about this, do you hear me? No one. Not Nick or Freddie or Captain Malone or anyone else.”

“I hear you.”

“I understand the stakes and the urgency, and I promise I’ll put the full weight of the FBI behind this investigation. That’s all I’ll ever say to you about it.”

“Thank you, Avery.”

“Of course.”

The line went dead, and she closed her phone without the usual satisfying slap. The full-body trembling reminded her of being wrapped in razor wire, doused with gasoline and threatened with fire.

A sharp knock at the door roused her. She took three more deep breaths, looking for a scintilla of calm so she could get through the rest of her tour. “Come in.”

The knob didn’t turn.

Shit, she’d locked the door. She stood and was forced to take a pause to ensure her legs would hold her before she went to unlock the door and admit Captain Malone.

“Why are you locking yourself in?” he asked. “Have we finally driven you mad?”

“Not quite, but close. What’s up?”

“We’ve got a problem.”

She wasn’t sure she could handle another one. “What’s that?”

He handed her a piece of paper, which had her sinking into her seat as she quickly scanned what turned out to be a lawsuit against her, Malone and the department, filed by Hector Reese. “Oh my God.”

Malone sat in front of her desk and sighed. “This is bad, Sam. He’s got medical reports and a witness statement from the sergeant on duty in the jail the night you interrogated him. Captain Norris said he’s booked on all the big cable news shows this afternoon.”

“Should we get out in front of it? Should I take the blame? Say the interrogation got out of hand?”

“The chief is consulting with the attorneys about the best way to handle it. I told him it’s true and we’re both complicit.”

“You didn’t do anything. This is on me.”

“I was well aware of what you intended to do and didn’t stop it because I wanted the same answers you did.” After Hector’s brother, Clarence, had killed his family and then taken off, detectives had found news clippings and other information about the unsolved shooting of Skip Holland.

Sam had gone into that room with Hector, wanting to know where his brother would hide out after having shot Freddie and what Clarence had to do with shooting her father.

She’d taken her panic over Freddie’s close call and years of frustration, emotion and grief over her dad’s unsolved case into that room with her and wasn’t proud of how she’d treated the man.

Thank God she’d ordered him uncuffed before the interrogation.

“This will ruin me,” she whispered.

“Worst-case scenario is a slap on the wrist from the department for something that happened years ago.”

“You really think so? Because I can see it being a much bigger deal than that.”

“Let’s see what the lawyers advise before we say or do anything.”

Sam felt like she might be having a heart attack as the events of the last hour landed with swift, devastating precision. “Someone is trying to take me down, Cap. Any way they can.”

“It’s starting to seem that way.”